"Who's Eaten My Petunias?" You sing it, I'll play it...

Leave a garden for a few days at this time of year and expect a jungle on your return. Mine was well-watered, thanks to the ministrations of my sister-in-law. It was also, in part, well-eaten. A bit like me on holiday, come to think about it.
Shrubs are shrubbing like mad and in a small garden need to be given a haircut. Roses are blossoming earlier than anticipated and filling the air with fragrance. Shropshire Lad out the front and Gertrude Jekyll out the back.

Before I'd left for Cornwall, I'd planted a petunia I'd been given, amongst some established violas in a tub. It never occurred to me that slugs and snails would slime their way across the patio and up a terracotta pot to munch the blooming lot.  I showered the slug pellets with maniacal zest over what was left.
I then looked at the gooseberry bush. It was laden with small green pellets that you could call young gooseberries. The leaves also bore signs of another garden invader: tiny black caterpillars. Last year they munched their way through leaves and goosegogs, so this year, I cleared the branches of every berry. Poached with a bucket-load of sugar, they were delicious.





Summer is a-coming-in.
"Summer Time" is my latest piece on the piano. As I resumed my practice, a gruff  not quite sotto enough voce was heard to say,
"Well, that's one thing I haven't missed.."
What can he mean?