Oh, for a blower

After another lovely session at the gym, pushing the boundaries of a stationary bike, I headed into town for my milky reward. Upon arrival, Sue declared that she was no longer going to put my order on the sticky label for the baristas. Instead she was just going to write ‘Gary’ and let them work it out.

No one said anything about my new, dyed beard. I was quite amazed. It looks very different to me.

I spent a good deal of the day in the garden, hand picking leaves from around the plants in the Garden of One Thousand Yaps. I suddenly realised the benefit of having a leaf blower. I’ve always assumed they were just for people who have no idea how to use a broom.

This would be absolutely pointless on the terrace because such a time saving device would just cover the Garden of One Thousand Yaps in three times as many leaves and creating work rather than saving it. However, one would make life a lot easier in the actual garden. But no, I spent hours hand picking them out.

I did start with a small rake but it tended to just rip into the plants while the leaves just sat, flat and immovable, mocking my attempts to create a lovely non-leaf environment. I discarded the rake pretty quickly.

After lunch we went up to the park for a bit of a walk. The weather has turned back to being a bit warm again, probably because of the almost constant grey cloud cover. At least the likelihood of rain is minimal…or so the BBC said this morning.

While throwing the ball for Emma and keeping an eye on Freya, I had a text from Mirinda asking me to book her a ticket to Sadler’s Wells tonight. She even suggested a possible seat which was available. And how brilliant is it that all I have to do was find a bench, sit down and buy her a ticket. It took about five minutes. It was waiting for her at the box office.

As I said to Mirinda on her way home from the ballet (which she said was fantastic) back in the old days (pre-2008) I’d have had to cut the walk short because I would have had to go home and use the laptop. I hate to admit it but Apple, albeit indirectly, has made my life a lot better.

(Mind you, I did buy her the wrong ticket. She wanted B5 but I stupidly bought BB5. Oh, the annoying shame!)

The Squirrel Tree

On the way back from our walk, I ran into Sally and we chatted all the way to our road. She told me her kids are coming home from Oz for Christmas (they must do it every two years). When I asked when they were arriving she was very confused and, eventually said “Before Christmas!” Poor Sally. I also retold her stuff she’d already asked me on a number of other occasions.

Still, she’s a happy soul with a very obedient dog. According to Sally the reason Millie is so obedient is because she knows who the boss is.