Today in #Rakesden... we have the words "shadow" and "reflection" and "echo". But I can't think of a word offhand for a patch of reflected sunlight illuminating a wee spot in a shady area, like a strange converse of a shadow. If there is not one, I may have to invent it.

The euphorbia and tulips and such are lit by direct sunlight, to be clear, but that wee patch of light on the brick wall is sunlight bounced off a window in one of the flats in the tenement block facing Tupsbeard Knot.

We have four fully flowering cowslips in Undercherry, that first one a right big beauty.

Two baby ones too!

A big and a smol in Tupsbeard Knot in that first pic. Look back and to the left for the smol. And if you look right to the back, slightly to the right of the big, you might just make the one hiding among the euphorbia.

(Which is in pic 2 there, I meant to say). Then there's another big'un on the edge of Laburnum Howe. I forgot the one in Birchby, which takes us to eleven in total, and there may well be other wee babies I've overlooked.

Bluebells beginning just to the back of Laburnum Howe. The world's straggliest lithodora beginning in Smolsneuk. I really wish I knew how to rein the latter in; when I pruned one in Birchby, I went in too hard trying to get it to sprout from further down & just killed it, damnit.

Some of the aquilegia is getting quite feisty now, throwing up its tall flower stems. Clearly the plants are loving this good stint of sunshine. I gave them all a good drink with the hose today, as we've had the odd shower, but not a good proper rain to slake their thirst.

I am tempting fate, I'm sure, but we have one (1) lupin from last year's seedlings that has actually, miraculously(!) survived the snails so far. *SO FAR*, I say. You hear me, Priapus? That cannot count as jinxing it. Let me have just the one so it's not a *complete* washout.

Also, I have discovered another wee wildling rose in Undercherry! Well away from the one under the hebe, so I gotta think now they're likely both self-seeded from somewhere. I do hope they end up flowering down the line, even if they're the least fancy roses ever. Wildlings FTW!

And ooh! what's that spot of blue behind it at the top right in that pic? Why it's never... could it be...? Yes, it's the first blooming flower on one inflorescence of one of the bugle! The bugle is coming! Sound the bugle for the bugle!

I. Cannot. Wait. For the. Bugle.

Honestly, if the bugle manages to make it into flower in Undercherry while the cherry blossom's still on the tree, I will be ridiculously happy. I doubt it'll make it into full bloom, because the cherry goes over *fast*, but even a wee spatter of it blooming will look amazeballs.