Yep we did have one good day this weekend, yesterday!!! It was lovely and sunny, even warm enough for me to have the window open for most of the day!!! Such a contrast to today though. Rain, all grey cloud cover, cold wind - no windows open neither!!!

Back to yesterday - I wandered around the house into the garden. When I went around the front of the house, I noticed how much purple loosestrife there was. The flower was everywhere making this rough patch look so beautiful.......



I did notice though, that this flower was around the white lilac tree which had almost fallen apart - such a shame, the wind had been very vicious and had taken it out on the little tree and it had started to fall apart...


I then noticed that Pippin who'd come out with me - as per usual, had decided to have a drink from the flower trough. Now this flower trough is very old - I would say about 100 years old, as is another identical one on the other side of the steps. You can imagine the condition of the inside of this trough which had once been full of flowers, but had since been emptied (but not washed) and then rain had fallen into it over the winter. The colour of the water was absolutely disgustingly green and brown - and Pippin thought it was a great place to have a drink!!!!!!!!!! I do despair of him sometimes....

Anyway I then went down the steps into the top lawn. Emily had cut the grass last week, so I'm hoping she won't have to do it again tomorrow when she comes. I noticed that there were a lot of brambles with blackberries starting to grow...



I can see that soon I'll be able to have blackberry crumble or even make some jam!!! especially when partnered with apples - like the ones on the tree here...





Can you imagine the amount of apple crumbles too? Or even blackberry and apple crumbles. I could also make the jam with the two fruits - mmmm.



Looking at them here - I do think they'll be ready to pick this week - maybe I'll ask Emily if she could pick a couple tomorrow.

Although most of the garden is just green, there are patches where colour does come up and soon there'll be loads of orange colour from the mombretia...


See they're starting to flower already. Of course the Himalayan Honeysuckle is in full flower - an amazing plant - especially as I hadn't planted it - just some very kind bird dropped a seed or piece of plant and it started to grow....



So you see, even though my gorgeous blossom has left me until next year, there are still some flowers willing to grace my unkempt garden. I've also noticed that the driveway is getting very full of weeds, so I'm going to have to try and rid myself of them. I've heard that you can make your own weed killer that is okay for animals to be around - so today I got some salt, vinegar and washing up liquid extra in my weekly delivery and I'll make up some weed killer with it. Apparently it's very good, I'll let you know if it works!

This lockdown situation is still going on thankfully - although there are some idiots who think they know better or are completely immune to catching it (if it exists - they say!!!) - then they wonder why they feel so ill !! If they would only do as requested, like the rest of us, then this virus can be kept under control. In Turkey it's starting to be bad too. Where Mandi lives, it's lovely and quiet and the Turks say that it's safe down there - well it might have been before all the visitors from Istanbul and Ankara came and they won't wear masks, even though it's mandatory, and they gather in groups - again not allowed, but the police are stretched enough not to be around when they are needed. So Mandi is too scared to go out - she has been for a couple of swims on the beach nearer her home, where there aren't so many visitors, but she says she's too nervous to enjoy herself. It's such a shame.

I do hope you are all keeping safe and looking after yourselves. I do hope it won't be long before we can start living normally again. I haven't seen Mandi since June last year, and Tony since March - it can get very lonely at times, but thank heavens for Skype and Messenger. I don't think I could have coped with it otherwise.