Tag: garden

June Drops

My garden is battered, wet and lush. Luckily I put in plenty of stakes early on, but even so so extra support work is needed after yesterday’s wind. All the trees looked as though they were madly auditioning for a ‘because I’m worth it,’ hair tossing competition and this morning there are plenty of tattered green shreds on the ground.

For the photo competition

This afternoon my friend has her garden open in a village near Cheltenham – a whole group of them are open, which would be wonderful on a quintessentially warm June afternoon. Grey skies won’t pull the crowds. Continue reading “June Drops”

Waiting for Summer

Well, what a frustrating few days… with no access to WordPress! Thank you to everyone who emailed suggestions to me, and in particular to Tilly who posted about the problem and through this found an email address to try. What ever action it was that solved the problem, it now seems I am back.

Here’s Pippi under the wheelbarrow after the man with the noisy machine had gone. The grass looks awful as it has just been scarified! Continue reading “Waiting for Summer”

CRIKEY! Judging now completed….. short story competition

This is difficult.

I have just read the two entries for the creative writing competition and find I’m completely stuck: I can’t make the decision.

Both Ara and Bilby have written stories that carried me forward, making me want to read on. Each story is so very different and that makes it harder still!

Ara’s story made me feel so sad for all boys sent out to boarding school at such a young age, especially as I am currently reading Andrew Motion’s memoir of childhood (In the Blood) which details the horrors of his schooling before common entrance. Her blending of the scary fearsome tiger into AA Milne’s Tigger at the end made me smile.

Bilby’s story of an evil man looking for a way out of a relationship is chilling – in that it could really happen! This man, an opportunist,emotionally cruel, and completely ego-centric, is caught out while the girl is saved by the skin of her teeth. Interesting stuff.

I’m going out into the garden where the frost has now lifted.

I may be gone sometime. By the time I come back in I shall have made a decision 🙂

I shall add it to the comments

Parents’ evening

Tonight’s early evening sky had a wash of palest blue, with a flush in places of rose pink, all overlaid with smudges of windswept charcoal.  I watched it change, and as we travelled the blue deepened until it was truly dark.

I noticed this on the way to Scout’s parents ‘student review evening’  just after we had squeezed around the roundabout, avoiding the turning where the ambulance and police cars were acting as an effective road block. By the time we reached school is was completely dark. We commented on how the evenings are really drawing out now.

Continue reading “Parents’ evening”

October gardening

Here I show you a late season pleasure that emerges and flowers with no love and attention from me between cutting back the dead stems in Spring and keeping down some of the weeds before it blooms. I understand it is a Toad Lily. I think it deserves a prettier name!

Continue reading “October gardening”