1000 Fields of Roses

I had high hopes for a cooling storm at the end of last week. The forecast had been for rain, with a bit of a temperature drop.
Unfortunately, that forecast kept changing every time I looked, even though the sky was trying to tell a different story!

This was the sky last Friday, at 2.30 in the afternoon.
Yes – that is the sun trying to break through.

The weather kept holding out the promise of change, only to snatch back the hope at the last minute…
It was cool enough for me to sit for a bit in my sunroom, browsing through my art/creating books.

We’ve all been getting over a virus, so I still needed the fan on. And some music, of course.

So – here we are in the new week. The longed-for rain and cool weather has arrived 😀
I have, quite literally, been chilling today.
It’s been too wet to go outside much, but I did go to check out my roses. From a straggly, thorny, too large bush without leaves, it’s suddenly become a showcase of pink loveliness.

Still thorny, though.
There are roses in various stages of life. I was happy with the two or three I’ve had so far, but there seems to have been an explosion of buds just in the last few days.

Should I leave them to grace the garden, or cut them to bring inside?
While I get around to deciding, I can enjoy my cold(ish) toes, and my new French Earl Grey tea. It’s a combination of vanilla, rose, lavender, and the bergamot of ordinary Earl Grey.
A bit like sipping an indoor garden!
❤

Sadly, no whiskers on kittens.
(Not that we make a habit of de-whiskering kittens).
A storm is grumbling and blustering outside, and I am happy to be sitting snugly in my room.

I can’t say that this has been the most productive of weeks, but I did manage to fix my little boudoir chair.

It’s been sitting, cushionless, downstairs – waiting for me to wrestle with padding and not-quite-big-enough material.
I think it’s turned out OK.

My roses are busily budding.

It’s not that long since the bushes were bare sticks. This little bud appeared a few days ago.
Speaking of sticks…
my frangipanis were each basically one sad looking stick in a pot.
The rain has cheered them up.

I have been told these geraniums are native to Australia.

They’ve been popping up in various places, peeking out from beneath their bigger cousins.
Just to think bigger still…
here are some of the patterns on the bark of the huge tree in the back corner.

So pretty!

The rain seems to be calming down a bit.
We’ll see what the garden says tomorrow.

And – back to my roses.
Here’s what happened to that sweet little rosebud a day or so later.

❤

It seems like summer has just been peeking round the corner, then darting back in again.
I washed the quilts a couple of weeks ago, but we had to drag out some blankets the other night. Today was meant to be very hot, but didn’t seem as bad as expected.
Still, there’s too many fires across the state, and not enough rain.

Mondays are my biggest laundry and cleaning days. Yesterday was cool enough to get all that done (and dry!) within a few hours, and still leave a bit of energy for pulling out some weeds and organising the big wrought iron rack for my plant pots.

Little bits and pieces, adding up to big bits of sweetness…

I enjoyed some intrumental music recently, while sorting through stuff and inhaling a mixture of frankincense and rose oil. Very soothing, although most of the house picked up the scent, which lasted for the next couple of days. I also had a soak in a warm(ish) bath with magnesium flakes and a few drops of rose oil.
It’s amazing how strong roses can be.

I’m still finding little things I’d forgotten I had.
My little wooden cat is quite light, but seems able to handle a couple of rings.

A couple of tiny photo frames from when I was young…

My face seems to be cracking.

A sweet little teddy, to grace the CD tower.

Part of tidying has been tearing out some weeds that have been trying to take over.
The asparagus fern in the front was almost smothering part of the hedge. A fair bit of it has gone – there’s still remnants lurking in the undergrowth, but they’ll be sorted soon.
One of the nicest things about getting rid of it has been finding two more rose bushes, sadly lost for a while, but now able to spread out into the sunlight.
I was happy to see them, but they were scrawny and leafless. I didn’t have high hopes for them, and hadn’t thought much about them.
Until – a splash of pink amongst the foliage!

🙂

Wanna see a close up?

Such a beautiful thing.
Growing, and blooming, regardless of whether I noticed it or not.

Sometimes, the heat gets too much.
The small things seem too inconsequential.

And then, a rose just reaches for the light, and does its best to live.
❤

I hadn’t planned to get into the gardening just yet…
Yesterday I looked out the kitchen window. We have two rose bushes in the back corner garden, but they’ve been let go and were looking straggly. I had thought they were possibly dying – most of the branches were dry and brown, and there were hardly any leaves. It’s apparently a bit late for pruning, although I was going to do it anyway…sometime.
Yesterday, when I looked out the kitchen window, I saw a beautiful pale pink rose, dancing above the dry sticks and brown foliage, waving over the height of the back fence and into the bright sky.
And I hadn’t even noticed a bud!

Here it is!
🙂

As I was already down there, it seemed like the best time to prune.
The bigger bush would have been something around 6-7 foot tall, so I took a lot off that one.
Of course, I had the pruners out, so it just made sense to take down the overgrowth on the geranium near the house. There were a few florets on the branches I chopped off, so I now have a bit of a flower display.

I can still see my lovely (fragrant) rose from the kitchen.
Just a bit closer than before.

Four weeks into living in the house, and everything’s…coming up roses – and geraniums!
They even supplied my random heart for the day ❤