Easter breake activities

Norway in on Easter breake. I have six days off! Lovely. And it is spring. Almost all snow is gone. The important parts at least, just a few big heaps left in shadows here and there.

I have ventured into a more adventurous balcony gardening this year, having had different seeds in my refrigerator for three months. Stratifying, it is called. So far... not a lot of result. Except this one:) It's Jacaranda! Yup, I am growing trees on my balcony. In a country where it would not survive outside in the winter time. But it is worth a try:)
I went to IKEA the other day, for something completely different, but I saw these beautiful boxes. Have to love IKEA:)

They are perfect for these:

These are from this not-quite-finished flimsy.

It's been bothering me for a while. I just did not like the big ones when I put them all together. So I am redoing them into 'normal' grandma's garden. Each one gives me three flowers. I have lots more fabric to use, too. I have so much left-over Japanese fabric, I need to use them for something:) This one will eventually be a wedding anniversary gift, but hush-hush for now.

In my garden

Well, garden and garden - on my balcony. I have flowers! It has been raining for a while now and I needed to see that we do have sun now and then in this country, too. I took these a week ago.
I love the colourspectres on these flowers.

This plant is so dark blue it looks like velvet!

And again my African Lilly is flowering! Seeds taken from my aunts garden in Nairobi, Kenya. It transferred pretty well:) It takes forever! to bloom, though. It is about six weeks since the bud came out. And it still has a way to go before it comes into full bloom.

Abundance

I have been cleaning out my camera so that I have an empty card to fill on my weekend trip coming up (watch this spot next week:)) when I found these two incredibly beautiful flowers. I remember taking the picture at the garden of a famous Nobel author of Sweden, Selma Lagerlöf.
These were all over her garden. I am infatuated by the fullness of the flowers. You would think there would not be room for that many petals on one flower!

This one had less petals, but the bee almost drowned in it anyway. He was literally drunk when he tried to lift off:)

Childhood gardens

I wish I could say I grew up in a place like this:). It was, however, one of our summer trips as children. It took about three hours to get there, so we had to get up early in the morning. Ugh. But the garden was worth it. I loved the statues, as I showed in the previous blog, but there were lots of other stuff to see there, too.
The mansion with the mirror lake.

The pagoda. Don't you just love the way she 'languishes' in the pool.

And then the waterfalls..

The flowers...

Take a trip down the lane and see

Love the red!

Heavenly blue.

I was too early for the roses, unfortunately. I might go again:) It has been too hot to quilt now for days! I miss it.

Cast in bronze

I love statues. The old fashioned 'what you see is what you get' kind of statues. I went to a Swedish garden yesterday, filled with flowers, trees, mansions and! yep! statues. Just look at them!

Look at that little baby and the look in her face.

How they can make something so wonderfully peaceful and poignant with so few lines. I love cats in any shape and colour:)

And the smile on this little one.

Beautiful little girl playing with water:)
And this one - when I first saw it there, placed under a wheeping willow, I was sure it was called Grieving or something. However, it is called 'After the day's work'. Can't you just feel her exhaustion? She is just sitting there, with the last sheaf of wheat still in her hand. Wonderful, and sad, in its own way.

Tomorrow - flowers! And maybe a mansion... we shall see.