The leggings are calling

Right then, tomorrow I WILL run. That's it, I've said it. No excuses.

Monkey hug

So sweet. Just look at his little hand!

This is the heartwarming picture that I keep on my desk at work. It gets me through the day. I love it!

Pepper Leper

Not to be trusted

I am a Pepper Leper. Accidentally ate some peppers hiding in a rainbow salad. The results: rolling around in agony, feeling like I was about to faint, cold and hot sweats, headache, runny nose (?!), debilitating stabbing pains and the rest. They look so sweet but they are evil.

Bring on the cakes!

The inspiration

Cream tea garden party invite finally sent out. Who could resist?

Ministry of funny walks

Graceful athletes

Looking at all the London Marathon stories in the papers today and thinking I should try and get back to Portland and do a run to The Bill. It's so nice on a sunny day. But right now I think I might look a bit like these woman.

Views from the Portland run

Missy in disgrace

I love alive sparrows, like this beauty.

Naughty Miss Marple killed a sparrow in front of our guests. The poor little bird is now in the compost and Missy is strutting around like a champion. I won't take a picture of her because she's in the bad books! But here's a picture of a nice sparrow.

Wet Wet Wet

The Wets

Friday was Sam's birthday party and I managed to make an idiot of myself. Again. Drunkenly singing Wet Wet Wet songs acapella. Again! As Sam said, anyone who only sees me once a year at his birthday will think I spend all my time rolling around, being obsessed with Wet Wet Wet.

I don't just blame the booze though. I think it has a lot to do with the power of The Wets.

Best thing I own: The update

Boxed placemats. So shiny. So lovely.

Elsie Bellevue - she can be evil, but goddamit, I love that poodle!

The title for Best Thing I Own has a new hot contender. Oh my goodness, have you ever seen anything so good? I doubt it! And if you did doubt it for a second then pause and realise that yes, one of these placemats is the very same picture that I already own in a framed format! It's Elsie Bellevue! (the legendary detective poodle who brings bad luck to Helen). This means we now have two Elsie's in the house. I hope Helen isn't having a spate of bad luck as I type.

The mighty Emmaus

You'd pay a fortune for this in some shops.

Not everything that happened yesterday was bad. Emmaus charity shop has reopened in a bigger warehouse and now has a 'boutique' floor. Basically the usual tatt has been laid out with such care and attention that it brings a joyful tear to my eye. The old, broken occasional table we gave them a few months ago has become part of a living room scene. It still looks shit but hopefully someone will buy it.

Anyway, I got this bedside table for £5. It needs washed, possibly repainted and the top needs recovering. But it'll look lovely once it's all done. I love Emmaus.

Evil weevils

The rotters

Today was lovely and sunny but instead of sitting back and admiring the Springtime flowers I had to pick loads of nasty vine weevil grubs out of all my plant pots. It was disgusting. They had to be squished. I soon discovered that they are full of milky liquid that is quite likely to splat all over you. The weevils revenge!

Other bad things that happened today:
*Realised loads of my daffs and tulips are blind (won't produce any flowers).
*Emptied a stinking vase of old water out and managed to splash my jumper. Dirty pond smell all over me.
*Discovered the black cat has been in and sprayed all over the spare room and my paper lantern - so no chance of being able to save that from the bin.

The trouble with balls

An annoying suitor

This sneaky cat has been coming in, making a nuisance of himself and spraying EVERYWHERE! Poor Abs even gets woken up at 4am every night as he yeowls outside her bedroom window. We think he is courting Miss Marple. I need to find his owners and get them to snip his balls off.

A pain in the pittosporum

The beast...

...is tamed

Today I tackled this shrub. It'd been taking over the garden for far too long. It was bothering me so it was time to dig it up. But the bugger did not want to budge. It took two hours - and four people to get rid of it. Now I just need to re-turf and and plant some stuff in the gap.

In all, I spent seven hours working out in the garden. Loved it. Saw lots of worms too, so that's good.