When the Polish guests were here....

We had amazing food:

From Briar Crescent

In the garden:

From Briar Crescent

And the necessary mess in the kitchen

From Briar Crescent

miraculously cleaned (whilst we drank tea)

From Briar Crescent

Summer solstice was celebrated appropriately

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

And now that they've left us, we have a whole freezer full of vodka

From Briar Crescent

to remember them by (provided we don't drink too much):

From Briar Crescent

Come back soon, Polish guests!

a new light

Not so long ago, the light in the kitchen looked like this:

From Briar Crescent

It must have been put in when the former owners redid the kitchen, and, since we had other things to spend the money on, L. and I decided to re-install it when we replaced the wiring.

However, it mysteriously stopped working one cold, dark night. Sean-the-electrician confirmed that it had blown its internal fuse due to its faulty design. So, for a few weeks we had this:

From Briar Crescent

I am happy to report that as of last week, the light in the kitchen looks like this:

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

And I am perhaps a little too happy that it now matches the spot lights in the living room (which look like this:

From Briar Crescent

)

Creatures of the garden

My poor rose has been beset with aphids

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

And after an unsuccessful attempt to recruit a ladybug to my aid, I was reduced to squishing them and muttering.
Meanwhile, because we are a sadistic couple, L. was a few feet away, torturing the snails (which have also invaded the garden).
Rolled over:

From Briar Crescent

Sliming his way off the hot rock:

From Briar Crescent

One fell in the pond:

From Briar Crescent

And impressed us both with his survival skills:

From Briar Crescent

Safe!

From Briar Crescent

And finally, I may have conquered the aphids, but now there is a mysterious sticky substance on the rose's leaves....

From Briar Crescent

I would say it is the blood of the aphids....but I can attest to the fact that that is green....

Retaliatory measures

This is not, I would like to point out, about cats. I actually like cats, generally speaking. However, I present the evil eyed tormentor of the fish and fouler of my garden walking along our fence,

From Briar Crescent

jumping into the back garden,

From Briar Crescent

making his escape

From Briar Crescent

through the convenient hole in the gate

From Briar Crescent

leaving evidence

From Briar Crescent

but not, I believe, any more

From Briar Crescent

The first of the roses

We've had a lovely taste of summer this past week, which has resulted in very little work on the house on our part, but much productivity in the garden. Our back garden has produced one, magnificent pink rose so far:

From Briar Crescent

If the aphids don't eat them, there are several promising buds...

The black currents have been very slowly ripening:

From Briar Crescent

As have the gooseberries:

From Briar Crescent

And in the front garden, we have a generous selection of white roses:

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

Purple flowers:

From Briar Crescent

And something that I initially thought was a weed, but might, in fact, be a purposeful addition:

From Briar Crescent

And finally, him-who-keeps-pooing-in-our-garden-and-tormenting-the-poor-fish has been caught on camera:

From Briar Crescent

Retaliatory measures are currently being planned....

On hedges

The goals for this past weekend were:
1) Tell the fish again that I'm sorry and I hope they have plenty of food and water now; and
2) Trim the hedge.

The hedge, pre-trim

From Briar Crescent

As you can see, things got a little out of hand when we were away

From Briar Crescent

It looked especially shabby since the next door neighbours have sculpted theirs into a near-perfect wall of shrubbery. So, the competition was on, and I got out my trusty gardening sheers and set to work...
Before:

From Briar Crescent

After:

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

In the interest of honesty, I have to admit my efforts have turned out a bit more lumpy than our next door neighbours', but I would also like to point out that they have a special electric hedge trimmer (instead of my mad snip-snip-snipping). I would also like to point out that clipping ones hedge by hand is very therapeutic and if a slightly-more organic hedge is what it takes to get to a relaxed, zen-like state, I will accept the few stray branches happily.

And because I was feeling so relaxed after the hedge-trimming, the bush got a bit of a hair cut, too:

From Briar Crescent