I Can't Believe It's a Bank Holiday!!

After a really hectic week of working 8 til 6 - plus some, I was so relieved to get to Friday; our fish & chip night! Not that we buy them from the chip shop. Being related to the 'Tight-Wad' family we begrudge buying fish and chips from our local chippy which are running in grease and cost three times the price of 'home made', so we chuck Captain Birds Eye into the oven with Mr McCain and they normally come up with quite a good meal between them!

Saturday saw me busily delving around in my flower beds, bum in air, trying to prepare the soil for planting up today (Sunday). Adam had a pal over for the day and he likes to use my PC - they play online computer games together so, having finished out in the garden I ended up on the Wii (again!!) playing tennis and doing my half moon and triangle yoga moves. I was extremely impressed as Connie the Wii Console told me I now had a physical age of 32!! Not bad for an old 'un!

Following the departure of Adam's friend Nick, as the evening was so nice and warm we took a quick trip out to Coltishall - a village nearby, and where I grew up - posted our postal vote forms for the elections at the beginning of June and then took a leisurely walk along the river bank before heading home for dinner. Unfortunately, however, I daren't do a body test today as I rather over indulged last night - a huge skate wing with chips and, at Adam's insistence(!) a load of fried onions and tomatoes as he'd done too many to fit on the plate with his rib eye steak!! We then followed that up with another Tight-Wad recipe - a lemon torte from Asda (cost us the princely sum of £1!).

Feeling extremely replete and lazy, we decided we'd watch a DVD - the latest Batman movie; have to admit I found it so exciting I fell asleep at about 10.30 so went to bed and, as luck would have it, my second favourite piece of music was playing on the radio - Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams so the day didn't end too badly. The only real downside was the fact that I learned I was allergic to cucumber plants.

I found the other day that my fingers on my right hand were itchy and had come out in a rash so, being typically me, I decided to keep sticking my hands into the various plants I had growing indoors to see what happened. Discovered that sweet peppers, courgettes and statice were fine but I shoved my hands into my cucumbers, so to speak, and ended up with a vegetably transmitted disease. Of course, my mother, neighbours, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all thought I should immediately dial 999 and call out all emergency services to tend to my pimples, but having put a load of lavender oil onto said affected area, I'm still alive and kicking today and not a pimple in sight.

I was relieved to find that today dawned bright, sunny and warm, so, having indulged again at breakfast time with toasted crumpets, lashings of butter and strawberry jam (thought I'd need something substantial to sustain me for my gardening!), I set to and I'm now free from pots on the windowsills. I'm just hoping that Cleo doesn't decide to roll around on the plants I so tenderly planted up - but c'est la vie - if she does, she does. I don't suppose we'll starve if we lose the odd courgette or cucumber.

The only blight on my otherwise relaxing day was the fact that Barmy Blackbird seems to have returned, or possibly son of Barmy. Last year we had a male blackbird that gave the distress call from various roofs and aerials in the vicinity during daylight hours throughout the whole of spring and summer and even took to dive bombing anything that moved - including me, Adam, Cleo, all our close neighbours and even cars that passed in front of the house. We couldn't imagine that he'd actually survive until this year as we thought he'd be caught by something or run over but today he's been twittering away at me but, as yet, hasn't taken to dive bombing - Alfred Hitchcock's birds spring to mind. I keep imagining next summer - three or four generations of Spixworth's Barmy Army lining up on the TV aerial ready to run kamikaze missions, complete with flying helmets and goggles.

Anyway, I'm now indoors feeling more than a tad grubby so quick rub down with an oily rag, into PJs and then down to prepare a slightly healthier dinner. Yes, I DO feel guilty at my lack of willpower over the last few days so it's going to be rabbit food tonight - a lovely(!) healthy salad with nerry a chip or fried onion in sight!!

And tomorrow? As it's Bank Holiday Monday it's bound to be pouring with rain - we just couldn't be lucky enough to have three good days could we? Don't be silly; of course not - I've got a load of washing to do as I've been spending my normal housework hours in the garden!!