These are sad times. I’ve been working overtime to use my coping skills so I can keep it together. It isn’t helpful for anyone if I’m stressed and overwhelmed. I try to keep away from obsessive and negative thought patterns – we’re doing everything we can to help Marchesa, but many things are obviously out of our hands. Instead, I try to enjoy the good moments with her. One thing we both love is sitting outside on our roof terrace. We both enjoy the sun! Marchie loves birdwatching, and I’m happy about my little garden. Remember when I wrote that I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to bother this year? Well, I’m glad I did it anyway! It gives me joy to see all the blossoms.

Flowers, flowers everywhere!

Both the lavender and the rose have blossomed and look quite lovely! I also added catnip as a companion plant for the rose. Surprisingly, none of my cats have noticed it yet. Oscar prefers olive trees, natch.

In order to reduce my seed collection, I sowed different flower seeds everywhere. For example, I’ve placed nasturtium seeds around my fig tree. They even sprouted even though they were really old! I’ve also sprinkled sunflower seeds and a blue flower seed mix everywhere.

Dreaming of a sea of blossoms

Even though I could probably already repot them, I’ve left some of the vegetable seedlings in their small pots. I figure they’ll be stronger and healthier for it. We always laugh that we’ll end up with about two eggplants, three beans and equally as many peas. It’s not the result that’s important, it’s the process! Gardening gives me peace and joy.

As you can see above, I’ve spontaneously bought a passion flower and put it in a cheap container I got at Aldi. It’s my dream to have climbing plants all around the terrace. My previous attempts didn’t really work out, but I think it would look so romantic!