Windy.

Is it so unreasonable to wish for warm sunny weather in August? Instead it's been a windy and overcast day looking as if rain would fall at any moment.  It felt a little cooler as well today as if autumn is on its way.

Today I cleared out as much of the big flag iris as I could from the small pond. The 6-7ft high leaves grow from large tubers as fat as my arm. Depending on which direction I pulled they either broke off at the base or eventually came up with nasty sludge covered tubers. As most of the pond is deeper than my boots (to provide winter shelter for the pond inhabitants) I couldn't always pull in the right direction. There were a few close calls but I managed to avoid ending up falling over in the water, I'm sure it will happen one day. Having pulled out what I could I took a break inside to hide from the flies - and because I needed a rest, before clearing away all the iris plants. 

The pond looks a bit battle worn at the moment but at least now the water lilies have some room to spread out even if the flower did get a bit speckled with mud. I also collected plenty of mud splashes so I had an early shower and my gardening fleece is in the washing machine.

We had a trial run of the bacon buns from the freezer this morning. I put 2 in the oven, one straight on the tray and one in kitchen foil. Both were good with the one not in foil crisping up a little but not too much so I'll do that as the easier option next week-end.