Busy ol' weekend

So busy, in fact, I am still yawning. So without further ado.....

I made my first batch of strawberry jam. It is damn fine. No lumps and not too sweet. I am very proud and I am going to make a few more jars for through the winter. It was fairly easy, but I get scared when I am dealing with boiling sugar (but not scared enough to change out of my open toed shoes!). We got five large jars out of 800g of freshly picked strawberries.

My tomatoes are making a grand appearance, and we have runner beans coming out of our ears. Even the sweetcorn is recognisable now!

The cucumber plant is just amazing. We've had twenty or so off of it, and it seemed to be winding down. Ellie knocked over all the support canes chasing a butterfly and we didn't bother to fix them since it looked like its production days were over. Well, another couple of shots of seaweed, and we have another eight or nine cucumbers growing nicely!

My onions are all pickled. I didn't have quite enough to fill the jars, so I decided to pickle some garlic as well. Interestingly, garlic turns a nice shade of green when pickled.

We bought double glazing. We need it since ours are full of condensation and are really shitty. Nor can they be locked in the semi open position so we have a choice of sweltering, or losing cats through the window. I loathe double glazing salesmen and their tactics, and so Saturday morning was an ordeal I could have done without.

It was of course made worse by the fact that my copy of Harry Potter was just gasping to be read, and the Baron (not understanding the appeal of Harry Potter) had arranged the visits on Saturday morning. About 10 minutes after the arrival of the postie, to be precise.

We finally got shot of the salesmen (after three and a half long hours) and bought the windows. You'd think that would leave me clear to dive into my book. Ha!

Of course not. The whole world and his wife decided to call me, in quick succession. They wanted to know if my book had arrived. Great.

The phone was removed from the hook. The dog got an extra walk, just for some peace and quiet. And I settled down to enjoy my book.

I got about three pages in, when Ellie decided that I was a captive audience and she needed love. Then and there. She started rolling around on my book, nipping my hand when I tried to turn the page, and rubbing her cheeks on the corners of the book, all the while purring her heart out. Ellie does not normally act like this. Just when there is something else I really want to give my attention to. Bloody typical cat behavior.

Ellie got to play in the garden for a few hours.

Thank fuck I am a quick reader! I finished after a couple of hours of reading, and whilst I didn't really cry at the end (I had guessed what was coming, although at whose hand I hadn't) I very nearly started crying when I realised I would have to wait nearly two years for the last book!

So what did you all think of the book?! Surprised? Sad? Disappointed?