Midwinter spring

Midwinter spring is its own season,

Sempiternal though sodden toward sundown,

Suspended in time between pole and tropic...

T.S. Eliot

"Sempiternal" means endless or everlasting, and it's a great word to describe this time of year.  Yesterday I noticed our Camelia Yuletide was finally blooming and I took a picture out in the rain. Camelias love Seattle's mild climate, and you often see them growing smack up against front steps of old houses where they were planted many decades ago. They are hardy and long-lived. The fancier winter blooming varieties do fine here too, the only problem is they bloom when we're stuck inside and not enjoying the garden. 

But at least I can see Yuletime from the bedroom window.  I think it was a pricey little gallon plant ($40 or something outrageous?) so we must have been feeling rich that day, or else were hooked when the nursery person said it would always bloom at Christmas, which it never has.  Sometimes it gets a few blooms at Thanksgiving; some years Yuletime doesn't flower at all.  We've had such a mild winter and maybe that's why it's covered with flowers now in February. It's totally unpredictable, like our winters.

Globemaster alliums

Oh, I like this time of year when bulbs are just sending up lush perfect leaves through the leaf mulch. No matter how common they are, there's something hopeful and comforting about the same plants coming back year after year.  In November I'm burnt out with garden work, but then early spring means another fresh start and I start poking around again outside. Every brick and paving stone is mossy and green from the wet, warm winter. Big cleanup ahead.

The purple alliums are always first, followed by the daffodils, hyacinths, tulips and so on.  The roses need pruning soon (they never lost their leaves) and the weeds never stopped growing either. So the season of work starts again.  I usually try and get a head start in February, but my gimpy ankle has slowed me down a bit. I have my fingers crossed-- it's feeling better these past two days.

This looks like a big mess, but about every 10 years the geraniums actually make it through the winter without freezing in the basement stairwell.  With some haircuts and a top dressing of compost, they'll take off again for another nine months.

Quick

You have to be quick to snap a picture of a squirming baby and a three year old in non-stop motion.  Of course that's the beauty of digital cameras. No wasted film and no waiting. One shot out of ten is a keeper. All the bad ones go in the delete bucket which makes you look like a pretty good photographer. I went for photorealism here and didn't Photoshop the drool away.  :-)

The family is headed back home today divided in two cars-- the old Taurus station wagon they came in and the Toyota 4-Runner they bought this week in Seattle.  It should be a great vehicle for mountain driving and their Methow Valley lifestyle.  

Visit to Nana and Grandpa

Maya says, hi from Seattle!

And Nova, too.

What a big girl...

And we love it when Grandpa holds us! 

;-)

Fly a kite?

AP Photo-Owen Humphreys

This spectacular wave photo was taken a few days ago on the northeast coast of England. My calendar of weird holidays says that February 8th is always Kite Flying Day.  There's no explanation why it would come in the middle of winter and in most parts of the country people sure won't be braving snow and cold to fly a kite.  East coast weather is about the only national news this morning, but around here things are pretty ho-hum.

The weather experts say we're in this boring weather pattern for the foreseeable future. If it was summer we would be sunny and hot instead of chilly and foggy.  The Big If. Anyway, mountain driving conditions are pretty good and we're looking forward to seeing Amanda, Tom and the kids this weekend.  Nova is getting over the flu and after a week of staying inside with a grumpy 3 year old, I think mom is ready to get to the big city.  As for Baby Maya, she has been remarkably healthy this winter.  I was just thinking that she's almost doubled her age since we saw her at Christmas!   We can't wait to see how much she's changed, and I'll have new pictures to post soon. 

The Patron Saint of Traffic

We live on this busy street corner, and for 30+ years have been used to background noise of screeching tires followed by loud bangs.  Followed by that awful silence. Accidents occur with monotonous regularity in front of our house. Drivers blissfully ignore the YIELD signs and sail merrily through the blind intersection without a care in the world.  That is, until they collide rudely with someone else.  All we can figure is, maybe people think a YIELD sign just means speed up and merge?

Anyway, neighbors have petitioned the city for years to install STOP signs here, but no luck. Perhaps there were finally too many wrecks, so imagine my surprise and delight watching the DOT worker put up a shiny new STOP sign yesterday. This is a very big deal.  Now we should actually be able to make a left turn and park in front of our house without mortal fear.  At least, with less fear. No one would be brazen enough to ignore a STOP sign, would they?

BTW, there really is an official patron saint for drivers and automobiles, and it isn't the guy in the white hat.  Her name was Saint Frances of Rome, a city infamous for some of the worst traffic in the world. In 1925 Pope Pius XI declared her the patron saint of automobile drivers because of a legend that an angel used to light the road in front of her with a lantern when she traveled, keeping her safe from hazards.

And here's the real Frances, showing how to keep your saintly cool in bad traffic.

Coffee mornings

My ankle seems to be getting better, except when it hurts.  Which is still most of the time. People tell me that's how the healing process works-- two steps forward and one step back.  Then one happy morning you just jump out of bed and don't even have to think about walking around pain-free.  "They" also say that slow healing teaches patience and humility and (hopefully) you never take ordinary things for granted again. Ha ha.

Speaking of jumping out of bed, the new mattress we bought last week is making that even harder.

 Sterns and Foster, Luxury, Firm, Euro Pillowtop

This is a bedroom at Sleep County USA and ours looks nothing like it, but a new mattress still makes you feel like the Queen of England. And I'll bet Elizabeth and Phillip don't share a bed this nice! The experience is like floating along on a very firm cloud.  After John goes to work, I lie there suspended in the dark for a while, drinking my coffee (which makes me cheerful) and considering what humans have been sleeping on since the beginning of the world-- mostly the ground-- or if they're lucky, a pile of grass and twigs.