Sun on our noses

that moment when the sun comes out

In between the showers there's still a breath of warmth and sunshine. The bees are making the most of it, visiting the cosmos, always the cosmos, and the dahlias. There a geranium I'm in love with and I want to save it for next year.

It's called Tomke I think. I just adore that deep red colour in the garden, it really speaks to me for some reason.

I'm a big fan of mending things about the home. The hanger in my ancient peg bag broke. I couldn't bear to part with this fantastic vintage flowery fabric. What would I replace it with? Some plastic basket from China? It wouldn't be the same.

So I stitched on a bit of ribbon. It does the job, hopefully it will last another decade or two...

Here's the outtake with a puppy nose in the picture.

He likes to be wherever I am, doing whatever I'm doing. Even if he's sleeping he'll get up and follow me into the garden to make sure he doesn't lose me. If I pop out for an hour he greets me as though I've been away for a month. Every time.

He is very keen on his pheasant. It must awaken some deeply rooted drive to pick up limp things and carry them around. We found a dead guillemot on the beach on holiday (a big seabird). I had images of him trying to bring it home with him. Kept him well away.

As he grows he's become a bit barkier. At night he feels it his duty to warn us of anyone who might be passing or chatting or loitering. And he's very vigilant when it comes to reflections in the window. Will he ever work out he's looking at himself??? Anyway, he takes it all very seriously.

On the subject of seabirds and creatures getting into scrapes, CT has alerted me to two separate seagull incidents in South Wales. They both fell into curry and turned bright orange. This seems a bit of a strange coincidence. Is something going on that we don't know about? Here and here should you need to see pictures. If you can't view it, just imagine a big white bird soaked from head to toe in tandoori sauce. It seems like something that would happen in one of Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth novels (Last Tango in Aberystwyth etc. etc.). Can anyone shed light?