Unusual vehicles and other things I saw today

It was sunny(ish) this afternoon and much warmer than yesterday, so I took myself out. Just up the road I found myself following a genuine red vardo drawn by a horse with lovely feathered feet. Far from being annoyed by the delay, drivers were beaming, and a couple waved from their front garden. Parked at the garden centre was a lovingly preserved MG Midget covered with badges; I gazed at it in admiration for quite a while. It felt quite spring-like and I wandered round looking at plants which I used to have in my old garden and had to tell myself strictly that I have no room for in my new one. I can resist the resin garden animal ornaments but if I could think where to put it I’d buy a small gothic mirror like this to create some garden magic. It was cheaper locally. aellia, I think you’d have loved some of this stuff.

Back home in my garden I saw lots of jobs crying out to be done and some dead plants in the greenhouse. More encouragingly, in flower now are: cherry tree, primroses, snowdrops, pulmonarias, miniature daffodils, hellebores, bergenia, a few crocus, including the large purple one which comes up in solitary splendour each year, and Erysimum ‘Bowles’ Mauve’, which is almost never out of flower. Pleasingly, my erythronium plants are showing shoots. I can almost believe in spring.