Ooh bad blogger!  A whole three days without a post, slapped wrists all round, no excuse really, got a bit sidetracked by the whole genealogy lark again.  After over three years of researching my husbands Clements line from Blockley in Worcestershire all on my ownsome, I made three contacts in three days with other researchers.  Two of them are more interested in a line that married into the Clements, but were still able to give some marriage details for some of my unmarried Clements, but the third turned out to be a direct relation.  So I’ve been hopping about on line trying to figure a few more things out on this line as it really spurred me on.

[A rather shy little daff who only wants to open one petal at a time!]

I also got another day in working in the garden on Saturday, taking it a lot easier and slower than I did a few weeks ago when I strained my muscles!  As usual I’m quite astonished at the rate of growth all around us, my Peonies in the front South facing border have grown a whole 2″ since Friday, and that’s no exaggeration, I measured them!!  We may start the Spring off later here than in the UK, but the phenominal growth spurts witnessed over the last three weeks has put us pretty much on the same schedule as the UK now.  I even have a late Spring/early Summer flowering Clematis that has grown over three feet in the last four weeks and now has flower buds on it.  Sadly, the weeds also experience this amazing surge of growth, so now is the best time to get on top of the situation before it gets out of hand, and that’s pretty much what I was doing for most of Saturday.

[Buds on my Cleveland Pear in the back garden, now in full flower as I took this one last week]

Early Sunday morning we walked down into Northville, through the beautifully quaint, and rather expensive, residential area, with it’s stunning Victorian and Edwardian era houses.  It’s a protected area and any new builds or home updates have to be done in keeping with the neighbourhood.  I love walking through here with it’s pretty houses and beautifully manicured front gardens, might take some photos one day and post for you to dream over.  Yesterday morning was grey and overcast with a few little showers lurking about.  We walked to build up an appetite for our delicious Sunday morning breakfast at Rebecca’s in Northville.  We’ve had this little restaurant recommended to us a few times and had always said we’ll walk down for breakfast one day, well, we’ve lived here ten years and that “one day” was finally yesterday!!!  And it was good, very good in fact, and we finished off our meal with a shared house specialty of Sweet Potato Pancakes, which were very yummy.  And then we walked back home, albeit at a much slower pace than when we walked down!!

[Japanese Weeping Cherry lighting up the front garden]

[Blue pansies by the front door showing off their cheery little faces to our visitors]

After that I popped up to Michaels who were having their stock up sale, with some of the cheapest prices you’ll see in a long time on essentials like adhesives, ribbons (well, they’re essential for me!!), and blank cards and envelopes.  To give you an idea, I normally get a pack of 50 6 1/4″ by 5 1/2″ blank cards with envelopes from here for $9.99, or $6.99 with a 40% off an item coupon… well yesterday, they were selling these 50 packs at three for $10 or $3.33 for a single pack!  And the smaller size, which I also use a lot were 3 for $5 or $1.66 for an individual pack instead of $3.99 each, so I got two of those also.  So, not really pretty or exciting stuff but very important none the less.  When I got back it was in the crafty room for me to work on, and finish as it turns out, my card for my very first Guest Designer spot over at Christmas Stampin All Yer Long, my cards, and the rest of the team’s go live on Friday (16th April), so pop back then to see what I made.  My remit was to make “a card”, but I loved the technique for the upcoming challenge so much that I made three!  It’s very easy and can be replicated very quickly if you have a lot of cards to make too, so that’s always a bonus, please pop back on Friday and let me know what you think of my cards!

[One of three clumps of creamy, yellow Hellebores currently in flower, must get some of those beautiful red ones too]

[Tiny little Scilla, a relative of the Bluebell, quite hardy judging by their common name of Siberian Squill]

[Magnolia Stellata, the Queen of the Spring garden, just watch out for those late season frosts!]

Well, after all that talk of Christmas I hope you have enjoyed the Spring flowers from my garden that have been accompanying this post.  I’ll leave you with this one, of my beautiful Magnolia Stellata and my Japanese Weeping Cherry in my front garden, caught in the late afternoon sunshine yesterday afternoon.

[Can’t believe how much the grass has greened up, looks like it’ll be ready for a cut soon!]