Right now...

• I am getting used to the keyboard on my new laptop. I am mightily pleased with the machine itself, purely because it is a beautiful shade of cherry red and the casing has an industrial tread-effect texture.
• Little man is munching multigrain hoops and drinking warm milk whilst watching some telly, only this time it is bedtime and not breakfast time. I have steered him towards watching Deadly 60 so I can admire Steve Backshall.
• I am slurping a glass of pinot grigio and looking forward to a takeaway when a friend comes round later.
• I am trying to get used to the extra light flooding into the back of my house but am, on balance, not that happy with the loss of the mature silver birch tree in my neighbours' garden and the way they have hacked the leylandii hedge so that my view will now always be of dead brown bits. 
• I am, somewhere at the back of my mind, trying to decide whether I really want a man cluttering up my life. 
• I am looking forward to getting on with my subversive cross-stitch design and have decided the world is probably divided into those of us who giggle childlishly at seeing the word 'fuck' in embroidery and those who would sneer at such puerile nonsense.

A little spot of paradise... and the pit of doom

Sorry about the gloominess of this shot. I'm sure if I had Photowotsit or some such I could lighten it. But hey, let's keep it real - I took it at dusk, therefore it's gloomy. But still it shows off the newly cleaned-up and stained decking, the lilac painted back wall, my cheery flowers and herbs and my newly retrieved table and chairs. I did have to drive around with the table in the back of my car for three days because it wouldn't fit through my front door or down the side alley. Then I mentioned it to the ex by text. I thought his reply was calling me a spanner. Actually, he was telling me I needed a spanner to take the top off. Oh, right.

There is more to the yard round to the left, down the side of the kitchen, although it's still considerably smaller than the garden I had pre-marital breakdown.

Ah yes, the pit of doom. And this is just the easily visible bit. Underneath the decking there is more junk, including what looks like an old toilet bowl. Nice. Sorting all this out is somewhere further down my to-do list. Anyone want two tatty white plastic garden chairs?

Pottering

It's what we tend to do on Thursdays. Work is over for the week, usually, little man is always with me and not daddy and we have no commitments.

We cook. Cauliflower and cheese soup for lunch to use up the cauli from last week's veg box and the slightly over-ripe smoked Cheshire cheese. Little man even ate some. We do those household chores that can't wait any longer like vacuuming up all the bits of crushed cereal from underneath the sofa. We stroll into town to pick up milk and bread and pop to the library. Today he fell asleep in the Yamo on the way there so I actually got to look at 'grown-up' books. (I was going to say 'adult' books but that might give the wrong impression.) I've borrowed some of the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell because I like a bit of action (suppose that might give the wrong impression too...).

Little man even stayed asleep when we got home long enough for me to have a cuppa and start a book, albeit perched on the edge of a dining chair so as not to squash him. After lunch we went to a play group, although it seemed wrong to go to an indoor group on such a beautiful spring day. To make up for it we called in to see the chooks at the allotment, where we found grandad digging and stopped for a cuppa. At home, we planted up some pots for the back yard with narcissi (those tete a tete mini daffs), little purple irises, drumstick primulas and a couple of evergreen ferns. Well, I planted and he rammed my legs with his ride-on car and demanded a succession of oatcakes so I had to keep washing my hands.

We had sausages and lentil thing for tea. Lentil thing contains all sorts of good stuff like carrots, celery and dried mushrooms. He ate the sausages and then ate about a dozen lentils, one at a time. Slowly. And then grandma and grandad arrived to put him to bed while I went off to a yoga class. Ohm.

Now my telly box seems to be playing up, so I guess I'll even be rounding off this day of simple homely joys with an early night. Time for camomile and spearmint tea. I could do with more days like this.

Spring!

It's March 2nd. It's 8am. It's frosty, but sunny. Later, it might even get slightly warm. I'm opening windows. It must be spring at last! And that means it's time to sort out my tatty back yard.

I have patio doors from the kitchen onto decking. The decking is a bit grotty looking and worryingly bouncy in places. The seller left all sorts of junk underneath it as well as a hideous, half-rotten table and a couple of plastic chairs. The whole thing faces north. The far corner, where the table is, gets a bit of afternoon sun in summer.

In my gran's garage I have a nice table and two chairs and lots of empty pots rescued from my old house. The primulas and narcissi were an impulse purchase yesterday; I have no particular planting plan yet but I do have some garden centre vouchers.

I think some big wooden troughs would be good, so as to avoid just having little pots dotted all over the place. I even think I might make them myself. Can't be that hard, surely? I will need some evergreens, some herbs, some solar lights, some quirky ornaments (stopping short of gnomes). I've decided I would like all flowers to be in the yellow-orange range or shades of purple. Although I do like bright red pelargoniums a la French and Spanish mountain villages.

And while I'm at it, I might indulge in a little Guerilla Gardening and sneak in some narcissi or the odd blackberry cutting in the grass verge by the busway.

Autumn mist

Accompanied by the sort of blackbird song that happens only in the darker months of the year. And by me springing out of bed at 7am thinking I feel much better. Must attempt to still take things easy. To the left of the picture, you can see my silver birch tree, planted shortly after we moved in nearly seven years ago. It's one of the things I will miss most about my garden when I move. But my new home, assuming everything runs smoothly, does have a view of a birch from the back windows and yard.

Lichen study

Thanks to inspiration from http://www.slugsontherefrigerator.com, who apparently has a molten hot bath every single night, I have just had a nice long soak and a read. Just what I needed as I'm feeling a bit run down. Having a whopping great ulcer at the back of my mouth is not helping.

Something to do with the weather has made the motorway louder though and it was quite obtrusive through the bathroom window even though it's about a mile away. It's probably all the spray from the downpour we've had this afternoon. As I was getting dried I was gazing out of the teensy gap in the wide open window at the lichen on the roof of next door's extension. As one does. The extension has only been there about five years and there is yellow and light grey-green lichen along the south-east facing ridge of the roof. For all I know it might also be on the north-west facing side but I can't see that from my bathroom window.

I did a project on lichen a few years ago during my OU degree in environmental studies. And I seem to remember that although the yellow one is tolerant of pollution, the greeny ones are less so. So that's good news for the air quality despite us being so close to the M6. Not sure what the lichen situation will be in certain areas of Runcorn that I'm considering moving to, which are a stone's throw from the chemical works. It's the only place I'll be able to afford a bit of garden. And emissions regulations should be pretty stringent these days.

Nightfall

Still to do: mortgage, tyres, mushrooms, cottage, campsite. Oh, and pick the courgettes that are threatening to turn into marrows.

I've just been out to the garage to put some washing on. The washing machine is out there to make room in the kitchen for a dishwasher. Don't look at me like that: it's AAA rated. Anyway, it's the fact that it's 9.20pm and the light is failing that I wanted to talk about.

There's just something special that starts happening at this time of year. It's a turning point marked by the pagan festival of Lammas or Lughnasadh, the first harvest. You really start to notice the nights drawing in; it's actually dark when you go to bed. You start to see all your Boris house spiders appearing. I don't know where they go the rest of the year. Although you will have harvested some things from the veggie patch already the real glut starts. The annual flying ant infestation occurs.

I like it. I like to know that autumn is on its way and it won't be long before we get misty, dewy mornings and cool nights when you want to burn something to stay cosy. When I move house I am going to treat myself to a wood-burning stove and I hope it's going to be before autumn gets too far under way.

About half an hour ago I was out clearing some junk from my car, before it went dark, and in banging the bin lid I disturbed a wren. I've noticed one a few times lately - today it was desperately trying to catch a very large moth - and I wonder if they're nesting in the ivy.

Sir Whingealot rides again

Hello, it's Sir W F-P here again. I had a nice lie-in this morning. Mummy says it was nearly 8 o'clock, whatever that means. Still, I let out a few cries in my sleep overnight to keep her on her toes. She was rushing around like a madwoman this morning whittering about estate agents, whatever they are. Seemed a bit pissed off when I spilled a packet of spaghetti all over the floor but I thought it was fun, until I shoved a piece in my ear and it hurt. We had spaghetti for lunch and she got all exasperated again when I threw it on the floor. I was planning on eating down there a bit later on, just wasn't that hungry at noon.

Anyway, then this bloke turns up, just as I'm doing a big poo and mummy doesn't notice the big poo and then when she does she ignores it cos she's so busy with this strange man. He was taking pictures of our house and garden... and didn't seem to want my elbow in the corner of the shot. He was talking to mummy about chickens and growing veg but I don't think that had anything to do with him being an estate agent.

He and mummy were yattering away while he had left his bunch of keys, a biro and several important looking pieces of paper on the dining table. So I climbed up there and made a grab for them all. Got the keys, but couldn't reach the lock in our back door to try them out.

After he had gone, mummy put those funny blue boot things she calls wellies on me and tried to make me walk down the road. I didn't want to. I could see she had the sling and I wanted to be carried straight away. I did like splashing in a puddle, but I don't see why mummy was so annoyed when I sat in it. She took me home, changed my trousers, put me in the sling and set off again, yay. She bought a bottle of that dark red stuff she likes to drink, but it took her ages to pay because she had lots and lots of coins instead of that card she usually uses.

Back at home I played in the garden, important stuff like moving stones around. I climbed on a table and played with some jars until one broke and she got all annoyed again and put me inside whittering something about broken glass and don't touch. When we went back out I decided it would be fun to stuff stones in my mouth. Mummy then started a funny game of chase and I ran all the way to the gate. Then she said we couldn't play outside if I was going to eat stones. Think I swallowed a couple in my excitement, but I didn't mean to.

After tea mummy finally realised I had really bad nappy rash from the yucky poo she had left in my nappy for an hour earlier on. I was so whingy she started wondering if I'm getting more teeth and gave me some medicine at bathtime just in case. I was really tired at bedtime anyway, because my only nap today got interrupted by the bin lorry. Think mummy swore at them under her breath, but it's not their fault she leaves me asleep in the car with the windows down all the time. All in all, another busy day. Night night.

Warning: whinge coming up

I have a sore throat, mouth ulcers and face ache. My DVD player finally died after being abused by little man, who liked pressing the open/close button. Little man himself only fell asleep at 9.3opm due to teething, heatwave and general midsummer madness. It is hot and I don't expect to sleep very well. I am not enjoying this ruby cabernet, it's too heavy and it's not helping my throat. I just googled glandular fever but I don't think I have it so I don't have an excuse to get lots of sympathy and afternoon naps. There have been kids shrieking at the tops of their voices all evening right outside my house. Because of little man's late night I haven't done any tidying up, even though had I known how late it would be I would have just left him to play and got on with things.

So I'm now going to think up some good stuff that happened today:
1. I got little man back from his daddy.
2. I made little man's botched homemade trousers into cropped trousers, thus hiding some of the cock-up and making him look well cool.
3. I spread the word about babywearing at a post-natal group.
4. Little man and I had our tea/dinner (delete as you like but at 5pm I don't think I can call it dinner) sitting outside on the patio.
5. I got invited to go camping in North Wales.
6. Little man and I got the giggles over the Stroke Henry book.
7. I inspected my salad seedlings and they're coming along nicely; I watered them with little man on my hip about an hour and a half after he should have been asleep.
8. I got three eggs.

Plant list

Herbs bought in Tesco today which I could have had growing in the garden by now:

Coriandrum sativum (coriander)

Allium schoenoprasum (chives)

Petroselinum crispum (parsley)

Weeds/plants in wrong place pulled up and composted in half an hour between dinner and bathtime:

Leucanthemum vulgare (ox-eye daisy)

Calendula officinalis (pot marigold)

Epilobium angustifolium (bose ray hillow werb as we used to amusingly call it)

Digitalis purpurea (foxglove, no little man, don't touch that one)

Taraxacum officinale (dandelion - fed to chickens)

Rumex obtusifolius (broad-leaved dock)

Rubus fruticosus (bramble)

Urtica dioica (nettle, hiding in undergrowth, ouch)

Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress)

Ranunculus rapens (creeping buttercup)

Origanum majorana (marjoram)

Alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle)

Now some clever person's probably going to come along and tell me I could have made a week's worth of meals out of all that.

Plants that approached little man's mouth:

Strawberry flowers (tried to discourage him; I would obviously prefer that they survive to become strawberries)

Pot marigold petals (obviously look edible, and they are, but I have to get him to learn that he can't put any old flower or leaf in his mouth without mummy's say so until he's old enough to learn what is edible and what isn't)

Unripe blackcurrants (probably do him no harm but ditto the reasoning above)

Area of garden weeded: About 3%.

Satisfaction level: 90%

Chickens currently roaming garden: 3

Eggs collected today: 1 (a Matilda egg from the size of it)

Interesting new fact about chickens: they like rice cakes.