Thrilling

Nothing beats the theatrical element of having thick wooden shutters on one’s bedroom windows.  The 7am alarm had me staggering to the shutters to let in enough light to see.

And glory be! It’s raining. It was so unexpected.  It was like a theatre performance. Flinging them open and then gasping in surprise.

Well, it’s tricky too.  I had drawn up my list of what I was to do this morning. And the first was to help build a fence with Manu the Muscles. He was supposed to come at 830am to start the tricky job.  If he doesn’t check his mobile phone messages before setting up he might still turn up.

And I need to cut flowers and sow more dwarf French beans and carrots and parsley.

I did my first bean harvest yesterday. Wonderful little crop. That’s three greedy meals.  All blanched and in the freezer.  My deep freezer is almost to the brim.  It’s chock full of jostaberries and cherries.

Yesterday was my first day back after a short week in London. I arrived late and didn’t have time to do much wandering around in a happy daze.

But I made up for it yesterday.

And I had a little shadow. A lovely ball of fluffy affection. Artur was delighted to get some undivided attention again. He helped me prune the hedge and clear away some of the more pernicious marjoram I use as a ground cover.

Actually he wasn’t much of a help. Everywhere I cleared he just plonked down under the shrubs in the dappled shade and refused to let me water. He didn’t want his dry cool shady bowls of soil to be ruined by damp stuff.  So I weeded around him.

He didn’t help much with the pruning of the shade garden plants either.  But he had marvellous exercise following me about.  Both of us slowed a bit in the massive jostaberry harvest down in the soft fruit orchard.

I made 15 pots of jostaberry jam with a new recipe. And eight pots of gooseberry and elderflower jam.  Back in the swing of things.