Mad hatters?

It's half past midnight; my backup has kicked in so that my computer is glacially slow; I can't believe how much has been packed into today.  It began with the pantomime of the morning dash to try to make a doctor's appointment, finger hovering over the redial button on the phone. By some mysterious quirk I landed at "number five in the queue" when it switched from "the surgery is now closed..." to "welcome to ...", and had to forgo my usual Pilates class to see my GP about that asterisk tear duct. (He's referring me; I'll find out more tomorrow which is actually today but not now!) I just had time to change to go down to join Himself's class instead, which meant I didn't get any coffee until well after midday. I also managed to hang out two loads of washing - by this time it was a bright, sunny, blowy morning just right for getting it all dried.

Once home, Himself cut the grass while I did my Italian, and I was just putting the kettle on for some late lunch when it struck me I ought to check the time of the rector's tea party in support of RNLI ... with the result that we abandoned lunch altogether and ended up very untypically consuming large slices of a deliciously moist cake and drinking great mugs of tea in the sunshine in the tiny back garden of the interim Rectory. You can see how we all crammed in - people kept arriving, more folding chairs appeared, there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of cake, the conversation and the tea kept flowing. I'm slightly suspicious of our rector's unfailing prediction of good weather for his outdoor events - this is the third event he's planned well in advance and been blessed with warm sunshine...

It was all rather lovely and a tribute, I think, not only to a willingness to hold such events but also to the nature of the core congregation who can sit and blether randomly in such a good-humoured fashion. Douce it was not - there was a lot of hilarity. Afterwards, we walked back down the hill to where we'd left our car on the sea front - I had decided that if we were going to eat cake we needed some compensatory exercise. I got more when we arrived home - taking in the washing, putting it away, cutting some of the triffid-tendrils that had appeared from the stem of the wisteria and were snaking over the patio. 

Dinner was somewhat odd; I've not really shopped yet so we're living out of the freezer except for some potatoes and a head of broccoli. But there were strawberries and huge fat cultivated brambles and by the time we'd eaten it was dark outside and we'd lit the candles for the first time since April. And now the rain is pouring steadily down and the dry spell is over. And so, at last, is Monday ...