End Of Month View ~ October 2010.

My good intentions to join in with Patient Gardener's 'End of Month View' seem to have gone off the rails. I have not posted since August. I was away from home at the end of September and then again in October so this post is late. I holding head down in shame also have to report that that the border has been in suspended animation since August. At the moment it is limping along, as I have been doing this last couple of months. In the middle of September my left knee suddenly gave way, made a dreadful crunching noise and has subsequently been the cause of some considerable pain. After hopping along with a walking stick for a week when we were away at the end of September, I made a doctor's appointment as soon as we got home. The outcome of this was a prescription for some 112 paracetemol (cheaper to buy over the counter) and a referral to a physiotherapist. I swallowed the odd paracetemol but did my best to manage without them. As the weeks have gone the pain has slowly but surely lessened, so much so that by the time I saw the physiotherapist earlier this week I felt a bit of a fraud. After various manipulations involving much undignified waving of the legs, the verdict was that there is nothing seriously wrong with the said joint.  However the ligament in the left knee is apparently not as taut as in the right. I now have exercises to do regularly to strengthen it and perhaps hopefully avoid future problems.

Whilst this has been going on not only have I been most grumpy and miserable but I have been approaching physical tasks with caution and rather gingerly, not wanting to aggravate the knee further. So I have neglected both the garden and the lottie which is most annoying. The autumn clean up is going to be one frantic rush. I still have to clean out the greenhouse, lift up the dahlias, plant bulbs, sweep up never the seemingly never ending leaf fall, mulch and generally tidy up. I am quite breathless just thinking about it and as for what needs doing at the lottie ...............

So I am putting the end of month border to bed for this year - you would not really want to see it just now - like my knee it's not a pretty sight. Instead a view of what I was glimpsing at with some degree of iwantitiness at the end of October. The garden is my parent's garden and the plant is a clematis that I bought for them some time ago - label long gone but I think it is clematis cirrhosa - which one though I don't know for sure but possibly 'Wisley Cream'. Whichever it is it is flourishing and the fence behind provides shelter from the bitter winds that blow in from Russia to East Anglia. My mother observed that it's in flower earlier than usual this year - apparently it usually it comes into flower in December with them when I imagine it would be even more welcome. Many thanks to Patient Gardener for hosting the end of month view and hopefully my postings will resume in the new year.