Spring cleaning the garden!

Gales,wind,rain it does not exactly make me want to venture out yet and begin the big garden clear up but I have been in the greenhouse and sowed Sweet peas and dianthus, Gazinias, Lettuce ,Lobelia and French Marigold so at least I've made a start and it did feel good to get out there with the plants.
In the garden a few snowdrops are just coming into flower and the Crocus and Daffodils are in bud so will not be far behind.

Before its painting!

The muddy garden.

The Mill house

Old Lace

The front door pot

Lettuce and marigolds

Hello Mum!

Ginger

I have had the little Mill house statue for 30 odd years and it has probably lasted that long because every couple of years I bring it in and give it a complete clean and repaint . I quite like it all mossy and green but it soons gets like it again after the weather does it's work. It was made by a disabled son of of one of my neighbours back when we lived over on the Wirral in our first house .
Today the sun shines and the wind has dropped, such a difference from the wildness of yesterday, so I have just taken a walk with my camera around the garden . Over near the greenhouse I was looking at the pots of bulbs that I planted back in the autumn when Ginger appeared from his perch on the shed roof and came over to say hello. Before he could disappear I snapped him as well as the pots. He is getting on in years and likes a nice quiet life,  as when he appeared in our garden in 2001 he was at least 2 or 3 years old.
As you can see from the pictures the garden is a wet and muddy mess and yet in a few weeks the spring flowers will transform it all and the dreary winter days will seem a dull memory.
For the front door I put some spring bulbs in a large yellow pot , if I remember correctly the primula is called
Old Lace and I once grew a lot from seed and had them all over the garden.

The evenings have been spent knitting , I found a nice pattern for a  Cowl  and in a lovely soft shade of taupe in merino wool made one and then another in a grey from some wool I had lying around .