How green the grass is, how brimming the ponds, how lovely the cloud formations!

How huge and succulent the weeds and how ragged the edges of the flowerbeds.  How heavy my boots with mud, how filthy my fingernails, how runny my mascara, how wet my hair.  For here in Northamptonshire it has rained six days and nights out of seven for three whole months.

And, with a careless laugh at all my efforts to plant,  prune, stake, spray and tie in order to create a garden of beauty, Nature gets on with her own little essay in beauty in a patch of uncultivated ground with no help from me …not even the flinging of a handful of seed.

This is what she has done

And this

and this

Well, really, it’s too heavenly for words and I shouldn’t be annoyed by this showing off on the part of Nature but it does make one want to fling down one’s spade and go indoors for a good long sulk.