I swapped cars with my son for King’s Birthday weekend. I like driving round in his car. It’s full of his stuff, like golf shoes, a football, his uniform from his part-time job, a tennis racket, sweatshirts, used socks, beer bottles, water bottles, air fresheners and that sort of stuff. I usually fill up the water for his window wipers and fill up his petrol tank (it’s always on empty). Now and again I clean all the grime off his windscreen. I always retune his radio to the concert program as a joke.

It’s been another one of those weeks that disappeared, along with most of May. I’m a terrible friend at the moment. Sorry friends.

Here’s my new mobile flower shop. I pick it up from Hamilton in a few weeks. One of the reasons I’ve been busy in the back garden this week is this. I’ve been making room for it.

My son came around on Wednesday and we spent a few hours, before the rain arrived, digging up the olive tree and making a space for my husband’s vespa and the pop top.

This is what it looked like before we got to work (photo above).

This is how it looked on Friday (2 photos above).

Here’s how it looked on Saturday. I planted out my ranunculus seedlings. It’s the second time I’ve grown them from seed. The first time was a disaster. I weeded and started fencing the long flower border too.

In case you were worried about the olive tree my son and I dug up. Don’t. We managed to find a new home for it.

I finished printing my autumn greeting card this week. I experimented with different colours for the vase and nothing worked. My son said, ‘make it orange’. And I did, and it looked great. So orange it is.

I’ve started designing this year’s spring card. I’ll have 3 different ones for sale in my flower shop (summer 24, autumn 25 & spring 25).

I pruned the grape vine and made 3 wreaths from the prunings. I did a hard pruning leaving only 3 buds on each main stem.

There were a few fails this week here’s a list of them:

I made a stamp and it didn’t work.
l discovered that the tie I put on the plum tree had cut into the bark.
The shelves my son and I moved from the garage to the shed wouldn’t fit through the shed door.
The compost bins are causing a fly infestation. I’ve come up with a solution but I won’t bore you with it.

Here’s something that did work. This weeks flower arrangement. The glads are still flowering and so are the hellebores, proteas and leucadendrons. Plants that can extend the season.