The Hawthorn is in Blossom

Sometimes the most ordinary days become extraordinary. Yesterday was such a day. The forecast got it completely wrong and we were gifted a beautiful, sunny day that became better and better as it went on. During the drizzle early on I managed to finish hand quilting the big quilt that I had worked on since what seemed forever (but was in fact only the 12th April!) and that felt like a weight of my shoulders (till I start beading it) so once the sun came out I took that as a sign to abandon all further efforts at work and took the day off for fun. The hawthorn has been flowering in nearby lanes for some time but now the blossom has started to appear near our high and exposed position too.

There are hawthorn bushes and trees all around such as the one above along the old railway line. As I took all the pictures yesterday I had to return today to take my blip (I blipped an amaryllis very early yesterday) and the picture at the top of this post is today's view, sadly taken in the rain, but everything else here is from yesterday.

The thing that made the 3nd June 2014 so extraordinary were the big clouds that started to appear mid afternoon and which I noticed first during the dog walk.  They became a second landscape in the sky and I began to wonder about them.

 But there were many other treasures to photograph too such as the laburnum flowers with the blue in the background.

 And the lilac blossom which looked spectacular against those cloudscapes.

 The peonies are almost there and I noticed the beautiful veining just before the flower completely emerges.

I was not the only one to enjoy this glorious day. Troi is quite an old lady now (she will be 12 in September) and after a walk she is very content to rest in among the daisies.

While I lay on my back to look at the clouds. I dreamed about what it would be like to go through the blue to the other side and what clouds would look like from that angle. Of course we humans now sort of know that as we fly above them when we travel. But what must the people of the past have thought about it all? To them it must be like a miracle, specially seeing the rapid changes that occur in the clouds as the wind blows them this way and that.

The Pentland Hills below and the clouds above were the perfect combination to admire from  high up in our garden. Here the camera looked over our house into the distance.

When the evening came I retreated to a bench under one of the trees and enjoyed just staring up at the clouds when they became more and more dramatic as the time progressed towards night.

The sun kept winning the battle with the rain clouds and insisted on popping out from behind them to light up the last of the day.