As a new year begins with all of its hopes, I want to share with you some news of our dear cat Sam who lived with us for eighteen years. As nearly everyone who receives my newsletter has visited the garden, many of you will remember Sam.

As I start to write, there is loud thunder and heavy rain outside. The good thing about the rain is that our gardens are being watered, as they have been plentifully during the spring in Canterbury.

We will be home at the end of this week after nine weeks at our French home. In my last newsletter I wrote about, and sent some photos of the development of our garden here in Normandy. I intended continuing the story this month but unfortunately my cell phone skills aren't that good so I'll finish another time.

Again I started writing about the history of our garden Frensham but decided to tell you about our garden in France as we are here now. Many of you will know that we bought a house in Normandy nine years ago and apart from two years when we couldn't travel because of Covid restrictions, we have enjoyed three months here each year.

I haven't been able to write a newsletter for a while. Maybe it's a sign that I'm slowing down. I mentioned in my last newsletter that I would write about the history of our garden. I am still working on this. In the meantime I have taken a little walk down the nostalgia path and this newsletter tells a small fraction of times gone.

It has been a while since I have written as life has taken over as it sometimes can. I realise as I write this newsletter in an outdated format now, that this is the eleventh year that I have been writing from the garden.

I have just managed to get a newsletter to you in March. The month has gone so quickly. The first thing that some of you will notice is that there aren't any photos.

It feels a little uneasy to be writing about beautiful things in the garden when many people in the North Island are dealing with so much tragedy. Hopefully the pleasure of growing plants or looking at gardens will help to heal wounds in the future.

This is a brief message to wish you all the very best for the festive season. We are having a busy season with garden visitors and it is so nice to meet people who introduce themselves because they receive the newsletter.

We’ve been enjoying a month of lovely visitors, good conversations, and happy plants doing what we want them to do. Even better, we’ve had heavy rain for more than a day, so now the bird song is back in abundance and everything looks lush.

It’s a warm sunny day as I write. What confusing weather we have had this month. A friend visited yesterday and took some photos which she has generously let me use in this newsletter. It is always interesting to see how others view a garden.

We leave our home in Normandy in France to return home to New Zealand in a couple of days. It will take quite a while to walk around the garden and see everything that is happening.

I am writing to you from our home in Normandy in France. For new readers, we bought our house in a small village seven years ago.

Our work in the garden has paused while we, like many others around the country, are having lots of rain. It’s a good time to reflect and plan more.

In Canterbury we have been enjoying a late ‘summer’ with days going to 20°C or more, making it ideal weather for raking autumn leaves, weeding, cutting back the perennials and planting out.

We are having the most gorgeous days, with chilly nights, which make the days even more appreciated.

Over the past few weeks, Oxalis ‘Ken Aslet’ has had a few flowers and each time I look at it I think of the late Malcolm Shearer, my dear friend, who, along with his wife Anne, shared so many inspirational times with me in our garden and theirs.

An exciting thing happened last week. One of my plants, Kirengishoma palmata, came in to flower for the first time for me.

For forty years I have been visiting Ship’s Cove at Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds.