SPINNING WITH SEASONS

Sunday -
Time passes so fast now I am getting more decrepit. Soon it will be time to organise the garden for next year.

I went out this morning to cut sweet peas for R. She is going to fill a vase in the church porch. The plants were so wet that I came back soaked. Yet, this morning the sun is out and it is warm. The seasons seem to be two steps on and one step back. We all thought winter is nearly here as it was so chilly but suddenly it is summer all over again.

Monday - To a tale of two plants.

First Hydrangeas - we have three types in the garden but two are outstanding especially Annabelle. It (she?) has huge heads of white and I planted it beside the Utility door - the one we always use.
I have not yet got the knack of using it as a cut flower - it droops alarmingly fast. It is time to search Sarah Raven's book for advice.

The other Hydrangea is pointy and I cannot remember the name off the shiny top of my head (under a number two cut). Its flowers have a more greenish tint and it grows on the banking below the house. I transplanted it there from a flower bed when it outgrew its situation.

I am still waiting for the grass to dry and may well have to use the small mower anyway as the turf is so soft - as was the rain - soft rain, an expression I first heard in Donegal in 1968. Here we call it mizzle - misty drizzle, and so wetting.

The second plant is the Japanese Anemone. The pink has grown so large it has encroached on the agapanthus which has produced only leaves this year - some serious sorting out is needed.
This photo is from last year showing the two together.
I am not sure I like the garish pink very much - I prefer the white even if the petals do go brown at the edges as they age.

The flowers have a very yellow centre which is all right with white but clashes with pink.

To a tale of five courgettes - of the plants I put in two have gone on to have big marrows, one is still cropping and two have snuffed it - the leaves went brown and crusty.

The butternut squash is fine and has taken over the place - ten feet across in any direction and has two, yes, just two, squashes.

I'se doin' summat wrong.
Have pollinated and stuff but just get greenery growing over the tomatoes, the sweet peas, gooseberry and rosemary cuttings, everywhere.

Toosday - Figgy picking - and here they are - so now?
No one much like figs 'cept me.
Somehwere in the recesses of my cerebelli (cerebella? cerebellums?) (latin declension of war) is something with cream cheese - somewhere.

Also up ladder getting in the rest of the damsons - the freezer awaits until I can decide what to do with them.

Today must be the beginning of the dividing and replanting and thinning and pruning and weeding and wishing for a single small flower pot on my concrete patio.

The man who strims has not come back to me on the phone - perhaps he hates doing it too. The difference is he gets paid to do it.

And what else have we reaped -

Just these - that's shallot.