In the garden

Now the royal wedding seems to be finally over, our village has decided to take down the bunting & has now moved into giant red poppies. More & more seem to be appearing in & around Morecambe. I suspect by November, & the end of the First World War, we’ll truly be a sea of red poppies.

Meanwhile in our garden we seem to have gained yellow poppies. To me they’re every bit as welcome. They seem curiously delicate, the stems so fine, the petal almost like coloured tissue paper.

Once more our gardener has had a go at trying to persuade us that the circle under the birch trees should be artificial grass. We went round to her home where she has some very high quality artificial grass. Although we can see the point if you have pets, we keep getting back to the point that it still looks artificial. It still precludes worms & therefore the birds that hunt them. We want something to encourage the wildlife & there’s no way an artificial lawn can do that. We would sooner plant a basic lawn & risk it getting scrappy as there is too much shade in summer when the trees are in leaf. It may mean mowing around the trees. It may not be the best of lawns but it would be alive & attract other living creatures.

In the cool, cool, cool of the evening

We sat having a drink & a chunter after dinner. As we drank we listened to a CD of ‘50s music. As Bing sang with Jane Wyman “In the cool, cool, cool of the evening” the blackbird outside decided to join in. Beautiful. Reminiscent of that lady playing her cello in the garden accompanied by a nightingale.

I suspect this evening we will not need to be accompanied by “In the cool, cool, cool of the evening” to realise it’s a cool evening. It already feels a much cooler day. My jumper is once more on. The sky is overcast so I wouldn’t be surprised if the predicted rain arrives before long.

Mind you, we could do with some rain. Yesterday our gardener came round to finally scatter the meadow grass & wild flower seeds in the circle below the silver birches. She looked at the ground she’d prepared the previous week. She instantly decided the first thing to do was to wet the ground. The clay soil had dried out so much, great cracks had appeared. The fine seeds would instantly have fallen down the chasms. We’re under strict instructions to water the circle this evening if there’s no sign of rain by then.

Summer spirits

Our tablet course finished yesterday. It was only for three sessions. Necessarily it was only a superficial look at things but nonetheless the Fox & I feel more confident about using our tablet for things other than playing games, enjoyable as that can be. Now we feel we may take our tablet on holiday to maybe write my blog there, to give you the freshness of my impressions. That is assuming we can get free wifi somewhere. It won’t be on the cruise where I seem to remember wifi access is extremely expensive.

Yesterday was also the day of my home help coming. We had a stroll in the garden. She loved the white lilac with its sweet smell. She enjoyed the wisteria scent too. She was stunned by the large pink clematis, asking if she could take a photo of it. Further up she could see the yellow poppies hiding in the midst of other plants On the way back she was stopped to smell the rowan blossoms, so frothy looking – smells fishy she thought, & she was right! She also went round to the walled garden area where the troilus, globe flower, brightened the dark shady corner with its golden balls.

 

The clematis

While she was here, the phone went. The usual friends we meet at the pub on Wednesday have invited us round to their place, to have a sit in their garden as it is so sunny at the moment.

All in all I’m feeling in good spirits. The sun always suits me better. The sun is bringing out all the colours in the garden as so many plants burst into flower. The Fox’s itches are easing for the moment, though whether that will last we’re less certain. We’ve been invited out by friends. What more can you ask for.