New flowers...
Ooh goodie. New flowers are flowering. Japanese irises which I replanted in the sun by the water race. A blue clematis, busy climbing through the grass (oops - must attach it to something). One beautiful large single pink peony - my peonies are pretty hopeless this year. Maybe the buds got ear-wigged or blown off? Not sure.
A very hot day, so I stood in the water race and weeded. Nothing too strenuous. Lilli-Puss managed to navigate her way over the bridge and found me by the dog-path. Dear cat. Speckles the stray was a daytime no-show. Too much barking from my dogs, 'helping' Non-Gardening Partner fix one of the irrigation sprinklers in the Pond Paddock.
Escher
Sunday 5th December
So Speckles finally arrived in the middle of the night, waking me up with his cat-talking. He ate quite a lot of food on the verandah, but I didn't go outside to sit with him (I might be silly, but not quite that silly).
Hello Escher!
And now big brown Escher is here visiting, looking oh so mature! In the first five minutes he managed to find a score of old abandoned bones on the Frisbee Lawn (each of which had to be removed from his slobbering mouth).
Then he met Lilli-Puss, the fearless dog-stalker. She fits underneath his belly, so she kept on walking underneath him. Poor Escher, naturally, was a bit spooked! And he made it worse by squeaking. Dear dog.
Winnie has got Lilli-Puss sorted. Sit perfectly still, be silent, and stare into the distance. The scary cat moves away to bug something else.
Dogs in the Garden
Mid-Day
Darling Escher has gone home, dog calm is restored, and it's a bit hot for mid-day gardening. I had to choose between weeding the potato patch and doing some ridiculous scissor-trimming around the edges of the back lawn. Chose the latter - rosy and ornamental.
Crricketers in the Grass
The cricketers...
Just the long grass behind the cricketers to do now. They're enjoying the hot weather, though their game doesn't seem to have progressed very much.
Am having a wee break - will take an iced water over to the cottage and sit on the verandah in the shade. Perhaps Speckles will appear. Sod's law - if I take the camera he definitely won't. But if I deliberately leave my camera behind (to trick fate) he won't either. Oh joy!
And much later...
I cut down some more of the rose mess (so difficult). I weeded some more. And then I went over to the cottage to sit and read. And Speckles the cat did arrive! Yeay! He ate some food and generally hung out with me and Minimus. It was the nicest reward for all my hard work.
Taking things far too personally, probably, but I am a compulsive rescuer. And this scaredy-cat deserves a decent quality of life. Don't say anything, but if he stays around for much longer I'll trap him and get him vet checked. And we all know what that means...