Giant Flowers

It was cold this morning. Our outdoor thermometer told us it had been just a fraction of a degree below freezing, but all our flowers looked okay so I don't think we can count it as a frost - thank goodness.  Now the race is on in the garden, the race between that first frost and the remaining peas, raspberries, blackberries and flowers. The ten day forecast says this chilly night was a one-off so we can rest easy on that point.
We had an apple picking adventure today, driving a fair way to pick some free apples from old friends of ours. It's years since we've seen Thomas and Ingrid but when we chatted over coffee it went very easily. Thomas has bees so we were able to buy some honey to add to our stores.
On the way home we stopped at a charity shop. I found a great food-dryer on sale, which was good timing as we had all those slices of porcini mushrooms air drying at home. It cost me about £6 and is now in action!
By chance we met Karin and her sister Ylva in the shop too. Ylva invited us home to dinner and we enjoyed more company and more chat.  We drove home from there at midnight and rain had started to pour down. It was to carry on pouring down for the next 24 hours!
But before any of this  happened we were out in our garden and I took this picture of Jan and the latest sunflower. I'm standing on the deck but both Jan and the sunflower are on the same piece of ground. The sunflower really is that high!  The one next to it is even higher but it hasn't flowered yet. If it survives this storm it may make it though.
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