Tweet tweet little birds

I've noticed it more and more lately, and it's been a joy. Yes, I'm talking about birdsong. It could be, just could be that Spring is starting to take hold of the more wintery days and the birds feel it too. I've been out in my garden this weekend checking on the bird feeders and topping up the fat ball supply. We've one on the trellis close to the house and it's great to see the small birds almost queue up to take their turn at it. 

The other thing I've spotted is there seems to be more birds around on homewares too. Maybe all the birdsong has been getting to me, who knows?

I've been looking at Love the Sales and there's a plethora, or perhaps that should be a flock, of bird items available in the Home & Garden section. So if you're rather partial to a parrot, hankering for a heron or have a requirement for a redshank - ok, I'll stop - it's definitely worth a look. 

I'm quite taken with these bird planters from India Jane, I think they're just the type of planter that would sit quite happily in our conservatory, and be quite versatile little pots, they're just 16cm high. At times, I might even put some herbs in them, or some pine cones, or one of those column candles. Actually instead of a candle they'd be great with some of those battery fairy lights in, and would be great to bring an unusual light source to outside dining, but perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself as I think it may be a while before we're dining al fresco, don't you?

Tweet tweet little birds by lifeat139a on Polyvore

And the blue and yellow bird, how cute is that? It's a quail - also from India Jane - and is a box, the top of its body lifts off and reveals a hidden storage space. Just the sort of space where I'd put something for safekeeping and promptly forget about, then find months later (if I'm lucky, if not years) and wonder how on earth I could be so daft as not to look in the perfect hiding place.  

You have those kinds of spaces too, right?

* Via Love the Sales

Whoops, tulips!

Relatively recently I remembered I'd bought some tulips. And quite quickly after that I remembered I hadn't planted them yet, and I was kind of late doing that. But in that moment, the thing I couldn't remember is where they were. 

Hmmnn.

This in itself was more troubling than not remembering to have planted the bulbs in the first place. I was pretty sure they would be ok, maybe sprouting a bit, not too much if I was lucky. I hoped that they were the same as seeds, in that they're programmed to grow, so will try their best for you, well, as long as you eventually give them some help. Help like soil, and water, that kind of thing.

My brain is one of those brains that usually knows where things are, even down to the exact location. For example I'll send MOH to get something from the spare freezer, he'll be rummaging (as usual) and I'll helpfully suggest, top shelf on the right, or wherever it is he's looking for, to much amazement from him (and sometimes me too). 

So it's a bit disconcerting when my brain can't retrieve that kind of information. Usually it'll pop back in at some point, so I leave it a while before starting The Search. 

And sure enough, after a little while of mulling, a day or so later, it came to me. There were in the conservatory, with my seeds. And when I checked, so they were. Thankfully they weren't sprouted so much that they'd grown through the bag either. Phew. 

I resolved to plant them as soon as I could, but that was easier said than done with a weekend in Norfolk planned and then another busy weekend with a long to do list, and one where the tulips didn't make it to the top of the list. But finally this weekend I planted them, and it was lovely to be out in the garden again. 

There was some maths involved too, I had ten of each of the following tulips:

• Weisse Berliner: a white flower, with up to four flowers per stem
• Flaming Flag: a white flower with purple streaks, almost like a raspberry ripple ice cream (but different colours!)
• Menton: a pale coral pink tulip
• Queen of the Night: the infamous black tulip.

And I had either three or five pots to plant them in. Neither was easy for the maths. As I'd also found 55 alliums, I split the 40 tulips between three pots, and the alliums between the remaining two.

And I'm hoping they'll grow. I figured the fact that some of them are sprouting already is a good sign, they're obviously going to be late flowering, I won't be having tulips in April I'm sure. But I hope they'll manage something at some point this year, if not there's always next year.

Normally I'd plant some pansies or something that was already flowering to make the pots look a bit prettier, but not this time. It all feels very disorganised, most likely because it is, but I thought it waa about time these tulips were planted. They're a good four months later than they should be.

As I said before, whoops, tulips!

Behind the Orangery at Blickling

I've already shared some of my pictures from Blickling, especially of the Hellebores and Hydrangeas from behind the Orangery. But there's one shot I haven't shared yet, and I think it's a bit of a special one. To me it looks as if it could be a painting, rather than a photo and it has a wistful feel to it. 

What do you think?

The painting feel is I think because of the green rising at the bottom of the photo. In reality the green is probably not very romantic at all and caused by the damp weather and soil against the wall, but in the photo it takes on an entirely different role emulating the fields which surround Blickling, with the hydrangeas almost taking on tree-shaped forms in the make-believe landscape.

Or maybe that's just me?

Either way, I was pleased to discover this shot as I looked through my photos. Not bad for an iPhone!