Well, back to writing one day out of seven, plus a paragraph on Monday!

A busy week again, hampered by back pain.  This receded, came back a bit, then went crazy when I was bent forward for 2 hours, completing my artwork on Monday for the Owslebury Show. 

Working at The Greyhound on Tuesday was not good. 

Then after 3 increasingly better days, and an appointment with the osteopath booked for later today, I woke to have a bright idea……..

Earlier this week I was feeling really despondent about the state of the garden this year, really because I have been able to do very little gardening.

Susie had sent me a photo of her beans, not only grown from scratch, planted and looking good, but starting to twine around homemade bean sticks.  I looked over at my vegetable patch, a mass of vegetation, but not all from the vegetables I had planted!

When Juliette (young at heart club) bought me 3 courgette plants yesterday, as an anniversary present (many thanks Juliette, looking forward to sharing the harvest with you) I took these home along with some French runners my son John had grown.  He did protest a little, but not too much, and mainly in riddles.  We shall have beans, I thought.  And a lovely garden (perhaps, might just stick to beans)

Knowing I would not be able to do any digging or exercise after my visit to Jonathan, I got up early to dig and clear enough ground for the beans and courgettes,

 and then I painted more of the bathroom ready for the seagulls, then off to Southsea for manipulation.

So now I have to take it easy for 3 days (what a hardship.) All that remains for me to do today is to continue to arrange my seagulls and shell art collection into their new home.

Above is some of my shell art collection, the really amazing ones purchased many years ago when I was visiting Robin Hood's Bay with Nigel White.  Look at these beauties.

And on Thursday it was a real pleasure to meet up with the same Nigel and his wife Jennifer in Woodfire, Stockbridge, to show them the preliminary design for the Owslebury Show. (They are the show coordinators) We also had a chat with the junior sous chef from Woodfire, as Nigel had not seen my son Sam for many years.

Presenting the design was a success, nothing needs to be changed, and next week I can expect delivery of the 8 x 4 foot board, and start work on it.

Here is the preliminary design, and you will be able to see its progress.

So, from being sad at my lack of progress, I now have a much better back, a really good reason to relax over the weekend, a job to look forward to, a patch of garden to plant, and a newly decorated home for all my seagulls.  What a difference a couple of days make.

As well as that, I have had fun buying presents for the junior sous chef, who is 24 next Wednesday.

Here he is on his 23rd birthday, just going to enjoy a cake flavoured and decorated with lemon balm….from my garden, of course.

I said to Mr cooper that I hadn't realised that Sam was living with us, this time last year.  I thought it had been longer ago.  Oh no, said Mr Cooper. Sam was definitely living with us last year.  He said it as if it was still very much in his mind.