the silly season gets silly

Thanks so much for so many lovely lovely comments over at my giveaway.(You can still enter here.)

I think I'd like you all to win! And I love it when something prompts so many 'quiet ones' to have a say.

I'm just popping in, ever so briefly, to apologise for not being around much at the moment - either here, or visiting at yours.

The silly season is just a little silly.

As well as trying to amass that Christmas spirit at the store, I have visitors staying at home all week, and it is that crazy last week of school for the girls.

Tonight we had the school carol service at the Cathedral.

Oh yes, Milly takes her choir singing very seriously. But it seems all those 7.45am practices pay off when you hear your favourite carols and those young voices sounding so lovely.

It's hard not to join in lustily.

And I only had to poke Brunnel awake once so that is something.

But look what is stirring out in the garden!

The first dahlia of the season.

As you may or may not know, I am slightly crazy about these flowers.

Well after the success of last year's plantings, earlier in the year, a friend referred me to a specialist grower, and I was able to order online.

I may have gone overboard. In fact I ordered so many tubers that the grower quite possibly thinks I have a garden the size of a park. Not the handkerchief sized few square metres that is the reality of my backyard.

And because of our domestic situation, when the boxes arrived, the garden was still very much the domain of big builder boots and rubbish and weeds and mud, so the tubers were really late going in to the ground.

Every night after work I rush outside to see the daily growth!

Not long now...  

(Can you tell I'm quite excited!)

Amanda xx