Another one bites the dust

We learn today, neither to our surprise nor with great disappointment, that our July cruise to the fjords has been pulled.  We aren’t far enough through the pandemic to feel comfortable about being confined with best part of three thousand other people.  In less dramatic times we have returned from cruises with infections of one sort and another, so we’re quite relieved by the news.  How soon we can get our two cruises’ worth of money back is another story, of course, but when we do it’ll come in handy to contribute to home projects.  The garden job is paid for and largely complete, the application is in for the garage conversion and a builder is commissioned.  Another builder whom we interviewed and liked also does bathrooms, and our rather shabby bathroom wants sorting once we’re ready to have tradesmen in the house again.

So it looks like we shall be here in July to look after the crops.  The leeks have germinated well, and we’ll be sowing other stuff outside once the next cold snap is past.  It’ll be a week or three before we see any rosemary seedlings, but they are sown in the hot bot propagator next to the rudbeckias, the enthusiasm of which we hope is infectious.  Not sure what other flowering subjects we’ll sow this year.  I might throw some antirrhinum seed around, but shall not waste my time on nurturing seedlings, since the last couple of years’ sowings have languished.  A pot of Display fuchsias, meanwhile, is shedding leaves like mad on the sitooterie floor, but is putting up lots of good shoots that I’ll cut and pot up.

I have yet to master the art of setting up a Zoom meeting, though I’ve taken part in quite a few now.  The local U3A is making extensive use of it: our twice monthly German conversation group is using it (with varying degrees of success), and there’s now a monthly ‘coffee morning’.  Today there’s a virtual craft show: one of the U3A movers and shakers suggested that people send in pictures of their craft activities during lockdown.  I’ve sent in a few pictures of my Brusho abstract greeting cards, which have been quite fun to do.  I gather that the organiser has received pictures of a wide variety of crafts, so it ought to be a fun show.