Where we go out in the fresh air a lot (which is quite an event in itself)

Firstly, this would not be a proper British blog if there were no blurry photographs of fireworks. There are traditions to be upheld (even if I am a couple of days late. Look. I've had a busy weekend, okay?)

If you're still in a bonfire mood, I have TV and radio suggestions. (I am always in a Bonfire mood. Halloween can go and get lost, as far as I'm concerned. I am much more in favour of celebrating half-baked treason, which seems a particularly British thing to go for.)

The Lattes and I very much enjoyed watching Richard Hammond's Exploding the Legend (available in 10-minute instalments on Youtube, starting here), where the old Parliament buildings were recreated, filled with crash test dummies, and blown up in an experiment to see if the plot would actually have worked. The blowing-up bits were interspersed by a kind of docu-drama with lots of fascinating stuff about the plotters.

There's also this radio comedy, available till November 13, where Guy Fawkes eats deep-fried birds for bar snacks and is late to a plotting meeting after being presented with an irresistable opportunity to tip a vicar into a well. In recommending this programme, I must admit that I haven't heard the end, because I always listen to the iPlayer when I'm going to sleep. But it's got Archie from Balamory in it, which must count for something with you people.

And now to the seizing of the day. Eldest woke up on Sunday with a desire to revisit a forest she had been to on a school trip. Usually this kind of request would have been denied, if I'm honest, since Sunday was already full of plans for church and confirmation classes and a wish to sit under a duvet and watch a DVD.

Then we remembered that in less than two weeks, Eldest will have had her surgery. Who knows how long it will be before she can enjoy a forest? Who knows how long it will be before she can even leave the house?

On an ordinary weekend, would we have wasted a beautiful Autumn day? We would. Will we learn a lesson from this? Probably not.

Thanks to the Random Number Generator, the winner of my Kelloggs school breakfast giveaway is DeZeal - thanks to everyone who entered.

Calendar for September

What to say about Lynn from Speechless, Mostly, from whom I nicked this month's calendar image? She's just lovely, and funny, and she sends me emails that make me snort with laughter. I think she's fab.

Is it Autumn already? Really? Fantastic. I love Autumn in the garden. I know just what I'm doing.

I always miss Spring. I'm too late for it, and even if I manage to plan any seeds in time my seedlings all die, and it's hotter than I thought, earlier than I expected, and everything is full of weeds.

In Summer I stare at my garden helplessly through the rain as the greenery inches towards the sky like the forest in Sleeping Beauty.

But in Autumn I'm in control. I'm cutting stuff down and tidying up. With blades.

I don't have to feel guilty about what didn't grow. In the compost it goes!

I can buy mulch! And pat it down all over the place like a carpet!

I can make half-arsed attempts to propagate things that will be so far dead by next Spring I will have forgotten what they were even supposed to be! So it won't matter!

I can plant wallflowers! I love wallflowers. I have bought two trays, and put them in. Remember this year's wallflowers? Next year will be different, for no other reason than Because I Say So. Also bulbs, which I fling around with no real thought for how deep they need to be, and then get annoyed when my wondrous show of daffs fails to materialise.

I can move things! I always move things in Autumn. I'm constantly convinced that if I just move this shrub/ aquilegia/ bunch of whatever-the-hell-it-is over there, then next year over here will look less insane.

Also, I have signed up to some email thing or other that tells me what I should be doing every week, so there's no way it can possibly go wrong next year.

Oh, this year. It's so last year already.

Yellow

I love daffodils. So I was going to buy some. But then my mother turned up with some...


...and then one of the Safari Supperers from the last post brought some to say thank you... (if my university friend Ali is reading this, she may well recognise that vase)


...and then a parcel came! A parcel! So exciting! It was from dottycookie, who had very kindly offered to send me one of her little carrier bag tidies for my mother, who is addicted to carrier bags. She rustles.

But not just a carrier tidy - she also popped in two rings for the Little Lattes, and yet more yellow-and-green spring goodness in the form of a crochet brooch. Dottycookie is officially one of the nicest people in the world.


I have been amply provided for with daffodils - it seems time to share the joy. I'm off to buy a bunch or two to give to the next friends I meet - and I hope you enjoy your glimpse of mine.

Sunday

A first visit to the Garden Centre! It must be Spring!


(Don't you get sniffy with me about the chemicals. I have a disabled ramp in my garden which becomes covered every winter in a layer of delicious slimy algae. Being green is the last thing on your mind when your child is standing at the bottom of a slithery ramp tapping it nervously with the end of a crutch.)

Anyway, it's not like I'm going out there anytime soon. It's hideous. I'm content just to peer at it through the kitchen window.

(self portrait with moss and tarpaulin)

Sunday was great for the simple reason that there was SO MUCH CAKE. My mother had roped me into hosting a dessert course for the church Safari Supper on Saturday night, which necessitated baking far too much stuff in case anyone didn't like any of the other stuff. In case you are a very lucky, blessed person and you have never had to attend a Safari Supper, this is a bizarre social occasion where you trudge around the streets having a four-course dinner in four different houses with different sets of people every time, in order to meet as many people as possible whilst keeping to an almost military eating timetable. With MAPS.

(Please tell me other people do this. Please tell me that Anglicans are not just, you know, weird.)

So Sunday morning found us with a fridge full of carrot cake, lemon drizzle cake, pear tart and chocolate brownies. And no day can go wrong after that.



Especially not with visiting grandparents around to brush up on their cycling training skills, last used when Mr Coffee was a lad.

Looking for Spring

I have ventured into the garden for the first time this year. I stayed long enough to hang out the sheets and then I fled back inside.

It is not a pretty sight.

I have been to driftwood's blog, and I have admired her self-seeding poppies and her lush green lawn and her budding wallflowers, and I wanted to respond in kind. But I cannot. I have nothing. I tried to take a picture of my bank of spring bulbs (in reality a patch of land with a few straggling snowdrops at the edge of it) but the neighbour's cats had left, erm, presents which you probably don't want to look at.

(Where on earth are my spring bulbs? They are coming up all over the place around here except in my bl@@*y garden. What happened to them?)

Here is a patch I planted in Autumn with some lovely, jewel-coloured wallflowers. Wallflowers are such good value! They come into life in the dead of winter and are there ready to greet you when the sun comes out.


Yes. I'm wondering where the wallflowers went too.

(Oh, if any of you are passing Waterstones, check this out)

More water! More water for the rainsoaked garden

Today was the second day of summer. Yes, I know it is October. But I have had two good gardening days since the May Bank Holiday, and today was one of them.

Mostly this summer we have just watched the rain pour down the kitchen window, and on the rare occasions I have ventured out there - usually to hang out some washing which came in a few hours later, wetter than it started - it has been like a nightmare landscape, with long wet grass, huge fat slugs and looming, blackened sunflowers.

The Little Lattes like gardening. Well, to clarify, they like getting things wet, digging (the Eldest Latte used to spend hours doing this), and shouting at ants (this is the Littlest Latte's department). So here they are, getting something wet - some new flowers, and Mr Coffee's acer, which we have planted in the ground after it nearly died of a lack of water during the May Bank Holiday. It has had plenty - plenty - of water since.

(In the foreground you can see the lovely autumn colour of one of our three blueberry bushes. This year the Coffee House planned to spend the summer eating bowlfuls of homegrown berries - raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. In the end we ate four strawberries, all of which ripened on different days, giving the Little Lattes the chance to eat half a strawberry each, once a week for a month.)