Blog holiday

Hello everyone! Long time, no blog. I thought I'd do a shortish posting as a way of saying "We're still here and we'll be back" but for the next month or two more I'm continuing my blog holiday here at Garden Amateur.

I've received a few very kind and lovely emails from regular readers of this blog, wondering if all is well with us. Thanks, and yes, we're fine.

My previous posting, a summary of what we learned on our USA odyssey, was on November 10, and here it is early February. After the torrent of holiday blogging, I just felt like a rest from blogging altogether.

Besides, when we got home the garden was overgrown and not all that lovely. So all I have done recently is cut back the overgrowth, plant some zinnias, salvias and a few herbs and shallots in the bare spots, and watch them grow.

Count yourself lucky that I've been so silent, otherwise all you would have heard was grumbling. Sydney is currently enduring its Worst Summer Ever – cool, overcast and showery virtually all the time. Everyone here is disgusted with Huey the Weather God. The whole garden is soggy, the snails are having a mini Olympics out there, and gardeners are re-enacting their equivalent of that famous scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail – you know, the one where they wheel the cart around the plague-stricken village calling out "Bring out your dead!" In this case of course the dead are plants, not peasants, but you know what I mean. Terrible summer, a shocker. Lift your game, Huey.

I plan to get back into the blogging and gardening in autumn. Pammy and I want to renovate both the front yard and backyard. No, we don't have a definite plan yet. In fact we haven't agreed on anything yet. We're in what they call the "negotiations phase". But we both agree that we want a change.

So, until autumn arrives and a fab plan has been formulated, I'm afraid that this meagre update is all I have to offer for the time being, apart from saying "thanks" once again to all you lovely people who've been in contact wondering what in blazes is going on over at Pam and Jamie's place.