What a mad couple of weeks it’s been lately! If you’re a regular reader you may have read about our flooded garden last week which threw my mood out for a few days, but remarkably dried out really quickly thanks to the glorious sun we had last week and it’s looking like we’ve been really lucky and not lost too many plants.
All things considered, it’s been a pretty good week, so on with the Happy List!
01. I’m a huge fan of wisteria - it’s such a short lived but beautiful bloomer - and this time of year you just seem to notice it’s purple glory everywhere. A few days ago my mum rang me, knowing how much I loved it, and told me I had to get down to Greys Court to see theirs as it was so stunning. She wasn’t wrong! The wisteria is contained in a walled garden room and then extends out into a beautiful tunnel - as soon as you step through the door the sweet smell fills your nostrils and you can hear the buzzing of bees in the purple canopy above you. Expect a full blog post very soon!
02. I’ve hit a couple of big blog milestones - 100 likes on my Facebook page, and 500 followers on Instagram! Both of these are quite a big deal for me - Instagram because I absolutely love it, and Facebook because I was slow to set up a Facebook page and it’s lagged behind my other social media platforms quite a lot. But 100 likes seems like a big milestone, and those 100 likes do generate a lot of traffic!
03. Max is slowly starting to grasp the art of sharing! It’s been a long time coming, and with a cousin the same age, that’s meant some big tantrums along the way, but over the last two weeks he’s become much better about understanding ‘taking turns’. Seeing the two boys play with the ride of digger with one pushing and one riding was lovely! Of course, there’s still plenty of tantrums going on, it’s just nice to have a brief respite every now and again!
04. We visited Max’s Uncle in Brighton last weekend. We took him to the Aquarium, where he was fascinated by the stingrays, and then had a lovely lunch where he charmed the waitress. The loveliest thing was at the end of the meal when we got up to leave, and Max toddled up to his Uncle, took his hand, and insisted on walking with him all the way back to the car (I think it must have been about a mile!). I’m not totally sure that his Uncle understood how unusual this is for Max - he’s really taken a shine to him!
05. I know I mentioned this in my opening paragraph, but I’m genuinely so pleased and amazed at how well the garden has coped with being flooded. I use a lot of drought tolerant plants in my planting schemes, so I wasn’t at all hopeful that there would be much at all that would survive, but to look at the garden right now, you’d never know anything had happened. My parents came round to help with the clean up last weekend (thanks Mum and Dad!), and we spent Sunday at the garden centre buying compost to reintroduce nutrients back into the soil. It’s clear that there are some plants that just aren’t going to make it, but remarkably few considering. I’m really happy. Gardens are remarkably resilient!
