Loving ROSES

The people who know me know I am madly in love with gardening and especially with growing roses. 5 years ago, when we moved to the house we have been living in so far, I decided to make my own Sleeping Beauty -like garden,full of climbing roses,dark bushes and stunning clematis.... I think I have managed to make it up to my dreams but sometimes I wish I had stayed with a monotonous lawn with firs and some bright coloured annuals,like sunflowers ,because now the climbing roses are far to tall to be trimmed regularly and I can't even reach for the faded flowers. All the photos below are living proof for my words :)

- Yellow English Rose Graham Thomas, my husband's favourite.
Photo taken through the kitchen window,with climbing roses( New Dawn and Rosarium Uttersen in the back and Graham Thomas English Rose and the Japanese greenand white willow in the front).

This is where I love to have my daily cup of green tea .

Climbing Rosa Parade.It spreads in trees like a spider.:)

Thea Hybrid Double Delight. Great fragrance but the shrub itself is not so appealing as the detailed photo might look.

Climbing Kordes Rose"Ballerina". A wonderful climbing rose,with huge fragranced flowers.I oredered it 5 years ago,planted it on a pergola and it's been a divine summer companion blooming recurrently ever since.For some strange reason this rose is almost unknown to many cultivars and I wonder why..

This is the perfect symbol of my Romanian life-sun,shadows,roses and plenty of time to be happy inside my hidden treasure-garden. Not that this is a typical Romanian thing,but this is how I shaped my life -  I enjoy the luxury of working in my own small company,having time for myself ,my family,my pets and my garden. I don't struggle to be "competitive". I struggle to be independent and to indulge in little lovely things like making my own schedule, watching my favorites shows and reading my favorite books without having ANY boss except my own will. This is to me luxury- having time and being my own master.

May Garden

Today it's been one of the most warm and beautiful days of this year. Considering last weekend it was heavily raining , today was paradise on earth: sun, warm weather, a bit of a nice sunny wind , so it was perfect time for some of our garden to start blooming.

Since we left Bucharest and moved here I started to "garden" and gardening has been growing on me a lot. I have learned everything from books, magazines, internet, friends etc , I have experimented and got to a personal equilibrum , earned through lots of hard work- I am a  hard working person but only for the things I like-the rest ( like bringing papers on time to the accountant,  ironing or using the vacuum cleaner) can go to hell.  

One of my personal projects I intended to carry on this spring was to take weekly photos of my favorites plants/flowers so I  could see their progress over the fast days of spring turning to summer. i didn't do it, of course ( mainly because my camera colapsed due to old and inefficient batteries; now I have to purchase some new ones but I have to go to the mall so.... I just postpone) . Today I've decided to take some shoots of my favorite flowers because some of them bloomed under our very eyes, starting to open in the morning and being fully opened by noon.I had to use my phone camera which is not my favorite cup of tea but ... you know, when there is no other alternative....  as soon as I replace the old camera rechargeable batteries I will try to take some really good photos. At least I did not miss the rose time, which here starts around  last week of May.

On 15 of May I will celebrate with hubby 18 years of marriage and 20 years of passionate love :) I wish all my roses would be open and ready to spread their fragrance but, alas, it won't happen. It is just to cold to be possible ( but it doesn't hurt to dream about it, right ?!) .

Japanese willow in the backyard

Mint, iris and hostas. This is the ever-growing mint I have been trying to destroy with no obvious result ....

Same Bearded Iris surrounded by mint.

Clematis Nelly Moser - I have two of them ( one hasn't bloomed yet). It should be in pink and white but this particular one has had so far only very light pale pink flowers. Maybe it happens because, unlike the other one, which  has a very bright mouve-pinkish hue , this one is staying in partial shade all day long .

First rose bud opened ! Rosa Parade ,climbing against an old apple tree.

View taken from the front door veranda. The house in the photo is not  our  house, but the one across the street. That is the apple tree where the Rosa Parade is climbing .

Violas are growing around the veranda ( this is where I plan to put my geranium, in case my husband will 'buy' the mosquitto thing ....).

Finally Spring !

Today, during lunch break I met my husband downtown and we spent a lovely hour together, chit-chatting and having the first ice-cream on a terrace, for 2010. It was warm ,sunny and all in all, a perfect time to enjoy both the exquisite ice cream and the light, glowing air.

I had yoghurt ice cream with strawberries and he had a chocolate and mint one, with an expresso. Ah, it felt so good. ! Sometimes precious moments like this one, disguised in simplicity and casual ,can be so rewarding !  There was a Shakespear Theater Festival taking place and a Ford Exhibition in the plaza but frankly the ice cream and the lovely time beat them by far.

Getting a driving license in Romania

This post has been inspird by a very nice post of Piglet in France.I found her blog while rambling over the net and loved it. Her post was about driving in France and the right priority rule :)) My post is related to driving, right priority rule in Romania and preparing for the driving license test.

Not only to take a driving license is a dreadful complicated thing, but learning for the test itself is boring and hard work, like the kind of hard work one has to put in a most important exam. You have 30 minutes to decide the right answer and u have to answer 26 questions .You can have only 4 mistakes ....

Until 3 years ago I was a proud pedestrian and used the car only when I was a passenger in a taxi. But I had to take my driving license because my husband insisted I had to and bought me a car so I couldn't avoid driving. Learning for the driving license test was hard, nasty and completely un-rewarding. Lots of signs and hundreads of hypotetical driving quizes, learning by heart all the driving rules in the Law Code... bla, bla, bla ...

I am proud to say that after 4 month of learning daily I passed the test with an A+ .... Oh, I was very happy and eager to start driving but I soon found out I had to face now a new nightmare- that of dealing with the Romanian trafic and Romanian men driving a car ( a human specie u don't wanna meet, trust me).

The photos below are only a fewbfrom the hundreds  the candidates  had to solve on subjects related to non-marked junctions and the order of engaging in crossing :))

Have fun looking at them :))
Now they don't seem complicated but at that time I was horrified and had to over learn the driving rules to get it right :))

Winter Has Come !

It has been raining in the last 24 hours and the south of Romania is now covered in snow.
This is the old house across the street- I see it every day when I walk by and I have always loved it. This is what it looks like today:

This is another splendour - a corner house representative for the late 19th century architecture. Unfortunately, just like the one across my house it should be carfully renovated...

Well,  these are some old oak trees .
I wonder how many generations of children have walked by it , just like I did it as a young little girl.

Finally, a perfect proof of the saying: " The way to hell is paved with good intentions'. The peole who bought this house wanted to fix it and make it a " modern" thing.... How horrible this one looks painted in lime and without its original plaster moulding , you can see from the picture below.