It occurred to me that the ants might have come in on the table mats that we’d used for one of the outside tables.  It seemed that there were too many for that, but at least it was a working theory and we really needed one.  So we carefully wiped the mats and left them off the table.

This evening, we laid the table – actually, LT did that – and then replaced the mats and sat down to dinner, and then LT let out a great sigh of despair.  More ants.  Five of them.  And then I spotted a sixth.  And then I looked in the fruit bowl, which wasn’t on the table any more, and there must have been twenty ants.

The table has been cleared of everything but the cloth and we’re having a cold meal tomorrow lunchtime – well, there’s breakfast first but that’ll probably just be fruit and toast – and so nothing except cutlery and food will be added.  And then we’ll see.

At lunchtime, LT came up with a bon mot.  Or actually, a number of mots, because I fetched my bag after lunch, while we were still at the table, and put it on the chair between us, which is Eloise cat’s chair.  I fished my phone out of the bag because I wanted to check my diary, and we kept on chatting.  And then he glanced sideways and did a double take, because he momentarily thought that the bag was Eloise.

“I’m the Man who Mistook his Wife”s handbag for a cat,” he said, and I thought it was so funny and clever that I repeated it on Facebook.  And it amused a number of people who left witty comments, but no one seems have to picked up on the Oliver Sachs reference, which was the best bit.  Except, LT tells me that Rose’s Lawrence just has, so three cheers!!

Otherwise, today we have mostly been preparing redcurrants.  And I have made summer puddings, two of them, but I wasn’t able to get any blackcurrants.  You can’t really substitute, but destalking a kilo of redcurrants left me in no mood to do anything but complete the job.  So I lessened the sugar, added extra redcurrants and a good slug of Ribena.  Hah.