It’s Birthday Season

Hi. In my family we have a lot of April birthdays. My Mum’s was yesterday, my niece is on Monday and then I’m next Saturday. I like sharing my birthday proximity with my close relatives. My sister does not enjoy it so much and has been known to say it is like another Christmas for her with all the gift shopping, except this time she doesn’t get a present herself!

The picture above is the tub I planted up for my Mum for her birthday. My fingers were so cold on Wednesday doing this. I’ve managed to keep the plants alive since then by putting the tub under a cloche each night to help prevent frost. I gave my Mum one of our small cloches too so that she can continue to do the same until the weather warms up a bit. Anyway, she seemed delighted to receive it this afternoon, her face lit up. It should look even better when the lobelia and the verbena plants grow and start to tumble over the sides.

While we were there we admired my parents’ front wall of their house. Isn’t this pretty? I’ve never seen it like this before. My Mum kept telling me to take a cutting of the purple flowers (?lobelia) for myself, but I didn’t want to ruin it, so I just took a photo instead.

I also took her a rhubarb cake that I made myself this morning, the first rhubarb cake of the season. The rhubarb I picked this morning from The Waffle plot. It smelled so gorgeous and fresh when I chopped it. I love that rhubarb smell. I love this rhubarb cake too. The recipe is here. I made this many times last year and never grew tired of it. David doesn’t like rhubarb so I had to eat the whole cake myself each time spread over 4 or 5 days, oh well, it’s a hard life! Here it is cooking in the oven this morning..

I’ll show you a few more pics from the week and then I’ll love you and leave you for a while. Next blog will be in just over a week’s time after all the birthday shenanigans! Xx

This is my kitchen calendar picture for April. There is a different sunflower pic each month.

This is my desk calendar. I like this pretty picture.

These are our new gold dining candles I bought from Ocado. They are made by Price’s and seem to be lasting a bit longer than the recent ones I’ve bought. We get through a lot of dining candles with all our romantic dinners!

Isn’t this a lovely tulip? Spotted on a local walk the other day.

Still loving the dreamy blossom.

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY NIECE, HAZEL, 18 ON MONDAY I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!! 🎉🎂 🎁🎀🎈🛍 XXXX