Happy Harvest and Hilarity / Stupidity!

Spent all morning on the allotment - so good to be there on such a lovely sunny day! I've been clearing the grass growing up either side and between the two electric fences, just a little stretch of it each time I go up. I only intended to do a little bit today too but ended up doing the entire thing! This also involved a big battle with the blackberry bushes, one of which had blocked my access to the fence as I had not walked round that particular part since harvesting the gooseberries growing on the half plot the hens are not currently on. There is a bush next to the fence which I keep cutting as it tries to grow through the fence, but on the other side of it it had grown rampant and had met up with the bushes opposite it. I felt like some intrepid explorer hacking their way through the undergrowth! The bushes had formed a wall one side much taller than me! So satisfying to cut it all back! Well enough to get through to the fence! I will do a severe cutting back later in the year when the leaves have fallen.
After this I went harvesting on my plot. The pumpkins are still growing and beginning to ripen so I left those behemoths and picked beans, cucumbers, raspberries, Swiss chard, tomatoes, some of the Pumpkin Munchkins and what will be the last of the courgettes - strangely not a good season for them - enough for me but nowhere near the productivity of the other squash. My blip is of my Tomatillos, a cross between a tomato and a lime much used in Mexican food. Can't wait to taste them! I also picked some flowers;gladioli, zinnias, sweetpeas, dahlias, verbena, marigolds and 3 of my teddy bear sunflowers! 
It was now time for lunch so the last of the mushrooms on toast with The Exile I checked my emails and found my pet insurance  details. I read through them carefully as directed and realised they had made a mistake on his sex - knowing how picky insurance companies can be I phoned them to correct their mistake. The woman gently and clearly explained to me as if I was a child that female dogs are called bitches and male dogs are called......dogs! Well I could not stop laughing and neither could she! I finished the call incoherent with laughter and laughed so much it hurt and The exile came downstairs to see what was the matter! I could barely get the words out and tears were running down my face and I just dissolved on the sofa! That beats the time I took my first dog to the vets thinking he had ticks - the vet told me with some amusement that they were " not ticks but tits!!!" To think it had crossed my mind to burn them off with a cigarette! I'm taking this as an auspicious start to renewed dog ownership!!!
P.S. had some of the tomatillos for dinner and they are gorgeous! Much denser than a normal tomato and the seeds are scattered throughout the dense flesh - they do have a lime flavour and the tartness became sweet once fried.