My garden picks me up when I am down

This week I planned to have a lovely relaxing time; spend time in the garden; get on with my writing; maybe even a day at the beach if the weather was good. Well, the weather has been great, hot and sunny, but not too hot so that it wears you out. The only problem has been my health. I’ve had migraines for four days running and I’m really fed up. I’m used to getting them about 50% of the time and not usually more than two days running. I do have medication and it does take away the pain, but it leaves me feeling all spaced out, uncoordinated and tense. I can’t do anything too physical like gardening and I can’t concentrate on writing, so I spend most of the time watching TV or reading or doing jigsaws on the computer.

I try to be thankful that the pain killers do work, at least after an hour or so. I can sit on the patio in the sunshine with our lovely views and all of the flowers in bloom. We have holiday cottages around here. People pay lots of money to do what I can do any time I like. But I still feel at times like this that my life’s passing me by. I want to do more writing. I’ve finished my first book, the story of my childhood, but haven’t found the time or energy to try to get it published. I’ve started a second book about my teenage years but I don’t spend that much time at it. I’m lucky if it’s a couple of hours twice a week.

Hope this doesn’t sound like one long moan. It’s just how I’m feeling right now. I have taken a few photos with my new camera that I got for my birthday. I love my garden. It keeps me going when I’m feeling down.

The red rambler rose that I trained up the elderberry tree looks lovely behind the buddlia and that tree with the spikey things whose name I forget!

Billie Jean what have you done to the garden swing?!

Peacock butterfly on the buddlia – this is Britain’s longest living butterfly sometimes living from late July until the following June.