Having lived in Minnesota, a state that’s in the middle of the US and hangs from the Canadian border by clinging to an icicle, I suspect that what my neighbors in Cornwall call winter is really spring. Here are a few flowers that bloomed not in January (the headline’s a lie) but in December.
Primroses on a neighbor’s lawn
Camellia, ourside a differnt neighbor’s house
Periwinkle–ours. It’s a good thing it’s pretty, because it’s trying to take over the yard.
Wishing you good weather, wherever you are. Apologies for the not-quite-convincing post. I need a bit of down time.
Notes from the U.K. 
I’m sorry to hear that you’re a bit ennervated. Unlike flowers, it’s pretty common at this time of year and I don’t suppose the constant battering of wind and rain is helping.
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Confession: I stacked up several posts before the holidays and this was the one where I ran out of steam–and ran into some flowers on the neighbors’ lawn. By now, I’ve had my break and I’m back in action.
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Good news.
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Thanks, April.
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Glad to hear you are back in action even before I knew you were off recharging your batteries. Here on California’s Central Coast, flowers bloom all year but seeing your flower pics reminded me of when I lived just east of Sacramento (a reviled 27 yrs) and would visit my prior home in Santa Barbara. When I opened the car door, the air smelled perfumed. So wonderful. I also remember squishing around on Anne Hathaway’s lawn long ago, admiring all the little bulbs blooming in February. I’d never seen that since grass and flowers were strictly segregated in my giant useless lawns. One nice thing about being almost 80 is having so many memories to be pleasantly triggered. For me, another is having hope to make one more visit to your adopted land. On we go. Wishing you a happy, interesting 2024.
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Thanks. I hope 2024 isn’t too interesting. After the last few years, I feel like we could all stand to have things settle down now.
May many flowers bloom in your memory–as well as elsewhere.
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Apologies understood and accepted. I might…possibly….may get a blog post written tonight. Or tomorrow.
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Or next week. Or–well, it’ll happen. May the gods of the internet grace your keyboard.
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Morpheus might get in first!
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Fair enough. It’s never wise to offend ol’ Morphy.
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Flowers? In January? Although they’re beautiful, should we be worried about what’s happening to the planet? We had pink blossom on beech trees in December, which was quite unsettling.
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‘Fraid so, yes, we should be worried. But as a way to bring about change, refusing to see their beauty isn’t particularly useful.
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Sorry, that’s not what I was trying to say.
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My turn to apologize. I didn’t think you were. I went off on a tangent and–well, honestly, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about these comments, just let myself shoot off in whatever direction I happen to be pointed in. Sorry. That one took me into the swamps.
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The flowers are lovely. Here in Minnesota, the icicle melted. We’ve had only a couple inches of snow, mostly gone and I can see brown/green grass from my window. A week ago, lilac trees were budding, as were magnolia trees and several others that will get sucker-punched when/if it gets really cold. The older humanoids are happy because it’s easy walking but it’s a sign that SOMETHING IS WRONG. We’re fiddling while the place burns. On that cheery note, Happy New Year!
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I wonder if those knitters who like to yarn bomb places couldn’t make little jackets for the lilac and magnolia buds. The are going to have a hard time. You are, of course, right about the problem, but it’s hard not to feel these ridiculous bits of hope when it happens.
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Living in Michigan, I’ll take the flowers. Take care of yourself.
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Yup, separate icicle, same winters. Thanks for the good wishes, and wrap up warm.
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Glad your winter break refreshed you, as these pictures refreshed us. Plus had my kidney stones lasered to pieces and awoke from the anesthetic !
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Ouch! Those hurt. Glad you’re rid of it. You really know what to do with the holiday season.
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Beautiful flowers. It is summer in full swing here in Australia, full blooms and greenery all round. I guess we are the quite the opposite from winter for now. Hope you enjoyed your down time. Wishing you a wonderful year ahead.
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And you, Mabel. Although I have family in New Zealand, I still have trouble getting my head around the reality of half the globe living it summer while the other half slogs through winter.
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It does rather blow the mind. :D When I arrived here in July of 2014 it was something like 35C and 16 hours previously I’d been shivering in the snow of an Aussie winter. (I lived in the Blue Mountains where we actually did get a few skiffs of snow every so often in winter)
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Understood. It’s so easy to think that our experience of the world is everyone’s because, hey, it’s so immediate. I’m cold because the world is cold, right?
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Its been mild so far this winter – the next week I think will see a change in the north. Cornwall is famously mild!
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Mild and, in recent years at least, wet. Not to mention blowy. But I do love those signs of hope poking up out of the soil.
Wishing you a good new year, Emma.
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Yes snowdrops appearance seems miraculous. I am sure you will see them long before I do in the North.
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In fact, we just spotted the first ones yesterday, and the first daffodils today.
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Best wishes Ms Hawley, massel und broche.
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Many thanks, but it’s Ellen, please.
In a rare effort to understand what I’m actually doing here, I asked Lord Google to translate massel und broche into English for me. It told me it meant massel and broche. I must befluent in German, since I already understood the one word he changed.
May your new year be a good one.
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Lard Google is a [insert word of choice, please ; thanks.]. Massel is luck broche(s) is the mutilated baruch, so i wish you luck and blessings.
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Ah! Baruch I recognize from either Yiddish or Hebrew, neither of which I really know but I do have a handful of words I can use with relative accuracy. And massel, now that I think about it, sounds like a nice parallel to the Yiddish mazel. Many thanks, both for the translation and the good wishes.
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Trust you are suitably recharged, now.
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I’m back in action and as cantankerous as ever, thank you–ready to bite the new year in thoroughly unsuitable places.
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Perfect.
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You wouldn’t believe the mild winter we’re having. I’ve never seen anything like it. No snow? OK, that happens from time to time, But the December temps were crazy: 40s and 50s on/around Christmas. It’s divine for my work commute, but upsetting given the impending doom (actually, the doom appears to be here already) for Mother Earth.
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I didn’t know. A friend from Duluth wrote me a while back about snow and I think I fairly randomly decided that everything–or at least that one thing–had fallen back into place. Oh, the power of things we’d like to believe.
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Mine survived December but not January. It’s been pretty cold lately, and snowy.
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For as long as we’ve lived here, the first few flowers have started showing up in January. I feel like I’m getting away with murder, living here after Minnesota.
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Lol
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Super
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