Taking a few days off

Either my scanner is broken or the VueScan program I use is malfunctioning and I cannot post as I wish this week.  My blog is discursive so I am quite happy leaving  you in the capable hands of E. F. Benson as he describes one of Mrs. Emmeline Lucas' gardens at Tilling. 

"A yew-hedge, bought entire from a neighbouring farm, and transplanted with solid lumps of earth and indignant snails around its roots, separated the small oblong of garden from the road, and cast monstrous shadows of the shapes into which it was cut, across the little lawns inside. Here, as was only right and proper, there was not a flower to be found save such as were mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare; indeed it was called Shakespeare's garden, and the bed that ran below the windows of the dining room was Ophelia's border, for it consisted solely of those flowers which that distraught maiden distributed to her friends when she should have been in a lunatic asylum. Mrs Lucas often reflected how lucky it was that such institutions were unknown in Elizabeth's day, or that, if known, Shakespeare artistically ignored their existence. Pansies, naturally, formed the chief decoration - though there were some very flourishing plants of rue. Mrs Lucas always wore a little bunch of them when in flower, to inspire her thoughts, and found them wonderfully efficacious. Round the sundial, which was set in the middle of one of the squares of grass between which a path of broken paving-stone led to the front door, was a circular border, now, in July, sadly vacant, for it harboured only the spring-flowers enumerated by Perdita. But the first day every year when Perdita's border put forth its earliest blossom was a delicious anniversary, and the news of it spread like wild-fire through Mrs Lucas's kingdom, and her subjects were very joyful, and came to salute the violet or daffodil, or whatever it was."

I use my collection of books for ideas, threads and connections so having, in the absence of a functioning scanner, to rely on the internet for inspiration is unsatisfactory. Irritating and disappointing but seen from another point of view it could be an opportunity to think about why the week from hell has turned into a series of such. Back in a few days.