During the Great War, the Town Hall in Torquay was converted into a military hospital for soldiers grievously wounded in the trenches of France or Belgium. Agatha Miller worked in the dispensary, and picked up a knowledge of medicines, and poisons, that she would later put to good use. When she married Lieutenant Archibald Christie, they honey-mooned at the Grand Hotel—just before her young husband was shipped off to the stagnant and deadly battle front.
Agatha Christie went on, of course, to become the best-selling author in the world. And she still is, more than 30 years after her death in 1976. Her home, Greenway in Devon, is open to the public.
And what on earth do I have to do with Agatha Christie, besides having read a number of her detective novels in yesteryear?
One word: Rhododendrons.
Not ever having been, nor at present am I any sort of aficionado when it comes to flowers, garden plants and the like, Rhododendrons are simply a grand-sounding name to me, and Ms Christie certainly described the appearance of these in many a novel. Now I can see the shrubs and their flowers in a country setting, similar to what was written about…
The photographs above were taken on the grass verge on public property a little way from our gate. The more I get to look around, the more I see of these flowers. Nice.
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