spring in bloom

You remember those tulips from a few days ago? Here they are this afternoon... You can see that the colour has changed as well as their shape...


These tulips are now open-hearted, blowsy, good-time gals

 Interesting to see how a few days of sunshine has altered their appearance... now they're fading.  It happens to us all, there's no way to stop it. Recently, at the film QUARTET, one of my women friends wept at the end as the credits showed the actors as they'd been 40 or 50 years ago,their appearance very different from that  in the film itself (set in a "home" for retired musicians, it's a pretty sweet look at old age, really, and with Billy Connolly and Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay you're guaranteed a good time).

But maybe there need not be tears if we see the signs of aging as beautiful too -- a different kind of beauty, to be sure. My neighbour Dede and I agree today that a week ago the tulips had that "Audrey Hepburn look"... and now they're a bit more Simone Signoret.  I guess it depends how old you are which you might prefer...if either!

Speaking of tulips, I've just taken a couple of shots of magnolias, otherwise known as "tulip trees"... their season is nearly over too, but they're still mighty appealing to the eye.



 Am I right, that this is absolute perfection?

 And one last shot before I go... I have errands to do before tonight's book club meeting which is being held at my house this month. We're going to be discussing THREE JUNES,  by the American novelist Julia Glass... it's a richly rewarding read, even on the second time through, so I expect we'll have lots to talk about  this evening... After we finish our discussion -- usually an hour or so -- tradition holds that we finish with cake (it's out of the oven now and cooling, one of my favorite recipes from the old standby,  FOOD THAT REALLY SCHMECKS) and either tea or wine. So I'm off now to buy the latter at LE GRAND CHEMIN, a father&son vineyard a few kilometres away.  Ah, here is another type of magnolia...slightly more refined than the latter....



Notice the bamboo in the background? More on this later.....