No more snow, just grey and leaden London skies and cold, sleety rain.
Walking under Westminster Palace Clock Tower this morning, humming Donovan's "Sunny Goodge Street", to remind me that London isn't always this colour.
Whatever the weather, a walk in Jt. James's Park is always refreshing on the way to work. The daffodils are full of fat buds, so when Ame arrives next month she should be greeted with carpets of yellow across the parks.This morning, a gnarly old plane tree caught my eye.
And here, for fans of our somewhat over-optimistic camellia which I posted on Wednesday, burdened with snow and looking doomed …
… Frost-burned and battered, our little pink friend is still there, gamely flowering on through the sleet. I think I'll call it Maryann, after Robyn's heroine.
Below is poor Maryann on wednesday, for those of you too lazy to scroll down to that post.
Roll on spring …
14 comments:
Oh, how nice of you to call the flower Maryann. It should be a tulip. It's also nice of you because I have started from the beginning of that story and am starting to believe it's mediocre, so his little flower might renew my appreciation. Don't you just hate needy artistic types?
Morning Robyn.
Delete "mediocre"; insert "brilliant".
Give the world a few more weeks and we'll be awash with tulips.
A few more weeks, huh? we have just had are first snow, only a couple of inches, but an hour and a half north of here there is 18 inches. We've got more than a few weeks before the tulips, I'm afraid.
OH, and "brillian"? I have been struck by some awkwardness and have cut out several stupid sentences. This is why people have editors. You can't be objective about your own work.
It's freezing here. Really, really freezing. No tulips in sight. No hope for tulips here.
Brrrrr. No wonder I can't think of anything to write about. I'm too busy surviving.
Robyn, Maryann is a great story. Stop knocking it.
Don't be too drastic, Robyn.
And I keep forgetting you have REAL weather over there, not the half-hearted wimpy slush-fest that passes for winter over here these days.
Another nine weeks and we hit April and spring will be exploding all over the place.
I can't wait.
Sassy: There WILL be tulips. Hang in there.
The begonias I planted last spring finally lost their flowers during the snow, but there are lots of buds on deciduous plants and a few flowers on me zonal geranium. Bexleyheath has a weird microclimate and is even warmer than the rest of London. I don't think I'd be able to cope in really cold weather now.
Love the Gnarly Ole,,
Looks likes it's trying to send messages in Semaphore (in a West Coast USA accent), perhaps?
I guess you will know fairly soon.
May I wish you a Happy Australia Day, Monsieur!
And to you, MB.
Hee hee, Betty … Subtropical Bexleyheath.
There were plenty of polyanthus (polyanthusses? … polyanthii?) gamely struggling away in the park this morning and lots more bedding plants about to come out. It's true that London doesn't really get a winter any more.
Last year I was snowed in my village for almost three weeks and they didn't have any in London. I had to email photos to the office to show I wasn't skiving.
The old folks in town like to refer to the old days with the phrase "back when we used to have winter." Where I live and have lived for 19 years, winters used to be snow covered for months (I'm talking many inches of snow at once). The first few years here were like the winters I knew on Lake Michigan with a foot at a time. But now, if we get 3 inches in one snow fall, it's rare.
This "old folk" remembers the winter of '63.
Now THAT was a winter!
I don't remember that winter Dive, but i have read about it in history books.
Thank you for that, young lady (harumph).
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