I didn't mean yesterday's entry to be so brief ... I was called off to do something and never got back to the blog. Not that there is much else to report. Work: crazy. Home: busy doing mundane things like mowing the lawn, cleaning up after the tiler and making jam.

I picked a whole lot of blackberries and boiled them up with sugar. I couldn't find a recipe so I winged it. Halfway through I decided there were too many pips, so I tried straining them out. Not a huge success -- a lot of pulp got strained out too. I should have strained before adding the sugar, I think. Anyway the fruit was free, so no biggie if it doesn't work.

There's a bumper crop of blackberries this year, but the flavour isn't that good -- maybe there's been too much rain and not enough sun. They look lovely on the bush, gleaming in great bunches. Bertie got very bored during my picking session, kicking his heels. You would expect him to go off exploring on his own, but he sticks pretty close.

Tim at work brought me a couple of choice souvenirs from his trip to the Falklands, via Buenos Aires: a copy of Hola! (13 Sept issue so full of the Norwegian wedding; it went to press before the atrocities) and a Malvinas badge -- the Argentine flag with a map of the islands on it in gold.

The thing I like about Hola! is that it has great spreads on people I've never heard of. "ALESSANDRO LEQUIO Y MARIA PALACIOS bano de barro terapeutico en Mallorca". Pictures of in-love couple smearing each other with mud on a stony beach. There's one story I must get Andrew to translate, I can't understand it from the pictures, which include one of a woman, SARA MONTIEL, sitting on a sofa with a blanket over her head. Then there are the up-and-coming celebs you know you're going to hear more of: Enrique Iglesias, for example, "uno de los cantantes mas atractivos del mundo", woof woof.