Spring is the best time

I'm with Monty Don when it comes to the best time of the year - for us, spring wins every time. He loves the greenness and I love the spring flower colours. The forsythia buds just beginning to burst and the yellow sunbursts of crocus and daffodils cheer up the grayest of days.  Tatties chitting and some even planted up in the bags we tried last year - a great way to crop if space is short. Still a wee bit too cold to sow the beans in the ground but planting them up in pots ready to go in is the next job on the garden list.  I did read that old gardeners dropped their trousers to test if the earth was warm enough but we don't go that far at Roslin Cottage. Neighbours and all that...
Across the road from the cottage purple crocus have been planted along side the daffodils and with the blue sky and sunshine what a lovely picture they make. We watched as the 'snow horse' melted off the top of 'the ben', or at least that is the shape we see from our side of Callander but it depends on where you are and how the imagination works, what you see as Ben Ledi loses her winter coat.  Yes, spring is round the corner, the best time in the Trossachs.

A new lease of life

The last coat of paint has dried, a beautiful mellow copper colour to bring out the earthy colours of the stones, carpet cleaned, furniture all back in place and our Kirtle room is now ready to receive the first guests due in this weekend.  Well, there was a slight panic as I hunted through the various duvets stored in the loft, yes, we have summer weight and winter quilts in single, double and somewhere in between, but could I find the superking needed, no, but that was because it had been put to the laundrette while we were doing the redecorating. Duh!   Retrieved and resplendent it now sets off the new colour scheme beautifully.  We hope you agree when we get the new photos taken for the website. Meantime here is one I took earlier.....
 Our new 'pet' is now in residence too, no worries, no allergies to fear, for this pet burns wood very efficiently.  We are converts to the warm delights of the wood burning stove - I am almost disappointed the summer is coming around so soon.  Well, almost....
Just as one job finishes, the next starts here at Roslin Cottage- over the last couple of days we have had really lovely spring weather so we got out in the garden.  We have had to make a few changes there as the winter storms tore off a branch from our old, very large and much loved cherry tree.  It was in danger of more branches coming down so we reluctantly had to have the whole tree cut leaving a stump of about four feet.  We talked over many ideas of what to do with it to keep it as a feature.  It was while we were on our own wee holiday to Madeira last November that we saw an idea to copy in the Botanical Gardens there (an island worth a visit).
There they had taken palm leaves, filled them with soil, planted them up with different plants and wired them round old tree stumps.  Very simple, very effective. Back home we have made our own version with old hanging baskets (never enough time to water them in the summer now anyway), moss and spring bulbs all now spiralling round our old cherry - a new lease of life!