Spring Preview

From Washington, DC the Chap and I travelled farther south to spend time with family and friends. And to admire the wonderful trees putting on a show during the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. We were in a city that boasts 300,000 Yoshino cherry trees, and they were at the peak of their bloom.



Another reason for being there was to dine on favourite Southern delicacies.



We visited the Music Hall of Fame. The R.E.M. display reminded us of our grad school days, when the boys played the local clubs.



Here are some props from the B-52's "Love Shack" video.



All around my friend's house are some outstanding camellia bushes--they were blooming, too.





One day we drove around the area in her convertible. Aren't we cool on a hot day? The temperature briefly spiked at 90 degrees!



We visited an English tea shop for lunch. The sandwiches are Coronation Chicken and Cucumber with Cream Cheese. Scrummy! The tea was Typhoo.



Another day we took a walk in my old neighbourhood. Here's a wall of wild wisteria growing in the woods.



I saw and spent quality time with so many loved ones on the entire trip--aunt & uncle, mother & father, brother, best girlfiend, best boy friend, best girlfriend's mom & dad & their lovely doggies.

The weather was uniformly wonderful in DC and GA. The floral displays south of Atlanta were truly breathtaking. Plants blooming included cherry trees, camellias, azaleas, dogwood, white and purple wisteria, forsythia, crabapple, tulips, iris, daffodils, pansies, and even a few precocious roses! Imagine my glee.

And imagine our dismay when we returned to NH this week in the midst of a snowstorm. That evening we drove clogged, unplowed roads in white-out conditions to collect Ruth and Jewel from the kennel. We got several inches overnight. The next day was super busy with meeting, out of town lunch, and so on.

There's still quite a bit of snow cover all round the Lodge. But enough of it has melted to leave a clear patch in the front garden, where a few snowdrops are blooming. It may not seem so, but spring is on her way to New Hampshire. We'll have to be patient a bit longer!