Benton Susan

Another of Cedric Morris's irises. Because of the name (Susan, not Benton!) I bought this in memory of my mum, not really knowing exactly what the flower colour would be. Pictures on websites and labels are often so misleading and I only realised that Wisley was selling it once it had gone over but as such it was much less stressful to get home without a big precious flower spike to manoeuvre. One of the best things about gardening is the deferred gratification that it imposes and today, after much anticipation, the iris finally flowered.  I wasn't really expecting the pale caramel shade but I think I like it.

A wet morning cooped up meant that W and I got the walking guides out and decided to head out whatever the weather in the afternoon. The walk we picked started off by advising it was wise to 'allow time for confusion' due to the walk being on heathland which is crisscrossed with hundreds of different paths and it's very easy to get disoriented. So, we brought the OS Explorers covering the area and my small compass (best described as a 'lifestyle' compass - definitely not one of those complicated orienteering ones). But (stupidly) no water. I guess  2 out of 3 is better than nothing though. Suffice to say that we did indeed end up needing to use quite a bit of our confusion time allocation and, having confidently set out with only the guidebook's directions, we ended getting out the OS maps and deploying the compass too which actually proved itself to be useful as well as ornamental. We got back eventually but, early on in the walk, the weather had decided to turn hugely hot and sticky and we were definitely ruing our lack of water - remedied though by Son 2 providing large cups of very welcome tea when we got home.