My goodness but it's been lovely weather this weekend. We drove down to Salisbury, after my abortive trip into work to go to my course, to visit Barb (the ex-Mrs Builder) who lives in a rambling old farm cottage in a rural village. Very pretty. We got there in time for dinner after a remarkably good run down, to say that it was a Friday. Just by way of a change we stayed on the motorway almost as far as Bristol and came across country. Barb does it this way regularly, but I reckon it's quite a long way further than turning off at Gloucester and running down through Swindon. Oh well. Made a change.

Anyway. We had gone down for The Builder to do some chores. The primary chore was building wooden salad boxes for Barb, somewhat like the ones I've got, but slightly wider. The Builder had bought the wood and measured it all up and cut it in advance, so it was kind of like building flat pack furniture! And he got it all done on Saturday morning just in time for breakfast!! Very clever. So after breakfast we abandoned Barb to the washing up and took ourselves off to the wonderful farm butcher down in Burcombe where I did more than a week's worth of meat and egg shopping for £20. Then we went to the Black and White shop in Wotsit St Martin. They seem to be extending it, but don't actually have very much for sale. I bought 4 strawberry plants and we mootled off. Into Salisbury for a mooch around the market and one or two of the foodie shops around the market square. Plus I found a toyshop which had a cheap, plastic version of totem tennis for the garden. Tabitha was only muttering the other day that we had a huge garden but no garden games to play in it. Well, I've made a start.

So. Back to Barb's for gammon and bread and salad, then she and The Builder put up some posts for her new washing line and then we all went off in the car to the garden centre. It's quite a big garden centre and has lovely plants in it - but it's not really very exciting. Nothing especially unusual. Well, apart from the packet of black and white kidney bean seeds that I bought. They look like zebra beans! Sadly, the colour fades when you cook them, apparently. But still, they'll look fetching until they get cooked. So. Back to the house in the sunshine and The Builder decided it would be a friendly thing to take the turf off some of Barb's new vegetable bed. He's a demon digger is that there Builder! Barb and I decide that was much too energetic for us and opened a bottle of cooling fizzy wine and watched.

And so The Builder dug and drank beer and Barb and I supervised and drank wine, all out in the sunshine until it went dark and chilly and we all repaired inside, where Barb tried to cook fish pie and had terrible trouble with it, and I tried to eat it (eventually) and spilled it all over my clean clothes and we became tetchy and argumentative over silly things. I can only surmise that this very peculiar behaviour indicates that the middle bottle of wine had been poisoned by the Dastardly Italians (for it was a bottle of pinot grigio which I think was probably the culprit). No other explanation seems plausible, because The Builder had no such trouble and he DIDN'T DRINK the pinot!!!!! Truly the Italians can be dastardly in their wine poisoning tricks!!

Sunday also dawned warm and bright and sunny. It's a bit strange, really, having sunny summery weather accompanied by spring flowers and blossom and many bare branched trees. Still, making hay …… The Builder got up and went out to finish digging up turf, while Barb and I tackled the kitchen, then he had a play with Barb's rotivator. It was really very funny. I was watching through the lounge room window as the rotivator would make strong attempts to run away, with The Builder hanging on for grim death, looking as though he was about to be pulled off his feet. I didn't laugh, of course. Certainly not. Barb came in to find out what I wasn't laughing about and didn't laugh too. So he got an extra cooked breakfast brought out, for his diligence. I mean, he got one two days running, not two in one day. That would be silly!

In the meantime, I had a dilemma. Not only had I poured salmon fish pie all over my trousers, but I had also spilled something vegetably on my shirt. I borrowed a shirt from Barb and nicked The Builder's clean trousers. They were both brown. I looked like an Italian spy (perhaps that's why they poisoned the pinot!) Ah. But that won't do. The Builder is all over dusty and grimy and grotty and his parents are coming for lunch. His mother is bound to be narked if he's manky when we go to collect them. On the other hand, it's not very respectful for me to go in fishy trousers either. I borrowed a pair of three quarter length trousers from Barb - and stopped looking like an Italian spy and started to look quite a lot like Tom Sawyer! Thus attired, The Builder and I wandered off to collect his parents.

It was such a lovely day that we had lunch outside - and had to keep moving about to avoid sunstroke. Only Barb had a hat. You don't expect to need sun hats in Wiltshire in April! We had roast chicken with roast vegetables and sprouting broccoli from Barb's garden, and a rhubarb and ginger fluff (rhubarb likewise from Barb's garden with extra pinched from next door), non-poisoned wine and general chit chat. Gwen and Mick were in good form and good health and seemed to enjoy having a day out. The birds were in full song. The house martins have arrived in Chilmark - haven't seen any yet in Tupton. Then we waved goodbye to Barb (and the dishes), took Gwen and Mick home then made our own way home along the Fosse Way, which is not remotely quick but which is very, very pretty. Marlo was very pleased to see us home. He tells me indignantly that no one has fed him a morsel since we went away (so what has Tammy done with the missing cat food?) and no one has played with him (so why are the cat toys spread about all over the place?) and he hasn't been brushed for ever. OK. I believe that one. Tammy doesn't know where the cat brush is!

A good weekend, then. And one which continued into Monday, as far as I was concerned. I wasn't back to work until today. The weather has changed a bit; it's still sunny but it's not quite so warm. Still, a good day for pottering about in the garden. The Builder has made steady progress with the raised beds in the garden. I've put out the "totem tennis" set (the pole wobble quite excitingly when you hit the ball too hard) and cleaned all the green goo from the fish pond (looks like green cappuccino froth) and generally pottered about. But I am clearly suffering the after effects of the dastardly poisoning. I've cleaned the kitchen to within an inch of its life, including scrubbing the little oven and cleaning the toaster and the washing machine. Not normal behaviour at all, I'm sure you'll agree!

We have found a new type of bee. Well, new to us. The Bee page says they're quite common but neither of us has ever seen one before. They're a tawny miner bee and live in little holes in the ground. They think our new beds have been built especially as homes for them!

Where there were sheep in the back paddock when we moved in last year, this year there are horses. They keep neighing!

It's strange how noisy our garden sounded when we got back from Chilmark. Trains, cars, people, horses. Normally it seems quite quiet to us. But Barb's garden is very quiet indeed. No trains or horses or people for her. And not as much traffic either.