Brambles, stinging nettles and all

4am and here I am. Jim's been on the computer most of the day, working, so this is the first chance I've had to catch up. After an adventurous night, we didn't drag ourselves out of bed until 1pm. We sat in the conservatory and chatted and admired our gorgeous Irish view for another hour, had 'breakfast'! Finally headed off to my bramble patch. Not too much more to do now. I have yet another pile of rubbish after today's efforts. This patch not only contained brambles but huge stinging nettles, so big they had branches on them and stung my legs through my trousers. Evil things. A nasty rusty piece of barbed wire ripped the end off my Marigolds! They've had to go in the bin tonight and they're so expensive. Must put them on my Christmas list! 'Mountainous supply of gardening gloves'.

I stayed out until it went dark which was around 7.10pm. The days get shorter and shorter. Having wielded the mattock for several hours, shoulders, fingers and legs ached. Several cups of tea and our evening meal revived me somewhat. Watched some rubbish tv, made more knitted things to go inside the pockets of Jack's advent callender. A little caveman, complete with club, a Christmas stocking and a 'bauble', supposedly round but actually rather an odd eliptical shape!

As we're off to Ennis (pronounced Inis) early in the morning, one wonders whether it's worth going to bed at all.

Heard today that Sam the rugby star has been picked for the England rugby squad. First game next Saturday at Huddersfield. Great news.
Night all.