There have been many failures in the garden this year. I was going to photograph them, but who wants to see slug eaten dahlias, miserable stunted little cornflowers, pathetic trays of seedlings with about 5% germination. I even failed with 'easy' annuals like night scented stock!

The peat free composts available are just waste products, not soil, and I think they may be to blame....or is it just me?

The very inexpensive little fuchsias from the supermarket have done well and are prettying up the greenhouse and hiding the scrawny and feble schizanthus which are producing plenty of flowers at the end of the straggling stems.

There's always next year!

..with warmth and regular rain the garden has grown like crazy! I am very happy with some of the new sunptuous flower colours I tried this year. Breakfast outside while I think about what to tackle that day is a simple pleasure.

Sweet pea Matucana, rose  Timeless Purple and a few navy blue buds of agapanthus look great in a vase. I brought them indoors and the scent as I write this this evening is divine.

It's a pretty astonishing thing when I think about it, to get sealed into a metal tube and be propelled at great speed to a great height above the land and the ocean, and to get to Sunburgh from Glasgow in one and a half hours.

It's pretty astonishing that I can write about it here, and that people all around the world can read it within seconds of me pressing 'post'

And perhaps the most astonishing thing is that, given the turmoil and uncertainty and complexity of our world, things work as well as they do!

It is an astonishment to be alive, and it behoves us therefore, to be astonished.

Johm Donne

I was lucky.to be joining friends who are keen and knowledgeable bird watchers, and who had researched all the best things to do on Shetland. This was one of the very best.

At dusk we sailed out to the island of Mousa, reknowned for its ancient broch and the storm petrels which nest in it. We sat inside this amazing structure, awe inspiring in itself, as hundreds, if not thousands, of birds flew in and out feeding their chicks. The broch is double-walled -there are staircases between the walls - so you don't see much of the birds inside, but to sit and listen to stories of the island and hear about the life of the storm petrels was very special.

It is about a 20 minute walk to the broch.

Outside, as it got darker we could see the birds, as fast as swallows, swoop in and out of the outer walls, and sometimes hear their strange small warbling cries.

It was well after midnight and we needed torches to get back to the waiting boat for the 30 minute croossing to the Mainland (as the biggest island is called). You can just see the lights in the final phtograph.

Magical.



Kathleen Jamie in Findings writes a lovely essay about storm petrels.

Gannets, guillemots, arctic terns, great skua, stoem peterls. Thousands and thousands of seabirds, seen at close quarters, lives, deaths from avian flu, and breeding habits described by a knwledgeable local guide.  It was amazing. I see gannets dive into the loch at home, but to see it right beside me was thrilling.

We were very lucky as the weather was kind (gales forecast this weekend) and there was talk of discontinuing the tours because of avian flu.

The little centre of Lerwick is colourful and stylish (and very quiet until the cruise ships come in).  There are good eating places and the shops sell high quality things both traditional and modern in a chatty and unpretentious way. There is a super bookshop and the tender flowers in the tubs surprised me this far north.

Does anyone know what the pinky-red flowers are? Arctotis? They have ferny foliage. The flower tubs were superb.

I was very restrained in my purchases but am delighted with the gloves from the museum shop and the socks from RAM

RAM's ethos and contempoary designs - machine made- are really interesting. You can read more under About on the website (link above). I could have spent a lot there, but I spent my money on two wildlife boat trips...

The small but wonderful shetland Taxtile Museum was a delight., and the Facebok page on their very good website has some great videos.

Much of the land is is covered in a carpet of green close cropped by 284,831 sheep! (Sheland in Statistics 2017) and the skill of the knitters is known the world over of course.

Wouldn't you like to have your first coffee of the day on that little balcony?

I





loved these windows on the older houses - mostly 12 panes, but sometimes 8

There are hundreds of standard bungalows on Shetland, but also many scandinavian style houses which sit well in the landscape.

I was barely off the plane when I saw my first ever puffin!

Booming waves on white sand beaches, windy picnics in hats and gloves, wonderful birdlife, (sadly bird death too froom avian flu), friendly people...my head and my camera are so full of images of a fascinating week on Shetland it will take me a few days to sort them out.

It seems that weatherwise,I chose the right week to go to the far north!

Have you visited the Shetland Isles?

The number of species in the mini meadows increases year on year. There are orchids (which are why we let the grass grow in the first place), hawkweed, fox and cubs, speedwell. buttercup, foxglove, bird's foot trefoil, centaura, pink campion, red cloer, white clover, selfheal and a little white one like fairy dust which I have not identified yet.

The only one I have planted is the ox-eye daisy. The only one I don't like is ragwort - a coarse thing, but it is the food of the cinnabar moth cateroillar.  I have seen the caterpillar but have yet to see an the moth other than in a picture.It has the most stunning colours.

A friend said the meadows  are 'a balm for the soul'.

A blog break while I see what else I can find..I hope you won't be too hot, too cold or too wet wherever you are, but just right!

One baby cloudlet above the meadow.

Sunshine! At 4.30am

And at 4pm.

A beautiful day.

..to Number 10 (not that number 10!)

I love the boldness and simplicity.

I wonder what inside is like..

Worlds within worlds at The Scottish Gallery

And The Open Eye Gallery. I will be going to the Barbara Rae exhibition next moonth.

Do any of you know of a nice place to stay in Edinburgh?

..though not as far as Cannes!

Cloud at home

Cloud in Edinburgh.

I headed east..

..that outer order equals inner calm?

I do think it helps..

..is a strange place!

On the way to the city I listened to Rethink The World Order about the battle between liberal democracies and nationalist, populist autocracies, and a fascinating programme The Amazing Life of Olaudah
Equino which was both horrendous and heartening. Serious stuff after which the retail world seemed somewhat vacuous and meanngless.

On the way back Sibelius' Fourth Symphony, written when he had been diagnosed with a tumour on his throat, and described by the presenter as Sibelius 'clinging to cliffs and looking out on a landscape riven by despair'.

A mild altercation between the bus driver and a passenger ended with 'You are in the wrong, not me'.

I went home and watched grown men and women thwacking small balls at speeds of over one hundred miles per hour at each other accompanied by grunts, roars and what I can only describe as whinnying. They get paid thousands of pounds for this. I was riveted.

I went to bed feeling exhausted although I had barely exerted myslef, and, surprisingly, slept really well.

Bizarre, don't you think?


A sunny day (at last!), mowing the paths through the meadows and a snooze in the hammock resotred my equiliibrium,
and a British player through to the semi-finals of Wimbledon was cheering news  :-)

..and putting on weight!

This beautiful clematis was an inexpensive supermarket buy, in a very small pot and I read that it is a good idea to grow them on in a bigger pot until they have a stronger root system before planting them out in the garden. It is doing well so far in the greenhouse.

The underside is lovely too.

The weather is awful, so I am still enjoying Wimbledon.  So far with my tennis I have had scones and jam, strawberries and cream, white wine and gin and tonics. How many more days has the tournament to go?

..and yet darker.
Rose Timeless Purple gets even darker as it matures.

I think it gives a lovely depth to an arrangement.

It's going to be a treasure.

The new rose is as sumptuous and as scented as I hoped it would be.  It's standing up to the rain quite well too, poor thing!

Two buses, two ferries to get there, the same coming back and sometimes when the weather and the rather complicated timetables work out, it's a breeze. Ardentinny to Clynder to a friends's house for lunch and a look round her magnificent garden.


We all love the little girl Doon The Watter statue and it brings back fond memries for many Glaswegians.

We are pretty well served by public transport here.