We now have over sixteen hours of light a day and it shows! My seaside garden is flourishing. It is due to the combination of intense heat on cloudless days mixed with drenching downpours from storms that blow in from the Atlantic now and then. As a result, my room with a view is surrounded by lush vegetation as is my writer’s lodge in the garden. The agapanthuses down in the secret garden have soaked it all up and they are getting ready to burst into flower.

If only you could smell the fragrances now filling the garden, especially in the early evening after a sunny afternoon. The Rosa Ragusa is magnificently fragrant. The wisteria is just going over but its fragrance still fills the air in the western garden and the red climbing rose by my study has just arrived on the scene for the summer. And a delicate honeysuckle has popped up in the middle of the quince – not sure where it came from but its lovely in the terraced garden.

It is a muddle of growth everywhere you look and even in the most inhospitable situations, something still manages to get going like the nasturtiums and foxgloves- all self-seeded.

My book is finished and the manuscript is with my editor while I sort the pictures and formatting. More news of this new phase next time so please come back to catch up on progress.