The meatballs were our usual recipe (turkey mince, breadcrumbs, minced onion, seasoning). The pasta sauce contained leeks, garlic, passata and cream cheese.

Last year I sowed some poppy seeds in the far corner of the garden to add a splash of colour. I bought a packet of seeds from the supermarket and scattered them liberally all over the patch. When the flowers had finished blooming and the seed heads had dried out I collected the seeds, along with some seeds from purple poppies which were growing on the pavement halfway down our road.

In the spring I got the pot of seeds and scattered a lot of them in the corner plot again as well as in a couple of small trays of compost. A lot of the poppies have grown but so far the only flowers to appear have been a light purple colour. They seem to be very delicate because most of the time whenever I see a poppy, there are only a couple of petals remaining.

I photographed the poppy below in our garden this morning. I didn't touch the flower when I took the picture but about 10 minutes later the petals had started to fall off.