It's been a rather long delay as I got back sicker than a surgery waiting room on a Monday morning, and then to add insult to injury, to a fried computer. With snot, feeling like a horse had kicked every rib and coughing gunge, life seemed quite hard. And then the cramps and runs to the point where i was expecting my tonsils in the toilet bowl. Fortunately that didn't happen as I had them out when I was about 10, so it would have been quite mysterious. So much of the week has been trying to recover, and sort the issues with body and computer...and failing at both. I've been working rather inneffectually on Barbs computer - have my hard-drive out and ready for testing in another machine but I need a power plug to deal with my rather newer hard-drive fittings. James hopefully sent me one or there will be cursing and muttering. Not, of course, that there has been a cross word up to now.
We had a rat outbreak in the one veggie patch and I lost a good half the beetroot. The rest has been hastily pickled. I've been drying pears, and more tomatoes. Our veggies prove that in future I will NOT be available to go away from about October to March! Yes, we're doing OK, but it should be 3-4 times as well, as I've been away for about a month in quite crucial times - Well, the kids wanted us there and i had to do that, and Peter is a solid friend - but can they need us winter next time! Note to children - plan grandkids for mid-year. So much nicer for birthday presents and also my garden.
I did go off to be boat-boy for Norm, and spent the day on deck feeling unwell while he dived. The deck got lower and lower, and it was not with the weight of my spirits, but as we discovered, that the underdeck was flooded - one of the bolts from the transducer had come adrift and it was leaking - we must have had 200 litres of water aboard. Not an issue in a Zodiac, but it did make it heavy and hard to handle in the landing which as it has no winch and has to be driven up onto the trailer, can be very interesting in a cross-current. It's even more interesting when Norm is driving and I am trying to aim the boat... hauling like mad and getting nowhere... "You're in @%$# reverse!" Heh. Then it was easier. It could have been worse. I could have been doing it.
Harvested some tatties today. They're pretty good, but I will need a bigger patch. I think we'll only get about 20 kgs which is a long way short of what we need. But it's more than I've had in the past :-).
Rat bastards! And there's no good poison I can think of that's safe to use in the garden or around furry friends that might like to chew up a dead, nasty rat.
ReplyDeleteI may have mentioned it before, but there's no such thing as a too large a patch of Taters.