ROTTEN BOTTOM

Firstly and most important R is one of the winners of North Cumbria Scriptwriters, and her short play will be performed at the Theatre by the Lake next spring. 

Rotten Bottom is the gatepost at the hinge side of the electric gate so it is roped to the adjoining wall. I carefully capped so many posts to stop them rotting at the top so they re obligingly rotting at the bottom. (Whoops, a touch of boldly going.)

In the downstairs loo the is a cellar spider living behind the radiator. You know, the ones that look like a daddy-long-legs. I have called her Stella. At present I am the only person who goes there as the seat is broken and bites. When I tried to get a new seat I was given the dreaded word discontinued. Have possibly found one and we are waiting for it to arrive.

Anyway, the garden - bit squelchy and R is determined to get in drainage men. I remain unconvinced that it will do much but on having a look found the gunnera and rogersia I thought were dead are not.

So, how are the flowers doing? Here are a few examples -

I suppose the odd on out is the big magnolia flower - R must have been telling it off again for not flowering. Crocosmia, cosmos, the scented white phlox, Japanese anemones and alstroemeria are all in good fettle though the anemone has been banished to the shrubbery for getting out of hand. I must now consider what to do about the white one but as the whole garden is getting out of hand and jungly this is only one of the problems.

And fruit - plums, pears and damsons hanging from loaded branches.

And speaking of fruit here are nighttime visitors eating the fallen plums.

Of course there are fruit elsewhere not for eating as such - I suppose we could make rosehip syrup or split the hips and make itching powder?

One of the willows in the garden has just got too big so come later in the year more firewood. I have also demolished the rotten table we got from Ikea years ago so we only have two benches outside at the moment and nowhere to put the umbrella.

And of course we do have some butterflies but not as many as in past years - a comma and a red admiral.

So off to cut a few sweet peas, pick a few french beans and perhaps dig up a few potatoes.