Back to the Beach

 Dateline Golden Beach, Florida

It's been a while I know but the journey down was exhausting. We did it in just two days again, minimising hotel stays. It all started out well with the most glorious autumn scenery through Pennsylvania and West Virginia - sadly no time to take photos-  but then things went downhill with torrential rain and crazy drivers. I wonder if collective insanity hasn't gripped Florida-bound motorists even more that usual. 90 - 100 mph, weaving in and out, tailgating etc. We started to wonder if, unbeknownst to us,  Florida had been put under curfew and people were in a mad frenzy to get home before dark. Or something. But we survived and Golden Beach is still Golden Beach.

The garden was another story. If the weeds were bad last year,  they were ten times worse this. Perhaps the result of an exceptionally  hot, rainy summer or perhaps the weeds telling each other that our address was the place to be. Last year there were four or five of the things that looked like anaemic Christmas trees (how can something with a stem that thick grow like that in just four months?) This year there were at least a dozen. The honeysuckle had migrated from the fence and firmly rooted itself half way down the lawn. And everything was covered in a mess of stringy daisy-like vegetation that, when I scooped up armful after armful of it, left me covered in tiny spines so I looked like a hedgehog. And the porterweeds! The porterweeds had excelled themselves, spreading all over the place with their ugly wavy tendrils and complicated horizontal subterranean root systems. I spent a hot, humid morning wrenching most of then out and then saw a come-on email from the local garden centre. They were actually offering porterweeds for $14.99 each! "Fifteen dollars! You threw away all those 15 dollar plants!" groaned hubby. We could have set up a stall by the road, undercut the garden centre. Although I have to say, no one with a modicum of sense plants porterweeds. 

  There was one success story though.. 

A while ago a neighbour donated some giant lilies and this year one of them actually bloomed to welcome us back.

To be continued.