Who’s for tea?

Had a lovely Skype with mum this morning to make up for yesterday. At one point, I suggested she write her memoirs and while she laughed, claiming no-one would understand her command of written English, I mentioned that it would probably be full of cups of tea. This is a reference to her travel diary of 1988 where, every day, each cup of tea was dutifully logged at the expense of virtually anything else. A typical entry would go something like this:

Up at a ridiculous hour of the day and had a lovely cup of tea with Pat who’d already had 15. Decided to visit the most amazingly, wonderful, fantastic place on earth. Had a second cup since the pot had brewed perfectly. After breakfast (and a third cup of tea) we loaded up the car and took off for the one hour drive. Pat has this incredible car-operated kettle and it was put to good use when we stopped in a lay-by halfway there for cups of tea all round. Didn’t think much of the tea in the tea-room but the one on the way home was a much needed respite from the action-packed, super exciting day we’d had. Walking into the house, Marg asked who’d like a cup of tea. All hands went up. A marvellous tourist day.

It’s a good job my mother has a sense of humour!

In the garden, it was all about pot dispersal. The idea is for our collection of terracotta pots to go on the bark chipped area and the blue ones (we have a rather large collection of big blue pots) to go down the side of the office; the side facing the back of the house.

Eventually, some of the pots will contain acid loving plants (our soil being terribly alkaline) but for the time being they look like experiments in segregation. And most of them were heavy. And full of weeds.

One that wasn’t full of weeds was a small blue pot up the back which contained a chocolate geranium that Mirinda had rescued a while back. It had flourished in the pot and, hopefully, will be even happier in the Crazy Bed, which is where I transplanted it.

Speaking of the Crazy Bed, it is filling up nicely. The big, beautiful purple rose bush seems to have survived it’s second move, buds covering the tops of branches and flowers beginning to appear. This rose has the most amazing scent and the one plant I really wanted to survive the move from the back of the house. In fact, had we not moved it, it would now be deep underneath the extension – probably somewhere near my recliner.

I did spend a bit of time admiring our handiwork today. The garden, while still needing a lot of work up the back, is starting to look quite lovely. I’ve never had charge of such a delightful garden before and it’s very rewarding to sit back on the terrace (with a cup of tea) and admire our handiwork.

Here’s some of the geraniums outside my office. The ones that Emma hasn’t trodden on…yet.