Cramming in a quick update before I record a film for Ken...

In the manic stakes, today probably takes first prize, though most of that was due to me getting up at 7.30 to Roundup^(TM) bindweed before Tyjer went out at nine. Followed by a(nother) major greenhouse tidy, washing, freezing toms and sweetcorn, hacking back the blackberry patch (ouch for punctured fingers, even with the tough gloves), racking dandelion wine and starting the strawberry, and actually managing to clear some emails. And start watching Lexx season four with Kai (we did try last year but never managed to get past ep one. Made it to the end of ep two tonight!) Haven't done everything I needed to do, but it's put a significant dent in the list, and I should be able to finish it tomorrow.

Assuming I wake up, of course...

Off to set up for the film.

Later edit: [slaps self] And then I forgot the most important thing today - Kai picked up the first of his GCSE exam results. These are his grades for the second units. It seems that some of them - Maths and Core Science, at any rate - are taken and graded in three separate exams, so he still has a third part to go. However...

Remember I posted that he'd said he thought he'd done OK, despite the snow and ice and the stress of struggling into school under such Arctic conditions back in Jan/Feb?

Heh.

Maths: a

Core Science: a

Biology: a

Chemistry: a

Physics: a*

BTEC Performing Arts [that's his music]: Merit

(Particularly pleased and relieved about this last, as the chat I had with his music tutor at the parents evening had me a little worried, but it seems that between us all he picked things up in the last term, and even though his ensemble work was only a pass, the rest was good enough to overall merit a ... well, Merit.)

We're now just waiting for him to devise the first working time machine or translight drive, either would do... [bg]

Labels: busyness, Kai, zzzzzzzoooooooooooooooooommmmm

Warning - big pic.

Clevedon! This is a goodly way along the coast path, looking back towards the fort - that green hump to right of centre.

Gorgeous weather, wonderful (if looong) walk - and a white egret!

Not bad given how dodgy my camera is and how far away the bird was... (Ken says this must be the year of the egret.)

Not sure what this is, but it's very pretty. ->

Back to what loosely passes for normal around here tomorrow...

Labels: Clevedon, days out, sheeeeeep, wildlife

And another busy day...

Still, Kai's trousers are now the right length, and between the three of us we shifted a metal-reinforced solid concrete post (the ancient method of using wooden rollers works, by the way, as we proved this afternoon): shoulders hurt again now, of course, as does my foot, as I managed to roll over my toes, but the thing had to be moved. And I've started getting the greenhouse prepared for the winter too - mentally, anyway, the tomatoes are still merrily producing in there.

Aiming for an early night...

Labels: busyness

Still knackered. Got an early wash going, then bought Kai's school shoes over at Avon Meads this morning, with a Sainsbug shop on the way back. Did two more washes then made lunch, then picked marrow - a knack for growing laaaarge marrows, I haz it - and sweetcorn for the second batch for the freezer: cut down the deceased plants while I was at it, to make harvesting easier and let more light in. (A good few of the plants only managed to produce one decent cob, the other(s) being sad wimps that aren't going to do anything except provide a very nutritional meal for the bugs in the compost bin.) Oh, and I've discovered that it is possible to plant peas in November and get an early crop in March, although the failure rate is quite high. But I'm going to try it anyway - pea roots will fix nitrogen in the soil; I have some peas leftover from last year that should still be fine; and it would be good to get some winter use out of the veg bed. Though what will happen if we have another Jan/Feb like last year I really don't know. Will have to find out!

Sieved the strawberry must, and added tannin, lemon juice and pectolase: can get that into a demi-john and fermenting in a couple of days. Made ice lollies of the rapidly over-ripening Galia melon (my pineapple ones were delicious!) We had planned to have a barbecue, but I was too tired to organise it, so we had an indoor one instead - a true meat fest with pork steaks in Chinese marinade, chicken drumsticks in BBQ sauce, minted lamb kebabs and quarter-pounder burgers. Wicked but oh so nice.

So, Kai's shoes are ready to wear, waterproofed and with new unwaxed laces, his hair is trimmed, and tomorrow I need to take up one pair of trousers. So he's all ready for school on Tuesday (Monday is a bank holiday: we may try to go out somewhere if the buses aren't too bad). And then I can have a rest.

Labels: busyness, garden, sheeeeeep, zzzzzzzoooooooooooooooooommmmm

We got up at eight am, and didn't get back until nearly nine pm, but we had a fantastic day, starting out with the train ride to Weymouth, which went all around the villages and made 18 stops in its two and a half hour duration! Am absolutely shattered now, though, so here's a few pics and tomorrow (or the next day. Or maybe the next. I still have to get several machine loads of washing done/sew labels/take up Kai's new school trousers/get him over to Avon Meads for new school shoes/harvest and freeze sweetcorn...) I'll assemble everything into a proper table.

<- Weymouth clock tower. Colourful...

The lighthouse at Portland Bill. ->

Small pic ->
is clickable to a 1500 pixel wide version of the photo - Chesil Beach from our open-top bus at the top of Portland. To my surprise the photo turned out rather well. The area of water to the right is Portland Harbour: there's a lot of new building going on around here in preparation for the Olympics.

More tomorrow. I have to go fall over before I fall asleep at keyboard...

Labels: days out

Suffice it to say this is the first chance I've really had to sit down today - so here is a (dinner) plate of freshly stripped maize kernels. All from just three cobs. I'm going to have a freezer full of sweetcorn by the time I've harvested it all.

Is anyone else having problems with the software tonight? Yesterday it was Facebook, today Blogger...

Labels: zzzzzzzoooooooooooooooooommmmm

OK, let's try to catch up before I flake out again.

The last week of Kai's holiday is always manic - especially when we try on his school clothes and find they're all too small. Knew it would happen, so deliberately didn't order new from the school, as I wanted to make sure we got the right size. Unfortunately, this means he'll have to wear the too small stuff for a few days until CR Clothing can fulfil the order. Not trousers though. Sainsbug are having a perfectly timed '25% off all clothing until next Monday' sale, so I picked him up two pairs of school trousers for £11 (before the reduction. Picked myself up a handful of stuff too - cotton T-shirts, vest tops, trousers and leggings. All jolly good fun).

In the garden: I've frozen the first batch of sweetcorn kernels, and there should be some more tomorrow (assuming everything hasn't drowned in the horrible cold rain we've had today). Freezer is wonderfully full, always a good thing. Also made and froze a whole load of soups ready for lunches in the winter - red pepper, tomato and cannelloni bean; mushroom and lentil; and butter bean and mixed veg. All good, tasty, filling and healthy things. Pity you can't freeze marrow or cucumber though...

Ken is working on blads for a possible book, to be taken to the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, so is up to his ears in research at the moment (more on that if it happens). I still haven't managed to write the proposal for my next potential non-fic book: really must get a move on with it or our agent will start chasing me.

The weather forecast is for sunny spells on Friday, so we're going to try to get to Weymouth then. If that changes, we'll try to go at a weekend during the term.

Tyjer is grumpy about the weather. I swear he's grown bigger, too. Mind you, all the treats he gets I'm not surprised.

There's lots more been happening, of course, but that's the main news. We had a fine day with the folks on Monday: took mum up to Broadwalk to look around the shops and drop into the café for a latte (for her) and diet coke (for me) before we all went down to the Black Castle for lunch - all most enjoyable. I don't seem to be able to get enough sleep at the moment, though. No idea why, but it's very annoying.

Supposed to rain again tomorrow, so will try to get all my emails done (JJ, if you're reading this, sorry. Will get back to you asap)...

Later edit: forgot to say, but I have a few goji berries on the bush! This is pretty good: apparently they don't normally berry until their fourth year. Shall have a taste in a few days.

Labels: books, busyness, garden, shopping, weather

[poggled] Can I have a holiday yet?

Labels: busyness, sheeeeeep, zzzzzzzoooooooooooooooooommmmm

Great day with parents. Knackered. Going to go fall over now.

Labels: visits

[sigh]

So, given that today was the last decent day for a bit, I was up early, poisoning the weeds up in the square, getting four washing machine loads put through, clearing the mange tout (they've pretty much finished now) but leaving the roots in the ground, tidying up the greenhouse, and finally watching River Queen (very strange film...)

Folks visiting tomorrow, as long as the roads aren't too flooded.

[grump] And for the second time this summer something has stung me just above my ring, and my finger is swelling up quite alarmingly. Fortunately, by dint of washing up liquid and brute force, I managed to get the ring off before it got too bad. Time for another piriton I guess...

Labels: bugs, busyness, weather

The first cob of the year. Was wonderfully sweet, but could have done with being just a couple of days more developed, I think. At any rate, I can start picking them soon, to blanch and freeze or to steam for mixed veg, as I did with this one.

We had a quite magnificent thunderstorm, with brief but torrential rain. Fortunately I managed to get back from Tesco - and persuade Tyjer in, he hides under the asparagus when it rains - before it started in earnest. It's cleared the horrible mugginess very nicely.

Labels: gardening, shopping, weather

The Blue Reef Aquarium is fantastic! See here for just a few of the 133 photos I took... (No flash photography, of course, so a lot of them were naff.)

We also had our first Imax experience, Sharks, included in the entry price. Wow! (The best bit was all the moon jellies though. Very hard not to try to brush them away as they seemed to slide over the 3D glasses...) Unfortunately, although they had three different types of ray plushies, they were £11.99 each and didn't have the name of the aquarium - sorry Lutra. I did buy myself a tiny ray plushie though: they only had one in the gift shop. It's cute.

This tower block fascinates me ->
it blends into the sky, almost as though it were trying to disguise itself...

Finished watching Crusade. Next, going to rewatch it, in the correct order, which is not the order it is on the DVDs. [grump] Only realised half way through...

Labels: days out, Fish

Right - let's do a little catching up...

Yesterday - what happened yesterday? I know I dived over to Tesco for shopping (I seem to be spending a lot of time shopping at the moment), picked peppers, tomatoes and dwarf beans in garden and greenhouse, worked on a client site, and in the evening watched and thoroughly enjoyed some more Crusade.

Then today I had to get into town: we'd run out of skoosh (ERK! No sparkling water or tonic! Disaster!!) and unless I wanted to lug two replacement cylinders around the aquarium tomorrow we couldn't get them until next Tuesday (ye gods what horrible grammar. Hope you can understand joulesish!) Actually carrying anything at the moment is a trial as both rotator cuffs are buggered (and - possibly part of the same problem - my collarbones hurt like hell too): Ken is having to get the heavy stuff. (Well, except for the cylinders - I just managed them.)

Then it was home to more client site revamp and a little light gardening, some more Crusade and hopefully an early night shortly, as we want to leave fairly sharpish for the aquarium in the morning.

My life is not overly exciting at the moment. And the horrible weather isn't helping, it's making the bone I broke in my foot ache. Tch' - falling apart in me old age...

Oh, and this is gobsmackingly good! Make sure you hear the soundtrack.

Later edit: forgot to say - Tesco had biig punnets of strawberries on special for 49p (at the very end of their use by date and going decidedly mushy), so I bought three and now have another batch of strawberry wine on the go.

Labels: client sites, Crusade, gardening, shopping, weather

Well, I was going to give a brief rundown of my day, but I've spent the last two hours hunting for a file on my machine that Kai urgently needs and which Butch has refiled somewhere so obscure I can't find it. (And before you ask, the 'search' facility on this computer doesn't work. No, I've no idea why. Probably to serve Butch's nefarious purposes.) Have had to email tech support. But I'm now too tired to post (it's 5 to 2 am). Maybe tomorrow. Just assume today was as manically busy as usual.

Labels: grumpy, software

Oh my god... single rainbow... it's sooooo beautiful... WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Ahem. Shutting up now.

Well that was a day, that was. Decided at 1.40 that if we left right then, we'd have time to get up to the top of Whiteladies Rd to Wild Oats before Kai's orthodontist appointment, so off we tanked at a fair old rate and bought FirstDay tickets. Did in fact manage to get up there, pick up a handful of requirements, buy some organic ginger at Sheepdrove (the organic butcher next-door-but-two), and find a decent wine-bottle stopper in Kitchens around the corner before heading back down for the 2.45 appointment...

Poor sprog. Everything is settling into place nicely, but now he has to have a band attached to the top and bottom braces to pull the left sides into alignment. It hurts. He has to take it off to eat and clean his teeth, but luckily he's finding it quite easy to put back in (we came home with two packs of replacements bands!) Hopefully he won't have to wear it for too long.

Afterwards we bussed out to Wyevale: picked up the butyl rubber for the pool Kai wants between his railway track and the wall, and as usual at this time of year there were a lot of plants on half price sale - now have five new ground cover plants in the new bed around the bird bath, and an edible sage to start off the little herb patch I'm planning to organise in the autumn. And I found this elephant hawkmoth caterpillar outside the patio doors! Rescued it to the rosebay willow herb by the wall before Tyjer could spot it. (Unfortunately the rest of the photos I took of it were out of focus, which is s shame, because it's huge, as long as my palm...)

Caught another Crusade ep tonight - The Well of Forever, my favourite...

Need to catch up with client site stuff tomorrow.

Labels: dentist, garden

... where do the days go...?

Much of today was spent tidying up stuff. Repacking the hard wheeled suitcase and manoeuvring it back into the airing cupboard; pruning dead stalks in the greenhouse; turning one fuge Hessian potato sack into two smaller and much more useful ones, for example. And we watched the first two eps of Crusade, which was supposed to be for me for Yule but which Ken suggested we watch as something different. Although we still have loads of DVDs we haven't dipped into yet... But it was most enjoyable. I do like the series.

Tomorrow Kai has ortho at 2.45; Thursday we're hoping for the trip to the Blue Reef; while next Monday my folks are coming to visit and next Wednesday we're hoping to get to Weymouth on the train - it's a nice two and a half hour run and we'd have a good five hours there before we needed to come back. And the train is still cheaper than the coach (though since there's only one coach service a day, leaving Weymouth at 9.50 am and Bristol at 3.40 pm, unless we reverse time that wouldn't be possible without an overnight stay...)

And then he'll be back to school. As usual it's gone far too quickly and we really don't seem to have done much at all...

Labels: busyness

Busy. Shopping, cooking (found a recipe for a mushroom and lentil soup that looked interesting, and I had lentils to use up, so tried it. Very nice! Though I'd better go and freeze it before I forget), lots of gardening. And we watched Scorpion King 2 - well, K&K did, I fell asleep...

Going to try for an early night.

Labels: busyness, sheeeeeep

Oh, I'd love this as a necklace...

Labels: orchids, strangeness and charm

... so Kai and I nipped out to see if we could see any Perseids...

We didn't expect much. As you know, we're in a valley, only a few miles away from a major city centre which chucks out an obscene amount of nightlight - not to mention the forecast was for partly cloudy all tonight.. But we were lucky. Kai saw four beautiful blazing 'falling stars', while I caught two and another two much fainter ones, all in the space of fifteen minutes. You really can't get much better, here!

Will be late online today.

Labels: astronomy, beautiful things

Up ridiculously early after a very late night, packed stack into a hard wheeled suitcase, and loaded it into the LETs lift. Arrived at PC Repairs at a little after 10 am: Ian took delivery, and said he would ring to let me know what needed doing and when it would be ready. He didn't think it would take too long, so I tanked over to Gloucester Rd to scour the charity shops while I waited.

It was a good haul too - Subway (a very old favourite), Fright Night, It (because clowns are scary and this film proves it!) and the far less worthy Queen of the Damned from the Glos Rd Pink Planet, and The Island and Cirque du Soleil: Quidam (about the closest I'm ever going to get to seeing them live...) from Cancer Research and PDSA shops.

And I found this place ->

Edit: The Reclaimers - Reclamation Ltd.

347a Gloucester Rd, BS7 8TG: Tel: (0117) 924 8000.

It's amazing inside, full of gorgeous reclaimed furniture and artefacts, definitely somewhere to go back to. And as of next week you won't be able to miss it - the owner tells me they will have two eight foot high 'toy' soldiers standing at either side of the entrance!

Then by 2pm I was home again! (My LETs lift was able to come back and pick me and Butch up.) And yes, my power unit had been damaged by overheating, so I have a new one, and a can of compressed air to clear out the dust that makes the fan fail which causes the problem, so with a bit of luck I can stop it happening again, at least for a while! Such a relief.

Knackered now though. Might try for a nap...

Labels: films, hardware

So off we went to see The Last Airbender...

Now, we've only watched a couple of eps of the anime, and didn't know much about the story, so some of the objections raised at the IMDb were lost on us. But I can say that it was all 'tell, don't show', absolutely full of incoherence and inconsistencies, and the dialogue was dreadful.

But it was very pretty.

Other than that, I did some weeding, some client site work, and a little shopping. And tomorrow my stack goes in for service: I have a lift there, but since I don't know how long it'll take I can't organise one home. All highly inconvenient...

Labels: busyness, client sites, films

<- Galia and watermelon from the greenhouse. Small, but the leaves were dying off, which suggested it was time to pick them...

Cut watermelon. Perfect texture - and very few seeds! ->

- Halved Galia melon. I'm drying both lots of melon seed to reserve to grow next year.

Lunch! ->

Well, they may be small, but they were perfectly ripe, and wonderfully sweet. I really must get a cold frame for next year, perhaps with Yule money. I'm sure I could grow a lot of melons with the right frame!

Today's been a business type of day, client site stuff and drafting letters (remember them?) to SodaStream (with whom I am having a lot of hassle at the moment: more on that when/if it's resolved) and the WDCS. Decades ago, not long after we married I think I made some sort of covenant with them, for a portion of our estate after our deaths: both Ken and I whole-heartedly support them. Then we bought the house, had Kai, the writing careers took off, and with everything else that was happening I forgot about it. Sort of. I knew in the back of mind that I had done it, but hadn't kept up to date.

I'm pretty certain I neglected to give them our new address, but they've recently started sending me their amazingly informative and beautifully illustrated magazine, along with the occasional letter asking for donations. Not that I have any objections to be being found! But they still have my old name, and of course, with the house and Kai, our situation has completely changed and I'm going to have to revise the covenant. Except I have no idea what it said - just hope Ken has kept copies of everything and can find it when he gets back from court...

It's wet, and miserable, and cold today. And wet. Very wet. Soup and toast and grumpy Tyjer weather. We've been watching music DVDs - started off with Jesus Christ Superstar... I saw this at the cinema back when I was a young teen (though I can't recall who I went with), and remember, second to thinking that Judas had all the best songs, that the guy with the long black hair in plaits, part of Herod's entourage, was dead cute!

Then it was The Wall. [shiver] Disturbed and disturbing with some serious issues... Kai came down about half way through and watched to the end: for a change of pace (and because he'd never seen it) we had Phantom of the Paradise (long term readers probably know that Old Souls (2.5 meg mp3) is one of my favourite songs of all time, I love the lyrics...)

[sigh].... Anyway, I think Kai quite enjoyed the film - he sat and watched rather than booting up, anyway.

We followed that with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which will finish in a quarter of an hour. Going to close with Muse's Absolution Tour before sticking on something more normal, like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which I picked up ages ago and still haven't played. Although Ken hasn't seen it, so maybe I'd better wait 'til tonight...

Back to the rockface.

We opted for Muse: Their Finest Hour instead, which I taped from VH1 and Simone transferred to DVD for me. Whole load of the fantastic videos to their hits, yum...

Labels: busyness, films, gardening, musekicks

Monday shopping. More site revamp. More gardening (almost the last of the blueberries now picked, and the fruit cage netting in storage for next year: what berries are left the birds can have). Tired again.

Taking computer in for service on Thursday. Hoping to go with Kai to see a film/visit the new Blue Reef Aquarium or maybe both this week, depending on what we feel like...

Labels: busyness

Busy day. Client site revamp favourably received so far, furtled the last of the spuds, dug up the butternut squash (it's not doing anything and is taking up valuable nutrients), and spent an hour and a half blanching and freezing the latest batch of tomatoes, peppers, mange tout and (bought on special) baby sweetcorn while K&K made a concrete base for my bird bath. Then we had roast duck legs for dinner - wonderful!















Explorer cat is - somewhat nervously - exploring... the wisteria arch between house and shed...

... and the shed roof...

White egrets from above.

Labels: busyness, garden, orchids, Tyjer

Strange day. Spent some of it shopping at Tesco, some of it in the garden (in between the heavy showers), much of it in the kitchen, preparing marrow stuffed with diced pork in homegrown peeled chopped tomato sauce thickened with mushrooms, onions, half a teaspoon of horseradish sauce, chopped basil and a little nutmeg. Old favourite of mine and Ken's, first time Kai had tried it, but he liked it so I can safely make it more often.

See the Haadri blog for other news.

Labels: busyness, cooking, gardening, Haadri, shopping

Kai and I went to see The A-Team this afternoon. After seeing the trailers I was looking forward to it (always loved the TV series, especially the earlier seasons) and it didn't disappoint (well, except for [shudder] Face's hairy chest - ick...) BA was a weaker character than he should have been, but the rest were great, particularly Sharlto Copley as Murdoch, always my favourite character. (So no surprise there, then.) All great fun. (Note, if you go to see it, make sure you stay to the very end - there are a couple of cute scenes after the credits.)

I'm going to have to take my computer in to the repair place to get it checked. This is where I miss the car - it's up at Filton on the other side of the city, two buses away. Going to have to see if I can organise lifts - and if they can check/repair anything that needs doing on the same day, otherwise it's going to be doubly difficult to sort out. Have to get it looked at though - the problem may be intermittent, but it could seriously damage the machine. As it is, I've taken to closing down as soon as it gets the least bit warm, which is hardly ideal given how busy I always am. At least I'm not in the middle of any deadlined or urgent projects at the moment.

[shakes head in wonderment] They're so incredibly beautiful. They really do look like egrets in flight. So chuffed! (Will see if Ken can get some better pics over the weekend: my camera just isn't good enough.)

Labels: films, hardware, orchids

Working on a synopsis for a new book idea...

Labels: books

Ken's pic. They aren't actually that easy to photograph because of the way the flowers are positioned around the stem.

Client site stuff today, preparing the IAVMT's membership database (Kai wrote the php code for me, earned himself a nice little sum! He's happy to write the code for the BCP database too...)

Closing down now though - the worrying smell of roasting flux is stinging my nostrils...

Labels: hardware, orchids

Third marrow of the year, with several more coming. Shall stuff this one with diced pork!

<-

Seven egrets in flight today! Must get Ken to take some pics... ->

Busy morning. Blacked [blacked? I meant blanched, of course...] and froze the latest batch of mange tout and dwarf beans, peeled chopped and froze tomatoes, and made the first attempt at blanching and freezing a handful of peppers. Now need to revamp a client site.

Later...

Labels: busyness, gardening, orchids

Early morning egrets (better photo to follow)

And early morning cat, taken from outside - Tyjer asleep on top of Ken's study's cabinet.

So off we went to Clevedon, on one of those wonderful should-have-been-retired-decades-ago country buses, so noisy you have to shout to be heard, racing with gay abandon along narrow spine-jarring, teeth-clacking winding country roads piloted by half boy-racer, half tank-commander, speed-limits-are-for-wimps drivers...

Ride aside, it was a lovely, calm and relaxing day, warm sun, cool sea breeze, not too many holiday-makers, and the rich deep sound of the surf. I'm sure it's louder at Clevedon than anywhere else along the North Somerset coast: maybe it's the shape of the land, hills and cliffs enclosing the bay and echoing the sound back on itself...

We got back at almost 6 pm, and I made fajitas for quickness.

[sigh] This was my punishment for not being at home all day - and yes, he knew I was supposed to be sitting there to eat, he stretched out, gradually pushing me further and further out of the way then taking over the whole settee while I was serving...

...I suppose I'd better log into Facebook and feed the hatchlings...

Labels: Clevedon, days out, orchids, Tyjer

I hadn't planned to do much today (other than write) but the N sprog rang Kai yesterday to ask if he wanted to go to the Bristol Harbour Festival...

I went with him, and am very glad I did (though pissed off I forgot my camera. Did take a few photos with my phone but I'm too knackered to be arsed to send them to myself for upload. Maybe tomorrow. Or Wednesday). As the two headed off to the SS Great Britain I checked out Millennium Square and the Amphitheatre: stood and watched for a bit at the main stage in Dance Village (I think, if I have the time right, it was the Mundi Dance Company - they were amazing...) and then meandered off to the Amphitheatre for a wander around the market.

And ended up lugging home a laaarge carrier bag full of plants from the large Herbal Haven stall. Lovage, sweet cicely, two yarrow plants (I'm determined to succeed with these, even given my abject failure in the past. I love yarrow), another lawn chamomile, orange thyme (smells wonderful!), feverfew (apparently this can help the pain and inflammation of arthritis - I'll let you know) and a Corsican mint for ground cover in the square. All at £1.50 each! Cheap at twice the price...

When I got home Ken had just finished today's stint at the wall, so took a half hour break while I checked up growing conditions for lovage (Mediterranean - probably came over with the Romans: likes full sun and can grow to six foot tall so we're going to place it where the curry plant is currently, beside the bay tree and towards the back of the rockery) and sweet cicely (native and ancient, this one, likes partial shade and moist soil - it's going on the patio). I've potted on both of those until we can prepare the ground properly. The rest we planted, straight into the ground up in the square and in the new bed between the medlar and the rockery. It's beginning to look very pretty there.

Tired now; it was an awful lot of walking in hot weather and dodging the crowds as best I could - very busy there - followed by a lot of bending and furtling when I got home...

All very successful though - and Kai arrived back around 4, having thoroughly enjoyed himself (they got the harbour train to the SS Great Britain, bought lunch and drinks and watched the various events, then took the ferry around the floating harbour and back - all great fun).

The weather is supposed to be nice again tomorrow: hoping to bus through to Clevedon - we considered Weston but it looks as though the new pier isn't quite open yet, so will leave that for a couple of weeks.

I tend to forget how tiring holidays can be...

Labels: Bristol Harbour Festival, gardening, sprogs