:: playing catch-up

Yay, the plum tree has blossomed! I have no idea if plums will follow, but I'm thrilled to see the flowers all the same. It's now leafing out healthily, so it's hopefully happy it its new home.

Elsewhere in the garden there's more new life. I checked the raised bed this morning and the mange-tout seedlings are showing. Time to build them a little scaffolding of twigs, I think. And next to them there's a line of tender green where the perpetual spinach is coming up. At the weekend I bought a tray of "Swiss chard" - aka silver beet! Yay! I love silver beet but it's not sold in the shops here for some reason. Also doing well are the purple sprouting brocoli seedlings, despite the fact that I dropped the tray. And several sunflower seedlings have survived being chewed on by some critter or other. I haven't decided where to plant them yet. The sweet peas are growing well and starting to cling on to things. This weekend I'll plant some French beans and courgettes, I think, and that will do it for this year.

Also spotted some animal footprints in the raised bed ... surely not a dog's footprints, surely not. There's only one dog in the place and he's a GOOD dog. Time for some fencing strategies. I've already planned to string some old CDs above the bed as bird scarers, so maybe they'll act as dog scarers as well.

Today I've been recovering from last night's election exertions. I was at work until 4:30am, didn't get to bed until 5:30, and didn't get up until almost 1pm, feeling as though I'd been drinking heavily. I've just about recovered now, but didn't do much this afternoon. It was a fun shift, though - there's always a cast of thousands in for the big night, and the place is buzzing with excitement. There was plenty of controversy, with about ten per cent of ballot papers spoiled. I'm not surprised: when I went to vote I had to really look at the forms and read the instructions carefully. There were three votes altogether, on two forms: one for the MSP and the party list and one for the city council. The city council vote was done on a different system, so that on one form you were putting an X and on another you were numbering candidates in order of preference. I managed to do it all properly, then blotted my copybook by folding the forms in half, when it said very clearly NOT to.

Tomorrow will be pretty much taken up by chores, and I'm working on Sunday, so not much of a weekend to look forward to. The following weekend I have three days off though, so I might go away.

Faye came round last weekend for a computing masterclass. She's gradually getting to grips with her machine, though she's finding it a steep learning curve. I'm learning too, because it's got Windows Vista, and I'm still on XP. She's on holiday at the moment and is spending a lot of time looking for a new job.