#SixOnSaturday – Six things happening in my garden this week

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Six on Saturday is a weekly meme originally hosted by The Propagator but now in the tender care of Jim at Garden Ruminations.

Heatwave + drought + hosepipe ban = unhappy gardener. The garden is really suffering and it crossed my mind to skip this week because there’s so little that’s flourishing. However, gardeners don’t give up that easily do they? There’s a yellow theme to my six this week. (It may be a brown theme next week if we don’t get any rain…)

One – One plant doing really well at the moment is Rudbeckia laciniata ‘Herbstsonne’. I’ll have to think about acquiring more next year although I’d probably go for a different colour. Those teasels are photobombing again.

Two – The coreposis have been struggling a bit but with regular watering and deadheading they’re hanging on in there.

Three – Courgette flowers are always cheery even if the plants have produced few fruits despite lots of watering. They never really managed to get established and have just sulked. Who can blame them?

Four – It tells you something about the change in our weather when even Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’, which was in the garden when we moved here over fifteen years ago, is looking unhappy.

Five – Marsh marigold flowering again in the pond which is now looking more like a sludge-filled puddle.

Six – I did say the theme might change from yellow to brown next week…

Do check out the posts of other participants by following the links in the comments section of Jim’s post. If you fancy taking part yourself but don’t know where to start, here’s the participant’s guide.

Book Review – Little Spark by Jess Kidd

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About the Book

A secret cannot stay locked away forever

Bodkin Bell, orphan, pickpocket and survivor, doesn’t know where she came from, but she knows she’s different. Gaslights flare as she walks past. Cutlery spins. Shocks fly from her fingertips.

For years, she was ‘Little Spark’, the star of an electrifying sideshow – until the act went too far and she ended up in a London gaol.

Now she’s been offered a way out. A chance to serve at Point Mote, a vast, desolate house marooned on the misty Kent marshes. There, she will assist a reclusive family of cunning inventors in the creation of automata: miraculous, lifelike machines for which gentlemen collectors will pay handsomely.

But this house of wonders hides mysteries too. As Bodkin starts to question why she is really there, she unearths secrets that have been buried bone-deep for years – and a truth beyond all imagining. One that was never meant to be found.

Format: Hardcover (352 pages) Publisher: Canongate Books
Publication date: 13th August 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Little Spark on Goodreads

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My Review

If you’re freaked out by the idea of automata so realistic you could mistake them for the real thing or so grotesque you’ll wonder at the mind that conceived them, then prepared to be unnerved by some of the machines created by the former owner of Point Mote and its new heir, Ramshaw. And, as it turns out, that’s not the worst of it because there are even more sinister things going on.

This is the world in which Bodkin finds herself, chosen to serve part of her prison sentence – the result of a momentary loss of control – in a huge but rather dilapidated manor house on the Kent marshes surrounded by high walls to keep interlopers out – or perhaps to keep the inhabitants in.

Bodkin’s unclear exactly why she’s there, presuming it’s pure chance she was selected by the formidable Lady Hesperia Halsey, Ramshaw’s aunt. But even a gloomy old house is better than prison plus she’s confident that Cornelius Bell, the man who has been her mentor since she was a child, will arrive to rescue her. Indeed, she’s convinced her transfer to Point Mote is all part of his plan. But is Cornelius, a proven trickster, gambler and teller of tall tales, someone she can rely on?

I loved Bodkin. She’s determined, resilient and resourceful. However, the unique physical characteristic that made her such a theatrical marvel sets her apart from others, in more ways than one. ‘She lives with a chest which jangles like a fistful of spoons, hums like a hive, ripples like a bucket of eels. A heart that doesn’t beat so much as teeters and skids like a spinning top on a wet floor.’ In the course of the book Bodkin learns things about her early life, things that have up until now existed as mere fragments of memory.

Point Mote is a house of secrets – many of them macabre – and a place of tragic events. Its eerie atmosphere is combined with an element of madness and obsession. This is a time when scientific experimentation overlapped with the desire of the rich for sensation, the more excessive and outlandish the better. If you’ve read the author’s earlier book Things In Jars you’ll know the kind of thing I mean.

If you reckon you’ve got it all figured out be prepared for a few surprises. Little Spark is a brilliantly atmospheric, deliciously creepy mystery with a completely captivating main character.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of Canogate via NetGalley.

In three words: Atmospheric, sinister, engaging
Try something similar: The Weather Woman by Sally Gardner

About the Author

Jess Kidd was brought up in London as part of a large family from County Mayo. She is the author of several acclaimed novels for adults including Himself, The Hoarder, Things in Jars and The Night Ship, and a book for children, Everyday Magic. In 2017, Kidd won the Costa Short Story Award and in 2020 she was picked by The Times as one of the best emerging Irish writers. (Photo: Author website)

Connect with Jess
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