Cut flowers and cats

What a happy morning I have had.  Watering and cutting flowers and being pestered by a clingy cat. A perfect triumvirate.

I have so many pictures of flowers to post I’m going to make them very small. Click on them and you’ll see them in all their vibrant glory.

The dahlias are all small stemmed this week, so I have added them to my cut herb jar. This is the jar that sits on my kitchen worktop so I can just pull out herbs and add them to meals when I need them.  Saves me having to lurch out in my slippers in the evening before dinner.

And the dear little orange comos are as bright can be.  But they are miniature in statue.  These fill a tiny finger glass sized jar.

And just to complete the orange theme (I went a bit mad in the orange seed department this year) here are some of my wonderful Tithonias.

They are called torch and you can see why.  I’m not sure if they have sturdy stems for a long life in a vase, so I cut them and will see how they are when we come back on Thursday.

Naturally my ‘normal’ cosmos flowers are going mad.  I had to give two vases worth to Daniele and wished I could have given more away – but Elodie is off on hols for a fortnight – and all my friends are further afield.

Still, nothing beats a glut of flowers in the house.

And I had a glut of another sort today.  Sometimes Artur is just the most affectionate cat and demands attention. Other days he can look at me with a death stare and keep well away.

Today was a lap sitting, purring and ecstatic kneading morning.

And if I had  know I wouldn’t have worn shorts. I have claw lacerations on both knees.  Here is an action shot of the lethal weapons making me shriek.

He also managed to get in the way of the potager watering as well.  I have some bare ground where the salad is finished and the dwarf french beans haven’t quite come through.

And if the soil is cool or damp, you can guarantee ‘someone’ will sit on it. Or lie under the shade cloths.

So I have wisely decided to sow most of the next batch of French beans (I think you call them bush beans in the States, Katherine and Dan should correct me) in root trainers in the potting shed.

Here he is posing next to the courgette plants which is just coming into glut like production. I do hand pollinate the flowers just to make sure.

And that about wrapped up the morning.  It’s absurdly hot again. Still. But there are storm clouds brewing over in the east, towards the Cevennes and we may lose our electricity soon. So I’d best end there.

And speaking of Cevennes, that is where we are headed for a mini break.  The courgettes will have to grow unchecked without me for a few days.  And Artur will have to find another lap to sit on and claw.