Summer time...

Tonight we switch to daylight saving time.  I love the long evenings of summer time, but I hate the switch.  I feel discombobulated for ages.  And we lose an hour in bed.  Bleagh.

But it couldn't be a nicer day to welcome in summer.  Not a cloud; a sky of washed, happy, baby-blue; the Japanese maples in blossom and leaf; the ash tree's buds fecund with promise, even the pinoaks (always the last to come to the party) swelling visibly.  In the lawn there are tiny purple stars, perhaps a fraction over a centimetre across, and even tinier white stars, with yellow and black centres.  White daisies, the underside of each petal edged with purple.  I think they're a kind of bellis perennis.  They're perennials, as the name suggests.  There is also another kind of daisy, an annual, which my dad used to call gousblom, a wonderful warm yellow with a black centre.  Oxalis are everywhere, lining the freeways, filling the roundabouts, blanketing the grass of the freeway interchanges with an acid yellow, so bright it looks as if it could be used to etch metal.  We have some in our garden.  How joyful they are!

The cuttings I took at the old house have almost all taken, and need transplanting.  The wisteria, newly planted last year, so not yet prolific, has 4 or 5 fat hairy buds just ready to burst into flower. Wisteria in flower remind me of many happy times in the past:  sitting on the stoep with my best friend, the air mauve with blossom, sweetly, headily scented; sitting with my mother when she could still sit, on her veranda,  sharing a Sunday drink.  The penstemon seedlings and cuttings are all in flower, with flowers ranging in colour from white through pale pink to hectic crimson and deep purple.

For me, my garden, and other people's too, is a source of great comfort and joy.  Despite all the things wrong with my life, I have all this beauty on my doorstep, and all the evidence I need that I am part of nature, part of the cycle of life.