Best of Days

I have just been gardening in the sunshine, cutting back the over-exuberant but lovely purple geranium phaeum which is now at its last prayers. In a week or two the massive gaps will be filled with fresh new leaf, but for the time being the bed looks as if it has been savaged by giant moths. Fortunately Sarah Bernhardt is there to distract my eye from the ravaged sections.

My Sarah Bernhardt paeony is determined to win 'The Most Beautiful Plant in the Garden' Award. She might well do it.

Model Dog helped.
She is a very patient gardener.
Top Dog only helped because there was nothing else to do, and the In-Charge had been thoughtless enough to go out without him. Under Dog snoozed in his bed in the kitchen.He doesn't really like gardening anymore.

Sunday is quite my favourite day.
It stems from when the boys were young, I think, and we would have them home from school and the day started with a long lazy brunch.

The best moment of the week..
I wrote a poem about it long ago

Morning Prayer

Later I will remember breakfast on winter Sundays:

the taste of the day, the way the low sun splashes

diamonds around the blue kitchen. Fire deep-rooted

in the belly of the stove, contentment creaking the

dog’s baskets, cats heaped in the chair like cushions,

and - best of days - my three most well-loved faces.

Softly the radio bares its soul, spills out the Omnibus,

someone’s choice of tunes and favourite book, word

games and goons… Warm as winter sunshine, they hook

the small spaces we leave, but we do not care. Too many

smells weave through the air: bacon frying, thick scarlet

moons of tomatoes and fat gold eggs lying spluttering

beside; the scent of coffee vying for place.  We are

greedy and satisfied.  And passing to and fro, filling

as slabs of hot toast buttery with marmalade, tingling

on tongues dark with oranges, are the exchanges of

the week, the hide and seek of words, the small

inconsequential chatter bright as the litter of stars on

the table top. Blissful to be unaware, drifting amidst the

clutter of blue glass and snowdrops, plates and paintings

and paperwork piled in corners, that little will ever

compare with these blessed ways, these best of days.

Dear boys. I suppose Sunday is the day of the week I miss them most, but today started, as all the best Sundays do, with a long chat with No 2 son in New Zealand, and hopefully it will end, as all the best Sundays do, with a chat with No 1 son in England.
Today there will also be a call to wish my Papa a Happy Father's Day.


I wish I could send him a bunch of roses from my garden.
They fill me with delight.

The Pink Jug

Even though the recent rain has tried to batter them into submission, they are undefeated.
Some of them are resting between outbursts, and some haven't even started to flower yet.
But I picked two lovely bunches today. The Pink Jug and the Purple Posy.

The Purple Posy

I can see why little posies of flowers were called nosegays.
When I bury my face in these roses, I almost pass out.with the scent.

Which bunch would you prefer?
Let me know so that I can rush it to you, the tooter-the-sweeter, as the In-Charge always says.



If the Jug or the Posy seem a little too much, you can always opt for the heart-breaker.

The Heartbreaker

Unless Sarah Bernhardt has already captured your heart?