welsh hills again

Since I got back from Oxford I seem to have spent as close to every waking hour in the garden as possible.  Yesterday was another glorious, hot, sunny day, a day for suncream and gardening (a la Sarah Raven) not in jeans and boots but in an old skirt and flip flops.  But today has been grey and cool, oddly pleasantly so.  I have been moving ground cover plants down to the native tree walk, things that get out of hand anywhere that you want to cultivate intensively but are gently green and satisfying on bare soil - tellima grandiflora, alchemilla, self sown forget me nots.  They have been wilting and sighing in the heat but today they settled back softly in the grey green light, last night's watering still keeping them green and full throughout the day. I went seed sowing in the greenhouse again.  Ian has a big birthday coming up in the summer and I have become obsessed with having a celebratory garden.  I think this needs a blog to itself, or more, I co...

At this time of year I always think I should feel to have extra time.  Yesterday was the longest day and, after a day in Manchester, we still managed to spend an hour or two in the garden, watering, tying things up, putting things back in the cold frames after resiting them in order to extend the hen run.  The moon gleamed like a small pale sun.   The sky was still light at 10 o' clock. Across the valley the clouds held the last of the sun. I love summer and last night I had a profound attack of how lucky I am to live here. When I woke this morning to another green and gold day I thought I might manage to do some work, go to the hairdressers, and  paint in the kitchen, now beautifully plastered and revealing its smooth curves. Not yet what you could call a working kitchen though is it?   Am I the only one who always hopelessly misjudges what I can do in a certain amount of time?  I look at the bits of my day that are committed and assume that the res...