I HAD A DREAM

Too much cheese late in the evening and I had a dream. We had arrived back from holiday to find A and J who dug our pond standing by the back door smiling.
"We have finished off all you asked us to do," A said
I walked around the house to find the whole garden, with then exception of two old trees at the far top corner, had been cleared. Everything was gone - plants, shrubs, trees, veg and fruit patch. All the garden was roughly strimmed grass and bare earth. There was nothing left but the pond and the shed.
Then I woke up and breathed a sigh of relief!

So it is September, rained off weeding and got by a horsefly again. Tragedy though - scything and scythed a frog! Sadly neatly removed its right back leg. There you are - an old softie - cannot kill squirrels, throw snails over the hedge etc etc. Next I will be removing ladybirds to protect the greenfly - well, perhaps not. Having said that I have eaten frogs' legs and culinary snails, the latter in garlic and butter, so . . .

Talking of wild life just had R searching my hair as have been in contact with nits (headlice) then I did her hair - nothing there - phew!

I am weeding hard - done the cutting bed and most of the raspberries and redcurrants are pruned and tied in.
Then a surprise - in the row of raspberries I found a rabbit burrow! So that is where the b*****************s are hiding. 
Thunder to the west of me, thunder to the east of me and dark clouds overhead - downpour time is here again.

We still have roses - the yellow Golden Showers, I think, on the fence by the gooseberries and the headily scented Emma Hamilton. If any rose should be called it this is the ultimate Boudoir rose.

Thursday - it was to be a quiet day - coffee with friends and such - then R went to the GP with a sore foot and we were off to Xray in Barrow (XR seems OK) and a crown came off a tooth so I was off to the dentist to be glued back together.
Anyway later we went to have a Champagne Afternoon Tea at Linthwaite House Hotel courtesy of B - THANKYOU! We celebrated B's birthday which happened to be the same day and stuffed our faces - doggy bag of leftovers in the kitchen. So the day ended well. (Actually it is raining again.)(So no gardening.)

Pontificating time -

I cannot imagine the horrors that the refugees that are flooding into Europe have undergone, are undergoing. This mass migration has tones of the last World War. Britain took the Ugandan Asians ejected by Idi Amin and many Kosovans during the Balkan Crisis. Now it is time that Europe organised itself, met the migrants and helped them, took details and relocated them with support. Of course there are more than one kind of migrant - those fleeing terror and injustice, those seeking a better life, those just wanting to take advantage of the benefits system etc. Nevertheless it is time for the European Community as a whole to be positive and help the desperate not just try to put up barriers to their entry. Anyway barriers are not working/will not work.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105991

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.