Still In New Zealand

And not six but sixteen, this other great niece of mine, currently into doing quick change hair colours! I think her Mum said there'd been five over recent weeks. But that's not the reason I had to share this - no - it's because of the magical ability her Mum has to take stunning photographs. Don't you just love 'em?

Arty Farty

Once again, my six year old great niece has come up with a corker of a collage, with additional painting of her own. I simply had to share it. Enjoy!

She seems to have an inbuilt exuberance that transfers itself to the paper, and her artistic mama must be given full credit for encouraging her creative talents at every step along the way. I can hardly wait to see what she will be producing by the time she reaches sixteen...

Good Thinking

I received this handy reminder in an email from my cousin this morning.
I've noticed, many people who forward emails, do so by using a whole string of names and addresses in the 'To" slot, which is just asking for trouble, as my knowledgeable, techy son explained to me when I first began blogging and emailing.
It only needs ONE of those people to be blessed with a computer virus, and it will spread to everyone else on that list, with the speed of light!
The simple expedient of sending mail 'BCC' (blind carbon copy), prevents this annoying possibility.Think on fellow bloggers...

A Hodge-Podge

That's a good name for this patchwork of  photos, as well as my sad collection of tubs and containers, minus flowers! 

After a chance meeting a couple of weeks ago, I was given the name of a friend-of-a-friend's lady gardener. I telephoned, using the wonderful  "You don't know me, but..." opening gambit, which always delights my sense of the ridiculous.

As a result, this lovely person came and inspected the shambolic space outside my patio doors and two days later re-appeared with a tub of tools and plenty of sacks for rubbish. The weather was on our side, and in glorious sunshine she began to set everything to rights.

She pruned and tidied, and I clipped the heap of offcuts into pieces, to stuff into the waiting sacks. Of course, while we worked, we talked, and I learned how she'd had a mother and grandmother who were both interested in gardening. Because of their toting the small girl along when they visited gardens, garden centres and all places of horticultural interest, she learned much, without realising. In fact, she spent many years avoiding anything to do with gardens - until eventually, she became the owner of a house with a large one! 

With both mother and grandmother no longer living, she now began to realise what a wonderful legacy of gardening lore she had acquired from both of them - learned, literally, 'at their knees' back in the days when she was hardly beyond the height of those knobbly appendages of theirs.

Thanks to this trio of ladies, one living, two dead, I can now look forward to having an outdoor area which will soon be a thing of beauty again. Watch this space...