Touchdown at the Newest Bluestocking Inn. Pudding, cups of tea, the vegetable garden coming into its own, and gerbils beautiful gerbils all furry.

[DeanElderberry]

All females welcome for intelligent discourse and non-harmful comestibles.

Oh the electrically powered water feature!

Definitely! But it has to be tasteful.

We looked at garden sculpture and really liked some cranes, but next door have those (the animal kind, not the mechanical kind) and we don't want to copy. Then there are the whimsical gnomes and dwarves, the grecian ladies, the cherubs and fairies and the Angus cows - which are lovely but not for us. Many of these are water features.

We ended up with two tiny owls and a fox and may get more of those and we definitely will have water, but it's so hard to choose something that doesn't look naff.

I missed the conversation about maths problems earlier - sorry. When ds2 was heading for senior school, he and his friend sat the 11+. His friend’s mum and I bought them the 11+ practise books, and then we got hooked on them too - we’d spend the morning at my table, drinking coffee and doing maths problems, or verbal reasoning - sad but fun.

I do have a maths text book I bought for myself, so I could go back over my O level maths, and see if I could get a better grip on it. I’ve found I enjoy doing maths puzzles when I’m not going to have to sit exams or look dim in class - I like the logic and the fact that there is a correct answer, and sometimes I can find it.

My dad was a maths teacher, but when I was struggling with my homework, he wouldn't sit with me and help me work through the problems I was having trouble with - he thought that was cheating - so he would make up a new problem, demonstrating the thing I was supposed to be doing, and would work through that problem with me, then say “Now - you understand what you need to do, so you can apply it to your homework”. As a teenager, I thought it was incredibly unfair that I had a maths teacher for a dad and couldn’t benefit from it by getting my homework partly done for me.

@MyrtleLion - we have a concrete alligator and Cornelius the concrete pig in our garden. The pig was a joint choice, but the alligator is all dh’s - he saw it in a garden centre in Yorkshire, and we brought it home from holiday with us. Both of them have moved house with us a couple of times.

An alligator and a pig... nice.

We have about four garden centres, possibly more near where we are, so hopefully we can find something lovely.

I have an armadillo.

I particularly love Gaudy Night, probably because I was at one of the Oxford women's colleges in the mid-60s, with some tutors almost old enough to have been contemporaries of Harriet Vane. My college was gradually modernising, but still recognisably a credible setting for that novel.

Sayers' working women - the dons, the advertising executives, even Miss Climpson, are a delight.

I got a different sort of puzzle book in a charity shop this morning https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ordnance-Survey-Ireland-Puzzle-Book/dp/1529311187 (not for anything like the price amazon are asking). I love maps and am looking forward to it, but might refrain from gobbling it up at once and instead make a start on my 'Christmas treats' box.

Coming back from town there was a huddle of high-viz vests at the entrance to the village, and an ambulance. I slowed down to ask - a chap had died overnight. I parked beside the pub and walked back - a pal is their next door neighbour. The man's wife, also a friend, is in Spain on holiday - she had a bad dose of that clingy flu and needed some warmth and sun - so we don't know yet when the funeral will be, but the history group's committee meeting may need to be re-scheduled. And the hearse was delayed because there had already been two deaths in town this morning. It's very disconcerting the way Death seems to do batch reaping.

That book looks FAB!!!!!

I think the type we have in our pond is called a blade - a wide sheet of water from the raised wall of the pond. It and the filter are electrically powered

This is it when we first built it - it's full of plants now

I need a Fuzzy forecast...

It's been sunny all day. I have both clothes lines full AND a full airer outside. Do I go for an afternoon nap and leave the washing out? Or do I need to bring in as it will be raining by 2.18 pm?

Hob is installed! The Walrus is delighted.

One socket is on the wall and the next one will be added shortly. Then the wiring will be connected.

I have to go out at 2.15, so I hope it's all done by then.

Sorry to hear about the deaths in your area, Deano, it's obviously one of those places where everybody knows somebody if not exactly everybody, so everybody is personally affected by these local losses

I have that Ordnance Survey book too, Deano - a gift from someone who knows how much I love love love maps😄

We actually went to a nearby Costa to have breakfast to avoid the banging, drilling and cutting. Conveniently the power was switched off while we were out. It will go off again soon and then we'll be done.

My family are campaigning for a hob like that and I am holding out against them. I char vegetables on the gas ring pretty frequently and I don't want to lose that ability.

I love maps, too! I bought this Roman sites one recently in a charity shop, just to look at it. Or maybe to use on my next trip somewhere- I suppose Roman sites will not have changed much since 1991, seeing as they're, well, Roman.

I've got this one.

And I absolutely love Miss Climpson. I also love Miss Lemon from the Poirot books with her endless quest for the perfect filing system.

That map looks fun, right up my alley

So it was a short, rainy and windy walk today. Looking up at the ridgeway occasionally and wondering when Ill be able to get up there again. After the winter and early spring we've had, it will still be a bog up there, so waiting for drier weather. The mud up there just sucks the life out of you, and a mile can feel like an eternity.

Everything is so early this year. Bluebells are all out already, cherry blossom gone by, lilacs blooming, clematis montana blooming, and even saw some apple blossom!

Am tired and wet, will be in the Quilting Nook, admiring our new quilting frame, if anyone needs me.

"batch reaping" is a wonderfully descriptive phrase: maximum impact with a minimum of words. Sorry this has happened.

Strong cup of coffee with just a little bit of milk please, bar gerbils. Watch out for the frame!

Death definitely does batch reaping. I seem to go to funerals in threes. Commiserations, Deano.

I quite envy those of you who have rain. It's getting very dry here and a field just down the road is already being irritated. I think it's a case of either the recently-sown seeds germinate, or there won't be a crop.

Spring is, well, springing on. Out walking the other day, I had blackthorn petals snowing on me in the breeze. Last week the hedges really greened up, and over the past 4 or 5 days the oaks have come into leaf. Some are covered by little acid green leaves and others are just opening their buds. The hawthorn is leafing too - and the primroses are still going.

The above edited for autocarrot, which doesn't like the way I use words and changes them 😡

We don't like compelled speech, do we? so back off, autocarrot!😄

I think you missed one - I'm sure the field is being irrigated not irritated, though who knows what fields are thinking -
'FFS they ask me to grow stuff and I grow it, then they dig it all up again and make me grow more stuff all over again again, what was wrong with the first lot I grew?
And as for getting sprayed with slurry - irritates the hell out of me, it does😡'