My amaryllis is making a wonderful show this year. I bought it in December last year and watched it grow until it flowered some time at the beginning of January. It was a beautiful flower, but all good things come to an end, and eventually the flower died. I decided this time to leave it and noticed the dead flowers had formed large seed pods behind the flower. I had a quick look in Internet and there are some amaryllis specialists that know what to do wih your dead amaryllis – not quite dead, you just have to know how to keep it alive for a year to enable it to flower again.

And so I noted the advice of what to do and left the amaryllis for a while to do its own thing. I noticed leaves were appearing and something else in the middle. Of course, amaryllis do not flower once, but twice and slowly but surely the second bud began to develop and grow, but this time accompanied by nice long leaves. I took a photo this morning with my telephone camera for a quick upload and this is the result. The second flower has even surpassed the first in its beauty. It is now end February and this plant is still brightening up my living room. I have now begun to give it fertiliser once a week and will probably put it outside during the summer. I do not know how it will work, but I love these surprises.

In the meanwhile I have noticed that my second avocado pit has made a root. I have had it sitting on an egg cup filled with water since January covered by an upturned cup to keep it in the dark to encourage root growing. The top of the pit has also split and everything going well its first shoot will appear soon. When it gets bigger, I will plant it in a pot to see how it develops. I began to grow one at the beginning of last year, but have kept it inside during the Winter. It has now made more leaves and is growing quite well. Something else to put outside when the warmer weather arrives. Who knows, one day I might have the first Swiss grown avocados. Yes things are growing in my part of the world, now how does that go with the Indian hemp seeds? I just love experiments, although I had a small plantation in the garden a few years ago, but seeds spread and are not always welcome elsewhere.

Yesterday I arranged buying my new iPad and will pick it up tomorrow on the day of the great special dividends in the supermarket. This time I have gone the whole hog with 228 byte power, so I will have enough room for at least 100 apps – I hope. The only problem will be organising it,  in the famous words of Mr. Swiss. No problem, been there done it before. I have all my passwords lined up. The iPad I have at the moment is actually functioning quite well, but is an older model. I even organised the cyrillic and as well as the “normal” keyboard on my present iPad and hope I can remember how to do it with the new one. Mr. Swiss finds it will be no problem, I am not so sure.

I have had an iPad since they arrived, but never really wrote very much on them, because i find touch screen writing is awkward. Now after so many years I have discovered it is the easiest thing in the world. It reacts quickly and suggests the words before you know you want them youself. I just have to organise english language on the iPad as they are automatically german language here.  It means just a touch and you have it. I saved a lot of time this morning answering my various comments on WP by iPad from my bed. Oh, the life of a cyber golden oldie is a wonderful thing when you are online. I took my old iPad with me yesterday to the store when I organised buying a new one. The young guy (yes he was probably old enough to be my almost grandson) made the astonishing remark “oh, it’s in english” as he was checking through something on my old iPad. I told him he can change it to German if it would be easier for him, but of course he left it as it was – after all everyone can speak english today.

You see I have saved almost half an hour this morning, and I even helped Mr. Swiss to strip the beds to make room for new bed linen. The sun is shining and life looks good outside, although I am still inside eating breakfast at the computer. This morning is window cleaning morning, but all being well that job will be completed in an hour. This afternoon I plan an excursion into the unknown with my camera and my walking cane.

Wishing everyone a great day from the middle of Europe.