Nose to nose

A day spent largely in the garden. Well, until it rained late in the afternoon. Not what the weather forecast promised in the morning.

Still, I managed to rid the garden of a few more weeds. I really hate bind weed and the way it crawls up the side of the hedge. I also really hate dandelions because their roots are buried very deep and irretrievable. I think the worms hang on to the other end while I’m trying to pull them out. A garden tug-of-war kind of thing.

I’m quite pleased with the progress of my borage. I threw the seeds at the back of Pixie Hill, expecting one or two to come up. I was slightly wrong. There’s about ten of them, all looking healthy and strong. There’s no flowers yet but you can tell they’ll not be long.

Borage straining to come out

There has been a sudden influx of sweetpeas this week. One of the obelisks is towering above about 15 of them but, so far there’s only been green shoots and lots of leaves. This all changed on the weekend but today we have three different colours. Here’s a white one.

The first white sweetpea in our garden

They smell gorgeous and are starting to look lovely as well. They are matched only by the other obelisk where the black eyed Susans have gone mad. Actually, I can’t get into the base of the obelisk so there’s grass and all manner of ‘things’ growing in there. Fortunately, all the casual observer sees, is the lovely flowers. It looks like there’s only one red one by the photo below but, rest assured, there are more.

Black eyed Susans

I also planted a potted lemon balm I had as I thought the scent was wasted by the green cone. It now lives by the two wooden chairs under the pergola.

Naturally, after lunch, we went for a walk up the park. Whenever I take the dogs up there, I always wish I had the camera ready when they meet other dogs – Carmen more than Day-z – but I’ve never managed to capture the meeting before. I say ‘before’ because I sort of managed today.

Carmen meets a young Labrador

I was trying to take a moving picture of one of them, so the camera was ready and I was already pointing it at them. It seemed remarkably silly not to take the opportunity. Also, the Labrador didn’t seem to mind. Just a pity I didn’t get them side on. Next time.

We managed to make it home without an FSI, for which I was very grateful as Mirinda came home for the rest of the week. She cleared all her meetings and decided to work from home (here, not the flat) instead. We three are very pleased. And I cooked a special dinner for us to celebrate.