25-05-25

Hello again, everyone!  It's yet another Bank Holiday Sunday, the sky is a beautiful blue and the sun is shining brightly at the moment.  It's not chilly and I have the French window open to let the morning air stream in.

It is now the season where (weather permitting) almost the first thing I do each morning is wander into the back garden, saunter around the pots and beds, dead heading, pinching out side shoots and generally appreciating my little bit of nature.  It's a very grounding start to my days and I am so grateful for it.

The rain stopped by midday yesterday and we even had a bit of sunshine but it remained chilly and the heating clicked on.  I even turned on my electric blanked in bed last night - bliss.

I'm ridiculously pleased about finally working out how to get my laptop to talk to my printer.  I've been trying for weeks and I have no idea what I did this morning but they are now friends and I have printed something out.  Phew.
If my online life is going to be laptop based from now on, I have needed to get various stuff sorted, such as the Governors'  Hub and Outlook (that last wasn't hard, by the way!), etc.  And the printer!

I could explain/demo a knitting or crochet pattern to you, work out a tasty meal from available ingredients, make a nice loaf of bread, etc, but techy stuff is not in my skill set in any way so I am feeling pretty chuffed about the printer!

A few garden photos (because it is that season too):

Clematis - absolutely smothered now.  I think it is the best it has ever been.

So very pretty and a stand out feature of the middle bed right now.  I wonder how long they remain in flower - must look that up.

Thank you, Val.

(Val's over here - hopefully - on Thursday so she can see how lovely her gift has become.)

The new dahlia, looking pretty.  I now have the confused dahlia at the front and - let me count - yes, five others, this one, three that are coming back from last year and starting to bud (complete with blackfly, now sprayed) and one that must be a dahlia, it looks like one, but right now it has just a few leaves showing.  We will see.

I am hoping there will be enough flowers for picking.

And then, along the wall side, from right to left, Tumbling Toms, baby corn, Chris' tomatoes, Sungolds and cucumbers.  

All of this, the whole back garden, is what I was aiming for in 1998/9 after my ex passed away and I had his life insured (because of maintenance, etc).  I was able to pay off the mortgage and turn the garden into an area that is comparatively easy to keep reasonable as well as looking nice.

It was a very sad time, of course, but I am glad to have happy things to remind me of him - as well as the 'children', of course.  Dave looks ridiculously like him except for height. Dave's pretty much a six footer, getting that from my side of the family - my dad, both my brothers and Alex too are all around the six foot mark.

I'm rambling now.  I have no big plans for today but I do want to do the front as it was a bit too wet yesterday.  Weed scraping, of course, and some weeding while the soil is damp and easier to dig into.

The sun's gone in a bit while I've been typing this but it's still nice and the strong breeze doesn't feel cold.  Long may it last!

Have a great Sunday, everyone.  xx