First flower

A good day today with a fair bit of sunshine - a chilly breeze, but it is still February after all!
 
Spent a while fiddling with some minor jobs - sorting out cupboard door knobs with the new bolts I bought yesterday, and similarly mending a bird feeder. Why do they make bird seed dispensers with such fiddly nuts and bolts? I’m sure they could be fitted with plastic clips which would be easier to dismantle when they need to be cleaned!
 
I was determined to photograph the first flower on my Rhabdothamnus solandri before it faded or fell off! I grew these New Zealand native gesneriads from seed sent to me by a NZ nurseryman in August 2022 and by April 2023 I had 50 seedlings. I lost many of them for reasons unknown and when they were bigger I gave several away, including a couple to a Blip friend in the Isle of Wight, who managed to flower one in February last year! - https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/3200830480232482974 - beat me by a year! A conservatory in the Isle of Wight is obviously better than a bathroom windowsill in the west of Scotland!
 
I don’t really have a good lens for close-ups so this was taken with my 40mm lens and blown up. The flower is only 15mm across so I’m surprised it turned out so well. Unfortunately the flower is slightly misshapen for some reason! I grew this plant forty years ago in a hanging basket in the kitchen and the flowers were much larger - I wonder why?
 
Finished off the afternoon cleaning the bird box on the house wall. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it back on the hook so that’s a job for another day!
 
Quote of the Day: ‘Poor indeed is the garden in which birds find no homes.’ - Abram L. Urban.