It’s been a quiet day.  The most exciting thing that happened was that I picked six cucumbers, having picked five on Friday.  I gave most of them to Al to sell, of course.  Fond as I am of cucumber, I don’t want to eat two a day for the next couple of months.

I gather that rain is forecast.  Well, not on my parade it didn’t – it can do what it likes from now on, as far as I’m concerned.  We had the sunny weather we needed for the weekend.

I expect the village pub’s profits to have taken a marked upswing, having had four visits from me in the past week, which is about as many as I’d previously had all year.  Actually, I’m about beered up for the moment.  I had a nice elderflower-flavoured beer this evening, but I came home to drink a glass of wine.  And I may drink water before the end of the evening.

I have the rare luxury, tomorrow, of a day with a clear diary.  I shall feel justified in not hurrying to get up, having been early every day for ages, and must then do the watering, which has been skimped recently, in the greenhouse.  The forecast is rain, but if it doesn’t happen then I shall have to water the outside pots, at least.  After that, I shall catch up with paperwork for the governors’ meeting on Tuesday.  It will be splendid if I manage to do that with half a day to spare.

And, once that is behind me, I can get ready for the auction on Friday.

I’ve been babysitting again so unable to write until now.  It’s been a successful festival – that is, a very jolly fête and a splendid beer festival – four of the guest beers were excellent, I can’t speak for the rest but those drinking them seemed to be happy.

It’s not often that the whole family are together nowadays, so it was a treat, although all 11 of us didn’t spend time together, we milled around in various groups.  Dilly and Al didn’t join us for dinner and it was too late for any of the children, but the rest of us ate together and then D&A went to the village hall and then the pub for music and another drink.

As I said in the comments earlier, the Sage isn’t in the local paper yet, so I’ll let you know when.  The photo of the mug (my photo, I’m pleased to say) is in the Mail, or rather was on the 7th, with a rather inaccurate article.  I haven’t had time to show the website to the Sage yet.  He’ll be disconcerted at what was quoted.  However, all publicity…

Can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that, with all the hoo and the hah at present about schools, we’ve had more interest from potential governors than for several years.  Proves the same point.

Very warm tonight.  Our bedroom faces both east and west, so we get morning and evening sun and, with the low ceiling, it heats up.  I’ll go and have a cool bath before bed.  Last night, I was too tired even to take off my make-up.  I did get a good eight hours sleep, although woke up several times – at 1.30 I was glad that I was already awake when the burglar alarm went off.  The Sage went down and surprised a bat.  The bat didn’t greatly surprise the Sage, who knew it was likely to be a mouse, whether of the flitter kind or not.

I’m a bit cheesed off that I have to be up early tomorrow, when it was promised that I wouldn’t have to be sidesman, but the person who’d promised to do it for me has gone on holiday.  I haven’t yet decided whether to mention it.

Yesterday, I made out a cheque to renew a subscription, filled in the form and questionnaire, addressed and stamped the envelope and, today, looked for it to post.  The Sage and I have searched for ages.  It was not for some time that I remembered posting a letter, and then I wasn’t sure if that was the one or whether it was earlier in the week.  I still couldn’t remember why I’d gone out, because if I could, that would remind me which day.

Finally, I managed to recall that, when I’d taken the envelope out of my bag, the flap had been sticking up a bit, so I pressed it down and then firmed down the stamp too.  And that made me ‘see’ the writing on it, so I knew I had posted it.  And now, writing about it, I’ve remembered where I was going, and why I’d gone out on Friday evening.  It was all a blank for a while.  I really was tired on Friday night, it seems.

Or post free.

I have been babysitting this evening.  I fell asleep.  Now, I’m too tired to think and I’m off to bed.  Sorry, darlings, no post tonight.

I know, standards are slipping.

Again, a bit of a red-letter day.  It was dull and there was a misty drizzle when we started work, but not so much as to stop us.  It wasn’t cold, either, though we didn’t bother with the sun cream.

We accomplished what we’d hoped to, which was to finish the lower half of the side to the right of the pillar, and level off the other side.  Next, Dave will be inserting the ornamental bricks and we’ll have to decide the final height of the last section – the ground drops away, so if we make it level with the rest, it will, effectively be higher on the outside.  So we may do a step down.  We don’t have to decide immediately, but we will have to soon.

We may manage another day’s work next week, but that’s up to the Sage.  It’s the auction on Friday and he has to be well rested, and he’ll have a busy week, so it’ll be one day at most.   Here are today’s wall photos.

This is the section that Dave filled in.

And this is the bit that I did, except that Dave did the last three bricks plus a bit more pillar when I had to hurry off to do Meals on Wheels.

The wall from the kitchen garden side.

During the morning, the Sage heard a partridge cheeping to its young, and found that the mother bird who had raised a brood in my overgrown herb garden in the spring was tenderly caring for another batch of chicks.  I took a couple of photos, but they aren’t clear at all, as the birds are so well camouflaged and it’s really not worth showing them to you.  However, later on he surprised them just by the wall – the mother hurried into the kitchen garden and called to them to follow her.  The wall was in the way, so several were at a disadvantage.

By the way, if you live around here, the Sage and the mug in the sale

It’s true, darlings.  So good I phoned him twice.

It happened like this… I’d been out all day and, when I arrived home, the Sage came to the door looking nervous.  “The EDP rang” he said, nervously.  “They want to photograph me with the mug, tomorrow morning.”  The Sage is not so averse to free publicity, so I didn’t get why he was nervous.  I said encouraging things, and then he mentioned putting Dave off – of course, I was very nice about it.  Let’s face it, I always am.  Aren’t I?

Oh.

Anyway, I suggested that we might rearrange for the afternoon and so phoned Dave to ask him.  Dave, being a sweetly good-natured and accommodating sort of chap, agreed at once, mentioning also that showers are predicted for the morning.

A few minutes after putting the phone down, it rang again.  The girl from the EDP said that the photographer couldn’t make it in the morning after all, how about 1.30?  But they could come here rather than meet in Lowestoft.  The Sage agreed and I phoned Dave back.  Honestly a most patient and adaptable fellow he is, he agreed again to come in the morning after all.

We’ve had several other publicity requests, all this is a bit odd.  We’ve always been very low-key.  I have to keep checking the business emails and sending off more photos, one from 2002 when we had a startlingly good sale, which I had forgotten was quite so impressive.

Right, I must go to bed.  I have to be up early in the morning to go and buy Dave’s lunch.

I think that few rabbits would be able to jump the wall now.  So at last, my french beans may be able to start growing.

We didn’t do any bricklaying at all last week.  We were all very busy and all spent a lot of time in the sun, and extra mornings with the sun beating down on us were not going to do us any good.  This is still meant to be fun, not a chore.

Today, however, not only did I build the final section up to beyond-rabbit height, but Dave built some of the section next to it to just below the ornamental brick height.

Here’s wot I done.

And this is what Dave did.

I seem to remember promising a picture of Dave in his shorts, but I forgot when he was working, so here are the Lovely Legs of Dave, snapped unbeknownst to him, after lunch.

The other picture I took this morning is a pupating ladybird in the greenhouse.  Did you know they are buttercup yellow and spotless when they first emerge?  There were a lot of little pollen beetles in the garden today – Dave got out a ball of yellow string and they landed on it, hoping for food.  They were also all over the pumpkin flowers.  We all put on sun cream with insect repellent, so that we wouldn’t be bothered by them ourselves, which mostly seemed to work.

Dave said “surprise me with a fry-up” when I asked him what he’d like for lunch.  So, we had bacon, scrambled eggs, chips, toast, home-grown tomatoes (the eggs were home-grown too, of course) and, as the surprise, fish fingers.  I offered ketchup, but Dave said that his mum didn’t let him eat ketchup.

I expect that Dave has noticed that he’s getting slightly more interesting lunches this year.  Last summer, it was nearly always bread and cheese.  It’s still simple food now, but at least there’s a bit more thought going into it.  It is only now that I realise how, for the last year or two, everything was such an effort and now I’m more mobile and out of pain, I’ve got a lot more energy and enthusiasm.

The comment problem seems to be widespread, but Blogger still haven’t referred to it in their ‘known issues’ page.  There are plenty of complaints in the problem forum, however.  Someone has set up a spreadsheet to gather together details and forward them on.  I’m posting now, just in case there is an outage while the problem is dealt with.  I suspect that Blogger don’t know how to put it right at present, as it seems that it has been going on for some time but they’re not reacting to complaints.

I am at least receiving comments in my emails – obviously, I don’t know if I’m getting all of them – so thank you and I’ll post them when I can, if they don’t appear automatically (which they have – so I deleted the post of your comments).

There are lots of complaints/queries on the Blogger forum about comments not appearing – I wouldn’t be surprised if Blogger has to go down to rectify this – so if you can’t get on to blogs, it’s not your computer and it’s not censorship, don’t worry.

A good friend has sent me an email, wondering why her recent comments haven’t been published.  I’ve written back apologising, and saying that, simply, I don’t know.  I’ll make it clear – I have never barred anyone (I don’t know how and I don’t need to know how) and I’ve never deleted any comment unless it’s clearly spam.  Indeed, I’ve even left the odd spam if it’s amused me.

Sometimes, spam is posted repeatedly on old posts, which is a nuisance for people who’ve left comments and receive updates, as well as for me, so I do have comment moderation on for posts over 20 days old, and I check it every so often, but not necessarily weekly.  But it’s not deleted until I know that it’s not from a friend, and I give the benefit of the doubt if there is any.

Indeed, darlings, you can be as rude as you like to me, and I’ll take it on the chin and won’t be offended.  Like punching jelly it is, insulting me.  For a start, you’re probably right, and anyway, it’s a free country (ish) and your opinion is as valid as mine.  I’m not so keen when my friends disagree – I mean, disagreement is fine as long as it doesn’t get personal, but if you’ve ever noticed my anxious attempts at peacemaking between friends who are having a spat, you’ve probably been amused.  I’d aim to peacemake, but I’d still only delete a comment if it were really offensive, and then I’d tell you and explain why.  Swearing is fine, by the way.  Preferably not at someone, however.  That isn’t really on, is it?

Anyhoo, back to the Life of Z.  BTW, do you love Life of Pi or wonder why anyone likes it? – such a wonder is only valid if you read it all, I will add.  I lolled.  Okay l(ed)ol, when the boat touched land and it explained everything.

We drove to Kent for lunch a week ago – it was a long and hot drive for lunch, but we had a good time with old friends.  The Sage expansively invited them back when they’re in this direction for our sale in -eeek!  – eleven days time.  Should that have an apostrophe?  Probably.  Pfft.

Anyway, the thing is, the room our china, small collection as it is compared to theirs, is in is a room that he has taken over with Stuff.  Honestly, I never go in there.  There’s (this is embarrassing) a double bed that was used once, for guests at Weeza’s wedding, which was five years ago.  It is now, as I found a while ago, used as a table.  Honestly, my lovely Sage is even more untidy than I am, by a long, long way.

So, I tackled him this evening, asking in the politest way possible how he’s getting round this situation.  Truly, no one is going in this room.  Barely me.  So, we have negotiated a solution.  I was so polite and tentative, you wouldn’t recognise me.  “I’m not nagging, really”.  “No, I know” – I’m so entitled to nag.  But, you know, he’s sort of perfect in my eyes.  That is, who wants anyone who’s better than they are?

This reminds me of someone – well, sometwo.  A young Indian couple I used to know.  Both lovely.  He was especially delightful and everyone loved him.  I did, everyone did, young and old.  He was totally, genuinely, lovely.  He desperately wanted to marry her – but she held back.  She was besotted too, but she had a practical bent.  “Thing is,” she said, “he’s perfect.  If we have a row, everyone will side with him.  I can’t match up.  He’s completely genuine, but he’s perfect and I’m not.”  It was true.

I knew her family and not his, so I haven’t kept in touch.  She married someone else in the end, I do hope he’s found someone who adores him as he deserves – which is no criticism of his former girlfriend.  Perfection is hard to live up to.  So, I make sure that the Sage doesn’t have to.  Heh. But nor do I.  Which is fine.

If your comments haven’t been published, do let me know.  I’m so sorry – it isn’t me.  I don’t actually know what the problem is, but I’ll ask Blogger.

The house and slide combo is no end of a success.  Zerlina is thrilled and spent a long time playing on it.  They all came over here this morning and Phil and the Sage set off to a village near Stansted airport, so a good long way.  Al and family had gone off to a car boot early – probably saw Rog but they don’t know each other to say hello.  They got home in good time, because Al had promised to show a friend how to put together his first beehive – he’s letting him have his spare colony, too.

Dilly gave us lunch and then Al asked cryptic questions about what I’d read in yesterday’s Times.  I’d only read the main part of the paper and I couldn’t find what he meant.  He had to show me in the end – if you have it, it’s inside the Weekend section, the pull-out called Weekend Food.  There’s a section on 70 top local food shops, and Al’s is in there – page 13, the first one under Suffolk.  The shops featured are offering £5 off £20 spent with 3 Times vouchers.  This will actually sort of wipe out Al’s profit on anyone who does it, but on the other hand the publicity is free.  I suppose the vouchers will be there every day until 16th July.

Weeza and Phil were planning a barbecue for this evening, so suggested that the Sage and I joined them – I had some steak in the fridge for tonight’s dinner, so their sausages for two and our steak for two made enough for all.  I picked salad and took a bottle of wine from the fridge too.  As I said, Zerlina was extremely happy with her little house, and played in it while Phil and the Sage put together the rest, then they put the house on the platform, added the stairs and slide and she spent the next couple of hours going up the steps, in and out of the house and down the slide, a big smile on her face.

Weeza just phoned to say that z went straight to sleep and it looks as if Phil is ready for bed too.  I suspect that the Sage won’t be far behind.  I’ve just woken him up – going to sleep at 9.30 at night in your armchair means you’ll be awake at 2am.

I spent most of the afternoon proof-reading a 48-page document for the Head.  Actually, I haven’t quite finished.  But I’m stopping now anyway because I can’t concentrate any longer.