Rain and Lunch

Another  day drawing back the curtains to see - surprise, surprise - clouds. Having had sight of the weather forecast, we have postponed our camping trip to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law (rearranged from June to this coming weekend) for a second time. So happy to know that we will be seeing the sun for a whole week in 8 days' time! Out with Bella in the drizzle this morning, my eye was caught by the shape of this padlock.

The green leaves shine with raindrops, picking up any light from the grey skies.

Lovely conditions for gates to go mouldy...

The first hydrangea (AKA "pom-pom flower") I have seen this year.

Mowing of our guerilla-planted green at the bottom of the road seems to have been neglected by the Council, so it's turning into a meadow.

The wettest April - June on record has led to a proliferation of these beasties everywhere.

There are so many snails about that it is impossible to walk out at night without inflicting casualties (mind you, gardeners will applaud the slaughter!).

After breakfast, I had the joys of Morrisons - stocking up.

We invited some Symi chums over for lunch - Richard and Barbara,

Trish (with Su's arm making a guest appearance),

and Caroline, who agreed for her foot to be shown in the blog.

After a jolly time, they wended their way home, Su went out with Bella and I took a turn round our estate garden to see how it is doing with even more rain. Our top lawn is totally sodden, so its days are definitely numbered. These pretty geraniums are doing very well though.

The astrantias absolutely love all the moisture that they are getting.

These geraniums too are very happy.

 As are these.

Lush, lush, lush  - looking up towards the house through our treble clef.

This day a year ago, the weather was completely different to today. Su wrote "What a glorious morning. Blue skies, WARM, lazy breakfast followed by coffee and papers in the garden." If we had coffee and papers in the garden at the moment, we'd have iced coffee and papier mache! She also posted this picture of  these excellent floor tiles from a church in Tuscany.