R IS BORED

Sunday -
So she has turned to her dependable last resort - she is doing the ironing - this works for her as a sort of relaxation therapy unlike myself. I end up with more creases than my skin - well perhaps not!

This afternoon she helped a lot in the garden. I had been at it most of the morning dragging watercress from the ponds, scything the ditch bank and raking off the grass, planted half a dozen brachyglottis on the banking near the asparagus, manured the rhubarb, pegged sone strawberry runners into little pots of earth for new plants. The cycle goes on - deadheading, weeding and so on.
It is cold today when the sun goes - mid 50s only. I suppose now we are past the longest day at midsummer we are now on the downhill run to winter so the nights will draw in and a chill arrive in the air.
Despite the drought - everywhere is very dry (I watered the garden last night in the hope it would bring on the rain, but no luck) yet there is still a trickle in the stream.
This morning I sat outside the kitchen door with a mug of coffee and the swallows went on feeding their young - completely ignoring me.
Now I know what it is to be just another garden fixture.

This is a mallow - comes in white and pink - and was given to us some years ago by my sister H. It freely self seeds and this year has even done so in the long banking grass.

(Break to get out camera as female greater spotted woodpecker on peanuts outside window. Line it up and she flies away - D***.)

One of the best dark foliage plants in the garden is this shrub -

It is at this point that I set you a competition, no prize, just the satisfaction of being right - what is it?
(Actually I cannot remember so this is a way out of my embarrassment.)

My father liked red hot pokers so here are some under the cherry tree, paeonies behind (Shirley Temple I think)(yes, over here it has an aeo not just an eo)(perhaps it had a diphthong originally?)(what is a diphthong - no, not a minimal bathing costume - look it up - Google will solve all.)

Off to have a cuppa as Quo's Pictures of Matchstick Men squeals from the radio in the kitchen.

This keyboard is mucky - gardener's fingers - so turn computer of and clean it - okay I will.

Monday was hot and some golf, a bargain afternoon tea out at the Linthwaite House Hotel - sat on the patio - and a walk around their small tarn - so no gardening.

Tuesday has begun with a bad back (gets me out of a lot except R's birthday)(she now has an iPhone) and we are celebrating by going to hospital for them to look at a bump on my head (just a cyst not spare brain).

The sun is shining, the garden is very dry, the gooseberries and blackcurrants need picking and all is rosey.