Succulent

I write this at the very end of a long birthday day.   I was originally rostered for a shorter work day at Kings Cafe but was swapped to Abergynolwyn which also meant an earlier start and a later finish.  Fun to be cooking for a change and fun also to do a cafe turn with a fellow train guard.  We were busy enough with the added fun of preparing an afternoon tea for a family of Americans ... who were delighted with the spread.

Sedum pilosum in flower for my birthday.  A biennial succulent, making tight rosettes of slightly hairy, fleshy leaves before sending up short stems and flowering itself quite literally to death in it's second year.  It'll make lots of seed so I'm hoping to see it in flower again in a couple of years time.

Tired by the time I got back to Meg, an hour passed with little activity before I went over to have tea at Jamie's.  Delicious chicken chasseur.  He and Ruth had got me a large stainless steel jamming pan for my birthday.  Very handy with the elderflower season almost upon us, elderflower cordial will christen it!  A drip free oil bottle for the kitchen, a near pint sized tea mug and assorted sweet naughtiness made me feel much appreciated :-)  Thanks too to the many friends who have left messages here and elsewhere online.   Three days off now and hoping to do some fun things .... with clay and in the garden.