Summer is on it's way

The last couple of weeks we could almost be excused for thinking it was summer already. Long days of sunshine and the clearest of blue skies have sent the temperature here on the patio cum building site soaring. It's been too lovely to resist doing a bit of plant pottering, re-arranging my many tubs and pots and potting up a few summer bulbs. All this despite the fact I still have no actual garden to plant anything into.

The icing on the cake has been the arrival of the swallows and martins which wheel over the village all day and long into the evening. The resident blackbirds have been busy to making a nest just over the fence in a shrub in our neighbours garden. the male singing in the eucalyptus tree morning and night, a lovely sound I never had in the previous garden. How nice to have 'our own' blackbird. The goldfinches too have finally found the niger feeders and look like miniature parrots as they swing round 4 to a feeder busily pecking away.

Today though it's raining heavily, much needed water for the gardens. I wish there was more in mine than weeds to reap the benefits but without some decent topsoil I just have to wait.

Summer, what summer?

We went to a barbecue this afternoon. We sat under a gazebo in a back garden in coats, hats, long trousers and fleeces. Great food, drink and company but Oh, what about the weather?

It rained for 3 hours non stop including some extremely heavy downpours. By 7pm we were all frozen and so the party split. I came home and got straight in the shower and there I stayed for 30 minutes until I was warm again. If we had a bath just now I would have had a bath. I'm now dressed in thermal socks and a very large winter fleece top over my regular clothes.

I am reliably informed that the hottest temperatures of the year usually occur in this first week of August. Well where the flippin' heck are they? Our winter is long enough without it starting already.

Feels like summer

Yesterday we went to the Marie Curie Garden Fair at Kentisbeare house. What a fabulous day we had. The weather was perfect, cloudless skies, hot sun and a just a little light breeze. Over 50 stalls had set up selling mostly plants and garden related things but a lovely food tent as well. As usual the Wallaces' burgers were to die for. Die, I probably will too when I step on the scales later today having eaten 2 burgers with onion relish for lunch and then having pizza for tea, it being too hot and me being too tired to think of anything else to fill up a very hungry WH.

I bought loads of plants for the new garden and found a lovely little nursey not far from here which I will be visiting later in the week. The patio at the new house is so hot I intend to do lots of pots of salvias which I have hitherto had little success with in the present NE facing garden.

One I bought yesterday was Salvia patens which must be my most favourite colour ever and the colour of a perfect Mediterannean sky. I'm hoping that it will echo the skies to come here too.