Our garden in March

There was an amazing sun shining through the haze this morning

and now it's another beautiful day.

The magnolia is producing more flowers each year as it matures.

Over the last few days the cherry tree in the neighbour's garden

 has looked more and more lovely as

the white flowers have opened up in the sunshine. 

The fruit blossom (pear and plum) has survived recent strong winds and frosty nights.

Mr P has started working on his small raised vegetable beds.

There's a lot of colour now in the flower beds and 

even the peony and oriental poppy plants are producing leaves.

I've seen more butterflies.  The top image is from our dinner mats which I use during

 the Spring and Summer seasons.

More mixed wallflowers and mauve aubretia in the front garden look colourful.

This and that on Thursday

On Monday afternoon I went to the book group meeting held in the library in the park. As usual it was an uplifting meeting as we discussed the last book that had been organised for us by the librarian leader and we talked about other books we had read and could recommend. The chat led on to recalling humorous incidents in our lives and we all had a good laugh. 

I do enjoy books, either fiction or non fiction that are set in rural communities of times past. They usually describe the realism of living in the countryside where life was not easy and farming was hard work without the labour saving domestic items and working machinery of today. 

I'm reading a novel by Melissa Harrison, All Among The Barley.  I've read another of her books  At Hawthorn Time and enjoyed it. 

The blurb on the dust jacket reads:-

The autumn of 1933 is the most beautiful Edie Mather can remember, although the Great War still casts its shadow over the fields and villages around her beloved home, Wych Farm.

Constance FitzAllen arrives from London to document fading rural traditions and beliefs.  For Edie, who must soon face the unsettling pressures of adulthood, the glamorous and worldly outsider appears to be a godsend.  But there is more to the older woman than meets the eye.

As harvest time approaches and pressures mount on the entire community, Edie must find a way to trust her instincts and save herself from disaster. 

I'm intrigued and want to know more about the mysterious Constance and what might happen to Edie which, I'm guessing, will depend on some important decisions that she makes. I haven't got far into the plot.  I'm just getting to know the characters in Edie's family and local community and I'm enjoying the descriptions of farming life and the countryside especially as there are two maps, one of the imaginary village and area and one of Wych Farm showing the names of the enclosed fields and farmland.  That's always a bonus to feed the imagination as I like studying maps.

Items on display at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading, Berkshire help inform me when I read books about country life.