Happy Monday (and happy day off to those of you in the UK who can celebrate, sorry Scotland, you’ve had your day!)

So we’re here, end of August, no more Bank Holidays until Christmas (unless the King dies!) and I plan to spend today and tomorrow on the plot. Here’s last week’s miscellany:

1. Dahlias unfurling. I can not express now happy I am that gamble worked, the next gamble will be seeing if I can mulch them thorough winter so they flower again next year!

 2. I don’t have a massive social circle but I’m so glad to have the friends I do. This week I’m very grateful for them. Sarah who while in the middle of so much other stuff she has going on, has talked me off a very irritable ledge twice this week and Jo who I met for dinner this week. We swapped very belated presents and apparently my loves are well known and have made their way to my Christmas Tree! And Christelle and Sue who have both checked up on me this week. We are all dealing with a lot of other stuff but I’m lucky to have these people in my life.

3. I’ve lived in West London for most of my 50-ish years on the planet so why is it always a surprise to me when TfL send out it’s emails about Carnival? If you asked when it was, I would tell you it’s the August Bank Holiday but every year that email comes and I’m like ‘oh it’s Carnival’ and make a note not to use the Tube this weekend. I know why, because it’s not really my thing, but I have fond memories of several older ladies at church who needed to take the week to recover after….they always blamed the dancing and never the punch!

4. It’s been a really bad week for allergies, I’ve been taking my anti-histamines but up until this week I had it under control but this week I’m reacting to something and for the life of me I can’t work out what it is, but I’ve been a snotty, eye watering mess this week! I’ve had to deploy the eye drops in the hope that it’ll help.

5. I spend a lot of time on buses and when I am queen of the world there will be a law banning people who take calls longer than 2 minutes or who use their phones to play games or watch videos without headphones. I don’t want to hear your music. If you have lost of forgotten your headphones, you just don’t use your phone. I’m considering buying g ear defenders because it’s driving me to fucking distraction.