Pinch, Punch, 1st of the Month! 1.8.08

August already. Frightening stuff. It was quite fine but very blustery today. We slobbed about a bit this morning, had breakfast still in our dressing gowns and wondered whether we'd ever get the extension done. Decided to take Buster for a walk as he's a bit hyper today. Jim hasn't had him off the lead yet, so we didn't put a lead on him at all today and he was great. He doesn't stray far from us and (usually) comes when you call him, at his own pace of course.

Sandy also came most of the way with us in spite of our efforts to try and get him to go back home. It was a lovely walk, sunshine and a breeze for cooling. Sandy didn't re-appear but we assumed he'd come home a bit later.

Jim caught me with 'Pinch Punch.....' Grrrr. That's 2 months running now.

I did some general tidying in the garden. Chopped down the dead antirrhinums and then I weeded some more of the parking area. Well, it takes a long time by hand. As I was sitting there, a large car drew up the other side of the gate. It was one of the builders, John Ireland, who had been recommended to me by Ann Broderick. He's a friendly chap and said he wanted to look round before he could quote. Seems like a good idea to me. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get it started this year!

Buster behaved like a lunatic while he was here. He kept jumping up and trying to grab the plans out of the builders' hands and then trying to eat his feet. We eventually put him in the fenced off area round the front and he made the most awful noises. You would have thought we were strangling him.

He is still 'snappy' and generally manic most of the time. Not sure what to do about it, maybe time will cure him. When I'm sitting doing the weeding, he always comes and tries to sit on my lap, which isn't really conducive to good weeding.

Oh and Sandy hadn't turned up by dinner time, so when John had gone, Jim wandered off to look for him. No sign. I thought he'd probably return by himself as he's much more sensible than BlackJack. Sure enough, as I was weeding away I heard a little 'meow' behind me and there he was. Phew!

Watched some of 'America's got Talent' on tv. What a laugh, apart from a ventriloquist and a group of Karate chaps, the rest were pretty rubbish, and it's down to the wire now. Oh and a group of 4 LARGE ladies who sang and danced called The Glamazons. They were great fun.

Off to read other folks' blogs now. Oh, took a few photos today. Not very good but I'll post them anyway. There was a fantastic sky tonight with a rainbow and I called Jim out to take a few shots, so I'll post them too. They're good.














Montbretia in the sunlight





















A rather pretty yellow tinged butterfly on our aubretia. Slightly out of focus.





















Part of the front garden, through Fennel plant
























One of the photo subjects for the Gort Show photo competition is 'Garden Scene' so I was working on that. Here I have Jim's gnome serenading the Fairy on the fairy hill.





















The Fairy on Fairy Hill peeping
out from the fern.




















Jim behind the lavender










The rainbow was fading, the sky was amazing























I love this photo, so moody and atmospheric





















One of the many boots and shoes I have unearthed at Doorus! Jim took this too.