Our gar­den club meet­ing didn’t start off so well yes­ter­day, although we were all enjoy­ing each other’s com­pa­ny. The per­son who was sup­posed to make con­tact to arrange for our meet­ing room to be opened had­n’t done her job! 

For­tu­nate­ly a kind soul in an adja­cent build­ing offered us a meet­ing room – phew. Turned out to be our usu­al friend­ly meet­ing. Our speak­er only brought flow­er­ing plants and I was lucky enough to lay claim to an easy-to-grow Flori­da rose – now I have two!!

My ninth day of fun start­ed very ear­ly – read­ing until 1.30 a.m! So I woke up late. But I met a young friend and paid my first vis­it to our local IKEA store. I don’t ‘do’ big box stores sim­ply because they are big. My friend got me in and out safely!

With time to spare and think­ing of ‘fun for me’ I decid­ed to find our Fri­day night speak­er’s nurs­ery. He has a love­ly gar­den – Eng­lish-style and full of colour. A gar­den full of ideas and very relaxing.

My evening was planned and went accord­ing to plan. I vis­it­ed my friend to watch a movie; I brought sup­per. We laughed and relaxed togeth­er – fun!

Day 10

The fun today was a sur­prise! My friend called from Nebras­ka to say that two of her rel­a­tives were stay­ing for a day in a motel just down the street. Could we take them for a dri­ve around town?

There’s noth­ing I would­n’t do for my Nebras­ka friend, so it was a quick change, pick up the rel­a­tives and take a dri­ve along the beach and a walk along the riv­er down­town. They were very appre­cia­tive com­ing as they do from a qui­et part of the coun­try! How­ev­er, they are off to Chi­na in a cou­ple of months so they are quite adventurous!

It’s fun to do things on the spur of the moment!

Day 11

I wasn’t sure what would be fun today, then I remem­bered my chance to work in an acquaintance’s gar­den! Easy and fun for me and it feels good to help good peo­ple. It should be a reg­u­lar thing.

My day closed out well by going to an orchid club meet­ing. The Fort Laud­erdale Orchid Soci­ety was one of the hosts for the World Orchid Con­fer­ence held last month in Mia­mi. I took two young friends to the con­fer­ence for the chance of a life­time to see many rare and exot­ic orchids.

Tonight I went to the local meet­ing with one of those young friends. We each won a plant in the guest raf­fle and I won one in the reg­u­lar raf­fle – we were so excit­ed! She would love to go again.

It real­ly is fun to intro­duce the next gen­er­a­tion to plants, no mat­ter which ones they like.

Day 12

The morn­ing start­ed with a hap­py phone call from a friend say­ing her youngest daugh­ter got mar­ried on the beach last week­end. They did it their way.

Fol­lowed sharply by anoth­er phone call offer­ing me a one-day sub­sti­tute job at a lit­tle school for babies and tod­dlers – right up my alley!

So I’ll dash to the library between rain storms and get some books on Montessori.

Fun hours of read­ing ahead!