Before I start, let me just personally thank Ginny and Judi for their kind thoughts, and especially prayers.

After I had put up my previous post, I wondered why on earth I had shared such a gloomy attitude with other people, but the outcome, I think, explains why.

Shortly after posting, my wife came downstairs to join me for a morning cup of tea, and whilst sat opposite me, asked why I looked so down. On hearing my rants, she calmly suggested that I take the day off, and work Saturday instead, as the weather forecast for then was much better.

I don't know if it's the german in me, but I am a stickler for schedules, and their need to be met, and so going against all of my in built obsession, I agreed. I emailed my customers for the day to let them know what I was doing, and promptly received very kind and affirmative replies back.

And so it was that the day was spent in a very calm and relaxing way, with a little light shopping and mostly reading newspapers and a book in various coffee shops. I even got home at the end of the day to find a telephone message asking me to quote for the regular maintenance of a very large and prestigious property in Bournemouth! And the sun was shining now as well!
An evening spent with wine and a DVD topped it all off nicely.
The following day was calm, and gloriously sunny, and although my wife came out of the business a few years ago because of the years of physical damage it had done to her joints and muscles, she offered to come out with me once more to lend a hand in any way that she could, and it was lovely to have her company once more while out and about. The two pictures above and below are of us working at one of the properties of the day, and in fact, out of thirty one places, the only one without any grass.......Yay!!

On arriving home, and having had a brief food and drink break,it was off to the last 'job' of the day. Now, as I am the only gardener amongst family and friends, a lot of my time is taken up with favours that I am always very happy to do. One of these is to periodically cut an elderly friends perimeter hedge for him. The picture doesn't really show it, but it is a privet hedge that goes up and down and in and out in a wonderfully mismanaged sort of way, and is so tight that I can lay on top of it without any damage being done......Love this one!

After the straightness and formality that is demanded of the trimming everywhere else, I can let my hair down here....if there was enough of it!

After this, a quick shower and change of clothes, and a few hours spent with us talking and having a beer at The Haven Hotel, whilst watching the boats sail out of Poole harbour.......A good day! Believe what you will about the power of prayer. The answers very rarely come in the form of massive and obvious things like the lame walking or the blind seeing, but more often in the form of subtle things that happen in ones life, such as I believe happened to me over the last couple of days.

The rose at the start of the post is called Rosa Francois Juranville, a particular favourite of mine.