Walking Lupines and a Piano Lesson

So here's a garden mystery.

That, above, is one of our blooming lupines. It's growing in the pot where the Persian Slipper lupine was, and when I saw the flower stalk I naturally expected blue flowers. (And it really is the same pot, as photos from previous years prove -- a distinctive terra cotta pot that looks unlike any other in our garden.) But then this emerged -- a pink-and-white Rachel de Thame, a lupine hybrid we once had growing in a different pot. I am completely confused about how this happened, unless the Rachel de Thame re-seeded itself in the Persian Slipper's pot.

It's been an interesting year for lupines, after the surprise survival of our Beefeater red lupine. (See here.) I think those plants all played musical pots on some winter's night, uprooting themselves, dancing in a circle and then re-settling in new containers.

I spent yesterday morning in the garden reading, with Olga sprawled out like exhausted Super-Dog right next to me. I'm still plugging away at "Little Women." I can see how it has remained a popular book but I'm finding it rather boring, to be honest. I feel like I have to read at least until Beth dies, and I'm not there yet.

I also did a bunch of gardening. I picked up a whole trug full of fallen camellia blossoms and dumped them behind the shed, in an effort to give the irises growing beneath the camellia bush a fighting chance. The poor things were buried in floral detritus and I don't think we have any iris flowers this year.

I walked Olga on the high street a couple of times, and that was about as far as she was interested in going.

The blanket flower on our front porch is looking good, and I bought a little orange African daisy to keep it company.

And a persistent pink geranium has managed to raise its head above a sea of betony, grass and English ivy in the back garden.

Finally, one of the Russians upstairs was practicing piano again. I made a video so you can hear what it's like in our dining room, though you may have to turn up the sound a bit. They play this same tune OVER AND OVER AND OVER, along with one or two more -- and I know practice makes perfect, but we're talking YEARS here. I keep thinking they'll want to vary their repertoire, but so far no. Still, it's better than a power saw.

There's also video of Olga wiping her face on the shrubbery, as she does every single night after she eats dinner. If we don't let her out in time she wipes it on the couch.