Monday 8th July. First dahlias fully out. All hideously red with yellow eye. Left in for now, but will compost at the end of the season. Cut and bundled rows of poppy seed heads. Turned them upside down into paper bags.

Tuesday 9th July. Writing. Email from Niwaki confirming me as a stockist. Thrilled. Dreamt of about gift boxes with scissors and snips for florists and gardeners. Too soon to mention Christmas?

Wednesday 10th July. Birthday. Supper in F's beautiful garden in Milverton. Huge box balls, hydrangeas and a striped lawn. Hugo fell in the swimming pool and Puppers ate the champagne cork, both of which make it sound much more rock and roll than it was.

Thursday 11th July. Dinner at Pig at Combe. Landscape glorious and bathed in golden sunlight. Kitchen garden wonderful. Enviable squash and the fruit-cage of dreams. Rows of calendula and cornflowers for edible flowers. Pulled out the last broad bean plants in the dusk because weather forecast to change.

Friday 12th July. Rain. Actual proper rain. Potholes on the track full of water and bathing birds. Roses perked up within hours and although some of the sweet peas were marked, the colours intensified overnight. In court all day. 

Saturday 13th July.  Packed orders. Parcels and boxes and tape and labels. Coffee and podcasts and piles of sleeping dogs indifferent to industry. Cut first proper harvest of cosmos. Deadheaded flowers that had set seed to keep them going. 

Sunday 14th July. Hedges and edges. Swept the courtyard around sunbathing dogs, tidied away empty pots, gave up on some blank seed trays and tipped onto compost heap. Expected to prune all the espaliered apples but managed only two as they grow like thugs. James Grieve is planted for our eldest nephew and is always the strongest. Native hedge thick with yellow plums.