Jungle Patio

The plants are growing particularly dense on the patio at this time of year. This is the view out the living room window. I love all those flowers and their color combinations.

Here's the view from the bedroom. Kind of crazy, right? Fortunately, we really don't use the patio for much except as a place to store plants. (And to set out the laundry rack on good drying days.)

Elvis has the Jungle Room; we have the Jungle Patio.

Here's the other side of the house. This is the sunniest wall in the garden, so anything that likes full sun winds up in this spot. That sunflower is the only one to prosper of the seeds I planted earlier this year. I've got some zinnias in that planter, too, as you can see.

Here are some of the individual plants blooming now:

The lobelia, looking like a swarm of pink moths...

...the bright orange canna lily...

...and the white datura, or jimsonweed. Can you believe these daturas were tiny sprouts only a month ago?

All this growth has been happening despite the fact that England is having the driest July in more than a century. We've had an average of .6 inches of rain across the country, about a quarter of what's typical. There's also no rain in the forecast. We are in drought conditions. Of course we water the garden plants, but things are dire out there. Yesterday I took more water to the sad street tree, for all the good it will do.

I'm still trying to maintain the Russians' plants as well. Mrs. Russia e-mailed that they're not due back until Aug. 26! Criminy! And speaking of the Russians, yesterday a delivery came for them -- a new toilet and toilet seat, now sitting in a box in our front hallway. I sent Mrs. Russia an e-mail saying it had arrived and she seemed perplexed -- she says they already got that delivery and weren't expecting another one. So someone may have to come and reclaim the toilet from us at some point. I think they should put it on their terrace with plants in it.

There's another train strike planned for Saturday, and Dave and I have to get to the airport early Sunday morning for our flight to Detroit. Even though the strike will be over by then, normal service isn't expected to be restored until midday, so Dave arranged for a car to take us to Heathrow. These train strikes are a real problem, and now there's even talk of a general strike -- when basically ALL unionized workers walk out to show solidarity -- which hasn't happened in many years. As I understand it, the strikers want pay raises that are on pace with inflation, and of course inflation is relatively high right now.

Yesterday I helped Dave go through his clothes, and I went through mine, and I took two bags of donations to the Oxfam shop. Dave's sock drawer, in particular, was out of control. He likes whimsical socks but he had so many that we couldn't open or close the drawer, and he didn't use three quarters of them. Now we've got them back down to a reasonable level. (I included those in the charity bags, though I have no idea whether Oxfam wants used socks. They're nice socks, for what that's worth. I've never seen socks for sale in the shop but I think Oxfam sells some donated clothing to bulk buyers and that kind of thing, so maybe socks can go in with all that.)

I should have donated the Russians' toilet.