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Ally's Summer Garden in the Wind.

© Allyso

It's officially summer in the Land Downunder, but the first couple of days were cool and windy. That's OK, because we never expect a lot of December weather, but Ally's garden isn't any too happy!

Wind dries the soil and blows the heads off the roses. Wind riffles the long, seeding grass so it looks greenish silver. Wind makes ocean-noises in the pine trees down the paddock. Local legend says these pine trees replaced some Tasmanian blackwoods which had someone (or something) buried under them. Who? What? When? Why? Local legend sayeth not.

Green plums, some blushing red, fall off the trees and bounce about on the pavers. The little dog Bic chews them now and again. She who turns up her lip at nicely chopped meat from the butcher! She who refuses to lay a tooth on food that came from a tin. What *does* she eat? Who knows! But Bic is firm and stout, so it can't be fresh air. Maybe green plums are what fatten her?

Bic is shedding her coat. White hairs find their way to Ally's black trousers. Black hairs find their way to Ally's white shirt. Brown hairs find their way onto everything else. Where do they come from? Bic looks smugly coated, just as usual...

Bic barks at the possums by night for hours, yet huddles by the heater when Ally puts it on to dry her hair.

The garden's blowing in the wind. At one end is a Fairy's Fishing Rod, flexible canes and long, strap-like leaves. Pink flowers stud the canes in early summer, but during the winter it looks drab and slightly doleful. The canes are bowing and curtseying in the wind. Or fishing hopefully in the air.

Love-in-the-Mist froths round the sides of the garden. The foliage is ferny, the starry blue flowers are caught in a mesh-like cage. Later there will be hollow-sounding seed-pods, but many plants will need to be pulled by then. Love-in-the-Mist was planted four years ago and never since. Up it comes, year by year, in the garden, among the pavers, and sometimes in the paddock.

Sweet William grows in the garden, the dark pink and the red. The cheerful flowers survive the wind, and the smell is like carnations. Sweet Alice flourishes as well. On the punnet the flowers were described as "yellow-cream". In the ground they look pretty well white, but who cares? They smell as good, even if not exactly as advertised.