Mon préféré le Français M. Pierre de Ronsard

Ah oui! My favourite Frenchman Monsieur Pierre de Ronsard.

The view from my back door.

This rose reminds me of a candy we have here called cocoanut ice, always homemade and sickly sweet but redolent of warm kitchens and motherly love. Before we became so clever  and aware, mothers would make this to be sold on 'sweet stalls' to raise money for their child's school along with the toffee that has pulled many a six year old tooth from it's roots! Now I prefer to have my sweets as 'eye candy' so I fill the garden with shamelessly romantic plants. Not for me the rigid lines and clumps of decorative grasses beloved of garden designers nowadays, our garden is high maintenance all the way and I love it.

This huge Hippeastrum is currently taking pride of place on our verandah where I can admire it as I eat 'al fresco'.

On the merry-go-round

Wake up, use the machine to  'cough assist', two nebulizers, two puffers, two nasal sprays ,change the intravenous bottle, check emails, laugh hysterically, ponder the meaning of life, decide it is perhaps worthwhile, start all over again.
In between treatments I am trying to do something productive but the garden seduces me and I find myself wasting hours just staring at the new greenery and peering into the flowers, kind of floral navel gazing!

The etegami community is busy working on New Years cards featuring the Year of the dragon.
Not being horoscopically minded but floriferously minded, I harked back to when as children we pinched the flowers of "Snapdragons" to open their mouths to make them roar.

I really love seeing what everyone else is trying out and I want to have a few more tries before the end of the year.

 This one features the Louisiana Iris that are growing in my pond. They come out in a huge flush of flowers lasting just a couple of weeks so I had the Prof bring me in some to the hospital to draw. I have always been intrigued by Iris who was a Greek goddess represented by the rainbow. Surely if there is a connection between heaven and earth it would be via a rainbow.

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig!

I'm a happy little pig being back home in the bosom of my family (himself, the insecure dog and the geriatric dog) and enjoying the splendiferous verandancy of my garden.
I did not escape completely unscathed,  still on IV antibiotics for a further week to completely route the bugs and get me back to what passes for normal 'round here.
Only a couple of etegami done while I was away shall post tomorrow!

Fast forward......a flock of cranes.

Just a note of record, my last post was about being home from hospital, well, that didn't last long, I am back in as of last Saturday.
Seems I picked up another hospital acquired infection in my ratty lungs while I was here before. Not something that bothers the general population but boy it is bothering me!
Consequently, not much happening on the creative front though I do continue on with my origami crane project. For the last several hundred hospital admissions I have been using my dinner menu printouts to make cranes. These are now numbering in their  hundreds and are destined to accompany me to Valhalla on my final journey.  (I gave up on the 'thousand cranes will cure you' thing a long time ago).
It is almost becoming like OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and any bit of white paper that comes under my hands becomes a crane. A friend explained that it is only OCD if you dread bad consequences if you don't do something. DUH! I figure that while I am making the cranes I am still here.....death does seem like a bad consequence to me.
I over dramatize, my doctor is upbeat as usual, that man laughs at death (his day will come), just longing to get back to my green oasis at home and enjoy what is left of the Spring weather.