Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts

Monday 11 May 2015

Blooming Interlude



As lovely as having a garden can be, they involve a great deal of work to keep them looking effortlessly beautiful.

Yesterday, sporting pink gardening gloves, I freed a small patch of its carpet of weeds. A weed which initially looked pretty, with shiny green, watercress-shaped leaves and tiny, fluorescent yellow flowers, but ended up with the whole garden in its grip.

After that, the next step was rejuvenation, as I removed the dead plants and filled the space with several, rather funky, red-tipped grasses called: Red Baron (Imperata cylindrca). Buster, my tom cat, helped—digging, peering into plant-ready holes and pouncing on earthworms, as they wriggled out of clods of earth.

But that wasn't the end of it, because once you start, something else will need attention. The vegetable plants and herbs that had been dominating the house for so long, were clamoring to be let out to play: courgettes and gerkins, aubergines and tomatoes, basil, coriander, cumin etc—they all received their wish—sunny spots in pots.

Today, with my coffee, I relax and admire the results of my labour, resigned to the accompanying aches and pains, from all that bending and crouching—right to my very fingertips. Although my efforts are but a scratch on the tip of an iceberg—the weeds have been warned!

Hmmm, what's that noise? I'm sure I can hear the sound of tiny, revving engines...










Photos by Alison Day


© Alison Day 

Tuesday 21 April 2015

Spring Delight




Cannoli, topped with candied orange peel, accompanied by cappuccino by Alison Day



Below our favourite coffee place: Spinnato, in Palermo, which dates back to 1860. A lovely place to sit for morning coffee, an aperitif or to while away an afternoon.
Alongside the news stand, with its giant yo-yo-like planters.










© Alison Day 

Saturday 21 March 2015

The Queue



Crocus queue by Alison Day


At last, the first day of Spring and there's already a queue in the garden ;)

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and coverBlossom by blossom the spring begins.    

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)
© Alison Day 











Friday 13 March 2015

Gold Springtime


Photo by Alison Day



I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
—William Wordsworth




© Alison Day 



Saturday 20 September 2014

Opposite Julia

Opposite Julia by Alison Day

On a city break to Rome in May this year, this was the view from our window at Hotel Julia.

#PaintingSeptember #Paintseptember

© Alison Day Designs

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Saturday 10 May 2014

On a Stick!




Here are a couple of photos I took of an Indian, street artist duo that I spotted on a Spring jaunt to Rome earlier this year together with my sister.

They had set up their act round the corner from the Pantheon. Both were meditating and amazingly whilst doing so, one was holding the other up in the air, ... on a stick! Needless to say they drew a lot of curiosity from passers-by.

So, what do you think and any ideas how they did it? ;)



Thursday 28 March 2013

Sign of the Times

Moving with the times, Connect International has decided to become more ecologically aware, by producing the Connections as a digital publication. 

With 10 issues per year we hope you enjoy the new format.

So, without any more ado, here's the April issue no. #39 and the first link: 









Illustration: Alison Day Designs

Tuesday 12 March 2013

Come Buy With Me



Spring will have definitely sprung...

Alison Day Designs) will be appearing at the Design Market: 11.00 - 17.00 Sunday 7 April on the Grote Markt, Groningen. Joining about 50-ish other stall holders offering their imaginative creations for sale.

So... if you happen to be in the area, why not drop by for a look, and who knows you may find something you just can't leave without!

Thursday 28 June 2012

Connections Spring


Current issue 2012 still available - Summer issue just back from the printers and coming to a place near you soon. Alternatively why not become a member and receive it quarterly in your mailbox?  Connect International