Monday 12th June 2017

I started the day by chopping up some cardboard boxes in the garage with a Stanley knife - always therapeutic, though a health and safety nightmare. It's a wonder I found the garage among the tall grass - the gardener hadn't been for about seven weeks. I was just in the middle of a text conversation with my sister about her and my niece coming over tomorrow to help cut the grass and hedge when the doorbell rang. It was the gardener! So I rang my sister to explain, and she's coming anyway to help me tidy the flower beds instead. On the way to Sainsbury's this afternoon, I bought half a dozen bright pink geraniums (pictured) to plant in the pots at the front of the house. We usually have red, but I fancied a change this year. Also bought a couple of shirts at half price, but yet to try them on. Mum, still interested in clothes at the age of 90, is in the middle of altering a top she bought last summer. She's taken the peplum off and is in the process of making bells for the ends of the sleeves from it, which seem to be quite fashionable this summer. It was a David Emmanuel design (he created Princess Diana's wedding dress), so goodness knows what he would make of it. Mum designed her own wedding dress, and in my opinion it looked much better than Princess Diana's anyway. Mum and her three sisters all used to make alterations to their clothes from a young age, so this is nothing new. If anyone can make it work, Mum will.