Snow White pin-up with banner and roses

The roses along the south wall came out all at once this morning, which means I have been up since five with the secateurs and a barrow full of blooms I can't bring myself to cut. You asked whether I've given up on the apple tree. I haven't. The Discovery has two fruit set on the lower branch, one red as a pillar box and one still hard and green, and I have been checking them every evening like a man waiting for a telegram.

Mrs Hollis from the cottage came round yesterday with a snake she'd found in the potting shed. A grass snake, perfectly harmless, though she shrieked as if it were an adder. I carried it out to the hedge in a bucket, and it rode there with its head held up, tasting the air. It put me in mind of the rhyme Father used to recite about the prince who never came. Waiting for true love's kiss, he'd say, as though it were a bus timetable. I thought it the saddest line in the world when I was nine.

I've changed my mind. Nobody sleeps for a hundred years over a bite of fruit unless the fruit is the only thing they're waiting on, and I'm tired of waiting on fruit. On Sunday I'm picking the red one and eating it on the bench among the roses. If I drop off mid-sentence, you'll find the good scissors under the seat and a note in my handwriting that says do not water me.

Come on Saturday if you can. Bring the cake tin. If I'm still asleep by teatime, you may kiss my forehead and see what happens, though I'd rather you didn't make a production of it.

Your loving sister, Ivy