I got down-hearted over the wind damage to my rose trellis this week. I  know that’s not that big a deal in terms of international natural disasters but it rattled my cage  and challenged my gardening instinct to remain optimistic about the ebbing and flowing of the seasons.

Yesterday the man came to fix it and, well, the world went wild with summer. What can I say but hello hot weather and hi to all these colourful hints of summer round the corner. I’m happy again now but then I’m a very superficial kind of person. I took these photographs yesterday and thought you’d like to see them too. I’m sorry you can’t smell them but that’s another story.

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

The post The sun came out here in Lewes and look what happened! appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

It was the late comic actor Kenneth Williams who coined the phrase when playing a beleaguered Julius Caesar in one of the Carry On films. “Infamy, infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!”

 I knew just what he meant in my garden recently when Lewes, UK, first had the winds and then the rain. Look what they’ve done to my rose trellis, ma!

Those Flaming Parrots are drooping, heads down in their own tears…

The apple tree hasn’t blossomed this Spring….

…and the snails are back with a vengeance.

I’ve tried to stay calm, unlike Kenneth Williams’ Caesar, and carried on tending my strawberries, herbs and those great mid-seasonal flowers, the fragrant Sweet Williams.

Wallflowers always cheer me up between the end of the Spring bulbs and the beginning of the rose season. The pinks are in bloom too and there is no jollier or more beautiful pink flower around for the average English garden. So there is much going on out there to raise my spirits.

And as for those snails….well, one of them didn’t get away. Actually it was an accident not an assassination. Pity I didn’t have my boots on. I have to confess that I’m a bit of a Brutus as far as snails are concerned.

So my small town garden survives another day and, let’s face it,  green leaves on a wet day have a seductive beauty all of their own.

If the Kenneth Williams reference makes no sense to you, I suspect seeing it won’t make much  sense either but it always makes me laugh. Here it is – from the film Carry On Cleo (1964):

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

The post Infamy! Infamy! Lewes weather's got it in for me! appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

The post My Roses and Sweet Williams bask in the Lewes heat appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.