Bindweed

It's overrunning what used to be a border, and more besides, in the area which was badly messed up by the fallen pine from Storm Eunice, but the blooms twining round the down pipe were beautifully illuminated by early evening light and it has such pretty flowers. 

Our neighbour the retired engineer has repaired the cutting deck of the tractor mower again, of his own volition, because, he said, he doesn't like to be beaten. The first repair had disintegrated very quickly when it came into contact with our long grass, and after exploring all the options we had concluded that the tractor, sans cutting deck, would have to be condemned to Ebay. In the meantime, the grass has grown longer and longer - but today P has managed to cut the "lawn" (more like rough pasture) and a good part of the orchard without any bits falling off when they hit the anthills, so perhaps there is still hope for it. 

This afternoon I helped J with further experimentation with her new graphics tablet: she's been watching YouTube tutorials on how to paint clouds, which she loves to observe, and we tried to find the right digital brushes and smudging tools to create a background and then to shape and blend. It was definitely an improvement on the last attempt, and she enjoyed it, though it will be some time before we can emulate Constable's cloud studies.

Consequently, my gardening time was only long enough for the watering and a bit of raspberry picking; I still have tomatoes to move into their large pots, but now that J only has support on three days each week, one of her PAs having reduced her hours, I'm struggling to get much done. It was a beautiful evening though, so watering the vegetables was a pleasure, with the courgettes and cucumbers forming and tiny pods on the French beans.