My Month In Pictures – May 2017

It seems so hard to believe that May has come and gone and summer seems to finally be here!

I’m built for the hot weather we’ve been having recently, so I’ll never complain about that. I have a feeling you’ll be seeing lots more pictures of my garden from now on…

Return of the rhododendron

My rhododendron is flowering again. This = happiness ? . . #rhododendron #flowering #flowers #garden #gardening #spring #ericaceous

A post shared by Lee Balders (@homely_economics) on May 3, 2017 at 9:28am PDT

One of the few flowering plants that was established in our garden when we moved in was this rhododendron. We had to wait almost a year to see what it would do, and it’s amazing!

I wish it flowered for longer, but I’m happy to have its display even if it’s for a short time.

Unhappy ash tree

This is an ash tree in my garden. Since we moved in here I’ve been obsessing about ash dieback – particularly since it has some angry looking areas on its trunk, but there are no signs of trouble elsewhere. Maybe I should stop worrying and enjoy my tree… prepare for the worst and hope for the best ? . . #gardening #mygarden #treetops #mytree #treeandsky #ashtrees

A post shared by Lee Balders (@homely_economics) on May 21, 2017 at 1:36pm PDT

It’s a bit boring, I guess, but I can’t get enough of taking pictures of the treetops in my garden. They’re just so inspiring, especially against a blue sky.

Our ash tree doesn’t look great at the base of the trunk though; I’ve been fretting about it for a while but we decided to take Google’s advice in case it was the disgustingly named “slime flux”, chip away the bark that looked diseased and give it a bleachy wash.

Impromptu barbecue

Beautiful evening light – loving this summery day ? . . #flowers #ericaceous #purple #evening

A post shared by Lee Balders (@homely_economics) on May 26, 2017 at 11:36am PDT

Now, this isn’t my garden – I took this at our friends’ home one evening whilst enjoying a barbecue with our families.

There was no special occasion apart from a spell of good weather and not having seen each other in a while, but we had such a good time. It just goes to show how the simplest things in life can be the best.

An uninvited houseguest

This lady is wreaking havoc in my family right now! She’s been meowing at my husband all day and of course, he fed her. Game over. She won’t leave and he is the softest when it comes to cats – he just can’t ignore her wailing outside the door. The guys are wrapped around her paw… except for Vader, which is a major issue! . . #cats #homewrecker #straycat #catstagram #lostcat #catsofinstagram #notanothercat

A post shared by Lee Balders (@homely_economics) on May 22, 2017 at 12:11pm PDT

We just couldn’t shake our little feline visitor, no matter what we did. We were convinced she had another home somewhere, but after days of seeing her waiting for us whenever we came home, at all hours, we realised she couldn’t have anywhere else to go after all.

Still, we don’t know what to do. She wants to disrupt our lives and come and go as she pleases – maybe another week to see how it goes?

What to do?

I’ve reached 400 posts on Instagram! What do I do now? I wanted to post a picture a day for a year, and I met that at the end of April. This month I relaxed slightly and missed a day (or maybe two), but I do enjoy keeping it up.

It helps me to look back at where my time has gone and capture some of those moments for a bit longer. I really don’t know what to do from here, I’ll be honest, but I’ll keep at it so I can continue to share my month in pictures.

Read April’s month in pictures.