I have a thing about roses and, ever since we moved to Mulberry Cottage, I’ve been on a mission to fill our garden with as many roses as I can and I’m doing rather well so far! Yesterday, we went to the Peter Beales open day and came back with some old roses with beautifully romantic names: Comte de Chambord, Madame Isaac Pereire, Penelope and – literally a rose with my name on it – La Reine Victoria.

I know what my husband must have thought – more pink roses?  Surely they’re all the same?  But they’re not – each one is a different shade of pink, with a different scent and size bloom.  The flowers are held on the stems in a unique way, the buds are different shapes and each flower unfolds its petals in a different way.

Last weekend, we went to an open garden day in a village in the Stour Valley and I have never seen so many lovely roses.

There’s no way out of it.  I’m going to have to write about roses one day.  I am truly obsessed with them.  They make me so happy and I’m so looking forward to seeing our garden bloom and burst with these paragons of flowers!