I have been feeling rather unwell this afternoon, and managed just half an hour's sporadic five minute wanders into the garden to move a few primulas and home-grown plants around to colour up a corner by the wildlife pond. I am going to sit down this evening with a good book.
We had to g to St Clears today, to go to the wonderful butcher there (Eynon's) for steak for our son's 18th birthday tomorrow - how the years have flown by. I can still remember him, very blonde and very angry, in a green and white striped baby-gro, grizzling then yelling blue murder in nearly the same spot as I was gardening today, when it looked very much different with a trellis and some shrubs. Anyway, I digress. Sometimes there is an image which you capture and which will stay with you a long time. By the traffic lights was a big old rendered house with a high-walled garden. All you could see were the tops of a long-abandoned shrubbery, a Magnolia the size of a prefab and the most amazing Rhododendron the size of a caravan, the palest nearly-white pink with baby pink buds - just absolutely stunning. It took me back years, when I was still living in Southampton, and I took my mum to Exbury gardens for a treat. We had chosen our visit well, for all the Azaleas, Camelias and Rhododendrons were in bloom and walking through such a riot of colour was sensual overload.
We walked through a little gateway and found ourselves near the river, and a Stoat ran across our path, stopping to look at us a minute before going unhurriedly on his way. I've just sought out a photograph of Exbury from Creative Commons. I even found the bit where we saw the Stoat (see above). I feel a sudden urge to get in the car and start driving, to drink it all in again, but of course, I won't. I shall just polish the memories.
