Cats in the Kitchen, Flora in the Garden

I have had a perfectly lovely day today. My friend picked me up this morning and we drove off to a plant nursery. First of all we had some lunch and caught up on happenings and gossip in our lives, and then we got down to the serious business of plant choosing. Neither of us had intended to buy many plants, I was just really looking for a few different bedding plants to finish off my pots, but whoops,we ended up over indulging ourselves on plants. Well, it does you good to indulge yourself once in a while! We cast our eyes over many different plants, we picked them up and discussed their various merits. Then it was decision time, I came home with some nemesia, verbena, begonias, geraniums, some trailing plants for the pots and some wonderful pansies with the most exquisite markings, all mauve, blues, purples and creams. I also managed to start my collection sempervivums, buying three really interesting ones, I shall put them in unusual pots this year, but next year I would love to put them in a trough.

I arrived home late in the afternoon but could not wait to get planting. The day had clouded in and the air felt really heavy, so I got to work potting these new plants up in case the rain was coming. It was worth it, when I had finished I realised as the plants grew this summer my pots would be full of colour. I just want to buy a few more herb plants at the next farmers' market next month. It is lovely to see splashes of colour appearing in the garden, more appear each day as plants start blooming, and I can begin to imagine the riot of colour in the garden in a few weeks.



I thought I would show you these photographs of my cat Pixie, taken on the day we brought her home from the animal shelter, two years ago at the end of this month. I am amazed to see how small she looks and how confused, when I think of her now, the confident lady who thinks she is the boss of our house, and that humans are little bit slow to understand things. On the second photo you can just see her on her nest, on the bottom shelve of the dining room console, where she felt safe, in those early days, curled up between the wicker baskets. She had been brought to the animal shelter with her mother and another kitten from the same litter when they were just a couple of weeks old. My daughter and I chose her because when we approached the unit where they were housed she immediately ran up to us and showed interest. It was my daughter that picked her name 'Pixie'.