Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - August 2014

Today I cannot give you an update on my Algarve garden because I'm spending a few days in the north of Portugal, where I used to live. Hopefully my very helpful neighbour has been keeping my garden watered and I will have blooms to photograph when I get back.

In the meantime, here are some of the blooms in my old garden.

I have tried to take some of these south but they got lost somehow. I'll try again.

In the north we managed to multiply this hydrangea many times without any problems but my two attempts at moving fully-rooted plants south have failed. I'm not giving up yet!

Given enough space, this bougainvillea could be a tree like the one we had in Salisbury, many years ago.

The unusually wet weather this spring and summer has been good to my bottle brush, which is in a very dry and windy part of the garden.

These blooms are not fully open, because they are getting too much shade. The plants I took south were looking much prettier last week but, oops, I was too busy to take photos. 

I have to downsize so this house and garden will become just a memory soon.

I hope you will visit again in a couple of weeks when I post again from the Algarve.

Meanwhile, why not pop over to May Dreams Gardens, where Bloom Day is hosted every month.

Botox with a sting

... About 5 hours later I looked in the mirror. There was no pain and the dark circle under my left eye had disappeared. Hmmm... interesting. This looked like I had had a botox jab and someone had forgotten to do both sides of my face. I decided against putting in my contacts and tried my glasses. Great! The lack of symmetry was hardly noticeable.

Five hours before, I had been training my dogs to stay close to my heels and had walked through the garden and under the orange tree. Suddenly, something was crawling over my face! I tried to brush it away, losing my hat in the process. The little beast got behind my glasses and I yelped in pain. Then it was all over and I realised I had been stung on my left eye-lid! I don't think it was a bee because there was no stinger left behind. I got an ice-cube on it and surveyed my face in the mirror. The pain was bad but fortunately I'm not allergic! There was some swelling and then a little numbness but no real harm done. On the plus side, I got to see what botox might do around my eyes.