Abundance

I picked these roses--mostly gallicas mixed with damasks and albas the last of my Shailer's Provence. They are displayed for the present in a bundt cake pan. It presents the flowers very nicely, I discovered.



I'm harvesting the crop very liberally, buds and all, as I'm so seldom here at the Lodge. I'll take today's pickings to the lake with me, along with some purple-blue early lavender spikes and perennial sweet peas.

Rose of the Day: Maiden's Blush. A damask rose from the 15th century of earlier. Her first bloom typically opens on my husband's birthday--yesterday--and this year her timing was perfect. Palest pink, and her French name Cuisse de Nymphe was regarded as too scandalously suggestive by the Victorians, who re-christened her with the name commonly used today.



Banshee is a strange rose whose claim to fame is the ability to mimic Maiden's Blush in form and fragrance. It's not as evident in this particular photo as usual.



Mutabilis is an interesting China rose. The flowers range in colour from the honey-yellow shown here to an orange and a pinky-purple. At the moment, the range is limited. I dead-headed the pink blossoms.



On Sunday evening I took the Chap to an early birthday dinner at the Mexican place in Wolfeboro--we each had a different molé dish, both excellent, and the awesome prepared-fresh-at-your-table quacamole. The dogs went with us in the car, in which we left them as we dined, and behaved beautifully. That night we had some powerful thunderstorms.

The Chap left us on Monday afternoon. I was writing.

Yesterday--the Birthday--I dropped the girls at the Lodge in the morning and made my way to my mandolin lesson in town. I got a preview of the next tune I'll be learning, my first Turlough O'Carolan piece. I'm very excited! Ran some errands. Then the Man of the Day and I had a celebratory seafood dinner at the big restaurant near his office where you eat for free on your birthday.

This morning I dead-headed roses. Their foliage has been attached by nasty green worms and the flowers battered by the very heavy rains we've had. I won't even mention the weeds. I strongly suspect the weeds would be running rampant even if I were in residence at the Lodge more than I have been....

I'm returning to the lake this afternoon with some fresh reading material and a printout of a portion of my (incomplete) manuscript and its synopsis for editing. And the girls. And lots of food for the holiday. And an abundance of flowers.