With two minutes to choose a book as I ran for a bus that I really didn't want to miss yesterday morning, I grabbed one that couldn't have been more perfect - because the heroine's name is Dahlia, and I was off to Wisley where I saw some splendid specimens in the dahlia trials. Dahlia trials sound wonderfully cheering, don't you think ... here's Bishop of Llandaff in the lead, but Lismore Willie is on his tail and Alva's Doris,  the favourite, doesn't like the going today ...

And, yes, I realise I got off the wrong foot by starting with a picture of echinacea but they were splendid, too. 

I ate my sandwiches in the orchard under a nut tree and gasped in admiration over fuzzy peaches and the fattest blackberries I've ever seen (there was a blackberry trial, too) and shiny aubergines ...

And borders that zinged with colour. A perfect day in a perfect garden.