The way to me

If you were to come visit, you may end up driving up and down our street a few times, searching in vain for the number 22 which you would never find because it lies buried under all this greenery.

This is what our little front garden and the path to the front door look like at the moment -- beautiful chaos.

The peonies under the front window (these ones) are a little past their prime but still fill the air with their fragrance. The lavender will be open in a couple of days. The Pierre de Ronsard roses are just beginning to go bonkers. They are in their hundreds and are wrestling with the honeysuckle. Some people would balk at the sight of orange poppies next to pink roses - I certainly used to - but this is a country garden after all. There is an espaliered plum with Johnson's Blue geraniums growing at its feet. The wisteria is being a thug and stealing all its light. We can't prune the wisteria because there are several nesting pairs of blackbirds in it. The scabious I've been trying to get rid of has returned, and the linaria and the aquilegia have decided they'll grow where they damn well please.

A friend who came for Jin Shin Jyutsu this morning said she was struck by several things while waiting outside the front door - the birdsong, the buzzing of the bees, and the heavenly scent of everything. "I almost wished your doorbell was broken," she said. "I would have been content to stand here all day."


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Thanks for your well wishes on my son's broken wrist yesterday. He particularly appreciated your solidarity on the ice cream front.