Yesterday I was very excited about butterflies so didn't bother with the vegetables at the plot which are starting to do useful things. The tomato plants, that John was given in return for helping to fix a ride on lawnmower and I just jammed into really unprepossessing ground, are doing really well and are covered with young tomatoes. They are ridged and furrowed, so I expect they are some form of beefsteak tomato or heritage type. If all the rain we are getting doesn't give them blight, I think I will be making a lot of tomato sauce this year!
Most years, the courgette problem is the same, the first flowers are all male and while pretty, they do nothing for our dinner plate. This year, we have a different problem, the flowers are all female, and bizarrely, that does nothing for the plate either as with the young plants, the female flowers excluding the actual flower bud are no more than 4 centimetres long. I think it is due to the hot, dry May weather, although I'm sure people will tell me if that is wrong. Whatever, it is now clear that you need a good mix of male and female flowers in order to get courgettes worth eating!!
Now on to the feathered visitor, and for once it is Zola who has to hang her head in shame. I was just about to start a Skype interview and the little darling was scrabbling around in the office, making out she had lost something. I had to assume it was (yet) another mouse, but could do not more than ask her to find and take away her little friend before talking to my victim. Once the interview was done and I was sitting and thinking, there was a rustling noise behind me, so I got my glass (empty) and went to trap the mouse. Except it wasn't, it was either a swallow or a house martin. Zola came to help so had to be locked in a bedroom while I tried to trap the little fellow with a cloth or my hands. While it was quite happy on the floor by my desk, it was even happier flying along the landing to the front window, which I opened and it flew away. I hope she hadn't damaged it too much, but it didn't do the baby duck lurch, it definitely flew, so fingers crossed.
It should have been yoga tonight, but once I got off my last call of the day and checked the rain radar, it was clear to me that it wasn't going to be a clear one and a half hours, and frankly, today I didn't feel like getting rained on while doing the sun greeting or other moves with more dodgy names. I did a bit of CPD instead.
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