My clients know that I am a stickler for leaving some ‘weeds’ in beds and borders – not through laziness or a lack of knowledge but due to the fact they can add ‘something’, be it food for the bees or just a bit more colour. Speedwell – so called because it really does ‘speed well’ through the beds and borders – is providing great ground cover and pretty little blue flowers in profusion right now. The funny thing is that whilst some gardeners will pull up and remove speedwell from their gardens, the same gardeners then go and buy lobelia – for its little blue flowers – to add to beds and borders.

Some folklore associates speedwell with eye-related catastrophes, warning that if you picked the flower then a bird would peck your eyes out, or your mother's eyes would drop out. This was largely connected to speedwell's other name, ‘bird's-eye’ referring to the little white centre in the flower.

On my early-morning ‘sniffaris’ with Yogi last week, I spotted a number of bumble bees sleeping in flowers last week, whilst the more ‘organised’ honey bees were, of course, still sensibly tucked up in hives and natural bee nests. There is something so cute about the bigger, bumbling bumble bees just falling asleep where they are once they are full. Not unlike some people I know.

Hay fever sufferers will know that it has been a particularly bad year for pollen this year. Warmer temperatures encourage more pollen production, often resulting in ‘pollen bombs’ and apparently wind-pollinated trees, like birch, can produce five million pollen grains in a single season.

To put it all in perspective, some people may react adversely to as little as 10 grains per cubic metre of air, while others require a much higher count – such as 50 or more per cubic metre of air - to cause irritation. When you realise that during peak pollen seasons, like June and July, the count can be as high as 200 or even 800 grains per cubic metre, you can’t help but seriously sympathise with all those who suffer.

Saturday, June 21 is the Summer Solstice. Whilst it’s often referred to as ‘the longest day of the year’, that’s not technically correct as it’s actually the day of the year with the most hours of daylight, or ‘day-time’. And not all days have 24 hours in them. Most days are either longer or shorter than 24 hours, with only four days a year have precisely 24 hours to them.

And sounding a little pedantic, reminded me of this:

Him: The one thing I can’t stand is nit-picking pedantry.

Her: That’s two things.

Anyway, back to the summer solstice, which marks the end of spring and the start of summer. Despite being widely thought to last a whole day, the summer solstice only represents an annual moment when the sun is at the northernmost point from the earth’s equator.

If you are planning to welcome the Solstice, next Saturday the sun will rise around 4.44 am and set at around 9.22 pm giving us around 16 hours and 38 minutes of daylight. The winter solstice, on the other hand, occurring on December 21 this year (at 3.02 pm), is the shortest day of the year (you know what I mean, I’m not going through that again) when the sun will rise at approximately 8:03 am and set at approximately 4:56 pm, resulting in a day with about 7 hours and 53 minutes of daylight.