Reasons to be cheerful

[Richard Barrett]

Could just be a Stooge!

(or an idiot)

[johncorrigan]

(or an idiot)

I think he's a passenger!

[LMcD]

Had my eyes checked this morning. I don't need new glasses.

[Bryn]

Had my eyes checked this morning. I don't need new glasses.

I was contacted yesterday to be informed that a hospital appointment due to take place some 15+ miles away has been delayed by 2 weeks and moved to a local hospital just a couple of miles from my residence.

[cloughie]

had my eyes checked this morning. I don't need new glasses.

great news!

[Nick Armstrong]

Had my eyes checked this morning. I don't need new glasses.

Same, last week!

[johncorrigan]

great news!

You're cumming it, cloughie!

[Zucchini]

Same, last week!

Don't need new glasses? Why do you keep hitting the blue key when everyone else types in black?

[LMcD]

great news!

Thanks!

[Barbirollians]

My fuchsia viciously savaged by frost and apparently dead has just produced two new green shoots just as I approached it with a spade.

[Bryn]

My fuchsia viciously savaged by frost and apparently dead has just produced two new green shoots just as I approached it with a spade.

So it may have a fuchsia after all.

[LMcD]

So it may have a fuchsia after all.

My oleanders, which I decided to leave outside over the winter for the first time, appear to have emerged unscathed, but I may approach them with a suitably fierce-looking gardening implement if they show any reluctance to bloom this year.

[oddoneout]

My fuchsia viciously savaged by frost and apparently dead has just produced two new green shoots just as I approached it with a spade.

I always try and wait until end of May/beginning of June before assuming things are dead, unless evidence points that way sooner - sometimes the death is obvious (not just the top growth but the top of the rootball falling out of the pot or coming away when weeding tends to be a clue...) but so often it's a case of all the top growth having been knocked back but the rootstock is OK. I had assumed I would have lost all my small leaved sages (the ones often used as container plants such as "Hot Lips") but they are all showing healthy tufts of leaves at the base, which is so pleasing as they are good plants for my difficult soil. A species kind acquired from an open garden about 30 years ago and never properly identified(the owner had many kinds and there was a fair amount of interbreeding went on she said so it could be a cross) was in those days assumed to be tender but I have never lost it to winter weather in the ensuing years. It may be slightly untidy in form but once it starts flowering( it'll be 4- 6 weeks later this year) it will just keep going, sometimes providing sprigs of magenta flowers for the Christmas table, and I love the spicy blackcurrant leaf/clove smell of the leaves. Most of the gladiolus seem to have survived being left in the ground and the species glad (?byzantinus) looks as if the cold has positively boosted it - the sprays are much bigger and with more buds than usual. Strange - but welcome. I've yet to see signs of the over-wintered dahlias, but they are late even in a normal year and the tubers of one I have in a pot seemed to still be firm when I tidied the top layer of compost so more patience needed I think!

[cloughie]

My fuchsia viciously savaged by frost and apparently dead has just produced two new green shoots just as I approached it with a spade.

They are remarkably resiliant!

[LMcD]

They are remarkably resiliant!

(Alan Bennett voice) 'I was watching my fuchsias the other day and I thought to myself - you know, I think we can learn a thing or two from all those plants that have survived the perils of winter. All we need to do is wait for our green shoots to emerge then and then make sure we care for them'.