Summer, and that means roses and possibly whipped cream.

This is just an excuse to show my very artistic shots of roses which I took yesterday. I hope you will be greatly entranced by them! Lol. In fact I 'memorised' the names of the roses so I could say what they were, but as if I was going to remember! So, here you have - A Collection of Nice Roses! In fact, one of them - the first one I think, is called Belle de Londres, and the third one is definitely Bora Bora. And one of them is Marlena. And I think I need a more expensive camera really but they aren't too bad for my little Sony purchased from Farmers New Plymouth.






It started off as a funny old day in fact. I had things to do in town - messages :-) - and then in the afternoon my friend Viviane was coming to pick me up. I hadn't slept well the previous night so was moving fairly slowly, but finally got myself sorted. Viviane said between 2.00 and 3.00. So I settled down with a book and waited. And waited. 2.00 came and went. 2.30, 3.00, 3.30..... What is it with these bleedin' French? I asked myself. Just before 4.00 my phone rang. It was Viviane. Was there a problem? she asked. No, I replied. And then it all became clear. As is my way from time to time, I had misunderstood her email, and I was supposed to go to her place. So she was sitting waiting, and I was sitting waiting.... Oh dear!! I had managed to write off a whole afternoon! I would be a good character in a sit-com or an old slapstick movie which bases the plot around misunderstandings!! Never mind. We had a good old laugh about it - my how we laughed - and she shot round in her car. So we went to the lovely gardens I had visited with her back in October I think it was. Just big public gardens with trees, cottagey plantings, a lake with lily pads, and lots and lots of roses.
I love roses and it was just the right time of the year for them. (It's summer here - very lovely. Had I mentioned that?) So we wandered round and it was very beautiful and quite relaxing. Nice.
Then we went to a big garden centre as Viviane wanted to buy some plants, and there inside the complex I finally found a decent gift shop in Poitiers! Yay! Off the beaten track and I had no idea it was there. I was in my element. I could really only look as my funds are dwindling at an alarming rate, but it was good all the same.
Then back to Viviane's and I stayed there for tea which we had when her husband Jean-Michel came home from work - about 8.00pm. They were asking me what foods from New Zealand I missed, and I couldn't think of any. Like, you can't get Marmite, for example, but for all the times that I eat it you couldn't say I actually miss it. Then I suddenly thought of something - whipped cream! I don't exactly eat that on a daily basis either, but when I do want it, like to put on a pavlova, or as an ingredient in my famous cheesecake, it just doesn't exist. Also, they mostly have tarts as desserts here, and usually they need just a teensy little bit of whipped cream on the side! Anyway, with a flourish Viviane went to the fridge and produced a can of squirty whipped cream to have with our strawberries. (Lovely seasonal strawberries. Had I mentioned that it was summer?) Well, of course it's not the real thing, and if you use it then wait a bit it kind of disappears before your very eyes! But who was I to complain? Definitely better than nothing at all, and it was really cool of Viviane to have got it. I think they can't understand what I'm going on about. But there you are. A lovely day.
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