Don’t tell me they weren’t lured by this fine upstanding figure of a frog. How could they resist? His romantic antecedents made it a dead cert. He has since cast off his potent mix of primulas, snowdrops, croakus, lungwort and daff, in exchange for a candle, which he holds aloft day and night, to be a beacon to all amorous amphibians everywhere. Like a small but stalwart Statue of Ribbity, he stands erect in Big Window, a tiny twinkly light of hope in a murky world.

Let your starry flame glow in the depths of Night, Señor Froggy. We salute you!

Ohforgoodnessake, here’s the slide show if you want to see what the pulchritudinous fornicators are up to.  Should you feel the need, there are a great many more on my photostream…the link for which cornucopia appears in BlogRoll.

Mad March Frogs

Right. Me and marmers, I have to report, are, as I type, languishing in Big Cage. Our servants are doing a runner to Inversneckie for a couple of days. Goodness knows what for! We don’t care anyway, our Auntie Janice loves us and, in return, we amuse her by taking turns to pose on our shared scratching-post. Like the noble purreditors that we are…

I trust you not to take advantage of our absence to post ribaldry and other unsuitable stuff . This is a respectable blog.

The Harem has omitted to turn up, pop along, show willing. Or, indeed, anything.

Poor lonely King Crrroakticus. He pulled out all the stops - see how he dolled himself up and decked himself out in all his vernal finery for the 2009 lovelies of Frogdom; see the cornucopia of Spring flowers he garnered from all corners of Rolling Acres, in order to entice the huggable, fruggable females into his weedy fronds of froggy fornication.

His refulgent throat is stilled; his lerv-croak quieted, his lusts suspended willy-nilly. Here he stands, solitary and dismayed, his floral gifts wilted, forlorn, deliquescing.

“When oh when” (which sounds much like “ribit-ribit-ribit” to our ears, but trust me, I’m a cat with a babelfish in my furry lug) “When oh when will my concubines of congress come?”

Answer came there none…

One minute, in a semi-snoozing snuggly daze, you’re listening to some whingeing pom making an erronious and undeserved complaint against a very hard-working local charity, which helps the finest, grandest and most gorgeous creatures on Darwin’s Earth: the next, in the Daily Community Diary, a voice tells you to hie thee down to the Hope because the snowdrops in the Marengo Garden are in their full glory. Swings and roundabouts egad!

So hie us we did, for the first visit of 2009, to a favourite quiet place, lovingly tended by a small band of hardy Hope gardeners. 

In its naissance, the garden was created under the auspices of a certain telly programme. A little bird on the ground tells us that, of the several hundred pounds’ worth of plant material put in by the presenters (or their minions), little survives. Fortunately, the initial enthusiasm did, and a year-round succession of hardy plants makes this ’secret garden’ worth several visits through the seasons. 

 frou-frou frillies 

frou-frou frillies

pirouette

corps de ballet

en pantelettes

china belles

mootie shells

bow and courtesy

set to set

the hares were dancing by the light of the full moon out West

***Cliquez Ici, comme ils disent en Français***

EffCee’s Snowy Frolics

I quite like this weather, now we have got our own winter wonderland at last. M’Marmalade Chum was not so sure and stayed put under a bench while I boldly went…

First, I took fpu and digicam around by Holly Tree (not to be confused with Fred’s Holly, she’s a babybiped). The snow was pristine and not deep enough to engender a Ministry of Funny Walks scenario, thank goodness. I’m not a fan of up-to-the-oxters snow.

Then we went for a wee walk on Frozen Pond 2, but there was nothing of interest there, so I did a bit of cute pouncing and digging before strolling over to Pond 1, where the pressure cooker of boiling water had made a hole for us Mighty Hunters to drink from (I think its for the birdies to bathe in too, lots of clawprints there. Unfortunately, nae burdies).

I tried a bit of froggie-location in the nooks and crannies, but no luck. They’re a bit like Marmers when it comes to enjoying our ‘winter effing wonderland’ (as described by Our Correspondent Doon Sooth ) and are no doubt lurking in cosy corners awaiting suitable houghmagandie weather. 

It pains me to admit this, but two days ago, when the ice was treacherously unthick on Pond 2, I insisted on walking thereon, rapidly ending up making like the polar bear on the Beeb. I was Not Amused and even less so at being hauled out by my furry scruff, carried willy-nilly into the Sunroom of Eternity and roughly towelled, with no concessions whatsoever made to Kitty Dignity. “You wouldn’t do that to a polar bear” I muttered sotto voce…

The good news is, fpu having taken digicam out earlier (when I was nowhere to be seen) had abandoned same in Anorak Towers - therefore, there is no photographic record of this sorry incident. And glad I am about it too! My lovely fluffy tale was bedrookit, as was my whole rear end, and to have had my distress made public for all and sundry to mock at would have been just Going Too Far!

Mpu has been out taking photos this morning, so I’m away to download them into iPhoto. Or is it onto…oh do I care! I don’t know about you, but this computerised world is still often a mystery to me.

Flying Shed Nursery

Remember the thirteenth? Reet graidly it were, (’Scuse me a moment, I inadvertantly fell into a Bill Sowerbutts) a lovely lovely day. Sun from dawn to dusk, balmy air, no wind to speak of - and believe me, if there is, we do.

Inspired and energised, fpu donned scruffy Red Cross gardening clothes (you might be hard pressed to notice any difference), hung the Flying Shed Key around her neck, grabbed a purrticularly nice Chrimble Present from the Sunroom of Eternity and headed off out with a merry “Hi-ho!”

A couple of hours happy pottering later, the nursery area had been stripped, recovered, re-arranged and titivated and the CP from the SoE filled with small tools. Purrfect.

Yesterday the wind got up and it has been a yowling gale ever since. Me and Marmers have been popping in and out to see what hasn’t blown away, but the Head Gardener doesn’t want to look…

Still, Gardening Day 1 in January - not bad. Day 2 might end up being in February!