In the pink

These flowers, which only emerge on a decently sunny day, are almost too luminously pink to look at in real life. From two tiny plug plants this time last year, they now cover two metres of the terrace wall top and have grown vigourously despite heatwaves, inches of snow and hard frosts. My kind of plant!

After teaching (which was amusing - showing the kids how to play 'Simon says' with action verbs) it was mainly a gardening day. Given the heat this afternoon I should have been sitting in a shady spot with a long cool drink gently fanning myself. Instead I was hauling wheelbarrows full of soil from the veg garden to the raised bed so the tomatoes can have a happy new home. A search for long sticks for the bean plants uncovered the unhappy truth that, despite a garden full of sticks, I don't have enough long ones to keep all the beans satisfied. And all the garden centres are out of bamboo canes. A solution will be found tomorrow...

Tomorrow Mr B is off to Britain for an unknown amount of time. He's hovering now with the iron and some rumpled looking shirts, so I'd better pop off and deal with them...