Tulip

Thanks for all your good wishes for my kennel cough yesterday! After a better night, I felt much improved this morning, so I downed a gramme of vitamin C and took myself off into the garden for some fresh air.

I cleared and edged a connecting section between two beds to create a flow around that part of the garden; planted a foxglove to replace the little hebe that died over the winter (a triumph of hope over experience, because I've never yet persuaded a foxglove to survive for more than a few months in this garden); and top-dressed some pots. Meanwhile CH mowed three of the four grassy areas we ironically refer to as lawns, which kept him out of mischief for a couple of hours.

After all that virtuous activity we decided some self-indulgence was in order, and went out for dinner. And now I'm pooped! So I'm away to my bed, with apologies yet again for being a poor blip-mate - I never seem to get beyond the first two pages of the journals I'm following at the moment, so whether or not you're one of the people I'm caught up with depends on you having posted fairly near to the time when I do my browsing. It might be heresy, but I could do with a couple of rainy days pretty soon - the garden needs the water, and I need some blip catch-up time!

This madly exuberant tulip will have to remain anonymous, because it didn't make it onto my planting record - I bought half a dozen bulbs last autumn but then lost them, and by the time they turned up again it was very late to be planting them at all; so I just threw them in a pot and hoped for the best. After that poor start they then had to suffer regular disinterment by squirrels, which may be intelligent but apparently can't remember from one week to the next whether they like the taste of tulip - so really, it's a small miracle that they're now flowering so enthusiastically.

My alternative shot would have been this one of the blossom on the crab apple tree, Malus 'Red Obelisk', that I planted last year. Either would have worked, I think, as as contribution to BikerBear's challenge Flower Friday - but for its cheerful refusal to be deterred from thriving, it had to be the tulip today.

Oh - just remembered: this was shot with the 13mm extension tube on the 50mm prime. Night, peeps!