A Birth-Day Out

Make the most of celebration days I think...
Get out early in the morning and breakfast somewhere you've never breakfasted before...

Like the Lyttleton Coffee Company. 
Walk by the seaside and marvel at

spring buds...

Check out some civic art and recall a literary hero at the same time...

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Mowgli, Just So, Puck, and more recently, Kipling's poetry on what it is to be torn between two countries, have coloured nearly all my years of reading. Here he sits at the end of Kipling St in Christchurch - a sculpture by Chris Reddington.

Eat more at some indulgent place like The Tannery - Christchurch's post Earthquake, boutique shopping destination... While you're there buy kid gloves, dried hops, an old Penguin book of 
D H Lawrence's short stories England My England.

Head home to the garden with your brand new birthday gloves and potter ... Today I planted peonies received from a friend earlier this week. 

Finish the day by giving your niece a belly dancing lesson. Don't forget to dance a bit yourself even at your age!

Five Years of Lady Mondegreen's Secret Garden

You'd be forgiven for thinking I am flagging: that after five years, original intentions for setting up this blog have fallen by the wayside, and I have lost interest. 

I've experienced major life altering events since 17th August 2010, and the idea of following the development of an old garden into a self sufficient source of income has certainly lost impetus. So has the intention to create a record of the restoration of a dilapidated historic home for eventual use towards a qualification in museum and archiving studies.  

The Skudder House now has a different story to tell though it is more one of bureaucratic bumbling than anything structural.

The budding daffodils that illustrated my very first post though, are a symbol of some kind of forward motion. I did move them, and this year after a couple of years of sulking from earthquake stress, they have bulked up and are a mass of buds by my back door! The increase of bulbs was a distant dream back in 2010.