Rabbit Droppings To The Rescue

Photo Copyright: Maggie May

It's official now. Six days of 30+C (that's up in the 80F range) and no rain means its a heatwave. Although the farmers and gardeners are struggling and I dare say that we will be threatened with a hose pipe ban if it goes on too long, it makes a welcome change from the cold and damp that we had previously. When I think about the wet Summer we had last year and our late Spring this year, it seems incredible.

British homes, as a general rule, don't have air conditioning so that we do tend to swelter when it gets like this. Electric fans are a must though when relaxing in a chair. However, it is always a treat to go into a supermarket where there is air conditioning and cool down before the trek home in the heat and of course its good to have a cool shower.

The Clematis, roses and all the other plants in my garden are all doing well. I have been throwing rabbit droppings on the soil around the roots of many shrubs that were looking tired and that seems to have given them a new lease of life. As far as I'm concerned, one can never have too many rabbit droppings.

Harry has finished his 10th chemo which he's tolerated with stoical determination. I'm hoping that he will have a bit of respite from his cancer now and that he will be able to enjoy and take part in Sam and Sandy's wedding that is now only a month away. They have found a very picturesque place to have the reception that will make a good backdrop for photos and the grounds will provide a lovely play area for the 20 or so children who will be attending.

It is nearly the end of term now and we have both been to see the children in their school musicals. Millie played a villager in The Pied Piper Of Hamelin which was a delight to watch and she spoke her lines very clearly and confidently.

Amber was an orphan in Oliver and I must say that they are a very talented group of children and the singing was extremely good.

So now we are nearing the end of the early breakfasts and keeping an eye on the clock in order to move on to the next activity and I daresay that it will take a bit of getting used to having time on our hands. However, there are books to be read and endless sunshine....... What more can anyone ask?

Moth Mystery

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

I was out in the garden hanging out the laundry when something caught my eye.

A beautiful butterfly. I rushed indoors to get my camera but not really expecting it to be there when I returned.

Luck was on my side. It wasn't going anywhere fast.

I zoomed in.

I'm no expert but I knew it was not a butterfly, but a moth.

What kind, I do not know. I am relying on somebody being able to solve this mystery.

While I had the camera in my hand, I decided to snap any flora that was in flower.

The California Poppy always does well in my garden and sometimes grows so prolifically that it could almost be classed as a weed. It does have a pretty flower though.

This little flower is shyly peeping out from behind some ferns. I thought I had lost all the plants in my garden.

It is the bi-ennial Lychnis Coronaria, with it's silver leaves and carmine flowers. Always one of my favourites, so I am extremely pleased to see it back in my garden.

My two unnamed Clematis are really doing well this year.

I think in our garden anyway, it has to be the plant of the year. (So far.)

I am now looking forward to hearing what kind of moth visited my garden?

The May Garden

Photos copyright: Maggie May

When I introduced this Campanula from a tiny cutting that I placed into my stone dividing wall, many years ago, I can remember my father saying that I was mad because it would never take. I had taken the cutting from his garden and I don't think he ever lived long enough to see the result. It spread widely all around the patio and it does look striking at this time of the year.

White Aquilegia is another flower that spreads but I do like it.

This Foxglove sprang up unexpectedly as Foxgloves tend to do.

The Poppies are in bud and the Allium are pretty. Strange to think they are related to the onion family. Chives have pretty pink flowers too. I have a pot on my patio.

This is my favourite corner for sitting and watching the garden.

My birdbath developed a crack in it due to the frost last winter, so I have had to put a small container into it..... until I can think of some way of mending the hole (or buy a new bird bath.)

I love the colour of my Clematis.

This is the view from the window..... near to my favourite chair in the house.

Outside, there is a tub containing water Iris that has done very well.

Ups and Downs

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

Just going to the corner shop, I stopped and took photos as I passed my neighbours' flowering shrubs. The first is a rampant species of Clematis that looks beautiful and the second photo is of a Mock Orange Blossom that gives out a beautiful scent.

The day was brightened immediately.

I had good news yesterday when I went for my appointment at the hospital, as my CT scan proved to be clear. The pains I have been suffering from can be put down to arthritis, IBS or just plain old age. Its brilliant news, isn't it?

However, this good fortune is slightly marred by the way Harry is suffering right now.

On Monday, I asked him if he'd mind bringing a sack of compost from the garden centre so that I could do some repotting and he happily set off in the car. However, when he came home he was ashen faced, vomiting and in extreme pain from his back.

Yes, I know..... I am on a guilt trip because of it but he is an retired builder and is always going on about large sacks of things being no trouble at all. He forgets that he is not twenty anymore.

Well he has been off his feet since Monday lunch time and has had the doctor round and been on lots of pills that all seem to upset him. It is awful to see him like this and his appointment with his Oncologist has been brought forward to next week instead of May to discuss his recent bone scan.

In the mean time he cannot even be bothered to read a paper or watch TV and he isn't eating hardly anything and is still vomiting.

I can't believe the sudden change in him. So you see, my recent good news seems to be swamped by this new crisis with Harry.

Life is all about ups and downs in this household.

Since writing this post, I am pleased to say that there is an improvement in Harry and I hope it is the beginning of him getting into better health.

Twigs and Wigs

Photos copyright: Maggie May

This last week has been what I call my best week. The week that my blood cells start to pick up. (The white cells in particular are at their lowest ebb on the fourteenth day of the 3 weekly sessions of chemotherapy.) I have noticed that I am not quite as lively as I was at this stage on session one, so maybe my seasoned chemotherapy advisors are right when they suggest there is an accumulative effect when each session takes a worse toll on the body than the last. After all, they have been there. They know what it is like.

However, there is a stubborn streak in me that wants to ignore this and pretend it isn't so. You can all laugh at me later, if I am wrong.

I think it must be a British thing to go out walking in all weathers. I tend to think that my overseas readers think that I am slightly mad for doing it.

I was brought up in the days when everyone walked everywhere. When we had babies we were instructed to put them outside in the garden for a few hours in the morning, in their prams, in all weathers. The fresh air, we were told would do them good. Most of the prams in those days were sturdy Silver Cross or similar type models with lots of protection from the elements. Not at all like the modern buggy.

At that time, I was more worried about the 14 yr old boy next door who used to fire an air rifle at targets down his garden, with only a flimsy wooden fence between him and my son.

However my baby survived the pellets that might have strayed over but he did suffer from asthma later on. I'm not sure if it was through being out in all weathers or if it was because he was a passive smoker, like me because his Dad and all the outer circle of relatives smoked back then. It was positively encouraged wherever you went.

Non of this would have happened today in the climate of over protecting our youngsters, never letting them anywhere on their own or to take any risk of any kind, without an adult being present and I look back in horror now at some of the things that we all did in those days.

I was really on the subject of walking but took a little detour. Sorry about that.

Well these past two weeks I have walked out in all weathers and different friends have rallied round and said they would accompany me on walks and I have a few booked in for this week later on.

I have started to wear my wig lately. At first it took a bit of nerve as I feel I look more like 45 in it.......... from the back, that is and I feel like mutton dressed as lamb.

A few days ago I bumped into one of my livelier work mates while out, wearing my wig and she shrieked with joy as we hugged one another and laughed fit to bust.

"What are you going to do, Maggie, when your hair grows back? Only you look so much younger in that wig and so well."

I suppose she has a point but the prospect of having any hair at all seems a very long way off. Too long to even visualise it. No wonder I feel the cold as I have lost all the hair on my arms and legs too so cannot even shiver properly. Not that I was a hairy type, mind.

I was gardening recently. Chopping back the clematis from the bottom of trees and shrubs because I wanted them to bear flowers in the Spring and late Summer low enough to see them. I completely forgot that I was wearing a wig and I nearly lost the thing altogether when it became tangled in a branch. That was in the privacy of my own garden. Imagine walking under some low shrubs on the pavement, as I often do and suddenly having my hair torn off. I must definitely remember to be very careful when doing such things in future.

When I wear my wig, every one assumes that I am really healthy and expects much more of me no matter what I am really feeling like inside. When I wear a head scarf, I have had doors opened for me and even people urging me forward in a queue because they must assume I am a poor, sick person having chemotherapy. So that is quite a useful thing. I definitely won't be wearing a wig when I am feeling weak.

What ever happens, it does pay to have a sense of humour. My youngest granddaughter says, "Grannie, let me see you under that scarf. How much hair have you got left?"

I would definitely like to see the girls' school work and wonder if they have written anything about hair loss and being ill or if they have even drawn pictures. Children tend to tell it like it is. They are not scared to speak the truth the way we are.

Well I have rattled on about hair and chemotherapy yet again.

My next session is on 2nd February ....... if the pre assessment the day before proves I am fit enough. I dread having the next one but would be gutted if I couldn't.

That will be Session Three....... the halfway mark. Doesn't time fly by?

(When you're having fun?)

I'd like to remind anyone who might not have seen my brother Eddie Bluelights on the 100th Sunday Roast, interviewing an old friend David Mcmahon, the Melbourne journalist, writer of best selling novels and professional photographer who we all used to know through our blogging. Why not go over and learn more about him.

How Does The Garden Grow?

All photos are the copy right of Maggie May.

'Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does the garden grow?'

'With silver bells and cockle shells

and pretty maids all in a row.'

That's how the old nursery rhyme goes anyway and you may well be wondering what is growing in my garden after the shock of the scaffolders earlier on.

A pot of Pelargoniums ( commonly known falsely as a geranium.)

Passiflora caerulea known as the common Passion Flower.

Species Geranium....... Johnson's Blue.

Clematis...... unknown name.

Another Clematis that I'm not sure of the name either.

Incidentally, I wonder how you pronounce this word? Clem - ate- is or Clem- attis?

So all in all, my garden does seem to have some lovely living things in it and once it is all tidied up, should look more like it used to, which is more than I can say about the kitchen at the moment!

My Quiet Place..........

This is part of my little garden. My retreat where I sit in the middle of the city but in total peace and calm. I read or think out new posts or just look at everything. The above photo is of a clematis which is growing amidst the passion flower plant, which has buds that are about to flower. 

Always watching me is this stone cat on a wall, surrounded by campanulas.

I put a small cutting of campanula from my Dad's garden many years ago into a crack in the wall and I can remember him saying that it would never take! I carefully watered it and it settled very well. Now it covers the whole wall and has to be trimmed back regularly. Some things just have to be tried out!

This is the place where I sit near to the bird feeders. You can see my chair in the corner. The ceanothus  (tall blue flowering shrub) has done really well this year and helps to make our garden private. I think every one needs a little place where they can sit and recharge their batteries! 

The garden was filled with butterflies a couple of weeks ago, but just because I wanted to take some photos, they seem to have disappeared. The butterflies were Skippers. I don't know what plants they live on but they come for a few weeks every year. Obviously I have missed them.

Well, now on to a meme!  Lady Thinker  who has a blog called "Who Cares..." has given me a book meme to do.

She asked me to pick up a book and open it at page 123 and read out the 5th sentence!  Well this is very simple but what book shall I choose?

I will pick up the last book I read, which happens to be" Vegemite Vindaloo" by David Mcmahon from authorblog

I found this book to be a really good read. In places it was sad, but in others very funny. A sort of bouncing between two countries and two different cultures. Anyway, I enjoyed the book, so recommend it. Here goes.........

"The next time Bablu and his grandmother appeared, he asked the old lady if she would pass on a message to the boy's parents."

Well, there we are. Doesn't mean much when its just a sentence. However, it is at a place in the book where there is a struggle for the extreme poor to get an education. A Catholic priest decides to give a gifted child a chance of learning to read. A child that would otherwise be doomed to a life of poverty. This child grows up to have a very privileged  job and inspires some one else to give another needy child a break. By breaking through the boundaries of a caste system, a whole series of events lead to a change in the circumstances of two families!

I am now supposed to tag someone! However, I am going to leave this open for any one who wants to do this meme  and let me know if you decide to and I will come over and read it. I know that many of you have already done this one. Here's hoping that some of you haven't!