- confession time - “I haven’t been doing a lot of work but I do have a perfectly good excuse.”

“Mmm, I don’t believe you, I bet you have just been skiving.”

“No, plant research, honest.”

“Pah!”

“Well, OK, I guess you could call it a holiday but there were a lot of plants to study.”

Well quite a lot, though we couldn’t attempt to grow them here as being Namibia it was quite a hot sand filled holiday with a few snakes along with other interesting wildlife.

I have been doing some work since I have been back such as planting various bulbs and herbaceous plants, a bit of tidying here and there and a last bit of strimming.

There are several herbaceous plants seeded in the veg garden such as Foxglove’s, Verbascum, Aquilegia’s and Verbena bonariensis but instead of weeding them up we have decided to move them to wherever we have space, not an easy thing to find but I am sure we will shoehorn them in somewhere.

I really should get a wiggle on and start the winter pruning but instead of going at it at a run I feel I am looking at it sidelong and making a slow amble towards the necessary tools without taking the plunge and picking any up though once I do start there will be no stopping me until job done.

The autumn colours have not been so remarkable this year though in other parts of the country they look good, I wonder if it is due to our having no rain in September and the leaves drying out and a bit of wind blowing them off, don’t really know but it sounds a good theory to me.

The hollies do look good and are a mass of berries and in quick walk around the garden this morning I noticed a lot of flowers looking great as they haven’t been touched by Jack yet, such as Nerine’s, Fuschia’s, Spanish Broom and some lovely very purple Hebe’s