Don’t worry, darlings, I won’t sing.

When I went to the butcher’s, I spotted some salt beef for sale and asked for some.  “You realise this isn’t cooked, don’t you…er, about this big?” said Mark.  Yes, I did realise.

They cook ham, beef, salt beef for sale as well as pies, sausage rolls, quiches and so on, but they don’t often sell the raw salted beef.  We had it tonight, properly boiled with onions and carrots, and I enjoyed it enough to have a second helping.  Lots left over and for once I don’t mind that.  That is, using leftovers is fine, but it depends on how much there is.  I was able to unload quite a lot when Weeza & co came on Saturday.

Another jolly tomorrow, when I’m going to Cambridge with my Nadfas chums.  It’ll be an early start, I’ll have to leave here about 7.30 because I suspect the traffic will be bad on the first day back after the long weekend.  I had a sudden moment of bemusement a couple of days ago, knowing that I’d intended to book a place but not being sure if I had.  But it’s all right, I’m on the list.  It’ll be nice.  We take a coach from Norwich, leaving at 8.30, but it won’t be a long day – when we go to London it’s a 12+ hour affair.

I’m quite ready for a jolly, it’s been a busy day.  Mostly, this involved tortoises.  I’m not at all sure why I do all the work and Russell just goes for little chats with them (he does feed them as often as I do, to be fair, but that’s not exactly work) but it’s the only way of getting anything done.  Apart from getting a tortoise house stuck on the bend in the back stairs, it’s all gone pretty well, and now I won’t have to carry them upstairs and down until it’s warm enough for the Tots to be outside all the time.  I’ve put Zig’s vivarium in the porch with Edweena in it and the Tots are living in the plastic box on top of it.  At present, until I finish setting things up, they’re going outside in it too, but they’ll have much bigger quarters soon.

A couple of days ago, I found one of them had left a large puddle of urine on a leaf I’d left for them to eat.  And then yesterday, I found a turd on another leaf, minutes after I’d put it down.  Their temporary names are Peenelope and Poodith.

I’ve also changed three beds, done four loads of washing and got three of them dry (a rug will go on the Aga rail overnight) and hoovered, as well as tidying up my floordrobe.  Ben is moulting, the hoover bag was full of dog hair.  I used long-term flea treatment on him yesterday – I haven’t seen a flea, but I’m not taking chances, not after Gus’s experience.