Sunday 21st October - Half Term

Delicious, delightful, delovely half term.

It sort of started on Friday morning - apart from the drumming workshop at 6pm that evening, and an emergency music lesson on the Saturday morning (exam on 31st October), and a heap of admin to complete and email to various people before the weekend.

So, perhaps I should say it started on Saturday afternoon? Yes, that's probably nearer the reality.

We went to Wakehurst place for a light lunch - that's me, the son and the husband. The men roamed the grounds, enjoying the afternoon sunshine, and I roamed the gift shop, enjoying the displays of delectable goodies. I managed to to a little Christmas shopping, and then sat down with a cup of tea and my laptop to have a go at drawing the view across from the cafe

 
 using one of the drawing packages (the simpler one). I'm pretty chuffed with the way it came out.
The cafe was close to a 'poke-stop', so from time to time I was able to go on pokemon and do the twiddly-thing on my phone to collect more poke-balls and presents. Yeah. I know. Do not mock.

Today I did gardening. It's a fairly exhausting process, as 'bend and stretch', and 'dig and delve' are very aerobic activities so I rapidly run out of breath. I have found the best method is to sit down on the path, or in the flowerbed if necessary (on a kneeler, because the ground was wet) and rummage around in the earth with a hand trowel and hand fork. Surprisingly effective. I was working in the 'dark and damp' border which gets mostly shade. 

Over the course of an hour I removed a tub of weeds, planted out an ivy and some primroses I have been saving for this part of the garden, and generally made a bit of a difference.

It was very pleasant; I was joined by a robin sitting on a nearby gate for a while, and observed by a seagull perched imperiously on the TV aerial. An odd assortment of birds, until you remember that the landfill site is only a couple of miles away 'as the crow flies'.

I found this;

It was a bit scrumpled but I managed to unfold it. So delicate.

I have a list of things I would like to get done over half term. Like,
dealing with the admin (there is more to be done)
getting the roughness off the surface of the bathroom basin (he did that yesterday)
hoovering the bedroom
planting the little cuttings I have been taking of our kalanchoe house plants (done yesterday, all 16 of them)
sorting out the skandi-wreath kits for daughter and friends (done this evening)
letters to write

and so forth...