While I think 'a little more deeply' about sharing and blogging (see yesterday's post) here is a photo of one of life's simpler pleasures.

This tiny siskin was so well disguised among the green leaves and grey stones that I nearly stood on it. It seemed quite unaware of my presence and pecked around quietly for about quarter of an hour or so, just inches away, as I transplanted some seedlings yesterday in warm sunshine.

Peaceful company.

The website A-List Bloggers www.alistbloggingbootcamp.com currently has a post that asks:

'What is your purpose in writing your blog?'

'I write in order to peruse myself' said writer, poet and painter Henri Michaux. I looked up 'peruse': to read or examine, typically with great care. Hmm.

I had been thinking a lot about trying to simplify my life, and writing a blog about it gave me the opportunity to put my thoughts and feelings into order, and into words.

The best advice was 'One topic at a time, and one aspect of that topic at a time'. (I don't remember where I read that.) This gave me a structure which suited me. I could break down this big subject into bite size pieces and think a little more deeply about each one....

I know that at least one of my readers writes a blog, and one has a photo blog, and at least two of you are professional writers - it would be fun if you would leave a comment telling us about your blogs and writing....please..


..the other purpose was to share my thoughts....tomorrow's post..

Someone asked 'Who inspired you to blog?'

I was given the book The Happiness Project   for Mother's Day in 2010 and found both the book and the blog really good reads. I found myself thinking 'If I  was to write a blog, what would I write about?' and the answer 'Simplicity' came so instantly to my mind that I started thinking and writing about it, just for me, and just for fun.

After a week or two I began to think about publishing it online and spent a day or two looking at the possibilities, and at the suggestion of 11 year old Andrew to use Weebly, the blog was born.

..clicking on the button that said 'publish live' was so......exciting..

The greenhouse is my happy place these days - I can garden there even when it's raining.

I don't know what happened to Auntie Jennie's Jeranium, but I kept the label....

I reach a point when I realise the clutter is holding me back from the work.

I took Gretchen Rubin's advice: 'Suffer for 15 minutes' she says.

Decide to spend 15 minutes, not a minute more, on a job you really don't want to do. Do as many 15 minute sessions as it takes....it took two to clean up my worktop in the studio (see yesterday's post).

See more at http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2011/05/sufferfor-fifteen-minutes.html

How is your workspace looking/functioning? Is it helping or hindering your work right now....are you willing to suffer!

I have to put up a cheerful photo after that sad one of the flattened poppies, as I need cheering up myself.

Not only are all the poppies flattened now, but the wind, rain and hailstones have battered the lupins and campanula, broken some favourite pots, sent the sweet pea wigwams across the garden....

The house is OK :)

I thought of just running away to sunny Spain, but the ash cloud has stopped all flights from Scotland!

I'll recover.

I went down to the shore sketching in this - exhilerating, but I am so glad I have a cosy home to hunker down in, a good dinner in the oven, and some good books to read - we won't be going anywhere tonight. The noise is wild and roaring with the odd loud crack as a branch or a tree comes down!

I reread 'The Novel' on 5th May at Zizzi's. What a strange feeling. I think I will continue with it.

Julia said 'Keep on keeping on.'

Yess!

I've been enjoying Love, Loss and What I Wore  written and illustrated by New Yorker Irene Beckerman, a slight book which briefly tells the author's life story through the clothes she wore from the 1940's to the 1990's. Starting with her Brownie uniform and dancing school outfits, through home made skirts to party dresses ( 'I almost got into trouble at that party. I think it was the dress.' ) to bridesmaid dresses and the trouser suit she wore to her first job interview, and more. Her memory helped I assume by the fact that she kept so many of her clothes!

The fun of course, is in remembering your own nearest equivalents. Best read in little bits, and had me looking through old photographs and asking my daughters what clothes they remember - both mine and their own. It will be fun to check this out with my sisters too. A nostalgia trip kind of read....

..which clothes in your life so far stand out in your memory ?....


 

 When we had a new fence put in, we positioned some of the old fence posts around the garden as sort of sculptures. The garden was a blank canvas then (11 years ago) and they gave us some focal points to work round. It's been nice to see what happens in them, what survives and what thrives..the little tree seeded itself..and the moss is winning over the sempervirum.

The double double 'Granny's Bonnet' and the beautiful blue one stand up well to wind and rain, the oriental poppies? Not so good (wish I'd staked them - and seem to remember saying this before....)

Sometimes when I am in a quandary about something, I ask myself 'What would be simplest?' and I do that. Oddly enough the answer is always obvious.

Yesterday I was unwell and couldn't summon up the energy to write my blog and was fretting about it until I asked what would be simplest and the answer came back 'Miss a day'. So I did. Simple.

I should make  it clear that this doesn't apply to every decision! Life in general  isn't at all simple, nor would we want it to be. After all it would be simplest not to make complicated arrangements to go on holiday, or not to try to fit in all sorts of things which interest us, but I use this question when something is bothering me, I find myself going over and over it, and a decision of some kind is now required, and the pro's and con's are weighing up equal.

Sometimes the answer to a problem might be 'just get through it' or 'make the call' or 'leave it for now' or 'let someone else deal with it'. Just giving up is occasionally the simplest and best thing to do. For busy, goal setting, positive thinking people doing what is simplest doesn't come naturally!

A post it note saying 'What would be simplest?' might be useful....

..have you got a decision of this kind hanging over you? Try asking yourself 'What would be the simplest thing to do?' and doing it....

It's been raining for days so I've picked a big bunch of lilac and brought it indoors to enjoy the perfume.

There are lilies at the other side of the room.

I think I may swoon!

I collected seed from this pale aquilegia last year and have about fourteen new plants flowering already to put into this bed in front of the rosa glauca. I love the way the delicate lilac flowers and stems are echoed in the purplish bloom of the rose leaves.

The aquilegia foliage disguises the dying daffodil leaves and then are themselves in turn hidden by hardy gerainium and alchemilla. Lots of things in the one patch are good when they follow each other in such a nice succession... thalictrum to follow later in the summer.

On a rainy afternoon, I saw a sign on a blackboard on a pavement that began 'Read me now before I wash off'.

I was on a bus at the time.

I went back next day to read the rest and take a photograph.

You've guessed it, it had washed off....

Sorry!

I thought this looked more like a watercolour painting than a photograph....

I love taking photographs with the digital camera (a 5 year old Olympus SP 700), but have to confess to being very hit and miss - I don't know how this effect occured! It may be so much reflected light and shadows from the surrounding white tiled wall. I cropped it on the computer but didn't otherwise alter it. The flower is clematis 'Freda' and the golden foliage philadelphus aureus which lasts really well in water and lightens up many a posy.
 
Will try photographing more things in this little corner of the bathroom....

..a copy coming your way Maggie....

I'm using last year's photo here, because this year's Primrose Picnic (not even deserving of those pretentious capital letters!) was, for a variety of reasons, reduced to a quick dash up the mountain with a flask of instant coffee and a couple of meusli bars....

The primroses were just as lovely though, there were more violets than usual, and the silence was just as impressive and refreshing.




..when did you last picnic?....so nice, I'm planning another one soon..

I've finally taken the photos to illustrate 'Simply Home and a simple colour scheme' (17 April - click on Simply Home on the sidebar).

If the photos look a bit staged that's because they are! We need this space to prepare food, so it will quickly look less contrived....but it was fun to see..

Note the difference a bit of complementary colour (red) makes. If you want a bit of zing add a little of the opposite colour.

..more about complementary colours in another posting..I love complementary colours..

 3   We are planting some trees, which need no attention and will get bigger and better each year.

Malus 'Golden Hornet', with white blossom then an abundance of little bright yellow crab apples has just been planted in the bed where we grow yellow and orange flowers.

Later this year we will replace the birch trees with betula jacquemontii 'Snow Queen' which have wonderfully white bark (this is what we thought we had - unfortunately the bark doesn't whiten for a few years, by which time we had grown to like the ordinary birch, but they are very large now - will make good logs for the fire..)

4   One more strategy - I'm going to stop trying to grow things which clearly don't like it here and survive but don't thrive!

Malus on the left - it looks as though we are going to get lots of fruits this year.

The yellow azalea is scenting the whole garden just now, and the blue cammassias do well here, with no attention - so more of these....

2.  I'm making bigger areas of the favourites which do well with very little attention here:

So, hardy geraniums and sedum - the hardy geraniums pictured cover about 6m  - its Anne Folkard - gorgeous!
The lupins almost fill one bed about 3m x 2m and after their first flowering, with a little pruning, produce more flowers till quite late in summer. It's surrounded by low growing hardy geraniums and the pruning of the lupins gives them more light and space too. The middle picture shows an area of about 3m x 2m and has about 17 different things in it. For a while it looks like a pretty muddle, then it just looks a mess, so I'll decide what I like in this bed and plant more of it - simplify, simplify....

I am getting tough with alchemilla mollis! Much as I adore this plant it is taking over. We have taken out about 7 big clumps and cut hard back the ones which billow too far across the paths, hoping they may come back smaller, and later, extending the season of the lovely froth of lime green flowers.

I said last year that I must simplify the garden. Well, in spite of the complications of the 42 delphiniums, I have made a start.

1.   I'm growing fewer annuals, biennials and bedding plants, and replacing them with hardy perennials:

I've planted perennial viola cornuta alba in the five pots on the steps which contained the delightful, but tender daisy erigeron karvinskianus which sadly all died this year. (In Cornwall a couple of weeks ago they were flowering out of every crevice and  crack in every wall and pavement!) Also one big pot which used to be planted up every year with tender plants now has a lovely big plant of blue geranium 'Roxanne' which is completely hardy, with a generous and very long flowering season.

Less work and a similar effect....simpler..

I've just read

'Sunlight activates our happiness glands' (in an ad for conservatories)

Maybe that's why I'm still so in love with yellow!

The delicious perfume from these azaleas, rhododendron luteum, which grows like crazy around here - fills the room.

The painting is called 'Freedom'.



I hope you're getting enough sunlight to make you happy....

Andrea Jones, who photographed our garden for the SGS and Coast magazine, has won second prize in the International Garden Photographer Of The Year competition organised by Kew.

I'm extra thrilled because the photograph is of our garden!

I'm aware that this is not the best image (my apologies to Andrea!) For a much clearer one do take a moment and click here: http://www.igpoty.com/competition04/winners_GardenViews_Second.asp?parent=wi then click on the image to enlarge it.

Congratulations Andrea! It reminds me how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place, and know such talented people.