after all where are the rows of tender crops? Sadly eaten by slugs, and our
scarecrows are far too pretty to frighten even the lowliest snail anyway.
And how is it that only one sunflower is the giant type that reminds me of the south of France? Most of them have three or four flower heads on one stem. Could I have planted the wrong kind?
At le
ast my late mother’s Oleander has put on a reasonable display and the gnome, yes we are not proud, a real honest to goodness gnome sits in the rain day after day without complaint.
The brightly painted parrot remains chirpy, but why it is that people give such weird presents? And the stone dragon looks ready to add it’s fiery breath to light the barbie at any time!
Sadly the lavender in grandmother’s old coal scuttle is rather straggly, perhaps it’s rebelling against living in such a lowly abode. But I suspect it’s really because it needs pruning and re-planting.
I can see that the cabbages in the 
buckets will guarantee winter veg. and the glass dragonfly on a rusty spike near the pond remains pretty optimistic in even the slightest glow of sunlight.
At least on sunny days we can still escape to the beach. but for anyone who has spent half the summer in the South of France and is tempted to relay the 
experience in gastronomic detail, please don’t! If only because we still have one whole fig, a few autumn raspberries and some green tomatoes yet to enjoy and jealousy will get you absolutely nowhere!
Oleander
We found it in Albi,
no gentle sketch
but boldly painted
bright and blowzy
heady with scent,
out for a good time.
In London.
loving the culture
pink petals
flirted with passers by
revelled in attention
posed for pictures.
Uprooted to Brighton
in a white fleece shroud
it faltered
leaves fell
naked boughs mourned
sensing life had passed.
Two years later
in a new pot
on a south facing wall
tiny green shoots emerge,
pink blossoms
show their party faces.
from ‘Don’t Throw Away the Daisies’
Ann Perrin 