pink and mauve wildflowers

I think we could safely say we're in late spring, or even early summer, so this passage about Russia in late spring 1910 is timely.

Never had nature been so flamboyant; its vibrant freshness was like a satin-lined jewel box containing a precious stone corroded from within by a black chancre. Copses of beech with silvery trunks and tender green foliage engulfed dilapidated manor houses with roofs collapsing on abandoned rooms and broken windows, shutters torn asunder. The wheat, which was just beginning to turn golden, intermingled with the tall grasses of the steppes and with pink and mauve wildflowers, undulating around half-rotted isbas that crumbled on the edge of the muddy pools below, above which loomed ancient willow trees whose branches dangled into the water, filled with brambles that no one bothered to prune.' Elisabeth Gille Mirador

pinkandmauve

I love the order and chaos of nature, and thinking about our garden even though it had  been neglected for at least one summer the roses still bloomed, the hydrangeas revealed, the apple tree blossomed and produced fruit nature keeps going it seems.. No matter what else is going on around.

riot of lilacs

I am desperate for warm spring to arrive, to be out in the garden. Even if it's not happening in real life, I can pretend it is in blog life, so the next few posts all have a spring flower theme.

'I can only remember the riot of lilacs that bloomed that spring in all the gardens, courtyards, and streets, and how they drove away the smell of winter.' Elisabeth Gille The Mirador

spring

What drives the smell of winter away for you?

tiny icicles chimed

'We celebrated the Russian New Year in Odessa. My grandmother, the sweet-natured Bella, had prepared a feast. We had an enormous meal preceded by zakuski - salmon, caviar, smoked sturgeon, salted cucumbers and pates of all types - washed down with vodka, followed by a series of dishes that combined traditional Russian Jewish cuisine with French and Russian recipes, from a pie made with carp to boiled chicken, accompanied by a series of wines, culminating in several bottles of champagne which we drank, as one should, so cold that tiny icicles chimed against the crystal glasses.' Elisabeth Gille The Mirador Dreamed memories of Irene Nemirovsky by her daughter.

champagne

Wishing you all a very happy new year x