In the garden

Ahhhhh how young does John look?  He is, as I am sure you can recognise, standing in the top row on the right.  Apparently this was taken in the 1990s possibly 1998 at a Christmas 'do' held in Portsmouth - I didn't go to that one although we were married at the time.  Not sure why I didn't but thinking back as to how messy they could be it might have been one of my better decisions!!!

It was a glorious day today and I had earmarked time in the garden to deal with some of the plants that need cutting back so that they put on good growth next year.  Today was the turn of the Podranea which graces the wooden arch.  It is still growing and still flowering but in previous years leaving it up when it might get windy has been a recipe for disaster.  The Podranea grows up the left of the arch and then up and over and because it flowers on the ends of new growth needs to be cut back hard otherwise the only people to benefit from its beautiful pink flowers are the goats when they come into the field next door.  Growing up the right and up and over is the kiwi fruit which will soon be bereft of any leaves.  It is growing well but I doubt it will ever bear fruit as even though the seller insisted it was self pollinating I am sure it is one which needs a partner of the opposite sex to do the do as it were.

I had some company whilst I was doing the haircut.  This is a green shield bug and is quite pretty but its more common name a GREEN STINK BUG gives you a big enough clue to leave it alone.  The weather is still warm enough that there are lizards still active in the garden along with a million snails and worse millipedes which seem to be reproducing at an alarming rate.  The other evening we came home and on the wooden fence by our front gate which separates our path from Gregoris and Dora's garden there were hundreds and hundreds of what looked like newly hatched millipedes and they, like the green shield bug, stink if touched.

So we can see the wooden arch once more and we can also see the robin which my sister gave me.  The kiwi has some straggly leaves left but I will probably remove them before they make a mess - it depends on the weather over the next could of days.   The solanum got a bit of a haircut along with some of the osteospurmum which were creeping onto the path and after a quick whip round gathering up more tender plants which are in pots and putting them under the gazebo where we eat the garden was declared done for the day.

We were eating up the chicken curry I had made last night - at first glance it didn't look to be a huge meal but it had morphed into something more like a biryani which is much more filling.  I had however promised to make John some onion bhajis to pad it out so he was delighted when there was sufficient of both for him to have for a light lunch tomorrow when I go down and take Mum shopping.

The bhajis were delicious - even nicer than what we had at Poppadoms when we went for Jan and Derek's farewell meal.  I prefer my bhajis not to be too stodgy and the recipe I used last night meant that the onion was lightly coated in a tasty batter which wasn't heated too much so that the onion cooked and the coating browned and crisped perfectly.

We had a quiet evening.  Enjoying our food with a glass of wine and the woodburner roaring.  I am off to physio tomorrow morning before taking mum shopping so I will be out of the house most of the day.  John will be home to accept a delivery from the woodyard for the sheets of chipboard he has ordered for the underside of the new carport roof.