Another view of a snake flower.

The snake flowers in our garden will delight us for the next couple of weeks or so. For the rest of the year we will have to be content with this reproduction of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's watercolour of a Fritillaria.

Best known as an architect and designer Mackintosh was also a very accomplished water colourist. By 1914 Mackintosh was becoming disillusioned with architecture and moved, with his wife Margaret, to the Suffolk village of Walberswick. Whilst there he produced 40 exquisite stylised water colour paintings of wild flowers, including the Fritillaria.

Our print hangs on the wall of our stair case, together with a pasque flower and larkspur, and never fails to cheer me as I pass by.