Calling Queensland

Ste Anne
Yesterday's weather: glorious

Coincidence, coincidence. Once more I have two events to mention.
Firstly my sister's saint's day. Regular readers will know that she is about to leave us for a couple of weeks r&r, not to mention a bit of retail therapy US style in Chicago, so the joke du jour will end for a while. Safe journey, Anne and have a great time. Oh, and by the way if you venture into Michigan look out for dried sour cherries, they are delish!

Secondly it's my cousin in Oz's birthday today, one of those 'big' ones with a zero at the end. Tons of love is being sent to Queensland from the UK and France. Of course when you are all partying tonight us European relatives will just about be having breakfast, but in France we'll try and fit in a glass of bubbly before it gets to midnight there. Happy Birthday Elaine. Have a wonderful day, you deserve it.

Now to home matters. We had planned to make a start on various projects this week but Jon has damaged his back. Nothing too serious, we hope but he's taking a few well-earned days off the heavy work and hopefully by next week we'll be ready to start digging, lifting, painting and generally working hard again. The weather forecast is very good for the next couple of weeks (if we can believe it this time) so we are fairly confident that we can really push on with some of the outside jobs. Hopefully a dry spell might also stop the grass from growing quite so rapidly, we can almost hear it growing at the moment.

Trying to make a garden out of a neglected wilderness is quite a challenge. As we are on the side of a rocky hill there is very little topsoil to work with. Next to the house used to be a barn.
This is now a big pile of rock as it appears to have completely collapsed, probably about 50 or 60 years ago. Jon worked hard to clear some of this area in the spring and we planted it with some low growing conifers and a few perennials thinking that as this was the only place we could plant for this year, at least we would have a little colour in the garden. Luckily it has proved a good growing place as the two lupin plants have almost completely taken over the upper level and are putting on a magnificent show. They will have to be moved as soon as summer is over. In front of the barn the 'grass' is more weed than anything else but regular mowing is proving to help kill off the weeds and encourage the grass.

Most of this year's plants are in pots on the patio, including the tomatoes (what is left of them) courgettes, peppers and chillies. We have two beautiful oleander plants which are beginning to put on a beautiful show of deep pink flowers, some fuschias and various other shrubs which aren't flowering at the moment but still look lovely in their pots.

We are beginning to plan next year's garden which will start from the edge of the paving around the pool. At least when the pool is dug out we will finally find out whether that area of garden was ever cultivated, which is what I am hoping for, or whether it is just another area that was neglected. The grass grows better over there so we are hoping it is the former which will make things easier for us. We are going to have to choose plants that don't drop too many leaves, or attract wasps otherwise we will spend too much time cleaning the pool and avoiding the wasps. It will be fun pouring over gardening catalogues this autumn.

Once again I am up and about early today. Kitten was scratching at the door at 6.30. I came downstairs and growled at him. That may sound cruel but it is the only thing he recognises to show that I am cross with him. If you raise your voice at him he thinks you love him even more and just purrs and rubs round your feet. But growling frightens him. I let him out and stayed up with a cuppa and this blog. It is a beautiful morning. Jazz has just come home and hoovered up a whole bowl of food. I don't know where she goes overnight but she is usually back here early in the morning. She's now settling down to a busy day of washing and sleeping.

I'm off to make another cuppa and wake Jon up. Don't want him to miss out on the lovely sunshine.