Eastertime

'Loveliest of trees,the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.'
A. E. Housman



Well, these cherry trees are wearing pink and were in Queen Square in Bath yesterday, rather than a woodland ride, but the poem seemed to fit, nevertheless. They made me smile, and I just had to stop and take several photos.

Easter is almost upon us and we are enjoying a long weekend here. Our school holidays don't start until next weekend, so Easter is quite separate from them this year. Yesterday P and I had some last minute shopping to do as we have family coming for lunch on Easter Sunday, so we headed off to Bath as it was a lovely sunny spring day. By lunchtime I'd discarded my coat for the first time this year, and on the way home a yellow brimstone butterfly flew past the car, my first butterfly-spotting of the year. When we'd finished our shopping we went to our our current favourite place, Waterstones cafe, and treated ourselves to a book each and a coffee. I love the calm interior and pretty fresh flowers on each table.

We also stopped at a garden centre and I bought some seeds. Traditionally the Easter weekend is the first weekend of proper gardening that most people do in the year, but I've already been out pruning, weeding and tidying a few times. However seed-planting is more exciting than those jobs. I always grow sweet peas, nasturtiums and calendulas, but I also picked up some mixed sunflowers for cutting. We never seem to have much late-summer colour in the garden so I'm remedying it with these, and some dahlia plug plants which I've never grown before. Hopefully there will be lots of flowers for me to cut and bring indoors. I'm looking forward to these 'high scent' frilly sweet peas too.

I put out the Easter decorations this week - candles, chicks and pretty eggs now adorn the dining room.

I've bought some artificial blossom branches this year to hang the eggs from, and will use them every year. The sight of flowery branches drooping under the weight of decorated eggs is such a pretty one that it makes me very happy indeed. The little mat that the jug's standing on was embroidered with flowers by my mum as a present to us when we were first married.

And the crocheted wreath which I made two years ago has made an appearance. I like the pale, creamy yellows which remind me of primroses, and fresh pastel colours of spring.

Once again I took out the decorated eggs which I've collected over the years and store in an egg-box. It took me a couple of years to realise that this was the perfect container.

Here are the little 'spring garden' polystyrene eggs which I painted when my children were little.

And the many fluffy chicks have reappeared, some of them a little worse for wear over the years, but all still sweet and fluffy.

There are also lots of mini chocolate eggs, ready for an Easter egg hunt.

Happy Easter to you all! 

Hope you have a lovely one x

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Edited to add:

I have just made a little Easter wreath for the front door, something I've often planned to do, and thought I'd show you it, since it's part of our celebrations. I used the hazel wreath base I made last Christmas and tucked into it little sprigs of rosemary flowers, hyacinths and tete-a-tete daffodils. They're not securely tied on and, given the high winds and driving rain that we have today, I may well keep it indoors tomorrow!

Happy Easter! x