And nOw For SoMethinG ComPletEly DiFferEnt

HOW SMART IS YOUR RIGHT FOOT?

1. While sitting in a chair with your feet on the floor, lift your right foot and make clockwise circles.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number '6' in the air with your right hand.

Your foot will change direction.
I told you so!! And there's nothing you can do about it! You and I both know how stupid it is, but before the day is done you are going to try it again, if you've not already done so.

A GARDEN LAPSE

For a while over summer I must admit that I neglected my garden. Sure I was sitting in it and admiring it but when I spotted areas that needed attention I turned my back. For a short time I just couldn't be bothered. It was almost as if I'd looked at it for so long I was no longer interested. The pretty clumps of Shastas around the Plum tree were just more things I needed to dead head. The beautifully unruly Cosmos was just an annoying thing we all had to wade past to get to the table.
Thankfully, that ugly destructive phase has passed and now I am throwing myself into every inch of the garden. It's a magical time when I can plan and move and envisage next summer's bounty. I've even spent time in my Mum's garden helping her clear an area for an apple tree. I think the change occured after I returned from a weekend away. My family and I spent a few days at a homestead in the country (Tinui Station Homestead, Wairarapa, NZ). The owners had a beautiful garden and upon my return I felt quite inspired.
I read lots of gardening books (probably too many) and I buy or borrow the gardening magazines and I read the gardening blogs but sometimes it takes a good old nosey around somoeone else's garden to get those juices flowing again.

The work begins

Japanese Anenome in the rain

So summer has passed and although the weather is still pleasantly mild the garden is not looking very pretty. Fortunately this is the time I love. Time to cut back things, move other things and brutally eject those plants that just didn't work. My muscles have a satsifying ache - a welcome feeling, knowing how many easter eggs are heading straight to my hips.
I admit I moved some roses well before their dormant stage but I have faith that they will forgive me. Not so the lawn which continues to shrink as I enlarge the garden beds. My husband eyes me with suspicion each time I take the spade out of the shed. I've told him I'm doing it for him - less lawn for mowing, which is his domain. He can't really stop me, after all I'm the one holding the spade.

The Birds

What happened to the weather?

I'm sure I ask that question every season. It sneaks up on you. Just when you get settled into the balmy evenings of dining al fresco on the produce from the veggie patch and sipping the gin and tonics with the lemons from the tree - bam! The wind picks up, the temperature drops and all the tomatoes split from too much rain.
Our wonderful weather forecasters, shaman that they are, predicted a long pleasant summer. And there I was believing them. Fool that I was.
Anyway, I can continue to garden by virtue of the internet by reading my favourite garden blogs which happen to be in the opposite hemisphere.
Thanks guys.