No time like the present

Dull and damp today - I've not been beyond the garden. It seems to start getting dark so soon after it's started getting light, but maybe I'm exaggerating a little!

I've been catching up on notes that I've written during holidays or trips abroad. I'd been trying to remember if I'd written a diary during my first visit to Nepal in 1990 and while searching in various boxes in the loft Mrs M found not only handwritten notes for that journey, but for my second trip too, in 1994. In the box was also old notepads with dusty diaries of trips to the Outer Hebrides, The Cotswolds and Ireland among others, so I thought I should type these on to the computer so at least they will be saved, should any extremely bored reader in the future have a spare afternoon! So I've begun with our holiday in Cork and Mayo back in 2004.

Walking up the steps from the garage yesterday I discovered that the seed heads of my group of Cardiocrinum giganteum, the giant Himalayan lily, which have been slowly ripening for weeks, had finally dried out enough to split open, so I went down to cut them off and save the seed. Why? I have no idea. Maybe somebody would like to sow some - let me know if you do. I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone over say ninety. In my experience they take two years to germinate, then six or seven years to reach flowering size!  Some websites say one year and five years, but it's still a fairly slow process. I suppose it depends on how optimistic you are! The best time to sow them was twenty years ago - the second best time is now!