Finding Smiles In The Garden...

Hi Honeys
I've spent most of this week looking for a reason to smile and maybe find a way to stop crying and I know for sure I'm not alone.  I can't bear to switch on the TV or to read the news.  Something terrible happened in Manchester this week and it's sent a shock wave through the entire country.

When terrible things like this happen, when good people, when innocent children, are hurt and killed deliberately, it's inconceivable.  How can this happen?  First there is shock, then I think our brain tries to make sense of it, but there's no sense to be made honeys.

I've been crying off and on all this week.  I've found myself crying while doing the dishes, while sitting with our furbaby on the sofa, while pegging out laundry on the line, even while doing nothing at all.

As I so often do when I'm finding it difficult to cope I headed out into out garden in search of a smile. I'm not sure it's really helped to be honest honeys but I did take some photos and thought I'd share in the hope that maybe they'd make you smile.



Do you remember those little miniature roses, a gift from a dear friend at Christmas, well they're still blooming...

In the above photo they're sitting in front of our blueberry shrub which is enjoying the recent sunny weather and growing well too.  It looks as if there will be another great crop of blueberries again this year.

The little miniature roses really are growing well, so much so that I've moved them outside into the garden so they can soak up the sunshine...

They've been growing happily on the kitchen window ledge  but ever since I put them outside they really have had a growth shoot.  There are now so many roses, and still so many tiny rosebuds yet to bloom....

For such a tiny plant, as it was at Christmas, the roses have grown so rapidly, and in such numbers, and aren't they just beautiful honeys?

I really do think they've grown so well because of the combination of warm, sunny weather we've been enjoying these past weeks and, of course, the good Scottish rain too.  They're enjoying being outside I think.

The miniature roses of course aren't the only flowers to have benefited from the weather.  In spite of the earlier calamity recently, our beloved peonies have been soaking in all that lovely sunshine and rain too...
 

So much so that they now look like this...

I do adore seeing these peonies in bloom.  Every year they appear and every year they make me smile.  Having lost one rosebud to a hungry squirrel (bless the wee soul!) this year I am left with six beautiful perfect peonies.  I do feel blessed and I'm so grateful for them.

This week has made me think honeys.  I was told from an early age to count my blessings.  That I should, every single day, always take a minute or two before jumping out of bed to start my day, to look around me.  If I had a safe roof above my head, a bed to sleep in, and food in the kitchen I was luckier than around a third of the world and that I should take a minute to say thank you to my angels for looking after me because for sure they were.

I would add to that list of blessings our loved ones.  Family and friends and furbabies who are always there for us. Today honeys, why not tell loved ones how much they mean to you? Hug someone you care about, just because?

Have a wonderful weekend dear ones, do something fun, smile lots and hug even more.  Huggles always xx