It’s so amazing how creating something like a small lawn and planting flowers can have such a positive effect on the neighborhood. Living in our tree lined street is great, but most of the buildings have only concrete as a front garden. On warm evenings, we sit out the front yard (something I rarely did living in the UK) , watch the world go by, chat about the “garden” and notice everyone observing the amazing transformation of our front yard over the last few months.

I wish I had a “before” photograph of the muddy, overgrown weeds and ugly front yard, but look at it now! Thanks to my best friend Derek, who has worked so hard to transform this space, we have also met so many lovely neighbors and passers by who stop to chat about “the grass”, ask about our “garden” plans, offer some advice about planting and growing or how green their fingers are.

This weekend has been wonderful so far, the sun’s been out and our neighborhood is lovely and quiet due to everyone heading out down to the shore. Heaven!

To “celebrate”, we took a lovely long walk to the Garden Centre a few miles away via the “Frayed Knot” which is an old curiosity space with lots of fabulous vintage items to rummage through. We almost bought a 1950s Backgammon board but discovered it was missing two pieces. 🙁
But then……

…..I found myself a new toy to play with; A Kodak Duraflex Camera. I’ve been longing to try TTV (Through The Viewfinder) photography since last year and the Argus model I had previously bought didn’t quite work as well! So with new toy in hand we headed down to buy some more goodies for our front garden. I dream of having an English country garden here in the states and when I found roses that actually smell, we just had to buy them for our oasis of a front yard on Garden Street. (I love that we live on Garden Street, so great!)

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

For those of you who are having a long weekend, enjoy. I’ve been relaxing (something I hardly do!), reflecting, clearing my head for the busy week ahead and just simply smelling the roses. 🙂