Rose

We left the house for the allotment only to be dive-bombed by a pair of seagulls a couple of hundred yards from home. Vicious b'stards. Probably lesser black-backed, but we were too busy avoiding their horrible pointed beaks and toenails to be concerned with checking the colour of their legs. It seems rather earlier in the season than usual for them to be feel they must protect their extremely ugly children who are presumably staggering about on the nearby rooftops. Perhaps they're getting into practice in order to welcome the festival goers.

I only put in a relatively short shift of digging and sowing and weeding (oh, and balloon holding), leaving Mr H to do a marathon session while I came home and did a bit of musical homework for tomorrow. Dear me, I'm rusty.

I planted this rambling rose about ten years ago (bought from Woolworths for about £1 I think), but this is the first time it's bloomed. It's been much broken and torn from its moorings by the snottery neighbourhood boys who climb over the wall from time to time, trampling all in their path. But it seems to have had a bit of a respite this year and has got half a dozen beautiful blowsy flowerss on its spindly stem.