Colour therapy

Such a busy couple of days; I'm so tired, my back aches, and I long to sit down and finish the book the Lovely Son sent me, but the house still isn't ready. It's so hard to make a half-packed house look presentable!

And I was feeling half-hearted about it; a bit like these borlotti beans behind the cosmos, looking busy, but really not doing very much at all.

So I spent time fettling the yard, instead of doing housework.

The big planters (now-defunct recycling boxes: re-recycling!) have been refreshed with new plants to replace the leggy, tired bedding. I cleared and tidied, top-dressed, sorted and swept, and then pressure washed, spraying myself as always with bounce-back mucky water. It all looks neat and clean now, apart from me, who needs to go in the shower and sluice the yard debris from my hair.

I didn't work alone. The Supervisors were there, on the shed.

Notice the nasty little strips of spikes set onto the wall years ago by my cat-hating neighbour? (Poor soul, she is dying now, after a long illness.)

Her anti-cat apparatus proved entirely ineffectual.

The pelargoniums are past their best, but for the moment I have run out of potting compost to do more. Between their troughs and the fence, in a cool dark space, lived a colony of enormous well-fed snails. They've moved house now....

I never liked dahlias much before, but I love this one.

Time to go inside. This felt enough for today.