I broke a tooth last week – not horribly, just chipped a substantial piece off when munching on raw carrot. Thanks to the holiday weekend, this was the first day my dentist had an appointment – they’d have fitted me in with another dentist if I’d asked, but I didn’t mind waiting as it didn’t feel as if it was all going to fall apart.

Afterwards, I thought I’d go and look for some clothes and shoes, but I couldn’t face the ci’ee cen’re (the glottal stop reached Yagnub some years ago) so toddled off to the shops at Riverside.

I seem to be quite sorted now, as far as shoes are concerned, for the summer. It was nice to be able to try on shoes with heels that weren’t limited strictly to 1 – 1 1/2 inches. So I’ve got both flat shoes and heels. Clothes, I wasn’t so lucky with, although I bought a pair of trousers. Most stuff was far too young for me or irredeemably dreary.

When I got home, I went to water the greenhouse, and found that the flageolet bean plants in the kitchen garden had been severely nibbled. The runner beans had received some attention too. We saw a very small rabbit in there last week. I told the Sage.

I’m afraid that the bunny has breathed his last; the Sage is a crack shot – although he prefers target shooting (1,000 yards is his favourite distance) and never shoots animals for sport. Still, a naughty rabbit at 10 yards was a straightforward target.

I feel guilty.

Today, I went to Cookham on a Stanley Spencer-related jolly. I’m not yet completely won over to Spencer but appreciation is there, at any rate. Don’t care for the landscapes he called “pot-boilers”, but then, neither did he.

So, had chances for chats with friends. As I mentioned in comments earlier, one person has 14 varieties of fig, in pots. Some of them aren’t completely hardy so have to live in the greenhouse – I need to find more out about this, I’ve just got a Brown Turkey, not in a pot but with restricted root run and that’s pretty large – but I do love figs.

I’ve discovered I’ve only got the rest of this week to do a write-up about our Scottish trip for the newsletter. Oh well. That’s all right.

I did learn one terribly sad bit of news. You may remember, about three months ago, that I told you that the son-in-law of friends had been badly burned in a garden accident. In fact, with inexplicable carelessness, he’d lit a fire using petrol. No need for us to be wise after the event, it happened. After awful suffering, he died a fortnight ago, with septicaemia and multiple organ failure. In a last desperate attempt to save him, both legs were amputated. But in the end, there was no chance of recovery and it was agreed to turn off his life support.

A member of my family received terrible burns 40 years ago, and recovered, but it’s still something that resonates more horribly than anything to Wink and me. I’m so sorry for him, and for his wife and young children of 20, 14 and 12.

Sorry to end on a depressed note, but here in blogland we all feel things together – there’s a lot of kindness here, so please send some loving thoughts to Susannah and her family.

Squiffany chose to spend the afternoon with me, which was a delight. I was digging the bed at the base of the section of wall that Dave finished last Friday – here follows the dullest photos of the year –

and Dilly came along to fetch something from the greenhouse. She said to the children that she was about to prepare lunch, and Squiffany whispered to her, received approval and invited me and the Sage to join them.

After lunch, Squiffany helped me in the greenhouse for an hour, then we came in and played board games, then cuddled up on the sofa together with orange juice and biscuits to watch a DVD – it’s such a compliment when a child wants to spend time with you. And it meant that Pugsley had some time alone with his mother.

I’m vacillating a bit on whether to plant things in that bed or put them out in pots. Next year, I’d like to plant some fruit trees, but this year I’ll use it for peppers, aubergines and tomatoes. I think I’ll probably do the pots – it’ll mean more watering, but then the bed would need daily watering in any case. Apart from the asparagus bed, which wasn’t weeded at all last year and is beyond redemption, the veg garden is getting quite tidy. Oh, and apart from the bed where I used to grow herbs. There still are some, but they’ve been overcome by such nuisances as tansy. I think that I’ll have to chop it all down and smother it with old carpet. I can’t dig out those roots. I’ve taken cuttings of perennial herbs. As for the asparagus, it’s a very old bed and needs to be replaced. Again, I’ll cut it down, cover with old carpet to smother the weeds and start again with new asparagus in another bed.

Dull post today darlings, sorry.