Parsley, Sage ...

... Rosemary & Thyme!

I first ran across this wonderfully fun series when I was unable to sleep because of my illness a couple of years ago when it played every night at 11:30 PM on our local PBS station. A British production, Rosemary & Thyme began in 2005 and involves two intrepid, middle-aged English gardeners, Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme. Rosemary was a university professor laid off due to an unscrupulous colleague in the first episode, and Laura Thyme, a former police officer and avid gardener, was left by her D.I. (Detective Inspector) husband for a much younger woman. Rosemary and Laura end up starting their own gardening/landscaping business and somehow end up finding dead bodies everywhere and sniff out the mystery each time with a sense of humor and many views of lush English gardens.

E and I happened across the set of Volume 1 DVD's at the local library and checked them out, and we watched the entire six-episode set in a single weekend. Even the boys liked it (and I didn't mind their watching it for the shows are quite innocent, except for the murders of course) and watched the vast majority of the episodes with E and me. I ordered the set of Volume 2 DVD's this week and hope they'll be in soon (we're third on the list for them) so we can catch up with the myserious happening of Rosemary & Laura and enjoy all of those dreamy English gardens that I so admire and can't grow in our nearly-desert Southern California climate.

If you're looking for a fun and innocent TV program, try out the Rosemary and Thyme series; you'll find them well-worth your while. We certainly have.