Lemon a day

size 6 in x7 in 15cm x 17.5cm pencil on cartridge paper

So today I had some old friends to visit, they had had a hot journey and so we all sat in the shade and had some cooling drinks, a bit of lunch and so on. We went round the garden and I explained what we had done to the house in the big building project from which we are emerging. It made a real change to spend time in the garden looking at it and enjoying the bird song…well thrush song mainly. There is a thrush who has a very distinctive song and he is trotting it out over and over from several different perches very loudly. I have begun to wonder if he has lost his mate as I did find quite a few thrush feathers in the back a few days ago. They have reared one brood already so I would have expected them to be busy with the next brood like the blackbirds by the front door.

No1 son had his last GCSE and all he has to do now is find a lost library book and find his Geography teacher to hand back the textbook. This is such a relief for me but the joy has not made it to his facial muscles yet.

We picked four pounds five ounces of strawberries. This has never happened before the crop is phenomenal even the leaves are lush and tall. I think the thing that has made the difference is the black fabric weed suppressant, it must be drawing moisture up from underground, in the winter there is often standing water on the plot and the old chaps say there are springs there.

The redcurrants are ripening by the day too, closely followed by the blackcurrants.

At two days after the date to stop picking the asparagus the biggest and most tempting spears have emerged.

Today there is no painting but I have sketched the Allium bulgaricum which has been changing shape since I painted it. I am sure it must be the inspiration to an Art Nouveau motif that I have seen somewhere.

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