Blast. BLAST!!

There I was, suited and booted and heading for a meeting at the Old Bailey when the announcement came across at our tinpot country station telling us of a delay.  Some minutes later we learned that a fault on the train was being seen to two stations down the line.  After ten silent minutes I went to the information point and called the information desk.  No reply.  Second try: 'Oh, there's been a cancellation: it should have been announced'.  It had not, of course, and I needn't trouble you with the remainder of the conversation.  Martyn who had only just got home, had thus to turn round and come and get me again.  Meanwhile, I stood on the unmown, tree-lined platform, overlooking the river and listening to the birdsong.  And inhaling seventeen million varieties of pollen.  Eyes stiggig, dose ruddig, oenotherapy in progress.

All part of the joys of an English spring, I suppose, though we had thundery showers yesterday, and at one point the sitooterie roof was carpeted with pea-sized hail stones.  Still, although the garden also makes me sneeze, it is quite good to look at just now, and the oriental poppies are showing colour at last.   The rose-pink penstemon cuttings I thought I'd killed and was about to sling out are shooting modestly from their bases, fuchsia cuttings taken a few days ago are sitting up and taking notice, and the cistus purpureus cuttings have decent little root systems.  The spuds have all produced luxuriant top hamper and are now earthed up, and we're hoping for a decent crop.  We've grown them in containers before with a good degree of success: the variety we had good results from in the past (Charlotte) was the slowest to get started, but seems to be catching up.  The beans look pretty feeble: we'll see.

I am starting to get tradesman overload.  In the last few days we've had visits from the plumber (twice) the plasterer, the sparky and the carpenter, all coming to size up the kitchen refit.  The plumber made the interesting suggestion that we could move the washing machine out to the garage and thus at the same time simplify the layout and significantly increase storage space.  Sound good to us, so we'll now have to have the kitchen designer back to  rehash the layout once again.  The chances of a July start are thus a touch doubtful, but we'll see.