I’ve finally got around to various domestic matters, which I’ve been putting off for a while, for no good reason.  So I’ve written to my solicitor, accountant, phoned the chimney sweep, the electrician and the handyman and – while I was about it – cleared an overflowing gutter.  All this brought me close to a panic attack, which is stupid and I managed to reduce it to mere anxiety.  These things are much worse to contemplate than just to do, of course.

I woke up at 3 o’clock with a really bad headache, couldn’t sleep and finally did when it was time to get up, finally surfacing late, still with a thumping head.  So LT showing me a plastic box of apples that had gone to liquid wasn’t something I quite took in, then or later when I agreed it looked peculiar and had better be thrown away.  Of course, if I’d been feeling less unwell and had thought to question him, I’d have known in time that it was actually the particularly lovely chicken stock that I’d put in the fridge last night, not having managed to remove the label showing the tub’s previous contents.  Ho hum.  These things happen and we can always make more chicken stock.

I’m feeling smug now, rather than anxious, at having gone straight out to clear the gutter and downpipe, because it turned out that there was only a few minutes’ gap between downpours.  It’s bucketing down again now and clearing itself straight down the drain.  We go weeks with very little rain here, only the other day we planted out irises and sedums in a bed that is in full sun, with very sandy, stony soil.  It was cleared a couple of years ago because the few last shrubs in there were more lichen than leaf, and I think the best thing to do is put in fairly substantial succulents, alpines and so on.  The whole of the garden in front of the house is dreary, either large, overgrown shrubs or perennial weeds that are really difficult to shift permanently.  I thought I’d tackle it more fully this summer, but it’s still a work in progress.  We’re getting on, though.