Up the 'combe

Bank Holiday Monday. A day for gardening, walking, enjoying the warm sunshine after so much rain. I started the day by driving someone to the station, and stopping off at a nearby garden centre - just to price shears, you understand. One carload of perennials later...

Dog walking first. It was a good afternoon for a longer walk. We went upwards; starting with our morning route, we diverted onto a narrow track.

Off to the left. A well-used path.

Flossie had to take a ball along, to stop her from doing what had led us recently to another disastrous, malodorous night, an early morning trip to our new vet, and an afternoon visit from the carpet cleaner man: chomping windfall apples and delicately pulling blackberries from their prickly stems. And then finding that her stomach/fermentation tank was in trouble at 2 a.m. 'Nuff said.

She still managed to sneak some in when I wasn't looking. Labradors don't learn the cause-and-effect theory easily.

Up we went; Tosca often has to be carried for many of the steeper slopes, but not today; she was full of beans.

Summer is gently giving way to autumn.

At intervals, we stop and gaze....

There's a little bench halfway up.

A rather special bench.

And now we're on the downward slope.

It can be rather stony for little paws. But Tosca always speeds up on the way home.

The poisonous red berries of the cuckoo-pint are beginning to go over, but, hips, haws and brambles abound.

And we're nearly home. The owner of this cottage grows stunning agapanthus, and tells me that he simply throws the ripe seed heads on the soil, and they grow for him, fuss-free.

 
A neglected garden has hollyhocks that fall under the wheels of passing cars on this narrow road. I pinch off a ripe seed pod now and then, and will try propagating them myself.

And we're home.

To the sleepy cats, a cup of tea in the sun, and some planting in the company of the gardener's friend.

A nice way to spend a Bank Holiday.