Gardening and writing - pretty much the same.

Despite glorious days, the summer is, we're told, officially over.

And it's true.

The swallows gathered overhead last week in swooping, tweeting excitement and have now disappeared, flying south on their gruelling migration south.  The nights are noticeably colder. And yesterday we pulled up the anthirrynums which have been in bloom for months and even last week looked wonderful. But suddenly they didn't.

We've had a year in the garden of our new house. The winter was all about a new lawn in front, fresh paving and a raised stone bed at the back, the spring about planting, but the summer has been all about flowers. Everything is brand new so some things are still babies. The roses were gorgeous, but with a gorgeousness that will only get better with each passing year. The dahlias took forever after a cold spring and were a mixed bunch. Some blousy, over the top gorgeous, some restrained and barely earning their place.

We've added our Gothick window, the dh built a raised heart bed which we're going to fill with red roses, underplanted with violets to celebrate our ruby wedding anniversary, our "joy", "peace", "calm" slates are up, and the latest addition, the bug hotel made by the dh, was raised this week. He did want to put up a sign in case they didn't know what it was. I vetoed that suggestion on the grounds that bugs can't read!

The stone raised bed was gorgeous, a completely over the top mix of stuff we just stuck in there because we didn't have a plan. And sometimes not having a plan really works!

This winter it's back to groundworks. One of the trees had to come down because the trunk was split. The back lawn has to be levelled and relaid.

It's all a bit like writing.

Sometimes, like the raised bed, you can wing it and it works. Sometimes you have to cut right back to basics put in the hard graft and get the groundwork done.

Gardener and writer, in both cases, it's 95% hard graft!

Liz Fielding has just finished her latest book for the Harlequin Kiss/Modern Tempted series. The working title is Total Exposure, but that is unlikely to survive through to the cover.