It's been strange weather lately. More like autumn than mid-summer. Cool and damp underfoot in the mornings, cold and fresh in the evenings, most warm and occasionally sunny during the day. Yesterday we had a gloriously summery day. Today we are more or less back to autumn weather. I wonder whether this is an effect of climate change. I seem to recall autumn came early last year too. And the beginning of August is *very* early. Not that I really mind, I suppose. If you get a long autumn you also get more tomatoes and beans and corn and zucchinis and things.

As you know, I was working on Saturday. Reports of an IT Armageddon turn out to have been seriously exaggerated. I came in, armed with books and other old fashioned things, ready to wile away 7 very long, very dull hours. At 09:30, some IT heavies came ambling in. At around 10:30 they mooched over to the desk and muttered that, apart from library management systems (including the catalogue) everything else seemed to be back up and running. I amended the sign in the vestibule which said NO IT SERVICES to one which read NETWORK AT RISK. Not that it was, really. No one reported losing any work. Everything seemed entirely stable. My colleague and I managed to find, if not exact titles, then at least general subject areas. This was made all the easier when I remembered that *our* catalogue might have been out of action, but the public library catalogue wasn't. Used theirs, instead!

While I was slaving away over a copy of the Dewey Decimal Schedule, The Builder was, amongst other things, putting into place Phase One of the new allotment plan. He hired a brushcutter for three hours and slashed and slashed and chopped and hacked. The new allotment now looks as though someone has been making hay, very badly, on it! Didn't half wear him out, though. He was sound asleep while I was preparing dinner and had to be SHOOKEN awake to eat. I have photos. I'll put them on the web this evening. We were challenged as we walked down to the allotments by a woman in her driveway wanting to know if we were hikers. Nope. Were we on the allotments? Yup (though we weren't, cos we hadn't got there yet!). Oops, said she and apologised prettily. Didn't worry us. Good to know that someone's keeping an eye out!

Yesterday we seemed to do lots and lots. We washed and ironed and hoovered and cleaned and tidied and fixed tiles and put the smoke detector up and ran about and had breakfast in the garden. We went to Chatsworth for supplies. We went to B&Q for buckets and spray bottles and things. We ambled into Sheffield and visited my friend Kate (who lusts after the Hangingwater allotment) and went to the allotment so she could lust at first hand, and picked beetroot and the VERY LAST of the blackcurrants (HOORAY!!!!!!) and dug up dandelions and went home and drank wine and ate roast brisket with roasted vegetables and fell asleep and woke up and went to bed. And that was Sunday. Whoosh. Gone. Just like that!

My very most favourite pink Hawkshead cardigan is fraying :-( Not good enough. Only had it 3 or 4 years. Only worn it a zillion times. Do you think I should take it back and complain?


And so to the start of a new week. Wonder what exciting things it has in store.