During the many wet weeks that followed my arrival at Barbansais I felt no inclination to fill up my window boxes and plant pots and even when the good weather appeared to have arrived I hesitated but now I’ve done it.

Guéret has a twice weekly market and on the Saturday that Andrew was here we went down. There was a splendid array of plants and flowers in addition to the food and clothes stalls. I did a bit of food shopping because I like markets, but you need to reconcile yourself to spending a lot of time in queues. When I got to the front of one queue, having had my eye on some tasty mushrooms the stallholder told me they were all pre-sold. Curses be upon him. I didn’t have the stamina for yet another queue so we did without.

That’s all beside the point. Burdened with foodstuffs I hovered around the window box plants. Andrew offered to carry whatever I chose back to the car but I decided to leave it, suffering still from wet weather disinclination.

This week though I decided I must go for it and dashed down to town to discover that Thursday’s manifestation of the market ain’t got no plant and flower section.

Blow me. It’s the mushroom debacle again. I went instead to the garden centre where 99.9% of summer bedding plants have gone. This is what I’m left with. Let’s hope they grow although the spindly stuff at either end looks as though it’s at death’s door already.

The plant pots look at little more hopeful and their contents are said to be perennials so will be planted out in the rockery at the end of the summer.