I've Started So I'll Finish - But When?

I really don't know how I got into such a muddle. The house and back garden look like a tornado came through. Things started and then due to the weather, timing and general apathy not finished.

I started on some glass and made one test panel. Not too bad considering I haven't done any for 6 years. I cut some more and then the cold weather came back and it's really cold down in the shed so no further progress.

We had a lovely balmy day last Sunday so I made a start on the end bed by the new shed. We bought a crab apple as a small memorial to our darling Bo. We had a beauty in France and that was his place to sit and survey his kingdom and it's my abiding memory of him. Now I don't want anybody to imagine froths of blossom and clusters of fruit because basically all we have here at the moment is well, a stick. Gardeners are nothing if not patient. I'm still desperately looking for signs of life on my banana but all I have at the moment is a tatty stump. Perhaps a few days of hot weather. I remember that. I planted lots of cannas and sprinkled round some poppy seeds and nigella. It's looking very bare at the moment. I brought the big pot with the jasmine through from the front and OH put a trellis on the side of the shed, so it's slowly coming together. I repotted all Mother's herbs that were getting pot bound and she wants them out in the front so that she can tend them more easily as there are not many steps out there.
The hard work last year in the front has paid off. I already have one of the lavenders in full bloom and the hysteria [ wisteria ] is already out and showing off something rotten.

We had to get up at stupid o'clock [5 am ] on Wednesday to get Mother down to hospital in Exeter for an angiogram. She is fine, well as fine as she can be. It was like a sausage factory. Twelve in by 8 am, treated and sent home and then another twelve in at 2. While she was in we went up into to town and as desperately as I tried I couldn't spend any money. All shops now seem to clones of each other selling the same old same old. I spent a few bob in the pound shop. How sad is that? We had a nice lunch in Wagamamas though which made up for it a bit.

Apropos my last blog I think I've found Northdown Lodge where Kingsley did lots of his writing and the daft thing is I've been walking past it for years. There's an unadopted road that runs from the street down past the backs of some 60's houses that leads to the nature reserve where I walk Minnie on a daily basis. Just by the gate there is a Georgian house which for years looked deserted but has lately been converted to a home for disabled people. They have a large minibus parked outside emblazoned with Northdown Lodge. Doh! How many times have I walked past and not made the connection? I'll do a bit more detective work. Sherlock Holmes I aint.