Plants, paints, and an accidental haircut ✂️

 

Hello again! I am kicking off this post with my AMAZING night sky petunia ✨✨ because I'm a little bit in love. I tried to grow one of these last year but my small seedling plant got knocked over in the wind and sadly didn't survive, I made up for it this year by buying a bigger pot with some beautiful blooms already and she is thriving. I'm going to pot her up into some sort of arrangement but for now she is chilling out hanging on the washing line away from the evil slugs!

Here's Juniper being a little poser, helping me make up the bed for when my sister came to stay a few weeks ago. Our first overnight guest! We had a Eurovision party via zoom with some friends which was very fun.

Rainbow worm doodles at work:

A top-notch pjs/socks/crocs combo 😍 and the inspiration drawing for a sea themed mural that Ed and I have been working on for my little brother's bedroom:

I'll share more about the mural when the whole room is finished but for now here is a little taster:

✨ Painting shirt chic ✨

A buttercup and forget-me-not bouquet, and a peekaboo Juniper:

Zingy green leaves against a bright blue sky when I went for a run:

Juni is loving spending lots of time in the garden now that the weather is warm, as you can see she likes to retreat to a shady spot just like me 😄 She has become quite a successful insect hunter and manages to catch and eat a variety of flying and crawling creatures, including a lovely damselfly that Ed and I were admiring, much to our shock and horror.

A recent sourdough loaf:

A sleepy Juniper that let me trim all of her claws in one sitting! It was a proud moment for me.

Cute little pansies growing on the pavement outside my mum's house, and a great big june beetle spotted on our sweet peas!

Surprise! I cut my hair short again...by accident this time! I was just planning to do a trim and tried to incorporate some layers but that was a big mistake 😂 I tried to even everything out and suddenly my hair was short lol. I was full of regret during the whole process but it turned out fine in the end (Ed had to help me do the back!). C'est la vie, at least I don't have split ends anymore.

Ed was planting out the leeks in our raised bed and found some buried treasure! A little plastic army man:

When we moved to this house there were a couple of unidentified plants on the front lawn, they weren't much to look at and we wanted to start from scratch so we dug them up. This one had some tubers underground which we thought we'd gotten rid of.......but after our neighbour told us that it was a peony we were glad when it popped up again this year! We only had one flower but it was a beauty nonetheless:

Starting the morning with a clothes wash and then hanging it out in the sunshine is one of my favourite things to do on a day off! I find it soo satisfying:

 

One of the hostas in our shady corner, and a strange sight of poppies growing out of the pavement when I was out running (in the rain) recently:

Our viburnum which looks like confetti, featuring my new sandals:

A snail update:

This happy yellow pansy has a little success story behind it! I picked up a broken off stem from the floor by my till at work, I didn't know for sure what the plant was but it looked healthy enough to try and root so I saved it and brought it home with me. I stuck it in some perlite in the propagator and soon enough it was producing flowers! We snipped off the first couple of flowers so it could focus on growing roots and now it's doing just fine outside 😄 (it's also hanging on the washing line away from slugs!).

Ed's brother and his wife came for a visit with their dog Ralph, here he is looking out over Dartmoor:

Some of our purple tansies in a vase, and a golden hour glimpse at the mural:

We went for a walk a few days ago and saw some cows:

A wildflower bouquet from said walk, and myself as a garden statue (I'm tempted to buy it!):

We made two loaves of bread this week! Featuring Juniper and a vase of flowers from my grandparents' garden:

Our mini wildflower meadow is really taking off now, these poppies have all started opening in the last few days and they add so much colour to the garden! 🐝 the bees are loving it too.

And finally, I picked the first couple of strawberries from our hanging basket this morning! They smell really good but I haven't tried them yet because I was waiting for Ed to get back from work for a ceremonial first produce tasting of 2021 🍓😋🌾

Thanks for reading again! Ed and I are going on holiday soon (a staycation?), which I'm looking forward to but I'm also a bit worried about how much I'll miss Juniper 😂 

P.S. I just realised I haven't taken any photos of my current sock knitting project, you'll have to wait and see!

Odd socks and iced buns 😋

🌸🌼🌸🌼 A big hello and warm welcome from me and my dahlias...

...rescued from work where they were going to end up in the bin, now brightening up our garden which has been very much needed with the grey weather we've had over the past couple of weeks! I know we're used to rain in the UK but it has been crazily wet...massive unrelenting downpours everyday ⛈ but we've needed it after the dry April so not complaining!

Here is the monstera leaf time-lapse I promised last time:

The new leaf took about a month from when I first photographed it to be fully open, it's impressively big! The only problem is it's very shy and has decided to face completely to the wall so we only get to appreciate the back 😆

I have two pairs of socks to share with you today! The first pair I finished a month ago but couldn't post about because they were for my sister on her birthday 🎂 I tried out a ruffle edge for the first time which worked well, now that I feel confident with the basic sock pattern it's exciting to be able to experiment!

This next pair (my 6th in total) is a little bit wacky but I love how they turned out! I used the leftovers from 3 different balls of wool to create fun stripes. It was my first time using more than one colour in a pair and it was easier than I imagined, can't wait to have contrasting toes on all my socks now! 🌈

The rain making all the colours pop in my dad's garden last week:

And remember handsome old Tom? 😍 He seems like such a gentle giant now compared to little, energetic Juniper!

One of the aforementioned sister's birthday cakes 🍓 Enjoyed with a cup of tea whilst sheltering from the rain (before we were allowed back in peoples' houses!) + a pretty pathway.

🌈 it was way more vibrant in real life!

A fast asleep baby and some charity shop trousers:

Is this comfy?

Some nice soft sourdough slices from this week's loaf, still warm with butter 😍 ...and Juniper getting a front row seat to watch the sparrows on the bird table!

Ed's trees are full of colour in the garden (spot my old Dr Martens ready to be planted up again this year):

These sweet purple flowers are actually really tall! They popped up in our mini wildflower meadow and are currently towering over everything else in the garden 😄 

Update: I just rummaged around to find the packet of seeds we sowed and googled each flower name until I identified what this is...it's phacelia or purple tansy! Good to know.

A jolly little ladybird on our potatoes, some wild geraniums which recently appeared in the lawn, and some pretty, pink deutzia flowers!

    Me and my girl watching Antiques Roadshow:

Yesterday Ed and I took a trip to Kingsbridge to see an art exhibition which some of my old art foundation friends have put together (click the link here if you're local and interested!) 🌷 We took the opportunity to hit up the nearby charity shops and a rather spectacular antique shop too:

I fell in love with this spring flower wallpaper 🌼 still thinking about it to be honest...and there were so many teddies and trinkets to be tempted by. Don't tell anyone but I pulled down my mask just to get a sniff of that lovely, musty old antique smell 😆💙💙

We made some iced buns the other day (well Ed did most of the work, I just helped with the messy icing ✨):

And finally, here are a couple of photos I took today...I thought I'd make the most of the miraculously dry and sunny weather by taking Juniper up to the field to explore whilst I ate a picnic lunch and read my book. It didn't quite go to plan as she was a bit scared of the blustery wind and strange noises so stayed snuggled up on my lap for a while before climbing into my backpack and settling down 😌 it was very cute.

Thank you for stopping by again, I can't believe I've been documenting life in these little blog posts for over a year now! I'm so glad I have them to look back on...just seeing how much the garden has changed since then is so fun! Lots of love 💖

P.S. Juniper is asleep purring next to me on the sofa as I write this, fully recovered from her backpack adventure. I think we may even try that again some time!