Birthdays and Bogart

Alot of stuff happened over the weekend, including work on the allotment, but that will have to wait.

Becci reached the grand old age of 21 on Wednesday, and on Friday night we all went out on the razz.

Becci is the one in the middle, flanked by her sister Claire and Amanda. What a bunch of stunners to be out with eh?

And the other stunner out with us for the evening was Amandas mum Celia.

First off, on everybody arriving at our place, I rustled up a round of Kir Royales to get the evening started. Then it was off to Indis for a slap up meal and more champagne. If any of you are in the neighbourhood, then don't pass this place by, the food is top notch, and the service excellent! Afterwards, we went to Sohos as they were having a special music night, and drank cocktails until we were the last to leave at midnight. White Russians, Kir Royales, Mojitos, Amaretto Sours, Russian Cosmos, Apple Jacks and Espresso Martinis flowed, and needless to say we caught a taxi back home. An absolutely wonderful evening, with great company and lots of laughs. Havent got any decent photos from Sohos to show you, as it was rather dark and we were all a bit squiffy!

I had work the next day, and had only managed three hours sleep on top of a heavy nights partying, and so when 6am came around, as you can imagine, I wasn't exactly full of the joys of spring. Buckets of tea with far too much sugar, and copious amounts of water saw me manage to drag myself to the van and head off for the mornings work. Needless to say it was a toughy!

I came home mid afternoon, showered, poured a cold one and wandered into the garden as it was gloriously sunny still.

I never tire of seeing nature at work, and the amazing way in which plants grow and produce such lovely colours and shapes. Our Cardoon in the picture above is much stronger this year, and promises some glorious flowers soon. Thats if I don't eat them first (only kidding!).

Hanging baskets that we made up a little earlier are starting to thicken and colour up nicely.

The Sedum 'Silver Blob' is really healthy this year. Previous years have seen it used as a comfortable bed for Hobie & Misty to lie on, and so it's suffered quite a lot. I think they must have found a better spot this year.

I can't for the life of me remember what this blue flower was. A new addition this year, it's looking great, maybe one of you can help me with it's name?

The various Crocosmias around the garden are always a winner with me, and it's very easy to take too many pictures of this extraordinary flower.

The group of Macleaya cordata weren't supported as the grew, and just at the point that they were at about 8ft high, we had a storm. They weren't blown completely flat, but when Amanda managed to tie them up in some sort of supportive way, they had curled towards the sun just enough to have made the stem spiral strangely. They look quite nice now......if a little odd. The picture below is of one of their flower heads.

Hemerocallis are a must for any garden. Cheap to buy, easy to divide if you want to spread them about a bit, fast growing, architectural in their own way, and in an incredible variety of colours.

And lastly, down in our cool part of the garden, Hydrangea 'Blue Wave'. Not very blue I know, but it's not exactly in the best spot. Still pretty though.

That was Saturday, Sunday was allotment day...........but later for that!......

Last night was the start of Wareham Carnival Week.

To mark the occasion, the old fashioned Rex

 cinema was putting on a one night showing of The African Queen, parts of which were filmed locally. Please check out the cinemas link above to get an idea of how special this building really is.

A red carpet led from the street into the cinema, whereupon cocktails were offered as one entered. We took our drinks in the cinema itself, and made ourselves comfortable and ready for the movie. Bogart and Hepburn at their best is all I can say. It all ended at 9.30pm, it was a lovely evening, still light, and so we moved to The Granary on the riverside for a nightcap before returning home. What a weekend altogether!