ROSES, SNAILS AND KNEES

Some of you know I do a bit of photography and sometimes I take an image that, unlike my miserable pessimistic self, exhibits pure joy,

(or manic craziness). This has nothing to do with the garden, just loved the photo.

Anyway, so we go away for a few days and all is calm and dry and on return a lot of leaves now fallen. Funnily we are not further on here in the north than Oxford or Herefordshire (where we have been).
The courgettes are still churning out produce and the marrow is still getting bigger.
This might be a good time to take acanthus and cardoon stems to hang up to dry for winter flower arranging plus anything else good. The Stipa gigantea (a big grass) has lots of leaf but no seed heads this year.
R has been dead heading and dead other things as well.
Some of you may know that I have a tin left knee and the right one is disintegrating. In Oxford and Herefordshire I limped painfully around on hard pavements. Today I have played 18 holes of golf (no I did not win) and mown all the lawns, hoed the veg beds and cleared away the final beans (leaving the roots behind for all their nitrogen fixing bacteria).
So do I need a new knee now?

Taking of beans how about this for supper. It took me a lot of time in Photoshop removing the mud from my wonderful grandson's face!

To move on - No rain for some time and all is getting dry - it is October! 

I remember that the third week in October used to be the best for autumn leaf colour but that has now moved on to early November.

With the weather cooling snails are going into hiding and sealing themselves off - here in a crack in the paving by the house.

To move on - 

The roses in the garden are having a splendid second flush -

So how doers one collect leaves - with a blower blasting its noise across then garden or with a rake? Barrow them and place in a big builders sack to rot into leaf mould - not much nutritional value but a good soil improver. Actually on the lawns, if they are not too wet, using the mower will pick up most of the leaf fall.

My sister and her husband come on Monday so not another blog for a week or so. It will be good to see them.

The tulips have come from Sarah Raven - late purchase discount plus another discount from a magazine. Among other things have got a scented tulip collection for the pots outside the kitchen door.

R is in therapy (that means she is ironing clothes and sheets). She actually enjoys doing it. If it were me I should have wrinkled clothes to go with my wrinkled skin!

Ironing - what a thought - need a cup of tea (and a biscuit).