Fling open the doors and windows...

What a warm day today. We have had the big doors onto the deck open all afternoon. My pots are starting to look pretty, and under the layer of pansies and primulas are tulips and daffodils. Poeticus to be precise. They are just peeking through. This pot turned out to to be very pleasing with the blend of gorgeous blues. I got a mixed pack of polyanthus (well, several, because for some reason the primula family are some of my favourite plants), and pretty blue pansies. So it was luck of the draw what turned up. My pots are mostly blue or terracotta. I love that ultramarine blue that is often used to glaze plant pots. Now there are more brown and red shades, plus a few green, in the shops, but I'll always be loyal to blue.
We spent some time working on filling my fabulous addition to The Vegetable Empire today. Hopefully we are going visiting to get some lovely rotted horse poo next weekend, to give the veges a real boost. I might get to meet some lovely horses too. John's boss is a horsey lady of very high calibre, who apparently has an extensive collection of eventing horses, and a world class event riding daughter. We have lined the planter boxes with plastic as the timber is treated. The plastic will probably leach hideous toxins as well, but I won't think about that. The original Vegetable Empire is looking a bit rough at the moment but the garlic is up today, which sent my backside skyward and my head down towards the earth for a good look. We're having carrots, spinach and cauliflower from the garden for tea tonight.

The front garden is starting to have some pretty colour, but it does look dull from a distance. You can see the new house next door underway. Sigh... I really wanted to have that piece of land as an extended garden. The back garden will be more sheltered now, so I'm trying to look on the bright side.
Here are the first daffodil buds looking all plump and enthusiastic. I realised today that there is a whole collection of buds. They seem to have appeared from nowhere. I think they'll be doubles. The label washed off in the horrible rain we had over winter.

I've made it to the bottom of this entry. Last night I fiddled with the template, but today it wants to give me some text in blue with underlining. I think it thinks I want to label the photos. When I try to resist it disagrees. Anyway I like the pretty leafy pattern down the sides of this template and it might stay for a while.

Monty is very grizzly today. We had a wee baby to visit after lunch today and she grizzled too. She is 4 months old. At least Monty settles down when I cuddle him, but unless I get one of those baby slings and adapt it for a cat, he can't have cuddles all day long. He'd be delighted if I managed to get one, I'm sure.

I'm sad that The Edible Garden with Alys Fowler is finished, but we've got an hour of River Cottage instead, and Hugh always makes me smile. I called my first proper vege patch at the old house River Cottage.

Have a lovely week. I may, or may not blog before next Saturday. Depends on the effort required to tame my rowdy lot at school.

Ps. My runaway teacher assistant never came back. I've got a new one now. He lives just down the road from school, so he can't hide if he runs away.