Melting

I looked back at pictures of the garden this time last year and could scarcely believe the difference between then and now. The beds were bare, for heavens sake, the shrubs tiny! Only when the perennials got going did it start to look mature. It's quite a different picture now. Most satisfying for me is the area at the bottom of the garden, and the pond. By comparison with last year it looks as if the triffids have taken over now. It's interesting what has self-seeded, and what has spread itself out. In the front garden there are now dozens of the lovely, delicate gladiolus byzantius, the mauvy-purple variation on the huge, vulgar things that Edna Everidge throws into her audience. I made a mistake last year and bought what I thought were the same type. When they grew tall and ostentatious with fat yellow, orange and pink petals I knew they had to go. This year there are loads of the originals, and they are beautiful. I don't mind how many come up, or where. Otherwise it's still hit and miss. I'm no garden designer, and nor do I have much of an eye for what would do well where, what less well. But it's all good fun, and it's becoming a really lovely place to be in.

My head continues to ache, and I've barely been able to walk Hugo to the end of one side of the field before turning back exhausted. At the risk of anthropomorphising him, I do sense his surprise, and disappointment. But we're managing. He still hates the heat, and so he drags himself around after me, tongue hanging loose, panting pathetically. "Go and have a drink!" I tell him, and he walks obediently to his bowl and laps a little, then staggers back to my side. I put his bed in the garden room where it was nice and cool, but he wouldn't stay there, preferring to suffer under the sun. As I lay on my recliner under the shade of the umbrella and he stood drooping next to me, I ordered him back to the house. He zigzaged up the lawn, turning to look back at me reproachfully with every step, until he climbed the step and collapsed into his bed again. Oh dear, what a pair we are. And it's only May.