Those darling buds of May

At the end of April I picked the first peonies from our garden. Beautiful, blowsy blooms greeting every passerby as they walked past our front garden. Heralding in, what I hope will be, a lovely May. Here they sit on a table in my living room enjoying the sun from the bay window.



And then on Friday along came May, perhaps one of my favourite months of the year. A month that is full of excitement, you can almost smell the hint of summer on the horizon, the garden bursts into life. In many ways this photos shows exactly what I love about May, the beautifully soft pink of the apple blossom against the green stems of the angelica and the wonderful angelica heads, perfect in their symmetry yet sitting somewhat higgledy piggledy in the corner of a blossoming flower bed and petal strewn lawn.



There is a sense that things are returning to their natural place,



Little Sister regains her favourite reading spot in the apple tree



and here by the sea the Brighton Festival begins.



Saturday morning bright and early we walked to an almost deserted seafront before the children's parade begins. A chance to savour the very short stillness of the place. Just a few moments later, the city is heaving with visitors, families, schools, samba bands as the children take centre stage and parade through the city to open the Festival.
For us it is always a chance to catch up with old friends. We've had a weekend of fresh air, walking and coming home with friends to eat and chat with them.



With very rosy (sunburnt) faces we drove over to here on Sunday. We met some friends and walked over the Downs, saw plenty of these



More of these than I've seen in a very long time




Walked tentatively through fields of these...



And spotted the reddest, handsomest fox going for a Sunday constitutional, we hope not in search of his lunch.



Picnicked on the cliff tops, took deep breaths and admired the view.



A lazy day at home yesterday, feeling tired but good. I looked over at the somewhat bleached peonies and



oh how they reminded me of those crepe paper decorations we used to have at Christmas when I was little, the ones we would put up in our classroom and watch them fade over the weeks - the rolls of crepe paper that you would still find in the local sweet shop months after the event, sitting tiredly in the corner sunbleached, colour fading and yet still tantalisingly attractive.



I want to thank you, yet again, for all the lovely, kind and supportive comments I've been getting recently, it has made a real difference. I am going to make a determined effort to get back into some kind of normal blogging routine and am so looking forward to visiting you all again. In the meantime, please pick one of my peonies to put beside your computer. the roses aren't yet blooming so I can't pass you a ragged rose to share, just yet...