A Random Saturday

Waited too long for the weather to clear so no more brick-cutting today. We'll try again tomorrow.

Instead, once I'd wiped down all the steampunk instruments, I decided that I would have to move them to my study and put up another set of floor-to-ceiling shelves again to house all those things. But the study desperately needs a repaint so I bugged OH to go for a drive.

This is what we achieved:

* we dropped an old computer monitor that no-one on Freegle wanted plus some old aquarium strip lighting off at the local recycling depot. The depot has a little shop where the best bits that people leave are sold. Here, OH picks up a photography book for a pound. When we get home and check its value online, it turns out to be very rare and collectible and people on Amazon currently want around £150 for it. Nice going, mate! I point out to OH that it was my idea to go to the depot that day. I feel I have to, lest he forgets.

* we buy some wall paints for my redecoration project, which is going to become a 1970s bat cave in aubergine/port wine red and blood red. I might throw in some orange too. However it turns out, it will go brilliantly with the rug that's already there, and the chandelier I made out of hundreds of capiz-style chips cut out of old plastic bottles.

* we then drift into a large warehouse-style charity shop where I buy a hand-cranked coffee grinder with different gears and a baking tray for 12 small doughnuts. I also move closer to completing my 1970s prog rock vinyl collection by adding Genesis's Nursery Cryme and And Then There Were Three plus 2 Tears for Fears records and a 1985 Best Of record. 1985, it has to be said, was one of the best years for pop music ever. I spend around £13 pounds in there all told, or rather, OH spends it for me because I've left my handbag on the hallway table.

* Then, I demand, we should go to the allotment. It's been raining all week, we hadn't been for days, the tomatoes needed feeding. OH points apprehensively towards the slate-grey tornado supercell cloud that seems to be amassing ahead of us. "It may get wet." -- "Oh no," I reassure him, "This has already passed us. That was the one that came down when we were shopping." OH parks up in front of the allotment gate. By now it's clear that the supercell is coming towards us, and the sudden darkness is even confusing the local hedgehogs, which are normally only out at dusk.

At the plot, upon opening the shed door, we're greeted by Goutweed, as OH has taken to calling the Allotment Kittie a bit unkindly. Goutweed was IN our shed, in the dry, clearly expecting us.

OH darts out to the new potato bed and lifts enough for tonight's dinner. "Am hitting ground water at 30 cm depth now," he reports.

I've been harvesting the first blackcurrant bush, which is very prolific. One 400ml glass is full.

Then the skies open and we're tethered to the shed. Goutweed keeps us company and luckily for him, we still had some of those kittie treats left.

Eventually, the rain lightens a little bit and we venture out again: I pick some corn- and summerflowers from the flowerbed -- not nearly as many as I want to get out of it but it's a start! The perpetual spinach and the leeks do like the moisture and are growing well, as are the broadbeans and kales and brassicas. We didn't expect to find much but are very happy when, despite the driving rain, we come out with what feels like another pound of strawberries, pre-washed as it were.

However, both of us are thoroughly soaked and to pacify OH, I whip up a quick dough and try out the doughnut tray. We have this with a nice cup of tea, the rest of the Lithuanian sour cream (German equivalent: Schmand) and lots of freshly harvested strawberries, surrounded by stacks of vintage lab gear.