I’m having to be relatively organised this week.  The time has come to put together the catalogue for the next auction in October.  Yes, it’s a bit early, but it takes a while and I have more spare capacity in August than any other month, so it’s the best time to concentrate on the sort of job that takes several days.

We’re getting all sorts of other things done though.  LT is quite wonderful and assures me he enjoys all the work entailed in keeping this place from total bedlam.  It should be said that Wince, who helps in the garden, is pretty fine too.  When we go away, he calls in every morning to water the greenhouse and keep an eye on things, and Roses looks after everything else.

Since we got home on Saturday, we’ve weeded the whole vegetable garden, apart from the disaster areas of an old herb bed and a nearly defunct asparagus bed.  Both need starting again and I’m going to cut them to the ground and lay old carpet down to kill off perennial weeds before replanting.  For the last five years, I’ve been gradually bringing more bits of the garden under control – I couldn’t do it when my hip was too disabling, and I’m going in that direction again but I won’t be starting from the same place this time.

It’s a nuisance, actually, having a part of the body that’s slowly packing in but can, once it has got bad enough, be completely cured.  I don’t want an operation any earlier than I need it, but I’m sort of impatient to need it because I’m a bit limited in what I can do in the meantime.  I have to evaluate – can I walk that far?  With a stick?  But I mustn’t give in, it is good to push myself and I volunteer to go up ladders and, I discovered, all the extra walking I did on holiday has made me more resilient.

I hope I’m not moaning, I don’t mean to.  I feel very lucky to feel healthy and only to have a dodgy hip that can be cut out and replaced.

Anyway, tomorrow will mostly be spent typing.  Apart from a clarinet lesson.  I’m terribly rusty, I’ve hardly played for the last two months.  This evening, LT and I have been playing about on clarinet, piano and guitar.  I don’t mind playing badly for him to hear, I don’t have any pretences to keep up.  We just laugh about it.