So this is summer . . .

And my gardening mojo (if I ever pretended to have one!) has completely disappeared! We have had days in a row of 30+ degrees celsius and it absolutely, resolutely refuses to rain. I have been confined to the air conditioning and have gone ever so slightly deranged! :-<

So I gave myself a small slap and picked up the camera for a quick tour of the garden. Now, let's find some positive things to cheer ourselves up with!

Ambridge Rose at the front corner is being cheery with some nice blooms and the Christmas lily behind has put on quite a show. Sorry, lily, you're two weeks early! Will you still be blooming on Christmas Day - I would suspect not. So much for a vase of lilies on the Christmas table, but this is an expedition of positives so we won't go there!

Here is Crepuscule soldiering on bravely on the archway at the side gate. Some nights, when I'm sleeping fitfully, I hear in my head a voice from some other realm commanding "Deadhead! You must deadhead!" So I have tried with Crepuscule and maybe that explains why it is flowering on and others in the garden have very much gone on vacation!

Please note that whiz-bang new water feature! What a pity it isn't sitting level! Look, you can't have everything you want and this is a trip of positives.

Also note the brown-ness of the grass through the gate and on the far hill. The front lawn is completely brown and crisp, except of course for the weeds - why is that, that the grass dies but the weeds live on . . . and on . . . and on!

This is another lily I planted last year, called Triumphator. So pretty.

I must make a note to buy more of these. And maybe next year, I could get them flowering at the same time as the roses around them, Brother Cadfael, St Cecilia and Mme Isaac Periere, who have all had a flush of flowers and are now having a bit of a sleep.

Here is a flower on the Alliums I bought online this year. Look at that funny little flower bit on the top that grew longer than all the others - no glass ceiling for that girl, she was going to stand out if it was the last thing she did!

Okay, I know I've been derogatory to Iceberg roses in the past, especially white ones and even more especially standardised white ones - but this is a day of positives and I can truthfully say that neither hell nor high water (ooo, wouldn't that be nice!) nor hot, dry weather seems to halt the floriferousness of these roses. I've so wanted to use that word!

So, hooray for the positive attitude to floriferousness of the Iceberg! (That'll do now, you can't use 'floriferousness' in every sentence.)

Another shot of Ambridge Rose. At least, I think it's Ambridge - I'm just having a little moment of self doubt. I will have to check that out and make myself a label with the correct name.

In the meantime, whatever it is is looking very fler . . . . . . - it's got quite a lot of flowers on it, hasn't it?!

And lastly, Jean Galbraith. Just lovely flowers. It's growing right next to whatever that last one was which we will call Ambridge until such time as we find out differently, and between the two of them, there are flowers which range in colour from soft pink through all shades of apricot to almost clear yellow. What a clever gardener I am to think of that!

I'm so not - absolutely all of my gardening skills (??) were learned at the School of Plonk! And not the sort you drink either! It's where you buy a plant and you plonk it in the garden and hope for the best!

So I have somewhat cheered myself up with my little trip of positives. Now I am steeling myself for this evening when I must take a new can of Wasp Killer spray down to the swimming pool and use it on a wasps' nest which I discovered yesterday hanging on the underside of the pool edge. I discovered it when I found myself surrounded by a swarm of wasps all determined to give me a piece of their minds - or their tails! I had on a very bright pink dress and lucky for me, they seemed to be more attracted to the dress than to the end of my nose and I escaped without injury! So I have purchased the toxic spray which has a range of four metres - so I will have a four metre start when I spray and run like the clappers with the wasps in hot pursuit. Wish me luck!