The Joy of Spring

Happy Tuesday and Happy Spring! Springtime is a joyous time of rebirth and brings us such joy. The first day of spring is March 21st. Easter is April 17th this year.  Christians celebrate a risen Savior on Easter which is Christ the Lord.

 Welcome to a Spring and Easter tablescape blog hop sponsored by Rita  @ Panoply. There are 18  bloggers participating in this blog hop. You can find links to their tablescapes at the bottom of this post. Stop by and show them some love by leaving them a comment.

For my tablescape, I have set a table outside on the patio. The birds are singing and I just saw an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, my first butterfly of the season as I was setting the table. I was hoping it would stop on my centerpiece and I could capture a picture. How exciting that would have been! 

Botanic Garden Portmeirion makes me happy because there is a different flower on each plate. The sunflower is🌻 the national flower of Ukraine and has become a symbol to us of their fight for freedom. Continued prayers for 🇺🇦 Ukraine. I am thankful for the countries that are taking in refugees escaping the horrific war.

I added azaleas from my garden to supplement the grocery store flowers of tulips, sunflowers, and hydrangeas. My curved willow vase accented the seagrass wicker glasses.

My aucuba scrub in my garden is great for flower arrangements. It adds color and variety and holds up very well.

"Golden Sunshine, a world of green, a world of blossoms, a breeze so clean; the redbirds whistle, the

bluebirds sing, my heart rejoices: 'tis spring,' tis spring!" 

Caroline Henning Bair

The sweet pea plate reminds me of my DIL's bridesmaid's bouquets. The ribbed depression glass sherbets hold strawberries and blueberries.

The plate stack consists of a white Ikea charger, Bordallo Pinheiro cabbage plate, and a hydrangea Portmeirion plate. I am hoping I will have a lot of hydrangeas to bloom in my garden this year. 

I was delighted to find tulips in the store for my centerpiece to coordinate with the tulip plate.

Have you ever heard of pine berries? What I thought were strawberries are (Berry De Blanc) pineberries. Note the light color. They are from Austin Farms in Plant City, Florida. They have a slight pineapple taste.

They were intriguing since I had not seen them before.

Springtime Fancy

It may be just springtime fancy, 

but it always seems to methat in the spring the flowers sing, and every leafy tree.
The songs of birds from every branchseem just to lead the wayfor all the earth to join in songto greet each coming day.
It may be just springtime fancy, but all nature seems to sing: hail to this happy time of year, the joyous time of spring.
Virginia Katherine Oliver
I feel so blessed this spring to have blessings of freedom, peace, comfort, safety, food, and shelter. We have all witnessed the horrors in Ukraine and could never have imagined this happening just like we couldn't imagine a worldwide pandemic. Thankfully, my hope is not in this world. The joy of spring gives me hope. The joy of Easter gives me hope.



The links for Spring and Easter tablescape blogs are listed below: 

Everyday Living - The Joys of Easter

The Little Yellow Corner Store - Funny Bunny Fern and Her Breakfast Tablescape

Me and My Captain - Spring Is In the Air

Red Cottage Chronicles - Fruit and Flowers Spring Tablescape

Living with Thanksgiving - The Joy of Spring

Life and Linda - Bunnies Pedaling Toward Easter

Hyacinths for the Soul - Garden Party on the Terrace

Home Is Where the Boat Is - Hop To It

Panoply - Blissful Signs of Spring / Easter Tablescape

My Hubbard Home - Busy Bunny Easter Table

My Thrift Store Addiction - Rabbits and Roses Garden Tea for Two

Thrifting Wonderland - Easter Table in Black and White

Karins Kottage - Children's Easter Table in Bright Colors

The Painted Apron - Spring Piggy Party!

Corner of Plaid and Paisley - Bunnies in the Garden

Dinner at Eight - A Field of Tulips on a Spring Table

The Bookish Dilettante - Casual Easter Tablescape

Pandora's Box - Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Wishing each of you a joyous Easter ✝️and Spring🦋. Counting my blessings✝️ and living thankfully, 

Danube River Cruise~ Budapest

In April 2018, we were blessed to enjoy a Viking Cruise of the Danube River and visited Budapest, Vienna, Passau, Regensburg, and Nuremburg.

When Covid first began in 2020, I started this post and never finished it!!! 

Fast forward to 2021. We began making plans for a 50th anniversary trip so I started thinking about finishing this post which is only a tiny part of the Danube Cruise. I highly recommend  Viking Cruises. Viking takes great care of you and the travel is very pleasant because you can travel a long distance and not have to change hotels. Your floating hotel allows you to sightsee during the day and travel while you sleep. It is fun meeting people from all over the world and the food is wonderful. 

 We arrived in Budapest late afternoon and boarded our ship. After getting settled and given our itinerary it was time to enjoy our first dinner aboard the Viking Cruise longship. Then after dinner, we cruised the River Danube and saw the beautiful city of Budapest all lit up at night. It was a gorgeous full moon which always makes me happy!

This is the Szechenyi Chain Bridge that spans the River Danube between Buda and Pest, the western and eastern sides of Budapest.

This is the capital building. Budapest is the capital city and largest city in Hungary.

The capitol building is huge and sits high up on the hill. Quite impressive on a night cruise.

The bridges are all so pretty.

The Parliament Building is one of the most recognized buildings in Budapest as seen in the iconic Viking Cruise commercials.  

This Art Nouveau design bridge is called Liberty Bridge and was the first bridge to be rebuilt after all the damage from World War 11. 

This is another Viking longship we passed as we cruised the river in Budapest. Keep in mind the ship is moving while I photographed the sites. It was also hard to see the buttons on my camera. But it was a very exciting experience seeing these huge and beautiful buildings as we cruised by.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I still haven't finished this post on Budapest. The draft is dated May 21, 2021. It is now February 2022! I know but life gets very busy.  As you can see I am very behind on blogging about our wonderful travels.  

Matthias Church was built in the 13th century. But in the  1883-1896 restoration the Matthias Church received a colorful tile roof. It is decorated in Hungarian Zsolnay tiles of bright orange, brown, green, red, and white.

 Fisherman's Bastion is one of the top Budapest attractions. The seven turrets represent the 7 Hungarian tribes who founded the present-day country in 895. The views from Fisherman's Bastion are extraordinary.

This is the statue of St. Stephen the first Hungarian king, in 1906. 

I always enjoy seeing a model of the area. It gives you a good perspective. Matthias Church is enormous. It is one of the city's oldest buildings and is located on Buda Hill in front of the Fishermen's Bastion. It is a Roman Catholic church with Gothic Revival architecture.

Side streets with restaurants

I really wanted to walk across this bridge and look out on both sides of the river but time did not allow and I snapped this photo from our bus. 

The first time I saw this type of roof was Hotel Dieu in Beaune, France. You can view that post here.

These large WW11 photos made a lasting impression on me. Budapest was an interesting city viewed at night as well as during the day. I am glad we were able to see both.
We did take a fabulous anniversary trip to Italy and France in late August and early September. I blogged about the Tuscany portion here. I don't believe I will ever totally catch up blogging about our trips but I have hundreds of photos. 

Valentine Fun

Valentine's Day is just around the corner. I'm dreaming of a Galentine's Party with girlfriends! It has been so long since I entertained. Covid please go away so our lives can get back to normal.

In the meantime, you are invited to a virtual Galentine's Party. 

I've set the table with my very best china, crystal, silver, and linens especially for you. We have candlelight and fresh flowers cut from my own garden!

The camellias in this arrangement are Julia France, Blood Red, La Peppermint, Debutante, White by the Gate, Pink Perfection, and one other that I'm not sure of its name.

The red container is hard to see in pictures but it works well at Christmas and Valentine's.

My wedding silver flatware is called Buttercup. I love that it is written on the back of the spoon!

I adore using the Crown Linen Designs napkins and table runner that I won in the Monday Morning Blooms giveaway last November. Thank you again, sweet ladies and Crown Linens for your generous giveaway!  View the giveaway post by clicking on the title below.

                           Candlelight and Roses

I love the 'barley twist' crystal pillar candlesticks! Not sure if barley twist applies as a description except for wood or not! Does anyone know? The pillar candles are old as the hills! Only me saves things so long! However, have you shopped for candles lately? They are hard to find these days.

 I did not buy a single item for this tablescape. Usually, I do buy flowers but thankfully this time I did not have to.

I almost waited too long to cut the camellias. The large red camellia is called Blood Red and this is the largest blossom I had ever had! The picture does not do it justice.

All the elements for a tablescape blend together but if you leave one off it does not work. Centerpieces always catch my eye first.  The silver tray under the flowers was a wedding present that I cherish. I enjoy using my fancy things and reminiscing about who gave them to us. 

I purchased the round velvet placemats from Crown Linens and have enjoyed them so much.

This is my last year's Valentine post.  To view the post click here.



What are your Valentine's plans? ❤️❤️❤️