What a lovely surprise :)

Nearly forgot - we had a brilliant evening yesterday.  Vanya was set on a farm in 20th C Ireland, rather than Russia.  Andrew Scott was a true tour-de-force - how can anyone learn their lines and act half a dozen different characters non-stop for 2 hours?  He was so convincing I kept expecting the characters to step through the door on the set!  If you get the chance to see this by satellite at a cinema near you, do so as you will enjoy it.  One of the reviews (The Standard) called "this one-man Vanya is a revelation and a sensation" and described it as a tragi-comedy.  Emma and I had a glass of wine from the bar, and then waited for Danny in one of the pubs in town and had another.  I slept well last night (indeed, I wasn't in bed till nearly midnight).

I had to go to Crossgates today to pick up a baby changing trolley for Tam.  Of course, she knew I would go on to the Plant Nursery afterwards.  I needed seed compost, general compost, and some more Alpines  (4 Albrieta) to go along the steps and a Rosemary plant.  Emma wants to grow herbs, so this is a starter for her.  We'll put it in a pot in the yard, which is very sunny - no, I'll rephrase that, it's south-facing!  Sun has been at a premium here recently.  I met a lovely lady at the nursery who had moved here 3 months ago from Midhurst in Sussex.  She said forlornly, "It's rained every day since we got here" but the Nursery owner and I both reassured her that it didn't normally rain this much in Powys, and last May and June we'd had a heatwave with not a drop of rain for two months.  

Weather is weather - difficult to predict and not much fun when it's too cold/hot/wet.  Think what it was like in the Little Ice Age and they had Frost Fairs on the Thames - the latest one of those was in 1814.  Then that dreadful storm surge down the East Coast in 1953.  The Somerset Levels regularly have regularly flooded from time immemorial, and HERE is a looooong list of freak weather and flashfloods in Wales down the centuries.

Anyway when I got home, I found that Emma had done all the housework, including washing the kitchen floor and cleaning all the cat bowls, cleaning the very grubby windows on the French windows, vacuuming, dusting - what a delight.  She and Danny make our life much easier.

A not very sharp photo of L.Whale last summer. The kittens always seem to hog the limelight.

We are hoping Keith will be ok to go to the Botanic Gardens Antiques Fair tomorrow.  We have the mobility scooter on charge - but we had to break into Keith's workshop to do so, as the keys to the padlock had gone missing.  I went through all my pockets, but no.  Any tools to cut through the chain or the padlock were - naturally - inside the workshop!  Danny was trying to cut through the padlock handle with a hacksaw (highway to nowhere!) but I had a brainwave and got a big claw hammer from the tools in the house and went for the weakest link - a blacksmith-made staple from over 130 years ago when the stables were built.  The wood gave - just the long spikes of the staple bent a little and we have kept it.  Straighten out the prongs and it's good to go for another 130 years! So, we got in and the mobility scooter is on charge now.  We shall of course, find the keys tomorrow!

Pippi and little "I".  Her mum gave me permission to use the photo.