Some people actually read this !!!!! Well they are friends and family but hey that's better than I thought. In response to a huge mailbag (well two e-mails anyway) asking me to post more pictures of Cyprus - I'm setting up an album with pictures of stuff for you to look at if you want (it's the picassa link on the right), I wouldn't want to spoil my rivetting narrative with too many pictures now would I.
In an attempt to show my dearest middle brother that I am not a complete "plant geek", I'm going to tell you first about Jordan. GO IF YOU CAN !! I appreciate that we are lucky being only a 50 minute flight away so it's easy for me to say. We went this week for a couple of days, and wished we'd gone for more. Went up Mt Nebo - the place Moses is buried and looked out over the River Jordan, the Dead Sea, Jerico and Jerusalem - then onto the Dead Sea for a bit of a float. A little tip here - don't drink the water it tastes horrible. Second day took us to Petra - wow just about sums it up, any photo's I've taken don't really do it justice. We didn't get to see Karnack (Templar castle), Jerash (major Roman ruins), Wadi Rum (desert), where Noah died, where John the Baptist baptised Jesus, where Lotts wife turned into a pillar of salt etc etc. It is very biblical !!!

And now onto plant geekiness, been hard at it on the garden the last few days. Gave my bourganvillia it's final haircut, I'm glad that job is finished - I'm covered in scratches, finished my raised beds and defining my borders with planks to edge them, sowed a bucketful of seeds (well not really a bucketful but quite a few anyway). Alyssum, dianthus, mesembrianthemum, dahlia, some more tomatoes, verbena, rudbeckia, zinnia, hollyhocks, oregano, passion flower and camomile all now snugly in the propagator or the mini-greenhouse. Divided up a canna for a neighbour, she got two new plants and them re-potted, I got two plants for free - everybody is happy, took cuttings of a couple of succulents - don't know what they are yet, I'll be looking them up later, after I've been out onto the patio to prick out some more chillis.