Another round of tulip photography

(click to enlarge)

It's been raining here now for over two weeks. Non-stop. This morning we've already had 24 mm and it's only 1pm now. We managed to get out in the garden a bit last weekend in between showers and Andre did a bit of photography indoors with the flash. I've got more seeds to plant outside and the lettuce is getting a little big for the pots their in in the greenhouse. Hopefully sometime soon I'll be able to get outside again if the rain stops for a bit.

It's been rather challenging at school too with the children not being able to get out much. We get out as much as we can, as in at least once a day. We have a wooden deck area which is undercover but it's been so windy last week that we weren't even able to get out onto the decking some days with the wind driving the rain in.

Last year April was really hot, very different to this year!

Garden progress

Not very much to show for the veggies yet as I said yesterday, but here are some so you can see what's happening in our green house and on the veggie plot.

On our way to water the seeds in the greenhouse
yesterday evening we spotted the first peas
peaking through the soil. Finally!

Not the best photo, but this is what the greenhouse looks
like at the moment.

Sweet peas

Lettuce

I played around a bit with my camera this morning and was quite pleasantly surprised at what I got. This was while Andre was busy taking more photos of the tulips which I'll show you later.

Tulips

Andre took these photos of the tulips in our garden. They've been lasting quite a few weeks in the garden now. I think it's because it's been rather cold again. We even had some frost this week. But that also means that the seeds planted in the greenhouse are growing terribly slow. I planted some seeds at the same time at school which we had in trays inside in the window where it was nice and warm. We've had to plant those out this week already as they have gotten too big for the trays. Nothing to plant out here at home yet... I'm hoping for some warm sunshine soon to give them a boost.

Friday afternoon visitor

Came home just now, opened the back door, sat down at my computer and in strolls our part-time cat. We haven't seen that much of him (her?) over the winter. Now that it's warming up outside and we've got the doors open more often he comes to say hello every once in a while. Still just as at home as he was the first day we moved in here as you can see!

Underwater photography

Swanage

I told you a few posts back that Andre started his underwater photography specialisation. Saturday he did his ocean dives at Swanage. The photographer he did the course with is Keith Lyall. Have a look at his website for some really great underwater photos. Also see his partner, Jo's, underwater videos on her website. They inspired us both to do more underwater photography and video.

Andre with the camera- photo by Keith Lyall

We got up at 3.15am. I packed yoghurt and muesli for breakfast and made sandwiches for lunch. We left home at 4am. It's a two hour drive if you leave this early, any later in the day it will take longer with traffic and even longer if you have to wait for the ferry. We went the long way round as the ferry doesn't wake up as early as we do and we anyway prefer to keep driving rather than sitting in a queue waiting to get on the ferry. We did it once before here.

Swanage

We arrived at Swanage pier at 6am and ate our breakfast while waiting for the gates to the pier to open at 7am. There were already about 5 cars waiting in line ahead of us. There's only limited parking spaces available on the pier and it fills up quickly. It helps the guys to not have to drag all their heavy diving gear too far and it's nice for me to be able to sit in the car while they get ready and are in the water. It was freezing cold early in the morning so I was very happy to have a warm car to stay in! The sun did come out at times during the day and it warmed up a bit, but still far from bikini weather!

Ready for their first dive. Drysuits against
the cold water.

Their first dive was off the pier. This next picture was taken from where the car was parked and those steps you see is where they enter the water so I could really watch them from the car.

Swanage pier

For the second dive they took a boat out to a nearby wreck. Best to click on the first picture which will enlarge it and then keep clicking to see them all better. To return to the blog click outside the picture on the black section or click the X in the top right corner. I've added a few of the photos Andre took below during the two dives.

Loading dive gear onto the boat to go to the
wreck site.

A tompot blenny

sea anemone

Part of the wreck, the Fleur de Lys

Nudibranch eggs

scorpion fish

The Vegetable Plot

We started planting the veggie seeds last weekend.

We planted chillies, peppers, tomatoes, some left over squash seeds from last year, our favorite herbs: coriander and basil, I think some parsley too, lettuce and peas. The peas are the only seeds currently planted outside in the veggie garden. The rest are all in pots in the greenhouse. We also still have chives and mint which survived the winter outside.

We also planted some sweat pea seeds as they did so well last year. And some flower seeds in a hanging basket, not yet hanging but on the floor of the green house. Oh and sunflower seeds. I think that's it!

Our part-time cat watched us from the top of the back shed.
( click to enlarge- his eyes are open just enough to watch me!)

My orchid has started flowering again. Since arriving in the UK it has not been well. I guess being in a dark box in the back of a cold truck must have been quite a shock. I didn't think it would recover, but two years later and all of a sudden it's got new leaves and lots of large flowers.

The plum trees are blossoming and looks spectacular! It appeared overnight last week. The weather has been fantastic for over a week now and some days were really hot. The pear trees are also starting to blossom with some leaves forming on the big apple tree too.

Today, a week after planting the seeds, some are starting to show above the soil. The lettuce were the first and a few of the flowers now too.

I have also repotted some daisies and Andre is working on sorting out the lawn to get it nice and green and moss free.