It was a beautiful sunny evening and I was hosing the flowers on our small balcony on the road side of our house. Each summer I have a nice display of flowers and sometimes I hear the passersby on the pavement as they make approving comments, however, this evening the comments were coming from our side of the wall. Our friend Roland (recently over from Australia and well known to many of my readers as “the bird-man of Brisbane”) had taken a beer and a cigarette to the top of the steps by our front gate, perhaps to enjoy seeing the world pass by and exchange greetings (or meet more birds).

Whilst I was still engrossed with my watering, our friend Jo appeared on the steps of Alan’s house two doors up (Jo is going out with Alan’s daughter Caroline); Jo was going up with hose in hand to water Caroline’s flowers on her balcony and we struck up conversation.

“Your flowers look beautiful, Sally,” called out Jo.

“Thank you,” I responded, “it’s been a really good summer for the flowers this year… apart from those ranunculus plants we all bought. Only one of mine survived. And to think how pretty and promising they looked at first.”

“Oh, they were rubbish. All of Caroline’s have gone,” Jo said, hosing the glorious geraniums which replaced the rubbish ranunculus plants, “but the weather is perfect for the flowers this year. So much sunshine!”

“My petunias are excelling… and the marguerites. I don’t think they’ve ever been better. Last year it was the agapanthus. Each summer seems to favour a particular flower over others,” I agreed.

“I find the dandelions always do well at my place,” Roland said wryly from his position above us at the gate.

There is never a dull moment with Roland around.

And here are some cute photos of a couple of up and coming gardeners in my family…

“You’ve lost weight!” I said to Dave the builder as I was hosing my plants on the terrace this morning.

Shirtless, Dave was adding the finishing touches to the new railings he had built on Catherine and Martin’s balcony at Number Seven, two doors down from us.

“Well,” Dave smiled, turned off his radio and stopped working briefly to explain, “I couldn’t get into the suit I bought new two years ago so I wasn’t going to buy a new one… and I’ve been on a high protein diet recently. No carbs. I’ve lost between one and a half and two stone!”

“You look good,” I said encouragingly, “like James Bond coming out of the water!” (I know, I may have exaggerated a wee bit – Dave is in his fifties and completely bald.)

“Which one?” he asked.

“Daniel Craig,” I laughed, “but wouldn’t Sean Connery be alright, too?”

“Are you sure you’re not thinking of the one with the cat?” modest Dave stroked an imaginary cat in his arms.

“Oh, Blofeld!” I chuckled as an image of bald Telly Savalas entered my head.

We both laughed – patently, without his beard Dave could have been the Kojak actor’s double. Dave turned the radio back on and picked up a nautical-looking rope, which was to make the balcony rail appear like a handrail on a ship. Still musing on the mental image I went back to my hosing. 

I didn’t tell Dave I used like the bald actor when I was a girl in the seventies and he brought out that romantic LP. Telly had such a lovely deep voice that he had only to speak-sing to bring out the goose pimples. Funny how men hate Telly Savalas’s singing!

Facebook Messenger may be a great way for finding old friends and acquaintances and keeping in touch but can you trust it? With surprise I opened the Messenger app this morning to find that one of my new friend requests was from an old girlfriend of my brother Henry. Being rather dubious I clicked on the photo icon for a closer look and, sure enough, it was the same Janice to whom I was introduced several years ago.

“It can’t be…” I said to Chris who was having coffee with me on the terrace, “I have a friend request from Janice.”

“Janice?” Chris had never met her.

“Yes, Henry’s ex-girlfriend. They went out for a few months but it didn’t work out even though she was a really nice lady. Sadly, later she became ill and died of cancer about four years ago,” I explained.

“Terrible,” agreed Chris.

“Someone must have stolen her identity,” I suggested.

“Or perhaps she’s in Internet purgatory, desperately trying to get in touch with friends on Facebook!” my husband quipped.

It puts a new twist on Facebook being regarded as a good medium!