Oh, to be in England ...

I have picked the first vases of white lilac.

Suddenly I notice wisteria drooping on the walls of enviable houses, ie not mine.

The bluebells came out when I must have been looking the other way.

A friend gave me a bunch of red parrot tulips from her garden - which would be on my desk. Except that is a precarious position for flowers.

There were violets on her lawn.

The Surrey hedgerows yesterday were bright with celandine and wood anemones and masses of cow parsley.

The year seems to be going very fast.

Yesterday we visited the Watts Gallery, I've never been there before. Not an artist I much care for - although I enjoyed seeing Miss Virginia Julian Dalrymple's green velvet gown displayed by her portrait. The gallery, however, is superb.

Here is a link for Mystica, who asked to see lilac. The scent is the smell of spring, Mystica, especially after rain when you smell the wet leaves. Around here, the white lilac has been out for a few days but the mauve-purply lilac needs a week or two longer. I remember one fabulous year when I enjoyed two lilac seasons, as I spent a few days in Sweden when it comes out in June, much later than ours. Every village there was drenched in it and the scent wafted on every breeze. More prosaically, I pick mine from a mass of bushes overhanging the railway line. This year they haven't cut them back and there's plenty in reach.