...but can someone please give it back? I've learned such a lot this month...the most important thing being that it's the unexpected stuff that charms you the most, like the dandelions...

...and the poppies that turned out bright red instead of plum, and next door's doves basking...

I've done absolutely nothing in the garden this month except for pull a few weeds and watch all my un-staked perennials fall over majestically. I have stopped mowing the lawn because I love my dandelions too much to see them go, and I am idly watching the bindweed wend its merry way up anything vertical, turning the other cheek as day after glorious day it continues to be 'far too hot to garden'.

I have done a bit of bulb-shopping, (smugly clicking 'proceed to checkout' as I'm thinking ahead for once) - but that's not gardening is it...that's shopping. I've also been picking posies every day, and flowers for my salad in the same way that I've been grazing on fresh peas (my first!) and raspberries and strawberries, so I'm not going to call that gardening either.

I would like to tell you that the Babety is walking, but she seems to be taking it as easy as me. Here are my first new potatoes with a few chubby digits

Apart from setting aside a couple of hours to get on top of my dastardly (but rather beautiful) bindweed, I seriously plan on continuing this odyssey of laziness. I did work hard to get here, but that feels like a long time ago. Summer is for listening to the bees and breathing heady scent and walking out into the warm air at dusk...that's it.