:: cruising

Ah, having a (nearly) new car is lovely. Electric windows! Electric wing mirrors! Central locking! Most of all - extreme cleanliness. The last means, of course, no dogs allowed. I did take Bertie for a birl at the weekend, but he got (white) hairs on the (black) upholstery despite the seat cover and slobbered all over the windows, so he's banned again for a while. It won't be too long before I've tashed it up myself though, and he'll be back in the rear seat enjoying the 70mph breezes.

Also at the weekend I went to a party across the road - Dave & Diane's 35th wedding anniversary. It was fun! Dave has a jazz combo so I'd hoped for music - but they didn't play. I did meet most of the band, though, and their spouses, all real characters. And I also met a lot of across-the-street neighbours, who all knew me as "the woman who walks the tall skinny white dog". Hee hee! D&D's house backs on to the river, and it was wonderful to sit outside watching the yachts and dinghies and ships.

On Sunday I made jam - a dozen or so jars of gooseberry and just two of raspberry. The rasps are not up to much this year - possibly not enough rain. The gooseberries did surprisingly well. The fencing guys trampled one bush, breaking several branches off and damaging the others. But although the remaining branches were lying right on the ground almost hidden by straggly grass, there was an abundance of berries. The other bush suffers every year from some kind of insect attack or disease, not sure which, that strips off all the leaves just as the fruit are ripening, so I end up with a weird bald bush covered in gooseberries. The jam was excellent, a beautiful colour (green skins and seeds and pale pink jelly) and perfectly set.

The blackcurrants are coming along nicely too, should be ready in a week or so depending on the weather.

Oh, I forgot to mention last week's fun - meeting some flickrites in the flesh. I've never done this before - met internet contacts - so I was a bit nervous. Brendada came up from Durham and stayed with me, and we met up with Birdw0rks from New York and Chumplick from Texas. Not their real names! I also got to meet Shooz and Ladybobo briefly.

I'd better get back to my work - will write more later.