just an old-fashioned girl

Hello and welcome. I'm glad you dropped by. If you´re looking for something a little nostalgic of bygone eras with a timeless elegance and a little modern twist – in other words, something slightly “retro” – then you should feel right at home here in my shabby chic room. Month by month, there will always be something new to see so I hope you´ll enjoy your stay and come back again soon.

Showing posts with label roses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roses. Show all posts

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Rudolph And Roses

After an unexpected snowfall yesterday I awoke this morning to a miserable drizzling rain. In this kind of dreary weary winter weather there´s nothing as welcoming as a splash of colour at the front door but in December the choice of flowering plants is limited. Red cyclamen with its fragile drooping blossoms is quite beautiful as is the more flamboyant poinsettia but neither of these will tolerate a sudden drop in temperature so this year I decided on a less conventional display on my doorstep in the form of 3 small rose bushes which I found at a local market stall. No sooner had I bought them than I spotted a dear – pardon the pun – little basketwork reindeer looking at me beseechingly and just begging me to take him home. I fell for him instantly and the fact that he was carrying a tiny shrub with red berries just added to his appeal.

With such a cheerful welcoming group on the front doorstep all I can say is who needs poinsettias!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Compromises

Usually by this time I´ve already been to Scotland but this year instead of putting it off indefinitely I decided to compromise and go in November instead. I hoped that by that time I´d finally have had the source of my headaches diagnosed and successfully treated. At least the first of these assumptions has proved true. To cut a very long and boring story short my problem is caused by a dislocated atlas bone. That´s the aptly named bone which holds the skull in place. The treatment is complicated so I won´t go into that right now, but considering the fact that I couldn´t get a consultation with – yet another! - specialist until the end of November, I may still have to stock up with painkillers before my trip. At least, after a year of agony, now that I finally have a diagnosis I feel a lot more optimistic than I did before. With any luck I may even feel up to designing again once I feel better.

And, talking of compromises....by sheer coincidence, after a week of rain, I was again checking up on my strange “whiterose bush when I was astounded to see THIS!
 
It looks very much as if one of the little gardeners has decided to compromise by painting the Red Queen´s roses pink! But there´s apparently no pleasing Her Ferocious Majesty. At least the usual culprit is off the hook...

It´s such a pretty colour too as you can see from the close up.
 
Poor Dora is already starting to get cabin fever. As I mentioned earlier it´s been raining a lot here recently which means she can´t stay in her beloved garden after I bring her back soaking wet from her daily walks. She´s smart enough to realise that if it´s raining at the front of the house it´s raining at the back too so she just settles down with a sigh and a hard-done-by glance at me. She knows quite well that I can do absolutely ANYTHING including causing a downpour. Such faith....and so misguided, not to say unfair! At least she´s willing to make a compromise. She knows I won´t let her out on her own if it´s chilly and if the grass is still wet as she´ll only roll about in it and probably catch her death of cold. So she´s perfectly happy to take me with her to play for half an hour or so until one or other of us – always me – gets fed up and wants to go indoors again. If I´m really lucky I´ll even get to play with the ball as well especially as she usually decides on two of them but I´m afraid my role is usually as a spectator while she does this... 
 
I call this trick How To Demolish Two Balls With One Nose. Clever, isn´t it? No prizes for guessing what Dora´s getting for Christmas!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Lying Low

I´ve been lying low for a while, both literally and figuratively. To say that I´m suffering from headaches is comparable to saying that root canal treatment without an anaesthetic is like toothache. It´s nothing serious though. It just feels like it is but these are almost certainly transference pains from my neck bones, the only part of my spine which wasn´t treated in the clinic due to lack of time. However, I have an appointment with a specialist next week and I´m sure he´ll find a solution. In the meantime, thank goodness for paracetamol!

The above explains why I haven´t been either very productive or particularly creative recently although my garden certainly has been with very little help from me. It seems that I´m not the only one who´s been lying low. You may remember my quirky white (?) rose bush and the crafty little gardeners who always do their best to try to please the Red Queen by painting the roses red. Well, I was rather concerned about them all summer because these roses remained entirely white and I began to suspect that the ferocious monarch had finally lost her patience with the little fellows and carried out her threat. Now THAT punishment would cure anyone´s headache! Then, just a week ago after a short rainy spell had kept me indoors, I went back out into my garden and this is what I saw....

 
It looks as if they got a lot further with their painting this year as it´s not just a few petals they´ve managed to paint before Her blood-thirsty Majesty caught up with them but three entire flowers, which is a record. As usual it´s the dopey, lazy one that got caught before he´d even started while the real culprit was lying low in the shrubbery and got off scot free. Better luck next year, dopey...
...and Keep Your Head!