More grey!

A very funny article was in the Guardian newspaper the other week, poking fun at the pretensions of the interior design squad and the names that paint manufacturers come up with.

I laughed out loud at some of the paint can labels on the accompanying illustration. 'Deepest ennui' was my favourite. But I'm a fan of grey paint, we use clay paint on the old, uneven walls of our cottage, it's odour free, thick and creamy and covers well. I had a look at the colour card to see what our choice of grey is called - 'Eyebright'.  We've painted our study walls with it and from the state of the room I think it should be called, 'Dog's Dinner.' My friend Janet (a Liverpool Art School gal) is a real colour queen and gives her own names to various colours. One example is, 'knicker pink'!

Here's 'Eyebright' looking very restful in one of our bedrooms.

It's grey outside. The 'St Patrick's Day' daffodils beneath the fruit trees have yet to flower although St Patrick's Day has been and gone.

The frost has cracked some of the terracotta pots.

I've had to repot the auricles AGAIN because vine weevils have been munching away at the roots. All the pots were scrubbed clean and a fresh mix of soil used. I'm left with about a hundred plants but quite a few of my collection were beyond saving.

But in spite of the weather the garden is slowly coming to life.

There will soon be a picking of rhubarb

And my favourite camellia is flowering, a little scorched by the east wind, but still beautiful.

I picked a few blooms for the house.

And bought some roses from the shop for company.