How I managed to pack so much into the few hours before I went to my flower arranging workshop – even amazed me.

Made a trip to the allotment to let the chooks out, collect eggs, and give them some lettuces that went to seed.

Surveyed my plot and marvelled that a couple of inches of rain was all it took to make the runner beans run, - grown a couple of inches over a couple of days, so instead of looking like a tiny bits of spaghetti hanging sparsely on the plants. Today,I could see literally hands full, with plenty of bees a buzzing, and tiny ones forming. Things seem to be starting to return to a normality that I would expect this time of year.

The crops that I lost to pests of the furry kind, will not have time to grow before the winter, but I will be optimistic and sow some more carrot seeds in case we have a mild winter. Only a few parsnips survived – and so many subsequent sowing of other crops just failed to germinate during the drought. Those 30 packets of flower seeds I scattered never stood a chance – which is a pity, The grass paths sown this year in the spring grew a nice green shadow – which burnt to a frazzle and those sown early summer never even showed! Which was quite an expensive exercise in terms of time, effort and cost.

But the plot is looking nice and green and the weeds on the plots either side and grown dramatically and are waist high now. The courgette, squash, and pumpkin plants really soaked up the water and no longer look the sad droopy specimens in the photos of a week or so ago.

Best of all, the trusses on the tomato plants are plentiful and swelling nicely, even though the poor things have some rather curly leaves which I doubt any amount of water would be able to resurrect.

I still have lots of harvests to look forward too – weather permitting of course! And now that we have had some rain, I hope to be able to sow some more things that need a short growing season.

The blackberry I planted in the hedge, amazingly, has got some little berries on it – and now with the rain they should swell. That really make my day - my very own blackberries - no trudging the lanes picking them any more.

There was just time for a quick dash home, to make a fresh fruit salad – strawberries, apple, pear, and a plum eaten on ‘the hoof’ then off to the workshop.

It was very original and modern – making a patchwork of flowers and foliage by making six square containers using just cellophane, ribbon, and sellotape – which made a waterproof container for the oasis foam – very ingenious, but a bit of a fiddle to do. I managed to get six made, but only had time to arrange three of them. I hope to do the other three tomorrow, but don’t think that I will be able too. When all the blocks were arranged on a black table they looked stunning. So many different colour combinations, it really did make a wonderful patchwork. Not one person had a camera with them – it is usually just me, but I did hope there would be someone else.

Hopefully I can get a photo when I make some more as they really are effective. I am already thinking of other uses for them and they will make lovely presents – and would be stylish winter or Christmas decorations as you could use all sorts of foliage and berries when flowers are scare.

I can see that if I spend time over the summer and autumn making the containers, I will have a nice selection for Christmas.