Coombe Wood Walk and project updates

The crocuses are really bursting out now. 

I hope you're not bored with snowdrops.

These are so neat - like little white teardrops

while these are open and showing their green and white insides.

Curly new shoots 

There's a delicate scent coming from these tiny flowers

A delivery came today. The box made me chuckle. 

'Time to conquer the world'?

I think it might take more than these to do that!

The one-a-week and one-a-day drawings are coming along. I still have to do one for today. 

I'm going to need a different way of displaying them - perhaps a book with a month to a page?

My Winter book is temporarily on hold. I need some more of this white thready paper but they didn't have any in the Art shop, Smiths or Lorrimers. If only I could remember what it's called, I might be able to order some online.

Thank you for joining me. 

Ups and downs

It was lovely to see a pair of ducks on the pond at Coombe Wood this morning. 

The frost was melting quite quickly.

I went up the hill into the woods.

It was lovely to see the sunshine through the trees.

I had arranged to meet my daughter and three grandchildren. They joined me at the top of the hill. My my grandson found me first, hiding behind a tree. We all climbed a few more hills together looking for interesting things. My elder granddaughter found these delicate little bracket fungi.

After examining all the shelters (see an earlier post) and running up a few hills (the grandchildren, not me - I didn't manage any running) they left me to continue my walk on my own.

The sky was a beautiful blue. The remaining few golden rain tree pods shone in the sunlight.

One of the resident cats sunned itself on the bench. 

I like the cat's shadow on the back of the bench.

Snowdrops again! 

Some little flat brown mushrooms growing between the snowdrops near the hut.

Further disintegration of the Korean pine cones. I like the bobbles that have been left at the top of some of them. You only have to brush against the cones gently and they fall apart and the seeds scatter.

Sheltered by a shrub the frost melts slowly on clumps of snowdrops 

Looking up into the trees

Low winter sunshine and long shadows. 

Sun on the old fern fronds

I stopped to enjoy the robin singing and caught sight of it up in the tree. I stood and watched and took photos for quite a while. I often wonder how such a loud song comes from such a little bird.

Unfortunately I had a frustrating afternoon at the eye clinic. I've had to change back to the eye drops I was on before because the new ones didn't work.

The sunset this evening cheered me up though.

Thank you for joining me. 

To the end of the garden and back

This morning I did some more work on the winter book and carried the snowdrop design around from the inside of the cover onto the first and last pages. I have only a vague idea what I'm going to do next. This is such an unusual way of working for me - I always want to have a good idea of how the end product will look before I start it.

Afterwards I had a walk down the garden, between showers. I was pretty horrified when I saw how much gardening needs to be done, everything is very overgrown.

I love these clematis seed heads - they're like funny little old men with long wispy beards 

or people with wild and crazy hairstyles

 Crocuses in the grass

 Signs that the bluebells are on their way

 Old fungus

 Striking colour of the iris berries

Later on after another shower of rain I managed a bit of pruning. 

Sometimes a task seems so huge 

there's only way to tackle it - a little at a time. 

Thank you for joining me.

A Coombe Wood walk

It was quite breezy this morning and the wind was rippling the pond surface.

 A green hellebore

 Very long "catkins"

 Vivid iris 

 Snowdrop circle around a tree

 Further disintegration of the Korean pine cones

I'm fascinated by how different pine cones can be. These little ones form on the end of branches.

As the pain killers are working well I decided to venture up the hills right into the woods

 and came across several "shelters"

Back down again I found a couple more clumps of hellebores that I hadn't noticed before. The middles amaze me - they are so flamboyant.

I can't resist the snowdrops. They're opening up more each time I visit and it is easier to tell the difference between the varieties now.

There's a very useful snowdrop identification PDF here by M.J Crawley if you are interested. I think this must be a clump of double flowers.

whereas these are single flowers

The gardener is having problems with the deer eating the pansies. I've never seen deer in Coombe Wood myself but I have seen several nearby in the grounds of Royal Russel School and one on Shirley Hills (also called Addiscombe Hills) quite a long time ago. 

I wonder if these nibbled pansies will flower. 

Just photos today, no other art. 

There's quite a lot brewing but nothing new has been done yet.

Thank you very much for joining me.