Tag: the garden after

May Day

The garden after the second coldest, third wettest and fourth least sunny April on our records, though yesterday was our warmest (20.1 °C) and sunniest (11.218kWh) day this year before the mist and clouds rolled in again. And the bluebells have overtaken the tulips once again, the magnolias are over, the foxgloves are gone but the apples are blossoming like crazy.
A1 is reading The Spy by Ajay Chowdhury. A2 is rereading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, which took ten days to read because it is so full of crunchy goodness.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

The garden after an April that was cooler and wetter than the last couple of Aprils and had absolutely average sunshine. Bluebells up, tulips down, magnolias still going, poppies in abeyance, foxgloves nonexistent and the cool black tulips hidden behind all the other stuff. Admin2 mowed the lawn but it sprung back up again. It’s now No-mow May so go, go grass!
Admin1 is rereading Dissolution by CJ Sansom. Admin2 is rereading The Extremes by Christopher Priest; tldr: VRSF.

Ten Years After

It has been ten years since we started uploading annual May Day pics of the garden after whatever weather was earlier. During that time the rain and sun have waxed and waned and the tulips and bluebells have slugged it out; tulips in the ascendant this year after an April that was our fourth sunniest April ever and not so showery.
Admin1 is reading A Killing in November by Simon Mason — another unpleasant protagonist whom the author works hard to make sympathetic. Not really successful at humour, and side issues (refugees, jihadists) not explored adequately. But readable.
Admin2 is reading Companion Piece by Ali Smith, which features an imaginary female character who is A Smith.
We had the pleasure of Gez in the flesh for the first time since Mother’s Day and scored, oh dear, worst this year, 7 on the GSQ.

Tulip Time

The garden after an April of freezing nights and the sunniest ever days (237.145kWh) and some heroic tulip planting by Auds and Bobs.
Admin1 is reading Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton. And whatever the opposite of misanthropic is, this book was it — a real change from my last two. Set over three hours of a school shooting incident in Somerset, it’s terrifically well-written (almost Kate Atkinson quality), engrossing and emotionally charged. A wonderful, page-turning read.
Admin2 is reading Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms by Stephen Jay Gould. Snappy title, eh?

The Garden After…


…an April with the coldest, hottest and darkest April days since our records began. Compare the garden on all preceding May Days.
Admin1 is reading The Beige Man by Helene Tursten. Admin2 is reading Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths, a whodunnit set around a pantomime in 1950s Brighton and refreshingly lacking in policemen with unhappy marriages and troubled teenage children and policewomen struggling to solve crimes while coping with babies.

The Garden after Neglecting to Plant Tulips


The traditional May Day photo. Compare previous years. Last month was our second sunniest April ever recorded.
Admin1 is reading The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen (something of a slog, and managed to make an interesting-sounding time-travel premise dull). Admin2 is reading Mark Steel’s in Town which is by Mark Steel and is about towns, or sometimes counties or regions.