The party was a pleasant affair, first retsina of the season, astonishing trifle with truly superior cake-top fireworks provided by Paul (who also brought a bottle of Polish fortified wine inside a bottle in the shape of a glass cockerel), much lingering in the garden, etc. My attempts to come up with a cocktail which gave the impression of a single space capsule floating in endless space didn't quite come off; I couldn't find white chocolate maltesers (must have been a limited edition) so I obtained freeze-dried white chocolate coated fruit from M&S (which are really nice) and floated them in the blackness of deep space mix (Tia Maria, Blue Curaçao and Vodka). It ended up looking more like an asteroid, though -- more Hayabusa than Yuri Gagarin. Also the deep space mix is a little bit green. Back to the bar table...
On Sunday I began the slightly tragic process of removing those plants which were killed by last winter's savage triple set of cold spikes. Farewell my pretty variegated ceanothus -- you never really got established. Goodbye Tim's frost-split confetti bush -- it made it through two pottings up, a house move and a disastrous spell in a flower bed, but not through a full week at -10. Still on the danger list are my Convolvulus Bush, and Tim's Olive Tree and Passion Vine, all still showing green but looking awful.
Still on the dammit, are you alive or aren't you? list, that golden gooseberry which turned up from Thompson & Morgan a week late, dry as a bone and giving a strong impression of having been sat on. I experimentally cut a branch and it's green in there. Well, for heaven's sake, get sprouting then!
