Time to relax

Spring. Hmmm. Yes. Yesterday was a stunningly warm and beautiful day and today was back to winter woolies. The wind was absolutely icy. However...... it is the weekend, and who cares. It can do what it wants. I am free to do what I want!

Yesterday morning, I took Mum to Podington for tea. The garden centre is my favourite and the best I have ever been to and the coffee shop is great. We looked at the bedding plants, and I resisted the temptation to buy loads, and just got a couple of tumbelina petunias. For now. I am not putting in masses this year, as we will be away for some of the time, and everything will expire. I will do the baskets, though. I love cascading flowers and colour. The other thing I did get was fleece for the allotment, just in case we have a few hard frosts. They had lovely little plastic dome thingies too, which you put over your plants. I refrained from buying them, but I did have this image of cake tray domes all over the allotment that made me smile.

It is bookclub here on Monday night, so I had to get some books. We do not all read the same book. Whoever is hosting buys about 5 books which go into the bookclub. Predictably, I can never find books I want desperately when it is my turn. Next week there will be dozens I covet. However, I have some that I think will make interesting reading.

House of Orphans, by Helen Dunmore, set in Finland
Be near me by Andrew O'Hagan, about an English priest who takes over a small Scottish parish
One thousand white women by Jim Fergus, about the Brides for Indians scheme in the US in 1875
Don't tell Mum I work on the rigs by Paul Carter, a biography of an oil rig worker who travels the world

They will have to do. I still have to clean the house, and buy the drinks and nibbles. Tomorrow.

Today I have been to church and also went to water the allotment. And the carpets. I am not certifiable. I decided that while the carpets will kill the weeds, I need the earth to be softened, so I watered the carpets so it can seep through and when we get round to the next dig, the ground will be manageable. I did get some very strange looks. The onions are shooting little green shoots, which is very exciting, and our bird scarer thing with dangling CDs has disintegrated in the wind, so I will have to get stronger fishing line. The type you can use to haul in very large sharks should do the trick. Not that there are any sharks in middle England, you will be pleased to hear.

So it has been a quiet weekend, with time to fall asleep on my bed, reading. There was a time when I could read a book a day. Sigh. Those days are long gone.