I never cease to be amazed by the new things that come my way in life since meeting Rob.

Take the preparations for our coming wedding...

I know I'm a dab hand at painting after doing up Rob's flat, but I've also become quite adept at using a power washer (well, it's one way to blast the dried-up cow manure out of the yard where the wedding is taking place).

And today I also took paart (for the first time ever) in raising three marquees. One of which is huge!

It's all very exciting - can't wait for next weekend.

Random idea #4712

Would the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse be preceded by people with placards saying "The end of the world is neigh"?

Damn the tennis, and damn the BBC

I've been recording and watching Robin Hood. Whatever your views on the content, I rather enjoy it and it's evolved a treat since its early days.

I got a bit behind so had the last two week's left on the hard disk recorder.

I watch the first one, with exciting cliffhanger, and settle down to watch the second part (from last Saturday).

Lo and behold, there's tennis (Andy Murray) on the recording. After a couple of minutes a flag on the screen informs viewers that Robin hood will be on BBC Two at 7.

Great. Thanks. So I have no recording. The BBC deems a tennis match more important than the series finale of one of their much-hyped (albeit now cancelled) Saturday evening family dramas.

I know, I think, I'll go online and watch it on the iPlayer.

Good idea. Except it started, faltered and now refuses to play for me.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The sweetest thing...

We picked our first few strawberries from the strawberry plants yesterday - and I can honestly say I've never tasted finer. I guess you tend to forget just how restricted the taste of shop-bought, forced fruit really is.

We've been working hard on growing fruit and veg this year. The lettuce has been great-tasting and we're looking forward to bumper crops of tomatoes and blueberries amongst other things.

And while anyone who knows me would happily admit that I'm not naturally the most practically-skilled of people, I'm proud of the cage I've put together from netting and bamboo to keep the birds away from the fruit. It's a bit cobbled together, but hopefully effective.

Gardening talk...

Slightly surreal this evening, doing a couple of hours weeding in the pleasant late afternoon sunshine, while a variety of thunderstorms passed by - almost constant sounds of thunder but somehow none of them ever came in our direction.

Weeding is, of course, the bane of any gardeners life (not that I'd go so far as to cal myself a gardener...), specially if, like me, you grew up only being allowed to do three sorts of gardening: gathering up the fallen apples in early autumn, mowing the uneven lawn (including under said apple tree) and weeding.

Weeding is even worse when your garden is infested with mare's tail.

Mare's tail is horrible stuff in so many ways. It grows like a mad thing, even up throw the middle of clumps of other plants, it laughs at any of the anti-weed spray you try on it, it mostly throws up individual stems (if you're lucky you may get two or three together) and when you pull it up (there's really no room to dig in our densely planted front garden) it (if you're lucky and it doesn't just snap) gives you what looks like a reasonable of root, which is fine until you realise that the main tap roots extend feet underground.

Oh, and it has supernatural powers of some sort. No sooner have you cleared an area and looked away to start clearing another patch than one or two (large!) fronds will suddenly appear exactly where you were just weeding, waving gently at you and singing 'la la la la...'

I guess we should just be grateful that plants aren't more intelligent - otherwise, they'd certainly wait to make their cheeky re-appaearance for a day or so to really rub it in.

What did you do at the weekend?

Rob and I did a round trip of slightly less than 600 miles to see a Breton music band play and to whitewash a barn.

Nothing wrong with a bit of variety, is there?

What I did on my Easter holidays...

... by Neil, aged *mmph mmph mmph*

If I asked most people to picture the preparations for their wedding (assuming they ever thought they'd get married - I know I didn't up till a few years back), I imagine they'd be thinking about planning a venue, sorting out the flowers, perhaps writing vows.

Guess again. We started our preparations during the last week. Using shovels, a tractor (first time I'd ever driven one) and a power-washer (ditto).

Yep, we've been clearing cow muck from the yard and barns which we'll be using for our celebrations in the summer.

It's different, I'll grant you. But it really does feel like we'll be making our own celebrations much more personal.