Keeping within our quarter

We've been fairly low key this week. Ila has been under the weather and so no-one has had a great night's sleep for about 5 days. Lack of sleep does not foster a sense of exploration and so we've kept almost exclusively to the Oltrarno this week. Hopefully, our friends B & G who were visiting will forgive us. The photo above was taken on Mother's Day before the cold really set in. Oh, how we love Bardini.

In saying we've kept it low key, it is hard to pass a day where you go outside without seeing something spectacular. Ila, B and I had a special Firenze treat this week when we stopped by the Giardino dell' Iris on the way down from the hike up to the Observatory.
The garden is open just for 18 sweet days. Who knew there were so many colors of iris? The picture doesn't show it, but the garden is not small and is set on a slope you walk down among a cloud of irises (sorry Wordsworth) to a pond with water lilies, no Rydal Water admittedly, but pretty idyllic all the same.

Ila has been thoroughly spoiled with B&G's visit, super silly adults in the best sense of the word who showered her with fun and excitement and some very cool gifts. B made a series of threading cards out of laminated photos of our Tucson home and garden and large colorful shoelaces and they are a huge hit! Ila spent a good 30 minutes (a long time in toddler time) with them yesterday and I think I need to break out my embroidery project and see how much I can actually get done under the guise of us both playing together.