Should be writing ...

I should be writing. I should be editing the church magazine. I should definitely be doing housework. I should be bottling a batch of beer (I shouldn't be moving the rosehip wine to a demijohn which I accidentally did a week early this  morning). I should be reviewing books for Good Reads. I should be writing my course. Why am I knitting a new sock?

I went to Allotment Major after over a fortnight last Thursday, and regretted not bringing a machete to hack my way through the weeds. It's been warm and wet up here. However, three bags of veg home, not including the neep I gave one of my neighbours and the onions I tied to the fence to dry. We've eaten the cauliflower and the peas and the gooseberries, and frozen the radishes (good in stirfries later if you blanch and freeze them), and the courgettes are prepared for this evening. The mangetout are on the menu for tomorrow night. We may never get through the potatoes. There was a lettuce lying on the kitchen bench being rather muddy - they keep better that way, with the earth still on, but I prefer them to be on something rather than the bench, so I carefully removed it to an appropriate plate and carefully cleaned the bench. Number Two Cat then decided to jump up to the sink and then walk along the bench, but he didn't realise that the edge of the plate was over the edge of the bench and stood on it. Cat and lettuce each described beautiful double somersaults before falling on the floor. Cat embarrassed: earth once again everywhere.

There are over two hundred tomatoes growing in the kitchen. I hope they ripen, or we'll be supplying the neighbourhood with green tomato chutney.

Increased Availability

I'm hoping that Death in a Scarlet Gown and Knowledge of Sins Past will be available in the next few hours on Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/), which will open the books to a few more formats for anyone allergic to Amazon! This all takes ages when I should be editing Service of the Heir, which is sitting on my desk in its ancient folder trying to fight its way out from under a heap of text books for the academic course I'm writing. I shall get it done, I shall!

I've realised I'll have to go back and refamiliarise myself with Edinburgh - not exactly a bad thing! but it's a while since I've lived there. I think you really have to walk a place to get the feel of it, up dodgy looking lanes, examining brickwork, touching railings and render, sitting on walls and watching people go by, or blinking against the rain looking up at the buildings you don't notice with your head down or your eyes on the traffic. Mind you, if you get too carried away you start walking out in front of the traffic, assuming the horses will stop! It's not always safe doing historical research!

And now, the recovery period ...

Back again. Thought we'd lost a coat on the train, accidentally found it this afternoon in the park on the way back from inspecting Allotment Minor. Stuffed it in the bag with the lettuce given by my allotment neighbour and the two pounds of rosehips foraged for wine, and came home to make the wine.

I love reading people's teeshirts - 'If found, please return to the pub' or 'The angels have the blue box' do me nicely. I hope no one minds me staring, but really, if they go about with something written across them, what do they expect? I myself wear one reading 'Eco-Worrier' on occasion, and used to have one reading 'Behind every successful woman is a rather intelligent cat'. However, I am heartily bored with reading the words 'Abercrombie', 'Fitch' and 'Bench'. Why pay money to advertise someone?

I did see a man a few months ago wearing a teeshirt reading 'Apple Crumble and Fudge'. It made me very happy.

Running to Catch Up

The laundry is in the machine, so can't be packed, but at least the massive supply of cat food has been bought so that our lovely neighbour can fend off our savage moggies while we're away, the allotments have had the vegetables looked over, the garden has been hacked back, and the train times have been rechecked. There'll be no internet for a little while! It's family visiting time again.

Good weekend baking for a sale which made a couple of hundred quid for our church, then N and D, the deviously persuasive friends who talked me into this lark, arrived for the night. Much talking, eating and drinking occurred, and they departed with our first cauliflower of the season and a bar of homemade soap. N wants cinnamon soap next time - I'll have to think about how to introduce the scent the right way ... A wretched magpie family are chasing the smaller birds from the tree outside my window - love birds, not so hot on magpies, noisy, bullying, vain and greedy.