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Last year were were swamped with courgettes. This year it’s cucumbers. I harvested eight more from the allotment this morning to add to the 10 and a half in the fridge although I have since given about 10 to dad for pickling. I have already pickled many myself. I need some other good recipes for cucumber or to host a posh tea party with lashings of cucumber sandwiches. That may be the solution. A cucumber party! DON’T bring your own cucumber.

Helen forgot to mention to most intriguing and unusual sight from my Schmevon mini-break. We were leaving the outdoor swimming pool in Smashburton when my attention was grabbed by a strange melted mass in the lane. It was mainly red and looked like someone had set fire to a bin, very successfully, resulting a hardened, plastic puddle on the Tarmac. As I studied this strange lump I suddenly realised that it was one of those bins that you put dog shit into and, what’s more, at the time of the blaze or conflagration, the bin had been stuffed with dog poo, which had formed into a kind of heap in the middle with some lumps preserved forever in a plastic coating. It was a bit like a display by that man who plastinates people, but more disgusting, if that’s possible. Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning. Wish I’d taken a photo.

Joandi have been out on Smartmoor today.  We did the famous endurance challenge, driving between two Smartmoor sights and briefly getting out of the car to look at each of them.

We looked at a bronze age settlement (round) and a medieval settlement (with corners).  What a lot of change there was in the thousands of years between the two.

We popped into a Post Office to buy a drink and also picked up some steak.  This did seem rather weird, but I think that’s how things are in Schmevon.  The steak was just in the counter by the penny sweets.  We’ve just eaten it for dinner and it was actually jolly tasty.

The mouse is still here. I keep finding mouse droppings. So today we collected a mouse trap from my parents. It’s a nice mouse trap in that it does not kill mice but secures them in a jam jar holding facility until they can be safely released into the wild. I have lined the jam jar with some newspaper to make it more cosy and have provided an array of snacks, designed to please any mouse – a piece of cheese, a tiny apple from our allotment and some nuts. The idea is that the mouse goes through the door, which then snaps shut behind it.  I will then take the mouse to the allotment, where it can start a new life a bit like enforced Location, Location, Location. It will move from a cramped town house to a beautiful rural-ish idyll. Having said that we were briefly tempted  by some “mouse glue” we saw in a DIY shop. You put out these cardboard huts with mouse glue on the floor and the mice get stuck and then you have to kill them (humanely). I couldn’t kill a poor mouse though. Squeak!

I know you have all been biting your nails and worrying about the wonky door on my new wardrobe so I thought I had better not keep you in suspense any longer. Finally, today the wardrobe people came back. One of the men was initially quite grumpy and tried to make out I was being fussy by demanding perfection from my very expensive wardrobe. However, he did concede that the door needed shifting up and that when they’d done it, it looked a million times better. Anyway, now I can sleep easier in my bed, knowing that upon waking I won’t be confronted with the sight of that 4-5mm gap. An triumph.

I am back safe and sound from Mealdstone. It was not a wasted journey. As well as collecting my purse from Dwellingbase, I bought a new lightbulb from Dwellingbase, and purchased a duster from the Discount shop next door. Dwellingbase does not do dusters, for some reason. Anyway, this is good news for me, but bad news for the spider that has set up home on the kitchen ceiling. His webs will be eradicated. I was glad to see the back of Mealdstone, which is populated with colourful characters, including the alcoholic in a shell suit that I saw coming out of the Spaitrose toilet (shocking, I know – but that’s Mealdstone for you), the youth wearing a T-shirt that said: “I can give Aspirin a headache” (how nice), and the mental man from down our road. I smiled at him but he ignored me. Now I shall go and test my new duster, which cost £1, and is probably made of asbestos.

I am about to embark on my THIRD trip to Dwellingbase this weekend. It is not unusual for Helenandi to visit Dwellingbase three times in one weekend as you always think you have everything you need for a DIY project but then it turns out that you have run out of sandpaper and then you find out the wood filler has dried up and so on. Normally it is simply a matter of leaping in the car and zooming there and back. However, this weekend I am sans Helen and sans car so I have had to walk all the way to the store, which is in horrible Mealdstone. The first time I went to buy a lamp stand for a new lampshade. But when I got there, I realised I should have bought the lampshade with me as it was impossible to assess which stand to buy without it. So I trundled back later that day with the lampshade and bought a stand and a lightbulb. The lightbulb was wrong, of course, but that is not why I am going back for a THIRD time. I need to go back and get my purse which I left there on my second trip. Thankfully it is safe and waiting for me at customer services. Oof!

Worrying developments. Today I found two mouse droppings on my desk and one in my in-tray. It seems we still have a mouse in the house. Haven’t seen any sign of the mouse in the kitchen so it appears the creature is now concentrating on admin. Where is it hiding, I wonder?

Today the whole world set out to deliberately annoy me (and Helen). It started with our internet breaking although technically that was the night before. However, Helen had to shout at some poor people in India this morning. Everything she’d been told by the BT person the previous night was wrong, according to the new BT person this morning. Anyway, then the internet magically fixed itself so that was a relief. Meanwhile, I was having a horribly vexing day in an office. It’s too boring to explain. Suffice to say, I left fuming and shouting (inwardly). I got home and Helen showed me a massive green cable, which our neighbours have installed without permission in our front garden. My inner rage starting boiling over. Then we went to the allotment to calm down. Surely some time spent among the peace of our pumpkin patch would soothe us? But when we arrived at the allotment we found the gate had been blocked by the builders who are building an old folks’ home next to it. Someone had fixed a barrier to it and we could not shift it. Previously we had noted a sign informing us that pedestrian access would be blocked from Monday 23rd for road re-surfacing. We knew that, but this was Friday 20th. So we summoned a man in a fluorescent vest.

Us: Can you help us? We can’t get into the allotment.

Man: Haven’t you read the sign?

Us: Yes. We’ve read the sign, which clearly states that pedestrians can get into the allotments up until the 23rd. We are pedestrians.

Man: Oh. I thought this was a vehicle access.

Us: Please can you remove the thing blocking the gate so we can get in.

(Man goes away and comes back)

Man: I’ve had a word with my guvnor and he says this has to stay and we’re going to be locking the site so you’ll have to leave.

Us: This sign clearly says we should be able to get in and out of our allotment up until the 23rd.

Man: There’s nothing I can do and I’ll need to lock the other gate (also blocking the road).

Helen: Then we’ll just have to climb over.

Man: Well, if you die or hurt yourself then you can’t complain to us.

Then Helen called Tony, whose number was on the sign and thankfully he rang us back and told the man (Neville) to take down the gate, which Neville did in a bad mood.

Then we went into the allotment and found people had been picking OUR blackberries. Even though everyone comments about our untidy bramble patch it doesn’t stop them helping themselves to our blackberry crop. Then just as we were leaving, a fellow allotmenter commented that he hardly ever sees us these days, which made me annoyed again, having just calmed down a bit in the presence of pumpkins and birds. We’re always bloody up there!

BUT there is a happy ending. Because as we were leaving the allotments Neville saw us and said: “Ladies – I’m sorry for being rude to you earlier.” And we said: “We were rude to you too. Sorry.” And Neville said: “Let’s start with a clean slate.” And we all laughed.

However, there is still that bloody cable in the garden. I will try not to think about it for the moment.

I am working in an office today and it’s made me realise how lucky I am to work from home. Firstly, it is boiling hot in here and I can feel a headache forming behind my eyes. Secondly, I am in a corner staring at a wall all by myself so might as well be at home alone. Thirdly, I am being shone on by a glaring strip light. Fourthly, there is no oxygen and I can barely breathe. Fifthly, I have to work on an horrid Mac and my phone is broken.