So that was May

Well, we've finally come to the end of a month that threw virtually every type of weather at us. Frosts, torrential rain, cold and the hottest day (last Friday) for several years. I understand that there was even snow in Scotland. And the weather forecasters got their prognostications wrong more often than they got it right. In April it was so warm at nights that I separated the two layers that makes the duvet and put the warmer part in storage, expecting not to get it out again until the Autumn. Instead I dug it out in the early parts of this month becuase I was so cold at night.

We had rain early on in the month. This must have either run off the soil or else all evaporated very quickly because on Friday the Husband and I went out to a nursery and bought several plants for the garden and then found that our soil (clay) was so hard it would not have been a good idea to try to plant them. And in the evening I found myself having to give a good drink to many of the plants already in the garden. Fortunately we have no hosepipe ban as yet, though I understand that the reservoirs are not nearly full enough to last the summer - I heard talk that over the winter we had only half the usual rainfall and that there is a real danger of drought in the summer (with they are predicting will be very, very hot).

Then, of course, was yesterday. Bank Holiday Monday and it poured. Personally I wasn't heartbroken at this as I've grown up enough not to feel the need to join the merry throngs who travel to the seaside or other Bank Holiday "events" on such days. Tne roads get so congested at every Bank Holiday and I certainly didn't want to spend the day in a traffic jam. No trains either, the town has been cut off from the rest of the country, as far as public transport is concerned, every weekend and Bank Holiday for some considerable time - the sooner they finish all this engineering work on the railway the better. I sincerely hope that all that rain yesterday has made the soil easier to work, though I suspect that the Husband will do most of the work because the weather has done really nasty things to my asthma and I am having real difficulty in breathing properly.

What plants did we buy for the garden on Friday?

3 scabius - pink flowers

3 scabius - blue flowers ( they say - the flowers look mauve to me)

3 poppies - the nice big red blowsey ones

2 floxgloves, to go with the one already in the garden

3 geraniums - hardy ones with blue flowers

4 lupins - four rather than three because they were on special offer in the market at 4 for £5

Hopefully this little lot should make a good show.