Project 365 day 257: Raindrops on roses

C and I drank our Tuesday coffee in his conservatory this morning, because it was damp outside and seemed to be about to rain. Inside it was warm and muggy, and smelled overpoweringly of the twenty odd melons he has harvested this week. He grows them under cloches; I failed several times with melons before giving up. He sent me home with two, along with a bag of beetroot, corn cobs and French beans. He's wonderfully generous with his surplus produce, and, at 93, cultivates his large garden with its vegetable plot, flowers, lawns and large area of specimen trees entirely unaided. 

After coffee I took my macro lens for a little browse along his front border. I love these orange/yellow roses, which have huge colour variation on individual plants and such beautifully crisp, tinted edges on their petals. The light was horrible, grey and muddy, and just as I crossed the road the drops began to fall, so I'm not delighted with the colours, but it's the best I managed today.

It's been a busy day, with online meetings and more processing of our own garden produce - courgettes prepared and frozen, raspberries stewed with rhubarb, basil and mint I've dried now processed and in jars. Yesterday's cordial has almost turned into jelly - clearly the apples and blackcurrants had too much pectin, even after the second cooking, to manage a five minute boil without setting. I'm not sure whether to decant it and dilute it a bit, but don't want to lose too much flavour. Perhaps I'll just leave it and see how it goes - I think it will still slide out of the bottles.