Permission to sit down please!

A beautiful little rambler rose which came from a cutting from a parent plant at Gelli-Aur Park.  I only know it as Gelli-Aur, and can't find it in my David Austin roses catalogue.  Any suggestions?  It flowers now, and just the once, and has the most beautiful perfume.

The last few weeks here have been hectic.  First of all, the builders arrived and because they are using lime mortar and render, everywhere has a fine coat of limedust and it is trodden in from outside so the hall floor is permanently filthy.  It also looks like a disaster zone as clearing up the junk room had been on the agenda, and postponed, and never got sorted until yesterday, when we could finally move all the car boot stuff back into the junk room. 

We have been busy with guests - firstly our eldest daughter T came to stay for 10 days, which was lovely, and whilst she was still here, my long-time friend Gay from Dorset came up for a few days.  We had some lovely outings, and of course went to Hay-on-Wye for the day.  I bought two paperbacks about Coleridge and Edward Thomas's book about the writings of Richard Jefferies, using his choice of Jefferies' work.  £7 in total, so I didn't go mad. 

The next day, we visited Jen Jones' Quilts at Lampeter, as she has a fantastic exhibition of quilts at the moment - traditional wholecloth Welsh quilts around the walls and hanging from the ceiling, a colourful collection of Kaffe Fassett's works.  I took LOTS of photos which I will get around to putting up in the next day or so.  We then drove on to the seaside, visiting Aberaeron for Honey Ice Cream, and then down the coast for a paddle at New Quay.  We didn't want to come home!

Before Gay arrived, we had a family day out to Somerset, getting up early and exploring the area around the Quantocks, as this is one of the areas of Somerset we don't know so well, and there have been a couple of cottages there recently which looked possibles - if they are still on the market when we finally attract a buyer.  We stopped to see what Taunton was like, as we had never been there (very pleasant), and also visited Coleridge's cottage, which was lovely.

Now the Aquilegias  are flowering in my garden, and making a nice show.  My wild ones along our outer field boundary have, however, fallen foul of the local verge trimmers and been cut down in mid-flower, which I am not best pleased about.  August is the time to cut back verges, when most of the wild flowers are spent and have seeded and the grass is looking dry and untidy.  WHY do Councils have this idea that the countryside needs to be kept clean and tidy like someone's back garden?

Sadly, this colourful Aquilegia was one of the winter's casualties.  Hiss and spit . . .


I am slowly getting over the Pleurisy, but it seems like 3 steps forward and 2 back and I soon pay the price for over-doing things.  Yesterday had to be a rest-up day, as we had a hectic weekend with boot sales, and then on Monday I worked flat out rubbing down external paintwork around the bay windows and porch and also putting a final coat of cream on the windows and one door surround in the kitchen. 

Today I see my Consultant again, so I will be interested to hear what he has to say.  The pollen has just started to get to me  - it is apparently a very bad year, because of the late spring and all the trees, shrubs and grasses flowering together and even people who have never had hay fever before seem to have it this year for the first time.  I trust I won't get as bad as I did a year ago, when I already had a bad chest-infection when the pollen hit, and I thought I would suffocate.

Anyway, the sunshine, much enjoyed, has left us and in its place we have grey damp weather with a soft drizzle (which is, let's face it, a great improvement on the usual Welsh monsoon).