Hello
Having, this morning at the crack of dawn, written all about May to you, I thought I blogged it dubiously, emailed Australia and a phone call from Alison and Ian confirmed this. I confidently clicked on the saved document on desktop to see “c Ann”!!!
So I obviously do not write again at a very early hour - and here goes again.......
May has been a mixed month weatherwise. It’s been generally cold and with quite a lot of rain. We had another real gale last week and it was of great concern all round as there are now a lot of yachts at anchor in the bay. Only one yacht went walkabout and three brave young local chaps boarded her with difficulty, started the engine and got her out of danger. Today is wonderful - warm and sunny and I have spent three hours in the garden. The lawns are cut (I had help with the front one) and all the vege garden is weeded. Now there are potatoes (with flowers about to open), rows of different lettuce, broccoli and onions. The leeks should be ready to plant next week perhaps....
My son John came up after I got back from Edinburgh, where baby Daniel arrived safely on April 27th. We are all delighted with him and Sam, Catriona and Sean are greatly taken with their little brother. John stayed 8 days and was not idle! My long list of “to do, have tried, but can’t) very quickly disappeared. The trellis looks terrific and half of it is planted with climbers and a Goldcrest Cypress. The other half I plan to do when Ian and Alison come in September and they can have a wee bit of garden named after them!
The month has been busy with guests from all over and I have really enjoyed their company. New Zealand cousins of Dolan also stayed a few days. Don was over for a 60th Anniversary War Reunion and Lynley accompanied him - they visited family in England, Inverness and here and did such a lot of travelling to say hello to all the family.
This month I had a “Baking phase”. It ground to a halt the other day after a visiting village dog ate two sultana cakes at the back door to cool, the tops of two fruit loaves burned to a cinder and fancy icing I tried refused to set - even in the freezer! So I am knitting in the evenings - anything rather than spend necessary time getting the annual accounts, etc. in order for the accountant!
The animals are well and Yarrow (dog) and Sponge (cat) really love it when guests appear. Yarrow has had so many walks up the village and Sponge appears from nowhere to check if new arrivals admire him! Wee Cheque (my tortoise) is safely out of hibernation and will be coming home a week on Friday. She’s not very big but is more work than the other two! I will soon be spending quite a lot of time hunting the garden for the pink shampoo bottle, attached to her by a short length of strong string, or I’d lose her under the hedge or elsewhere. I do bring her in nightly in case the “cake eating” dog decides she is worth trying........
I’ll be in touch soon again - now I’m going to save this letter! Ann.
