Santolina flowering, briefly

I’m hiding. Hiding from the heatwave.

And not just indoors. But in another country. I have snuck over to London for five days and it has co-incided nicely with ghastly hot weather.

Cool in London, rotisserie hot in the Ardèche.

I just dived into the forecast page yep 37C. That’s 98.6F. And factor in a nasty hot wind and you will applaud my audacity to avoid. I’ll be back out on Monday when it will have relented ever so slightly. And then a storm will hit and we can get on with gardening again.

And the first job. After sharpening the secateurs. Will be to cut off all the flowers on the santolina.

• 

• 

Yes, yes adorable little bobbles of yellow all over the gardens. But the weight of the new growth and the flowers just causes my darling shrubs to lie wan and exhausted and it is hard to revive the plants.

So they get a haircut. As did I this week. A cropped summer bob. Here’s a shot of me recovering with a pint in our local pub.

Beetroot, quinoa, stilton, almond and orange vinaigrette. Gorgeous. The chips, needless to say, weren’t mine. But I scoffed. And dare I admit that I had pint number two?

Go on, it’s not often you can have a micro brewery within walking distance of your home.

And yes that’s my new blue linen Andrew Wilkie cap for summer. My bob really was too short to show off to the dining room of punters. Plus you know that feeling when you are just back from the hairdressers and the cut is very very short… it takes a bit of easing into.

• 

• 

• 

But enough London. Here are the santolinas that will be as cropped as me as soon as I return.

• 

• 

• 

• 

•