Another beautiful spring day, cloudless blue sky, warm breeze... just perfect.

Been re-aquainting myself the art of portrait drawing, making a few pencil sketches of images in newspapers and magazines. It's been a long time since I did sketches of the face (quite obvious from the results thus far!) but it's still great fun trying to get a likeness. And a great feeling when, with one tiny mark, the person you are trying to capture stares back at you from the paper!  Somehow you've managed to get the exact tilt of their nose, the shape of their mouth or the turn of their head.

Much harder will be drawing from life. Who is going to sit still long enough I wonder...

Well they've had their best ever performance this spring, continuing to give a fabulous display week after week and well past their allotted time. But after many encores my tulips have now sadly taken their last bow.  I can't be too sad because ready to make an entrance is the rambling rose, accompanied by the lavender, the gentiana and the aguilegia.  A welcome return year after year but a new act waiting in the wings is the Gerbera 'Forever Daisies' Collection and I can't wait to see how Crista, Pam, Piroska, Rachel and Sunny will fare among the other stars of the garden.