The summer before last I pulled out yet another dead climbing plant from the pot on our terrace. I can’t even remember what it was, so lacking in any redeeming qualities was it. Caroline and I then went to a garden centre in Ierapetra and talked to the Dutch lady running it. She came up with a plant right for the climate of Papagianades, that shed its leaves in the winter so wouldn’t require watering and produced beautiful flowers.

Last spring we watched it put out its first leaves of that year and spread up the trellis. But the thing flowered in August so we never got to see that, what with tumours and bowel cancer intervening. Now it is flowering.

So, here are the flowers Caroline never got to see. I’ll keep the plant, even though I feel sad and angry every time I look at it. But life moves inexorably on…