Lemon a day

Size 9.5inx7in 25cmx18cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper

This is rather botanical in that there is just the plant in the image, I really liked the way it had got all stiff and awkward as seed pods grew, the blue flowers at the top of the stem are sterile so form no seeds.

Almost forty days , that does feel like a bit of a milestone, I know looking at the web some people do not make it beyond ten days. However there people who have been going for three years or more and that is truly impressive.

Today we went to see a garden in Surrey not too far away. It was lovely but for us lacked that inspirational buzz. I mean it made me think, “Oh yes I will need to get some lily of the valley for the shady area”, but I already knew about lily of the valley since childhood. Also sadly the cakes were minimal, no mad gestures just neat chocolate cake which looked the part but did not taste it and spray cream on the scones, ah well, efficient but soulless.

It is extraordinarily cold and windy; in fact as we walked through woodland to the entrance we heard and saw a tree crack and fall in the wind. A large piece of hawthorn literally crashed to the ground; if we had been underneath we would have had a second to get clear.

I found some new survivors of the winter a pretty dahlia that survived in the shelter of the porch with the fuchsias. There are loads of shoots coming up so I may propagate it to have more for the summer. It is a deep rich red with dark leaves and about twelve inches high. Last year it was in a pot with deep violet petunias and the scarlet fuchsia Thalia, the pot was lovely for almost all the summer.

Visited the allotment this afternoon where we found weed mayhem in most of it apart from the fruit cage the broad bean bed and the carrot enclosure; I still managed to come back with a bag crammed with leaf beet, rhubarb, and distorted asparagus fit only for soup. Too many slugs and himself too soft hearted to kill them.

Alison

#39 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog