Spring Forward

It’s that time again down here in New Zealand – when we have to move the clocks forward an hour for Daylight Saving.  I must admit that when we woke up groggy eyed this morning and looked at the clock and saw it was 7.00am, I had a senior moment.  Was it now 6.00am, or 8.00am?  Robin soon put me right.  “Spring Forward and Fall Back”, he quoted. 

He took himself off to the Hot Rod Show today, so that he could drool over all the brightly painted and chromed cars.  He joined the throngs of thousands of people, all admiring the many cars on display.  There were all sorts of cars inside the hall and out on the grass, plus a number of drag racing cars some of which fired up their engines.  They were not in his price range at all, but he could dream, couldn’t he?  Here a couple which took his fancy.

A beautiful blue Camaro

Lime green Vandal Hotrod

Meanwhile, I was taking advantage of the lovely weather, pottering about with a few gardening chores.  We are not great gardeners, by any means, but I had a few plants to re-pot, and a couple of shrubs to trim (should I be trimming my lavender bushes – it’s too late now, I already have). 

There were some iris corms that were sprouting away all by themselves in a bucket, long overdue to be planted.  These irises have a bit of a history, as it turns out.  Quite some years ago we went with our SLG friends to New Plymouth to see the Rhododendron Festival where we visited all sorts of gardens.  Rex had purchased some irises and gave each household one each as a token of our trip.  Our iris was duly planted in our garden when we lived in Upper Hutt, and had a few flowers, but nothing spectacular.  When we moved to our new home, I dug up a few corms to take with me.  They went berserk, multiplying like crazy and taking over the garden in front of our new house.  They have been dug up again, split up, some have been given away to new homes, and I still have heaps left.  Guess the moral of the story is that our iris plants prefer Levin to Upper Hutt!

The iris corms were sprouting, and now finally planted

With the warmer weather arriving, the rhubarb plants have had a growth spurt too.  There is nothing better than rhubarb crumble for dessert, or stewed rhubarb with our breakfast cereal.

  The rhubarb patch

Roll on Summer – we say!