Race week!

 

It was May Races at Chester last week, a time of year that holds lots of fond memories for me, and now holds a marker in our garden calendar.

I remember as a child looking forward to my dad taking me to the fair when it came to town. It would always arrive arround the first week of May, it would stay for about a fortnight. On our arrival there, I would make a beeline for the Waltzers, one of my favourite rides, and scream to go faster after each spin! I can almost smell my treat of the giant pink fuzz of candy floss, that was as big as my head! After several other rides, we would end with playing ‘Hook a Duck’ and winning a goldfish that ended up with fish from previous years in my dads front pond.                       You could almost guarantee beautiful sunny weather on the second week into May, which was perfect to watch the horse racing.

Ten years on when I was working in the city of Chester, and training to become a hairdresser, the world became a bigger place and a day at the Chester Races was the thing to do and the place to be. It was such a fun time, women would come to the salon to have their hair put up and the whole of Chester city would become a buzzing place to be with a mixture of people all out basking in the glorious weather and enjoying their winnings.
Nowdays, family life takes over and I no longer work in a hair salon. We have focused on expanding into the walled garden. Not much time to be socialising and cheering on horses!  The beginning of May feels like the pace of the growing season is accelerating like a race horse! with me hoping to be on top of the weeding! Thankfully this year I am, only just, partly due to the lack of rain.

Here’s what’s ‘racing’ away in the garden now..

Cistus landanifer

Geum ‘Mrs Bradshaw’

Cirsium ( with a bee feeding)

Syringa vulgaris ‘Souvenir de Louis Spaeth’

Geranium ‘Bill Wallis’

Bluebell

The Aquilegias are also flowering their socks off! As some have been inherited or self seeded, I won’t try and give exact names.

 

I could put a large bet on some of the Foxgloves opening their flowers next week..

And finally.. Here is a little peek at Toms progress with the cobbling.

Just to explain the slate cross division.. This symbolises the compass points, where the blue trug sits is pointing due North. I am standing by the back door, which indicates this whole space is a fantastic sun trap!

I hope we have some rain due soon..

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead x