Beautiful blooms gifted to me by Roger. We had popped into the garden centre  last week to buy plants, not realising they had a little show going on. These were marked First Prize and as I enthused over their beauty, a gentleman with a beaming smile, asked if I wanted to take them home. I was gobsmacked and of course said yes please!  What a generous guy!

I think  they're called dinner plate dahlias, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Huuuge blooms!

For an absolute age now I've wanted a hydrangea for the front garden, but could never find the exact one I wanted. The choice seemed to be either pink or blue and very bright at that, where I wanted something more muted.  Well, I was blessed again, not only bagging Rogers gorgeous blooms, but bagging just the hydrangea I wanted. I love the colours so much and can't wait to be able to cut and dry blooms for the house. Yes, it will be quite a while and there will be much work to maintain this lovely shade, but it will be worth it (I hope!).

Monday we took a walk in the woods with the dogs.

It's a beautiful little wood, a large part of it owned by a small off grid community that live there.

You wouldn't necessarily know they were there if you weren't familiar with the woods, as they are quite hidden away.  I'm hoping to make it to their open day in September and do a follow up post.

Signs of their coppicing.

Wednesday, it was back to tackling the carpet of weeds that have covered the allotment. Thankfully, due to rain, our water butts are almost full, so no carting the bowser about.

Mr is so glad that we actually have some marrows this year. He's itching to make stuffed marrow, a totally scrumptious recipe that's all his own and I love it.  We'll be picking this little beauty in the next couple of days.  You can see the dreaded bind weed underneath it, such a pesky weed and impossible to eradicate.

A chubby allotment cucumber, that will be delicious in a bulgur wheat salad.

Earlier in the season, my lovely sister, who'd been over to the lottie to do some weeding, cleared our squash bed of weeds, so she thought.  I asked her if she'd left the borage plants, to which she replied 'Oh no, I pulled everything up'.  She was devastated, bless her, but all is fine,  because we have about seven large borage plants now growing where she weeded.

One of my favourite summer herbs, with flowers that are delicious in salads and desserts and of course, let's not forget chilled cucumber and borage flower gin and tonic.

The onions and garlic, which are rather on the small side this year, have finished drying on the bench and can now be stored for winter use. I'll be glad to get the bench back, as it gets a nice bit of late evening sunshine, which won't be the case much longer.

We've been eating a lot of our veg cooked on the barbecue, my favourite way of eating it straight off the allotment.   We cooked the tray of carrots as treats for the dogs, which is healthier than biscuits, although they have a few of those too.

I have to say, beets are totally addictive cooked with a splash of balsamic vinegar, the yellow ones being particularly sweet.   Like everything this year, they were on the small side, but what they lacked in size, they made up for in flavour.

Well, that's me caught up. Someone's eyes are now boring into me as if to say 'you've forgotten to take me for my walk Mum'.   I couldn't even get her out for a pee earlier when there was the merest hint of drizzle!  It has belted with rain today and we've sat watching drivel on tv, doing crossword puzzles, but there seems to be a lull so we'd better get a wiggle on and take the mutts out.

I 'm actually having to don socks and walking boots, which will be hard as I have lived in Birkenstocks, hiking sandals and flip flops the entire summer and my feet will hate it. This is the only downside of Autumn for me, having to stick my feet in enclosed shoes and boots again.

Before I go and yes, it was Granny Square Day 2018 a couple of weeks ago now (gosh I'm behind) where people were invited to make a granny square and post it on the site to create a worldwide granny blanket.  Well, I  decided to take part and made a sunflower inspired square using the Rosie Posie pattern.  You can see a blanket I made using this pattern in the pic above of Elsie. The blue represents the sky and the white, clouds, a summery flower square which  made me happy, so I thought I'd show you. It was also great to see everyone else's contributions and I can tell you, I am so inspired by some of those grannies!  You should take a look via the link above if you haven't already.

Hoping all is well in your world.