Sleeping Beauty wakes up . . .

. . . still blurry-eyed after a long sleep, but I am happy to see this lovely lady smiling at me again after falling dormant before Christmas.

I feared at first that she would not survive, but she has surprised me before with her tenacity and tolerance of neglect (on which all orchids thrive, in the right measure!) but this time she demanded harsher treatment - for her own good, I must add - and needed to be shut in a black plastic bag with a few spoonsful of water and left under the kitchen sink for a couple of months before showing any signs of life.

Not a nice way to treat a beautiful lady, and it hurt me to have to do it, but it was worth it to see her smiling again now . . .