This is the final flourish of the flowering of the angel wing begonia, or ‘Humphrey’ as it’s known to our family. It’s the only plant I was able to rescue from my conservatory in my old house and to be honest, I’ve only got it now because of the good nature of my folks, who took away a broken branch and looked after it while it rooted then brought it here for me.

I do love this plant. To be honest, it’s fabulous even without these flowers that go on forever, hanging like great pink bunches of grapes then culminating in these glorious seed pods.

Why is it my shot for today? Well, the truth is, everything in our home apart from DM and the dogs is downright ugly at the moment and I include myself in that. I have claw hands, a stooped walk and aches and pains all over. I have no energy to do my hair so it’s been washed and is hanging where it fell after being pulled out of the towel and I couldn’t face holding little bits of make-up with my sore, blistered hands so I am not at my best by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve spent the whole day stripping wallpaper and I have not even completed half of the job so tomorrow and probably the next day too will be more of the same.

Everything here is covered in dust and almost everything is misplaced. Archie and Rosie’s fur is full of brick dust. I am full of despair.

So, here is a photo of the nicest thing I could see – it’s definitely cheering me up.

Last year, I was still very fragile and at DMs folks house.