Beautiful blooms

I can't believe I haven't posted since August. What have I been doing? I do seem to have been busy - getting the garden ready for spring/summer planting and getting some vegetables in, finishing entries for our Festival of Quilts in 10 days, 'acting up' at work while the boss was on leave, making some interesting family history finds and I can't think what else. I shall try and make amends and write a few posts to fill in, over the next few days.

You may have noticed that I like colour and flowers. I was very pleased with my first flush of roses. I only have 10 bushes and the blooms were huge and splendid. Perhaps it was that I gave them more fertiliser this year, or the fact that it was horse manure...

These are Peace and Mr Lincoln. I still have a lot to learn about roses though - we get a reasonable second flush later in the season, but don't seem to get the continual flowering that many of the gardens round about seem to have. Perhaps I need more bushes!
I put in some sweet peas and have had a better result than my previous attempts.

Apart from loving the fragrance of them, sweet peas have special memories for me from my childhood. My father was a Freemason, and the annual installation ceremony and ball for the new Master was held in early spring. The wives decorated the Town Hall for the occasion and the new Master's wife planned the decor/theme. The sweet peas had to be planted about February to be 'ready for the ball' - there seemed to be a bit of one-upmanship for the lady who got it right each year!

A couple of other memories from these balls back in the 60s and 70s, are us kids going along for a while to sit in the balcony and watch the dancing, until someone took all the kids home. They began with a Grand March which filled the floor and was usually led by Dad - from pairs, to fours, eights and sixteeens, into a snail and through the arches before waltzing at the end. The colour and movement of the gowns and the way all the dancers moved in unison was magical to watch - so unlike a jittery, jumpy dance floor these days. The ladies 'made it' if their dress was written up in the local newspaper, and the biggest nightmare was to have gone to Adelaide and bought a dress and find that someone else had bought the same one! That didn't happen to Mum as she made her own. Mum and Dad loved to dance, and went to balls in many towns round about, going as far as 90 miles, driving there and back the same night.

Well that has been a little bit of history, not what I have been up to in the last few weeks. I will get back to that soon.