A Year and a Day

Hooray! Today I am celebrating the fact that my blog is exactly one year and a day old! 

It sounds a very romantic and significant period of time (and has nothing to do with the fact that my evenings this week have been too busy for blogging, so I couldn't post yesterday). 'A twelvemonth and a day' is a period which turns up in law, folklore and literature: in the medieval poem Gawain and the Green Knight Gawain is given a year and a day in which to return for the second part of the green Knight's challenge; couples made a promise for this period in traditional handfasting or marriage ceremonies; in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales a knight is given a year and a day to complete his quest; Steeleye Span's song All Around My Hat contains the lyrics ' All around my hat I will wear the green willow ... for a twelvemonth and a day'. So I rather like the magic of this length of time, and it seems fitting to celebrate my blogging anniversary now. 

My blog has meant a great deal to me over the last year, enabling me to express my interests in flowers, crochet, poetry, knitting, flowers, sewing, candle-making, cooking, flowers, gardening, home life, cooking, the seasons ... (did I mention flowers?) without boring my family senseless. Instead I've been able to meet lots of lovely like-minded folks who share my interests and have visited some really lovely, inspiring blogs. The excitement which I felt when I received my first few comments has never left me, and I love to hear about what everyone is up to. There's a lovely sharing sense of community in the blogging world which is very uplifting and encouraging.

So I've decided to share with you some flowery goodness to celebrate my Year and a Day anniversary. We've had wonderful warm sunshine and endless blue skies for days now, and as a result everything in the garden is bursting forth in a great rush of colour. You can almost see things growing. Unfortunately the weeds are bursting forth too, but let's not talk about that. Look at these tulips in our front garden - they're like great splashes of colour on a canvas.

And the marsh marigolds in our little pond are just about as bright a yellow as you can get. Where are my sunglasses?

My shed continues to give me great joy, as the flowers around it begin to bloom. The daffodils and tulips which I planted in pots back in November are looking wonderful now.

And growing up the front of my shed is my favourite clematis. I've forgotten its name, but it is my very favourite colour of all, somewhere between sky blue and lavender.

Here's to another twelvemonth and a day!