We have achieved, together, today. Steve and the kids had pancakes and I came in to see Erika happily trotting off to the sofa with her plate of pancake to sit and chew in peace (with the ipad!). I got the last of my plants in the ground, pulled a load of weeds out of the big flowerbed, turned the desiccating weeds on the patio over so they could continue desiccating ready to be composted, and made scones with the saved rhubarb from the other night’s jam making session, narrowly avoiding disaster (I’ve now written BAKING POWDER in large letters on my recipe!) but I managed to get the raising agent mixed in well enough and they rose and were delicious with some of my midnight jam and fresh whipped cream!

Steve has turned our first batch of compost for its final time: it is pungent and so nearly ready; and he fitted the water butt and fixed the front gate too so it’s not as wobbly AND it has an overhang to try and dissuade Erika from climbing over it after she demonstrated today that she is more than capable of scaling that gate. I seem to recall it was around this time last year that she – equally carefully – scaled the flowerbox “fence” and escaped our last garden…

And yet I still got to the end of the day and thought I’d done hardly anything worthwhile and couldn’t figure out why I was so tired. Good job I have a Steve who reminds me, and a journal to record it in!

Other things:

Think I have to accept that the roses are best admired from a distance (they do smell amazing though) as they are ravaged by sawfly and blackfly, but still stunning.