first fruits

shed shadows

meanwhile, in the garden, things are growing beautifully

tiny green tomatoes

strawberries ripe!

The moon bed is just starting to show it's possibilities, these slender stems catching the evening sunlight look like little waifs at the moment, but their colour shines and the soft papery bracts, where flowers have been, hold the light for you to admire

The wonderful thing about gardens, which you just begin to understand after years of watching plantings fail or thrive, is that they are about time. These little plants, tentative in their field of brown earth, will hopefully bulk up and thrive over the next few years, until they fill, and perhaps overspill their space, and then there will be numerous stems twisting and twining about themselves and shimmering in the evening breeze, while the delphiniums stand stately behind them, glowing in the light

Nearer the house, Rum gives the betweens of his toes a quick licking, 

What does fur feel like against a tongue?

overhead, a lone plane rumbles along "away above the chimney tops"

and honeysuckle, clematis and jasmine promise colour and scent for future evenings

here clambering over netting, twining through the branches of two conifers, which I cut right back to bare wood and now use as supports

In Montmartre, in the spring, a few years ago, the streets were dotted with pots of jasmine, at the entrances to shops and on windowsills. Their scent so evocative, I bought this plant to remind me - two years later it is once more giving me flowers.