It Was A Grey Day,

Diana had gone to work,

as I made my way past Foxgrove Lodge, I was going into town, I had decided to do the weekends shopping a day early,

the flowers in the lodge garden putting a bit of colour into the proceedings, first stop Marks & Spencer, where I bought a Sunday joint of lamb and a few other bits and pieces, including some smoked haddock for tomorrows breakfast, next bus to,

Homebase in Catford, one or two of the orchids had not done so well, so we thought we would try something different, remembering how strange and how nice the flowers were we decided on some stapelias, we had grown them before with great success in Thailand, with this in mind I had ordered a few from growers and some had arrived, what I did not have was pots to put the cuttings in and soil, hence my visit to Homebase,

into the gardening section, I should point out that garden centres do not seem to stock stapelias, when we went to Polhill and Coolings in the past I looked for stapelias, with no luck,

whilst here I had a quick look,

at some of the other plants for sale here, soil and pots purchased,

and I was walking as fast as I could through the park trying to beat the rain that had just started,

shopping put away, and the fun begins,

I had bought 4 different specie, one of the growers had sent 2 cuttings which was nice,

it sounds strange but I had to buy 40 pots, just for the 10 or so I would ultimately need, I was still waiting for a few more cuttings to arrive,

a mix of cactus and potting soil,

and in no time at all they were ready to be watered,

off to the window sill, I hope they do as well as the ones we had in Thailand, but, it was a lot hotter and brighter there, in any event we thought we would give them a try,

whilst playing with the stapelias I thought I would take a few photographs of one of the orchids that had flowered,

it was putting on a nice show,

for the technical it is a banfieldara var. gilded tower 'mystic maze', after my evening meal Diana arrived home, so it was feet up for our normal evenings television, a Midsomer Murder, a Lewis and a New Tricks, we rounded the evening off with a Have I Got More News For You, great fun, after that we were off to bed.