AFTER THE SUN, RAIN AND JAM

 Comes rain, but first we did get a little solar comfort.

Now it is Friday and raining. The Hydrangea Annabelle will be prostrated on the ground and it had been doing well. It never quite recovers as the flowerheads are so large and, when wet, heavy.

Our red climbing roses, one came from P one from A and P are in fine fettle on the shed and up the holly tree in the bottom hedge. One of our golden showers yellow roses died but I had forgotten that I had such a cutting in  a veg bed and it is flowering. Now I have to decide where to plant it.

Saturday and still raining a lot.

So what to do? Hooray for freezers where lurketh raspberries. And Hooray for Mrs Beeton's great jam recipe - 2 1/2 lb raspberries, 3 lb sugar. Bring fruit gently to the boil then boil hard for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sugar (warmed in oven) till dissolved. Bring to boil and boil hard 1 minute. skim and put in jars. Note - these are 12oz jars so just over 5 lbs jam. Tighten lids and label. Enjoy hearing lids pop as vacuum seal occurs with cooling.

The hen pheasant has abandoned her nest on the lower banking and the eggs are cold. With magpies and stoats about I am surprised they have not been eaten. I assume she will try again, hopefully somewhere less vulnerable - but will not bet on it.

We have bright colours still though we are entering the August hiatus.

The pond looks much better now a lot of vegetation has been cleared although moving the stuff the gardener dug out was strenuous for an old bloke. You can see the uncut tuft on the banking where the nest is.

Message for Paul - we have one big gunnera leaf so the plant has taken.

I have just noticed that the grey poplar has shot up and is now as tall as its neighbour, the eucalyptus. Both look good, grey against a blue sky. (The blue sky was yesterday)

The veg beds are ok but nothing to shout about - here front to back, carrots, marrow and broccoli. We have courgettes and some weedy parsnips, a small patch of parsley, chives by the handful but I am not a great veg man - too much like hard work. I like to shove things in and feed and water them - if the do well ok, if not - c'est la vie (or in the case of my veg mort.)

Still some sweet peas amazingly. Not stupendous but enough for a vase or two in the house.