Monday will be the coolest day, dry with a temperature of 14C degrees. The rest of the week will see days with sunny spells, dry and with temperatures up to 17C degrees.

I am sure everyone is shouting for rain as we are, watching the weather forecast avidly but the dry spell seems to be with us for a week or 10 days  yet!

I am watering the fruit trees thoroughly once a week, since this year, all our fruit trees have been very well pollinated and we should see a good crop. The Roses too are getting a good watering after having given them a dose of Rose Feed. The vegetable beds have had the sprinkler on them twice now ( once a week), there is no let up of the dry weather we are experiencing.

The Dahlias have been planted out with a big collar of sawdust around them against the slimy creatures! We use sawdust against slugs and have very good results with no slug damage on Delphiniums and Hostas.

We are still weeding beds and borders and it is astonishing how our compost rises and then lowers after a day or two! The second sowing of carrots and parsnips have been successful and painfully weeded from the many tiny Poppy seeds. Today we have covered them with the Wondermesh to prevent the Carrot Root Fly from attacking the crop.

There is still a lot of pricking-out of young seedlings to get through and then we should be working on the ruin walls, exposing the layout of the original rooms, which will take months on end.

The birds are extremely busy feeding their young and coming to the pond to drink in these warm dry days but also still singing all the day making all our watering an easy task.