BEANZ

First main crop from the bean wigwam this year. We've had a few early arrivals before today, but there were suddenly quite a few ripe and ready to be harvested this morning. This little pile turned into a very tasty high-grade dish for the two of us.

I piled our harvest up in front of a pot of nasturtiums and the first of our morning glories of the year. One year ago, on this day (the Saturday) I presented a photograph of rampant morning glories. There's much less rampancy this year, perhaps because the climbing nasturtiums have shot up so vigorously along with the morning glories (planted in the same pots) and overwhelmed them. Anyway, it's all very colourful ...

And this horticulture preceded a day of celebration and drinking! One of my best friends and scientific colleagues was visiting from Bremen because his niece was graduating this day, and her family was over here to participate in the ceremony and celebrations. I should show you a photograph of the family group. The happy graduate, who took an excellent First, is the young woman in the centre (with fake ermine hood), her sister to her right. Father is in front of her, and mother hiding between her and her sister. My friend and colleague who runs satellite observation programmes from Bremen, is the next to the right of her, and he is followed by Allan Chapman, a historian of science, well known from fluent television appearances. A few more photographs of the occasion are here.

We spent some of the afternoon cooling off (that is, with cold refreshments) sitting in our garden at home right by the bean wigwam and the nasturtiums. And in the evening, father kindly invited us to an excellent fish restaurant, where the 8 of us present got through, I suppose, 8 bottles of rather good cold and crisp Sicilian wine.