Uh-Oh. Who Knew?

70s knows what's coming, if she saw the above.

Surprise -- I missed my train to Cardiff. Because of the type of tickets I had purchased, to get the next train I would have to buy an entirely new ticket for 45GBP MORE!

I stayed in London.

I was angry at the train pricing system, but mostly at myself. *I really did think reservations were for the later train :( *

Then I realized that I was near one of the garden centers (centres) I'd recently read about. If only I had a clue as to where it actually was or it's name. Fortunately! I had my trusty London: A to Z (that's "ZED" for my American brethren). Off I headed in the general direction of the neighborhood where the anonymous garden center (centre) might be and after one stop at a florist shop I quickly and easily found it! (If only Banksys were as easy to find ;)

An hour plus and a righteous thunderstorm later I departed with:

* information about when and how to transfer my grandmother's and my great grandmother's camellia bushes OR propagate new ones from cuttings of their originals. *sigh*

* a terracotta-colored plastic window box for my bedroom window.

* 2 creeping rosemary plants.

* a book I've recently read of about organic gardening (in English weather and soils).

* a giant garden bag I'm going cut some drainage holes into and use as a container for some of my plantings.

* a bunch of tiny peat pots (I like them best for starting seeds)

* the latest issue of Organic Gardening magazine (the English one). It came with some cherry tomato seeds which I left on the tube for a fortunate and curious stranger to find because I already have some wonderful heirloom tomato seeds :)

* and FREE --- SEVEN packets of some snooty brand of organic vegetable seeds (see photo below, brown packets). FREE!

THEN, I headed home, dropped all that off, got the directions to a garden center (centre) closer to me where I picked up:

* waaaaaaay too many vegetable and herb seeds (see picture below) that will last me the next two years.

* some strawberry plants

* a mint plant

* a sage plant

* AND

* 3 ENORMOUS plastic terracotta colored pots to plant them all into once they sprout.

Not showing are the plants I've already got: basil (in the bathroom for now), the strawberries, etc. (outside in the garden) and the rosemary (in the kitchen for now).

This will either be a bountiful summer or a very sad one. Right now the temperatures are predicted to be near freezing tonight. Spring is still waiting to make her debut over here. Stay tuned.

Happy Weekend!