Occasionally I get round to cutting some flowers – Alstroemeria from the matrix garden.

It’s the start of Hydrangea time at Gelli in early July, here with Geranium psilostemon, in the mossy croquet garden.

High meadow grasses, bird’s-foot trefoil and sunshine.

Fox and Cubs and Alchemilla mollis, gradual natural colonisers of our shale bank.

Not many photo opportunities in early July 2012, but still the odd interesting cloudscape.

Magic terrace garden.

Magic terrace garden, Verbena rigida, London Pride, Golden Marjoram and Coreopsis.

Rosa ‘Bonica’ and Geranium psilostemon.

Sweet Peas in the matrix garden.

A beautiful sunny morning in late July, and time for some haymaking.

OK, you’ve never seen solar powered strimmer/lawnmower haymaking before? And it is labour intensive, but it’s nice to have some sweet smelling hay in the barn after all these years.

Magic terrace garden.

Honeybee on cornflower, Centaurea cyanus.

Bumblebee on pink clover.

Honeybee in white Campanula.

More mossy croquet lawn Hydrangeas.

Even more mossy croquet lawn Hydrangeas.

Swallows flew with Olympian skills as the mackerel skies drifted in on the opening Friday evening of the 2012 London Olympics, for our own spectacular display.

Earlier in that afternoon, this Golden-ringed dragonfly, Cordulegaster boltonii, had posed for me in the magic terrace garden. I’ve only seen one before. Ever. Was it a sign for what was going to happen in the next fortnight? Why do we call this the magic terrace garden?