I am leaving these alone. Not so a cumbersome, overgrown figwort, whose roots are tangled with bramble and ivy, which I started digging out yesterday and finished this morning. It was also tangled with heaps of day lilies, some of which I have replanted. There is a small figwort offshoot which I have pruned right back so I can find out whether it's capable of behaving itself.

I tried to avoid the news today and failed. Partly because I am writing some training on asylum and thought it relevant to mention that under international law Ukrainians are unlikely to be granted refugee status because they are not fleeing their government. Fleeing war doesn't count. They'd probably get humanitarian protection which gives them fewer rights than refugee status. Meanwhile this country, which likes to trot out the falsehood that it's always been a haven for refugees, has closed off the means of Ukrainians getting visas unless they go to an embassy in a neighbouring country.