Pretty in pink

The family set out this morning for the long journey back south and the house fell unhappily quiet! It has been a very busy but wonderful two weeks with them staying here.

My walk with the dogs this afternoon was very wet and I didn't take the camera out at all so I was pleased, on my return home, to see my first dahlia of the season looking so pretty. She especially deserved to be today's blip as there was a time when I thought the slugs had triumphed and ruined each flowering shoot - but her perfection has happily proved me wrong.