Leap Year

The last day of February. This is Rosie's 6 month birthday. She was born on 31 August which is awkward because several months do not have 31 days. It's raining today so my plans for working on the allotment had to be postponed (what a pity). I ended up having lunch at John's house which is very near the allotment. It was more fun than pulling weeds and humping bits of metal trash up and down the path. We are having an allotment work day tomorrow. This means that we all show up and do general tidying up around the entire site. Zoe and I are just about ready to lay black plastic which will kill the weeds and make the plot ready for our vegetable growing efforts. Come the summer, we will have marrows and turnips and other delightful crops. If you are very kind to me, we might share.

My computer is back and working well thanks to Peter, the greatest Geek in the world. I would love to stop and blog now but I have homework to do for Wed morning and tonight is the Book Club. We are reading "Oliver VII".

Computer malfunction

My computer has been giving trouble so yesterday I rang a Geek and he came to my house to have a look at it. It seems to be somewhat infected with virus and he also fears the really bad one that tracks passwords. He is coming back tomorrow to take it away for a major deep cleaning. This means no blog or e-mail until I get it back.
I'm off to London today for a talk by Shirley Williams (Labour politician) and a look at the Camden Town painters exhibition at the Tate.

My back garden

Today I spent a wonderful afternoon in my garden. This is the first time in many many months that I have enjoyed messing about back there. Whenever I tried to do things before, it would make me very sad and I would quickly scurry back indoors. I'm not sure why this is. It is not as though Malcolm ever had anything much to do with the garden or anything else for that matter. I think perhaps I still have strong memories of his 70th birthday party. Lots of friends were there. The weather was beautiful. There were two cakes and lots to drink. A grand day. It has been suggested to me that I should have a garden party this year. I don't know if I have the courage to do that. Anyway, back to the present and my double shedded garden. When I bought this house, it came complete with an outdoor room at the back of the garden. It is a good size and it is electrified. When Nancy lived here, it was her study. I used it as a shed and a place to store my personal possessions when I was back in California and the house was rented out. Since I have been living here permanently, it has become crammed with everything that I want but don't want in the house. I would like to use it as an art studio (how pretentious is that?) but I could hardly get in the door. Last week I had a bloke around to put up a second shed; this one much smaller but perfect for the non artistic items like lawnmowers, etc. I spent the afternoon filling it up. How very satisfying. I also inherited lots of bulbs which have started to appear. The trees are bare of leaves but there is colour on the ground from the crocuses, snow drops and early daffodils. In the pictures below, the green shed is shed #1 and the brown is shed #2.

A few pictures

These pictures represent 1. my lactating daughters plus Adam who is completely pissed off at not being the center of attention. 2. Harry and Rosie in Rosie's pram. Harry says, "Get me out of this frill ridden pink nightmare." Rosie says, "Who is this gross, redheaded boy person contaminating my beautiful pram." 3. Harry at his sweetest.

Passport saga

Guess what turned up in my letter box two days ago? All the passport renewal information that I had slaved over the week before. The faulty item was my birth certificate. I've had to send to Nova Scotia for the real thing. When that comes, I start all over again. I'm cutting it fine for getting the new passport before the old one runs out. Once again it is no one's fault but my own. I should have been doing this at the beginning of January. I just hope no out of country emergency occurs before I'm sorted.

Catching up

It has been pointed out to me that I have fallen behind in my blog posting activities. It's pure laziness. Alison and Harry were here last week while the house move from Eastbourne to Brighton was taking place. I had a great week. It was a treat for me to have someone in the house and Harry is a super little baby. We went to Brighton on Saturday having given Sian and her Mum plenty of time to unpack and get the house ready for us to walk in, sit down, and have a cup of tea. The house is a spacious Victorian terrace with lots of light. It is well placed for shops and parks. They plan to be in it for about twenty years. Harry has his own room with his own bed.