Small achievements

I think this is Cardinal de Richeleau - although it could be Tuscany Superb. . . .

A couple of random rose photos for you today, as I have been planting roses.  I treated myself to a straightforward floribunda rose recently - Champagne Cocktail.  It has large scented semi-double pink-flushed yellow flowers.  It's gone in a gap in the main border and should grow well there in full sun.  I potted on a D.A. rose which has lost its label (one I got for about £7.95 at a stall in Malvern last summer, and couldn't resist - I bought 3 I think.)  I'll have more of a clue which it might be when it has flowered . . .

Yesterday I decided I would plant up one of my David Austin roses I've had growing in big tubs, as it wasn't looking terribly happy as I'd had to prune back its exuberant growth (it's a rambler).  This is the bewitching Veilchenblau, so now I will have to put up some trellis for it.  I will wait until we have finally moved (please let it be soon) before replacing it.  I have to say, it went in a nice deep hole with a good watering and a couple of handfuls of pelleted chicken poo and is looking happier already.  I got a tub of slow-release rose feed granules today and have gone round all the roses, and given them a good watering.  It's been dry for a while and everything in a pot is gasping.  I even remembered to pot on the two small White Foxgloves I got for 50p a pot recently, and which needed a bit more room to grow.  

I have begun - and finished in very short order - a new-to-me Diana Gabaldon book, "Virgins".  I shan't recommend it (though it was a pleasant enough read) as it is just a short story padded out at the end with the first couple of chapters of Cross Stitch (well, it was called that when I bought it, now renamed Outlander).  I think that was a bit mean.  A short story for the price of a book!

Now I have started on Elly Griffiths: The Chalk Pit and even a few chapters in, think I will soon be hooked on her novels.  I am glad there are a few more to read.

I made a double batch of Cornish Fairing Biscuits (ginger biccies) this morning. The dough is very satisfying as you melt the butter and syrup with the sugar and combine it with flour and spices to make a nice ball which you can roll into littler balls and then flatten on a greased tray.  The fat made my hands nice and soft.

Our bed is changed and remade, but I have just made the decision to replace the current duvet which is a bit long in the tooth, though top quality when bought so it has lasted well, with a duck feather and down summer weight one which had a hypoallergenic dustmite-proof cover, and a pair of matching pillows. I hope this will help my asthma as my main allergy is to dust mites.  

It is now looking rather gloomy out, and I am rather hoping it might rain as the garden could do with a drink.  Mind you, tomorrow might do, as I have left the shallow shelf of the wildlife pond to dry as I am going to put another layer of pond liner over it and tuck it away under the edging stones, as it has worn through there, and then I'll put a series of big stones across the front edge in the water to hold it down.  It has a little leak somewhere so I am hoping this will stop it.  All the tadpoles have died - some got washed into undergrowth when the water levels rose a couple of weeks back, and then it dropped and they were left high and dry.  In the main pond, they have just faded away - yet there were thousands in there . . .

Right, a bath and a good book are in order.