a day of contrasts

Yesterday was a day of wonderful contrasts. In the morning, the sun was shining in amongst the clouds and spring breezes and during a quick wander in the garden I saw the first bumble bee of this year. He was bumbling busily, and buzzily  about the early blooms, particularly taken by a hellebore we planted last year. I had hoped to catch him as he rummaged about it but he flitted off before I could take my picture. I love the way these rather shy, delicately coloured flowers are complemented by the steely silver, prickly leaves.

Two more hellebores are currently in pots on the patio, this one with it's bashful yet incredibly vivid rich pinky purple flower heads is another bought one; the one below comes as a seedling collected either from my dear one's daughter's garden, or from Cecil's cottage;

we have about 15 seedlings in various stages of growth, destined to be dotted through the garden in friendly groups to enjoy themselves and mix their genes with those we have bought. As ever, I love the idea that plants in our garden will speak to use both of themselves and of the people with whom they are associated - the garden as memory.



The crocuses were shining like golden stars in the grass, nestled at the feet of these daffodil stems, which have buds but not quite flowers as yet

Then there were the snowdrops. This one, with a tiny cyclamen just visible in the background, lives in a bed that I'm hoping to plant with a woodland feel. It's near the house, and I'm also planting primulas in a variety of colours, again in the hope they will self seed and interbreed, both with each other, and with the native primroses that are dotted about. I also have some snowdrops taken from Cecil's front garden, which I thought I'd lost, but which have overwintered in their pot, carefully husbanded down in the kitchen garden and are now nodding their heads on the patio along with the hellebores. They will be planted beneath a maple that Mum bought for me years and years ago, which has lived in a pot until now. I wanted to keep it with me through all of my house moves until I found the place where I knew I was going to stop. Last year it was given it's home in the soil.


So, a peaceful interlude in my morning's work.

Then, in the evening, we went to an event at the De La Warr Pavilion. We were given membership of this for Christmas and the tickets were offered free to members. It was a live performance of ISAM by Amon Tobin. I'd not heard of him before; it was not the sort of thing we'd have risked paying for as it was very much outside the good man's musical taste, though I had an idea what to expect, and expected it to be enjoyable. My dear daughter, rather indulgently, offered me ear plugs because - "it's going to be loud Mum" .... "yes dear"

It was, without a doubt, one of the most amazing gigs I've ever been to. A completely mesmerizing combination of sound, light and image, I cannot begin to describe it, but was on the edge of my seat almost the entire time. All I can suggest, is that you pop over to his website, or check out some of the clips on YouTube to get a brief taste of what it was all about. The music was the sort of sound that lodges deep in your chest, vibrates through your body and sends a shiver right through you from head to toes, and the images, projected onto a structure of white cubes, one of which housed him, took us through galaxies, past spaceships, firestorms, rippling water and tumbling blocks of colour and light. It was astonishing!