Visits abroad

I'm licking the last remaining sugary goo off my fingers from a fragment of Brighton Rock that HM1 brought back with her yesterday from, well, Brighton. It's been ages since I had any, and it quite nicely rounds off a lovely weekend.

I trained it over to "Swampea" (as the predictive text on my phone calls the place) on Friday for a few days of catching up with friends and enjoying a joint 30th birthday party in a field. I went to the their joint 25th birthday party which makes me feel like I've been in the UK a really long time now... I had tasty Indonesian food on Friday and thoroughly enjoyed the warm sunny Saturday that I spent wandering around Mumbles and then onto Murton on the Gower.

I managed a visit to the Red Cafe to see them in action (ie overrun with toddlers!) and to fit in a years worth of news into an hour with one of the managers. A couple of weeks ago my flip flops came apart as I was cycling. This was a tragic event, if not entirely unexpected, as these were my favourite shoes and I had worn them almost exclusively for the past three summers. It can be very hard to replace items that command such respect but while in Mumbles I had a wave of genius: why not go to the same shop I bought the first pair from and get another... I am now the owner of another pair of flip flops and in the process of introducing my feet to them and I have high hopes of them lasting the next three years!

The party took place in glorious sunlight, with a lovely bbq, great massive tipii with a sound system and decks, a fire, lots of lovely people - and no bloomin' planes flying over my head! I felt completely relaxed and like I was on holiday plus I had a good dance. In fact I stayed up till the last song and saw the dawn come in. The music was a crazy mixture of childrens songs early in the evening, a live folk band, and whatever music the dj's fancied playing into the night. It was lovely to have so many families with children in the early afternoon/evening and see them all running around - about the same height as the grass - and pretending to be like the pigs on the land.

London really does have a sad lack of tipiis in fields and big open fires to gather around.

On Sunday I got the grand tour of two allotments of my University friends and I think I might have a grave case of "allotment envy". Although it did show up how very little I do know about gardening in general. I hope something will grow out the back in my titchy, tiny patch...

Our new patch

As part of my rather domestic day (including making some kiwi bread) I spent a couple of hours clearing ivy off a patch of the border in the garden. This grand patch of a garden is mostly grass and looked after by some gardeners, but as they don't do anything with the borders I'm reclaiming it for a vegetable patch!

Not that I know anything about growing vegetables but this should be a good time to start. It'll be small and close to the house and if it all goes horribly wrong then I can always let the ivy grow back:) I am extremely grateful for some offers to dig the patch and I also managed to borrow my neighbour's tools for the time being so that's good too. We don't know what we're doing but HM2 and I are particularly keen to give it a go and see what happens. Should be fun! And lots, and lots of digging.