Cosmic Day

Quite a day today, Vernal Equinox and a solar eclipse!

Here at Misty Cottage it was, of course, misty for the eclipse which turned out to be perfect for safe viewing. My husband showed the anorak side of his nature by setting up my Dad's telescope to project an image of the eclipse onto a piece of paper. Periodically he would attempt to draw around the image to show the progress of the eclipse across the page but his plan was flawed as everytime he put the pencil to the paper his hand obscured the projected image! So pretty unsuccessful but very entertaining for onlookers (me).

I managed to get a few images from my little camera which I will share with you. I have to say that the atmosphere was quite eerie as the shadow of the moon passed across the sun. The birds became quiet, the air cooled and I was very glad to be in the 21^st century and in full possession of the facts rather than at some time in history worrying about what was eating the sun.

Spring has arrived in the Misty Cottage garden as evidenced by the buds and flowers appearing all over the place. I am very excited about this little bud.

This is evidence that we are going to have delicious silvenberries later in the year. Silvenberries are like a large version of a cross between a blackberry and raspberry, the plants are extremely vigorous and fruit heavily. We put this plant in as a tiny cutting last spring so this should be our first year with a harvest from it – fingers crossed!

This is a flowering currant. I love this plant, it looks like a blackcurrant bush but instead of currants in summer, it has lovely pink blossom in spring. It is really pretty out in the garden but if you cut it and bring it inside I'm afraid it smells a bit too much like cat pee for my liking.

 Periwinkles are close to my heart as they are one source of the name of the Steiner Parent and Child group I helped to get started just over a decade ago now.

This coming week I will enjoy the fact that it is light when my alarm sounds at 6.45am. Once the clocks change next weekend I might be back to getting up in the dark for a little while which is always a struggle.