Things that gain by being painted

Sei Shonagon lists  “Things that gain by being painted: Pines. Autumn fields. Mountain villages and paths. Cranes and deer. A cold winter scene; an unspeakably hot summer scene.”

For Elizabeth, my mother, it was leopards chasing a gazelle. A bicycle race in Italy. A courtyard. Peonies in bloom. Goats.

For years she wanted a show of her work. When she moved to the nursing home I invited her friends to come over and choose something from her work to remember her with. She had her show at last.

Planting spring bulbs

Fall is a most wonderful time and one gets quite excited about planting bulbs for spring. I have visions of my front lawn carpeted with bright blue scillia and early flowering crocus so this fall I ordered lots of bulbs to plant. It is most distressing when they arrive to realize you have ordered hundreds of tiny corms that need individual planting, one-by-one.

Seiko came up for the weekend and it took the two us at least the morning to dig the bulbs.

But what Sei Shonagon would call “things later regretted” is to go to the mail box a week later and find a box FULL of twenty five more bulbs to plant.

Come back later this spring and I’m sure the crocus, scillia, frittalaria, muscari, allium, chionodoxa and leucojum will all be found under her category of “things that make you feel cheerful”.