Ritual

It's become a yearly ritual to blip these wonderful Pat Austin roses. This year is a bumper crop, maybe it's because I strimmed the rope that was by chance keeping them upright so they have bloomed in the cool shadow on the ground. The fragrance is divine.

I am a big fan of roses and hope to be one of those old ladies who totters around pruning roses in the future. For me it is in the smell and the colour. Tea roses are fab.

My fave shaped rose is the red Ingrid Bergman (scent is lovely but weakish). My fave rose of all time is by David Austin and is called John Clare. I don't own one and it is increasingly challenging to find in garden centres but to look at it is amazing and I am not keen on pink flowers at all as a rule. the paler versions are nicer than the very fuchsia ones you see in some of the pictures.

I always associated the following poem with John Clare because someone once wrote it out for me and told me that it was by him. I discovered tonight with a little Google research that is was written by someone entirely different. Regardless it's a rather lovely poem anyway and will give the metaphysical poets a run for their money any day!

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.