Long Time Since

On my first mountain flower holiday, back in 1996, I joined an Alpine Garden society tour to the Pyrenees where, in woodland, growing on mossy limestone rocks, we saw Ramonda myconi in flower.  It's a hardy member of the Gesneriad family which includes African Violets and streptocarpus both popular houseplants.   Ramonda leaves are somewhat similar to streptocarpus which can be easily propagated from leaf cuttings.  Unfortunately this is not the case in ramonda which can be divided but are most often raised from seed.   The seed is dust-like and as the young plants are almost microscopically small, raising them is not entirely straightforward.   A challenge I will take up soon hopefully as my plants usually set seed.   These grow in a trough under the edge of a tall shrub, on the east facing side of the house where they seem happy despite some winter foliage damage.

I awoke feeling decidedly rough which was a pain as I had agreed to work today in the kitchen at Kings Cafe.   Not ill, just feeling run down and overtired.   Having decided to give it a go, I actually felt much better after a full-on six hour shift mixing front of house runner duties with an awful lot of washing up!    Nice to spend some down time at Jamie's after and we took the dogs to the ball field for the last hour of daylight.