Thursday 6 November 2014

November Garden

We have had weeks and weeks of (almost) unbroken Indian Summer - which goes some way to make up for the dreariness of the non-summer which preceded it.



The last gasp of greenery, before it all drops...

 The four-footed, on a mission...


Grey Cat, looking winsome, as she tries to ignore the fact that to have reached this spot on the office balcony, she can only have walked right through the deeply-for-cats-off-limits house!


The last al-fresco lunches...in fact, the last time we ate outside was just before the end of the month. The barn will now be mothballed until Spring for dining, but we can sit beside the wood-stove instead, at the far end of the barn, and convince the locals that we are indeed mad, to be outside at all at this time of year.


Parthenocissus, framing the view of the agrumi lawn.
 

Last roses - although, in fact, they will probably linger on with infrequent blooms right through until Christmas. This one is Alec's Red - an amazingly fragrant bloom, like concentrated turkish delight. 


And the vivaio, in the old well-house, with the trays of plants at various stages of preparation for transplanting - here: tiarella convoluta, sweet woodruff, and munstead lavenders...


acanthus seeds, bearded iris (I'm not sure what kind, collected from a rather fine germanica we inherited in the wasteland of the garden when we arrived), crinums, dietes bicolore, and a disparate collection of libertia and surprise lilies.
 



And even a hint of mists, if not of mellow fruitfulness.

Today, of course, we have rain, and a house full of Polish builders, who are - with admittedly impressive housekeeping skills along the way, from which a variety of Brazilian and Italian workmen of our acquaintance could learn much! -  making a complicated hole through an old and very thick wall, to allow a stovepipe to travel from the kitchen on the ground floor and emerge in the dressing room on the first floor, from where it will be childsplay (famous last words) for it to emerge through the roof, and we will thereafter have a fully-functioning wood stove in the kitchen, at long last, with dancing flames, and the whole home-and-hearth thing all ready for the onset of winter. Against a background of drilling and vaccuuming, the four-footed is looking distinctly thoughtful and sticking close, at my feet as I sit here and type.

Dinner this evening, at ths rate, is anybody's guess - it rather depends on the state of the kitchen as the day progresses! Sandwiches, maybe....