Long weekend

Krakow Botanic Garden, July 2016

Since the brief flurry of activity my social life has dwindled to its usual state, although I made an exception for Lola II and Mr M's garden party, which was lovely as always.

The long Bank Holiday weekend was extended even further for me given that I don't work on Tuesdays. I started on Friday night by shopping for the week, then making one of the Polish soups that Mr M gave me - chłodnik. It needed Google Translate to work out the extra ingredients needed and the cooking method. I finally finished watching Schindler's List, which took three sittings because of both its length and its intensity. There were a few locations that were recognisable as Krakow.

I had made a bit of progress on the patio weeds before the long weekend, but managed to strain the muscles in my legs and crippled myself for two days. The rest of the weekend contained much, much more work on the patio, which is now fully weeded without further damage to my legs, and the ivy is gone. I wouldn't bet on it being gone for good; it's been astonishingly resilient to everything I've thrown at it. Now I need to return to the wisteria.

I did some more Polish cooking (gołabki since you ask) and watched about three quarters of the opening ceremony from the London 2012 Olympics, only four years late. The only reason I've watched three quarters of it is because it doesn't all fit on one DVD - it goes as far as all the performances about British history and then all the teams coming into the arena, but not as far as the lighting of the Olympic flame. No wonder the Queen didn't look very amused; that will have been about five hours of her life she won't get back even if everyone did love that she agreed to be in the James Bond mini-movie.

There's been a lot of other stuff to do which isn't worth reporting, mostly online research about one financial commitment or another - a joint account, the best mobile phone contract, best buy ISA, hard wheeled case and stand for my baritone saxophone, how best to sell on ebay, and more. Mr M would be proud of me - I've started making use of different offers on various current accounts, but it's making my head hurt a bit.

At work I've presented the website I've created for the Very Low Carb Lifestyle to the relevant Dietitians. They have all been very complimentary about it, which is very pleasing. It can pretty much do without much attention now, except that I hope to put up a new recipe every week or so. This won't be sustainable, so it might have to be once a month to avoid raising expectations. Next will be to introduce it to the new Dietetic Manager and a few potential customers, to see what they think.

Olympic torch relay

Can you see the Torch?

It's proving impossible to find enough time nowadays to blog as often as I'd like. Last weekend, instead of sitting inside mucking about on the computer like I usually do, we decided it was time to do something constructive around the house. Then there is the shopping and laundry and cooking and cleaning and washing up that I can't do during the week any more, and the Olympic torch went through Leamington town centre last Sunday. While I'm not particularly interested in the Olympic torch relay itself, I do like to see what's going on, so we walked into town. All the activities advertised in the Pump Room Gardens had packed up and gone except for a few lone stalls, but there were lots of people lining the torch route.

There it is!

What then happened went roughly like this:

• policemen
• motorbikes
• motorbikes
• big bus advertising something red that I couldn't quite see
• motorbikes
• a green bus advertising Lloyds TSB bank
• an open top bus with some dancers on top and someone saying something into a microphone that I couldn't hear
• a bus with blacked-out windows driven by a grumpy looking driver
• motorbikes
• a bus advertising Coca-Cola with some more dancers on top and another inaudible microphone
• motorbikes
• more motorbikes
• some healthy-looking runners in grey outfits
• some cyclists
• someone on pogo stick legs who could bounce really high (I want some of those)
• motorbikes
• a big truck that turned out to be holding the BBC Torchcam
• Olympic flame
• runners in grey outfits
• motorbikes
• cyclists in costumes getting caught up in the dispersing crowds.

The whole spectacle took about 15 minutes to go past, with the actual torch occupying about 15 seconds, of which I managed a brief glimpse. Verdict: underwhelming. Unless you are particularly keen on police motorcycles. Or jumping stilts (£160. I just looked them up).

News from the garden: Mr A replaced one of the posts holding up the veranda while I tried to combat the annual patio weeds and deal with all the other overgrown plants. Sad to say, our ceanothus is a shadow of its former self following the frost damage, and although it had some new leaves and a few flowers, it isn't looking too good at the moment. The wisteria, on the other hand, is making a bid to take over the whole end bed - next year the whole garden, then the world, I imagine. I attempted to teach it some manners last weekend, and we'll see who is the winner. This weekend it is just too wet for gardening, and I need to get some admin done.

Before and after

 Mr A has also demonstrated some unashamed size prejudice with his birdwatching activity. He so much prefers our sparrows, robins and blackbirds compared to the magpies and pigeons that he has cut down the struts holding up the roof of our bird table to prevent the larger birds getting at the food. We are now frequently entertained by the double-decker effect of a small bird scoffing away on the table while a larger bird struts up and down on the roof looking over the edge but not managing to get in. He can't stop them picking up the seed that spills onto the grass below, so they aren't totally excluded.

I will try not to leave such a long pause between posts in future, but I can't promise anything. This full time job situation is so inconvenient sometimes...