A productive few days

We've had a very productive few days. Last weekend I sorted out the kitchen, the lounge room and the bedroom. The house is fairly sorted. Just the spare room to organise now (we can't have visitors -- the spare bed has vanisehd under all the junk!) and the dining room table to tidy. And I want to sort out the television, it's accesorries and all the cables. A Saturday job, I think. We've cleared out the pond. The Builder has demolished all but one of the conifers. I've laid a path, in a manner of speaking, through the herb bed and edged the paving stones with bog sage, mint and oregano. We have Manifold Garden Plans.

Plus. We've been to the allotment and picked a whole row of peas and we've eaten raspberries from the canes and I've eaten strawberries from the plants. The Builder picked almost all of the red currants. Enough to completely fill my stock pot. I've made loads of red currant juice and am planning to make some more jelly tonight. The Builder has netted the raspberry canes and the cherry tree. The apple tree has loads of little apples on it and there is still some rhubarb to pull. He's cut the grass, both on the allotment and at home. We've weeded and watered. And the toy snakes appear to be discouraging the pigeons from eating the broad beans. More peas on their way.

We've eaten well too. Roasted pork chops on Sunday evening with loads of roasted veg. Fillet steak on Tuesday evening (from the meat box) with new potatoes and baby chinese cabbage, mushrooms and onions. Last night there were chicken fillet "pizzas" with salad. The weather has been warm and sunny, until yesterday, more or less, when it turned warm, cloudy and very, very muggy. Keeps threatening to rain but hasn't yet. Unlike various other bits of the country which have been hit by torrential thunder storms.

We've watched the football. Italy and France into the final. Good :-) The Italy Germany match seemed to have been very well played. But Portugal do not play nicely, not nicely at all. Keep flinging themselvesto the ground for no apparent reason and looking very miffed when penalties are, rightly, not awarded.

We've been back to Chatsworth, though we missed the food festival. We've been to the magnificent nursery on the Cutthorpe road and lusted after loads of plants. We went to a party on Saturday evening. A farewell for a colleague of mine who is moving to Cambridge to work as a law librarian there. There seems to be a black hole in or around Cambridge. Lots of people are being sucked into it. Including, now, Tabitha and Gareth who are expecting to move there in early September (or sometime in August, I suppose). Gaz has been offered a job teaching design, technolgy and IT at Queen's School in Wisbech. Wisbech itself doesn't seem to hold much appeal for them but Cambridge is within easy commuting distance. Good. I like Cambridge. I'm a bit worried about the black hole, though. What if it sucks us in as well? Marlo is moving back in with us.

Oh. And The builder has moved all the junk from the back courtyard into his van. That's all that's happened to it, though. The van still isn't working (Colin the Mechanic is, apparently, waiting for a part) so the junk hasn't had a chance to be taken to the tip. But at least we can move around the courtyard without danger of dismemberment or catastrophic disaster. And we can see what we're doing.

And I have come back to work. I dunno. You turn your back for a mere ten minutes and they fill up your inbox, desk and intray with things for you to deal with. Anyone would think they expected me to *earn* my money!!