It’s nice to have flowers from the garden on the table, but they have to be cat-proof. Felix has broken two vases and flooded the table trying to drink the water. A flat-bottomed vase has proved successful, but a rose, such as Mum’s favourite ‘Precious Platinum’, needs a slim container to hold it upright. A solution is to put the thinner vase in the larger one. Then it occurred to me to put sweet peas around the sides. The fragrant mix of flowers lifted our spirits which were sapped this morning, pre-caffeine, by a thirty-minute search for Mum’s hearing aid around and under the fridge. I found two ping pong balls, a small pine cone, bits of cat or dog biscuits, and a lot of fluff using the find-my-hearing-aid app, a fluffy duster, a torch and a wee bit of swearing. Finally, Felix’s fishing rod toy did the trick. Hearing aids are skin-coloured for camouflage while in the ear. A luminous colour would be useful for finding them in dark corners, just saying.

Apart from flowers cheering us up, the growth of other plants is miraculous to watch. Mother of Herbs (aka Cuban Oregano among other names) is taking over the kitchen windowsill. Outside, the yellow courgette plant is growing. The green courgette (see previous post ‘Small beginnings’) is shrinking, sadly, but today another as yet unidentified cucurbit has emerged beside it. The butternut pumpkin seeds I dried and planted have sprouted and I will need to find places to plant the seedlings soon. Where I pulled up suckering lilac, interesting fungus has emerged, probably doing its job of breaking down a tree stump. While the runner beans are beginning to wind up their stakes, the broad beans are ready to eat.