Busy Days

And the wind upon its way whispered the boughs of May
And touched the nodding peony flowers to bid them waken
Siegfried Sassoon

 This particular peony is growing in my daughter's garden. Her peonies are in full flower. One of my bushes is the same, but there are more tightly curled buds on other bushes that I'm watching carefully. Peonies are such extravagant bloomers, opening slowly until all at once they show off their frilly layers. 

A few tulips still bloom, but most are looking rather bedraggled. I'm feeling a bit bedraggled myself lately - a combination of wanting to do more than I have time to do, the approaching last 6 weeks of school, not sleeping well, and a few odd events occurring.

I was informed of one odd event through my school e-mail one afternoon, asking the owner of a certain license plate number to contact the office. A student (one of my favourite students) had backed her vehicle into mine. She felt terrible. The damage is not serious, but I've taken the car in for estimates, delivered it to the shop, and am waiting to pick it up. The girl's parents chose to pay privately rather than through insurance, and that's complicated things a bit, too.
  

These days there isn't much time to be doing what I really long to do - work in my garden for long hours at a time or sew on a couple of projects I have. I'm fitting in bits of time here and there and the garden assures me that really, my efforts accomplish little, and it's quite happy to grow all on its own, as evidenced by the little figs forming. I planted a few vegetables and am waiting to put the more tender plants into the ground early next week. 

On Sunday, Mother's Day, we got together with the local families and grandkids for dinner. Mr. Four is sporting a painted Batman mask on his face - his mother does a great job of face painting. The girls' photos were taken on other days when they visited our place. I'm realizing how quickly these little ones grow and change and want to spend time with them now.

Tim's contribution to the dinner was to bring dessert. He offered to buy something, but I have been itching to try some new techniques, so I spent a happy Saturday morning puttering in the kitchen. Palmiers were first, easy because I used purchased puff pastry. Making my own puff pastry is a goal for another day. Earlier in the week I made shortbread mini tart shells and later filled them with orange curd and lemon curd. The chocolate brownies were from a favourite recipe, but the frosting is French Buttercream, made by adding a hot sugar syrup to egg yolks and then slowly beating in pieces of butter. I flavoured it with a strawberry puree. Oh how yummy it is! I picked rose petals from the no-name rose bush that is the first to bloom and sugared them for a decoration. Fussing in the kitchen made me happy, particularly because everything turned out reasonably well.

I'm feeling cheerier already, just for taking the time to write this post. Blogging is something that is falling off the radar, too, and I'm not posting, reading, or commenting nearly as much as I'd like to. Tis the season!

Time to do some stretching and head to bed. Things always look brighter in the morning.