WHEN IN DROUGHT

go out and buy a sit-on mower, well a lawn tractor actually.

I have found that as soon as I was ready to mow the lawn with it, it began to rain and the grass has been wet ever since and the weather forecast is for more rain all week so it hulks in the shed waiting . . .

Todays pictures were all taken before the cloudy skies arrived - and now we have had our summer it is time to think of the rest of the year - gloom descends.

The daffodils at the top of the garden by the big ash tree (it has a Rambling Rector rose up it) are now bent and flattened by the rain.

So, what have we been up to - R has been taking candelabra primula seedlings and spacing them out so the triangular bed by the Wendy House will be only the primulas and some veronicastrums.

And moi?

I have been putting in some purple sprouting broccoli and broad bean plants raised in the shed, making a second compost bay and widening the garden's narrow areas so that I can get around with the new mower - when the grass is dry.

(By then it will be ten feet high and we will have to join the Wherearewe Tribe.)

The last image is looking over the top pond down the boardwalk to the Wendy House. The shrub on the left is an amelanchier and this is now in flower.

We must have gold finches nesting nearby as two have suddenly become regular visitors with their call of Coo-ee.

I must get into the garden and check who is now living in which nesting box - when the rain stops.

Finally here is a photo I took two days ago from the window of a B&B in Oxfordshire before breakfast. Stunning, isn't it.