....whenever I hear that word my mind always adds '...is the cruellest month' (throwback from my schooldays, so forgive me) - and I suppose April is rather cruel in a sense, as - gardening wise- we are hit with unexpected frosts and seemingly un-ending rain, just when we think things ought to be feeling just a teensy weensy bit ...well....BALMY?

Anyway, TS Elliot was rather a grumpy old kermudgeon wasn't he? - I thought about him again today as I walked in the park with the babety and Mr Pug and we feasted our eyes on this delicious scene:

Somehow I think he wouldn't have thought the candy-floss shade of pink and the blowsy magnificence of the blossom quite 'the thing'.  I adore it...wish I had room for one in my garden...wish I knew the cultivar because I will definitely have an avenue of them like this in my next garden....

But back to my own back garden - It's been a pretty soggy round here lately (by which I mean it hasn't stopped raining even for a polite amount of time).  It's good in some ways, because the garden has been planted (of shrubs at least) and the torrential down-pours mean I don't have to be out there watering every day...but the SQUELCHINESS is sort of getting to me and I'm dying for some drier weather just so I can go out without wellies on.