The white petal and the lilac

As it happens, I have no pictures of the lilac lilac (as it were) because all the other plants get in the way. As soon as I started typing, though, I had to write that because I thought of "The Crimson Petal and the White", a book I very much liked, though it was often painful to read.

The white lilac is truly gorgeous and in the evening the scent of that and the lilies-of-the-valley is intoxicating.

The little trees are all looking good. It is interesting that the oak takes a long time for the leaves to, as it were, stiffen up. They hang like little red-edged rags for a few days before they develop the strength to be more leaf-like. Another interesting thing, one of the poplars whose roots I trimmed seems to be producing particularly small leaves. That tree seems to be becoming bonsai!

The badger continues to visit. Twice I have scared him and he has noisily clambered through the fence and over the broken wall accompanied by the sounds of stones falling. So the last time I said "Hello" as soon as I stepped out of the back door and he retreated more calmly. Unlike after the wall-destroying exit, he returned to eat what had been offered for his delectation.

Twice he has knocked over my crimson highly-scented rose (which is in a pot). He was trying to access the worms who, strangely, make their way under the pile of tiles on which the pot sits. The pile of tiles, by the way, are there because when I was choosing tiles for the kitchen, I ordered so many samples that I didn't know what to do with them. I also ordered about two times as many tiles as I needed.

Such is the life of an idiot.