Sun's Out for the end of Hols

There is a name for people like me – an anorak. Possibly that’s an outdated term, but let’s say I look at figures and trends and analyse them, purely out of interest. Perhaps it’s in the genes, as the Son&Heir is a biostatistician. At any rate, I observed that during the last couple of weeks, there was little activity at my website, http://freespace.virgin.net/jackie.luben, or at the library, where no-one was taking Tainted Tree out on loan. In addition to that, I had no responses until last week to my ad in the local newsagent for some cleaning help – and the spiders were having a field day, knowing that their cobwebs would be undisturbed.

The answer is, during the first two weeks of August, everyone’s been on holiday. Despite the recession, I think people have left their own territory, even if it’s just to go to the local coast. The Son&H has just returned from camping with his family (each to his own.) and lo and behold, I noticed on Monday that, a) Tainted Tree is out on loan again; b) I had two telephone calls from prospective cleaning ladies and c) there were visitors once again to the website. Also an email from the editor of the Somerset Times that she is going to include a piece about Tainted Tree in the magazine. Tainted Tree will, I think, appeal to her readers, as a considerable part of it takes place in the West Country, and in Bristol.

In the mean time, not content with MySpace doing strange things with my photos, my own computer has been playing up. I suppose, to be fair to the computer, it must be Windows updating something or other. At any rate, I cannot now look at my photos, unless I ‘Open with …) If anyone understands anything about this mystery, I should be grateful for help or advice.

Today, I have been pottering; in order to get rid of ground elder, the pervasive weed with which I have battled for many a decade, I have taken clothes pegs to plants where the wretched stuff is coming up around or through the middle and pegged the whole plant to one side, so that I can spray weed-killer on the ground elder. This is very unfriendly of me, but all the plants in my garden would be suffocated if I allowed it to survive. This is a new way of attacking them, as I can’t hoe the stuff up, without damaging the plant it’s sucking the life out of.

As forecast, here in the south, the sun is shining, as it was on Sunday, when after taking M’s aunt for lunch at the local Chinese restaurant, we sat in her garden in the sun, until 6.30 p.m. Incidentally, she had at least three hibiscus – all smothered in flowers. I was very envious.