Good day

For a chemo day it has been a good one. It all started with a lovely author on Twitter called Tom Cox pronouncing that I'd won a copy of his beautiful book  just because I'd retweeted his tweet - watch this space for photos and review!! It's been on my wish-list for a while and I nearly ordered it this week - I hardly ever enter these draws and have never ever won anything like that before - to say I am excited is an understatement.

Chemo went as well as these things can - the staff are wonderful and kind, J kept me company (after a very quick and soggy trip to the shops nearby to pick up weekend snacks), there was a rainbow to be seen in the sky and I now know all my appointments for the next month so we can make a plan - the treatment itself just happens whilst you sit there - I'll be really tired again for the next few days but that's ok.

The weather kindly decided to give us about half an hour of dry after dinner so J helped me have a potter around the back garden just to say hello to the plants and see all the jobs he did yesterday - shuffling tomato plants to try and encourage the last few beefy ones to ripen before blight hits, finally putting the sweet-pea plant out of its misery which meant a last few blooms to add to the living room vase and transplanting some old grape hyacinth bulbs out of a pot and into the pond bank so they will be little dots of amongst the ferns in the spring.

This week's rain has refreshed everything and the starry asters are now blooming too, the dahlias and roses are a bit bedraggled but nonetheless beautiful, the rudbeckia, monarda, verbena, fuschias and scabious continue to flourish and provide colour and all in all it's looking lovely out there out there at the moment. I could hear lots of buzzing and our wanders disturbed a few moths and other critters plus the odd cheeky slug and snail making the most of the damp and then time to wander back in and put our feet up.

Ivy round the back door flourishing

Verbena going strong and wafting beautifully

Gran's Rose still so very pretty and more blooms to follow

Go on you know you really want to ripen!

Starry asters blooming at last

Sneaky but rather pretty snail hiding in the bird feeder!

Little apples ripening

Bulbs added to the fern bank

Night all!