Garden Centres and Gladiators

We've had a very productive morning. It started with a visit to the DIY place near the main gateway. I call it a DIY store but it sells everything from chicken feed and toothpaste to paint and biscuits. It's a bit of an Aladdin's Cave, with boxes stacked all over the place and plenty of opportunities to trip up and impale yourself on sharp objects. I have noticed that shops here often sell a weird combination of things like salami and nail varnish, flowers and deodorant... We bought some trellis and I have ordered a bead curtain to hang over the kitchen entrance to stop moths flying in at night when I am cooking. Then we went to a garden centre to buy an oleander that will grow tall and hide my neighbour's back door. There are some beautiful examples growing outside a church nearby (pictured here). The woman in charge drove us round on a golf buggy and floored it round the corners which was a bit disconcerting bouncing around on the back with nothing to hold onto except for an oleander. The garden centre also sold chickens and ducks and had donkeys (see what I mean). And we finished the morning off with a visit to some Roman ruins with the opposite view on safety where they really wanted to get the point across that you needed to watch your step in case you slipped on uneven ground, tripped up or were involved in any sort of generic danger. Then back for lunch and some planting. As well as the oleander we planted jasmine and hydrangea and some trailing plants that we pushed into the cracks in the garden walls. The colour theme is mainly white - a mini Sissinghurst (if only).