So much for summer

Raindrops

Well, it’s the middle of July – the point of the year at which I’d usually be complaining about my Shed turning into a sauna, and my skin turning lobster-coloured.

Raindrops

Instead I’m sitting here in the dark, with the heater on, looking out at the rain.

So much for summer.

Maiden Erlegh Lake

We’re still trying to get outside as much as we can though, dashing out for short walks between the rain showers.

Just as we were heading home last night, we saw two foxes in the fields. My camera couldn’t manage to catch them in the twilight, but it was lovely to watch them for a while.

Benign Neglect

Courgette

When I came out of hospital I assumed that most of my vegetable seedlings wouldn’t have survived. I forgot to ask Paul to water everything for me, and although he did take care of the pots in the garden the ones in the Shed were left to their own devices. So you can imagine my surprise when I went out there yesterday evening and found that some of the seedlings had actually thrived on a week’s total neglect!

I have three courgettes like this, two pretty impressive pumpkins, and the sweetcorn and tomatoes are starting to show signs of life. No such luck with the peppers, or the tomato plants that I bought from the garden centre, but everything else in the garden seems to be doing okay.

Yesterday afternoon I popped the larger seedlings into some little pots, and decided that they were probably big enough to survive out of doors.

This morning I woke up to the sound of the weather report on the radio telling me that the temperature had fallen to -2° overnight, and that there’d been a frost.

This morning Paul woke up to a cry of “Oh no!” and the sight of me leaping out of bed* and dashing down the garden in my dressing gown to make sure that my seedlings had made it through the night.

The pumpkins seem fine, but the three little courgette plants were looking a bit sorry for themselves. They’re all now residing on the kitchen windowsill, just in case. Fingers crossed that they all survive!

*Turns out that leaping’s quite difficult when you’ve just had a hip arthroscopy.