I started the bank holiday weekend a little early by taking the afternoon off work on Friday. I used the time to cook the ‘no knead bread’ I had started the night before and to go for a photowalk in Top Wood with Dave and the dogs. Gracie was in fine posing form and Maya was just having a brilliant time.

Later, for dinner, I made omelette with a goose egg and hen eggs I had got from my Mum. I added chard and thyme from the garden and we ate it with the bread I had just cooked. For pudding we had vanilla ice cream with stewed rhubarb that our neighbour gave us.

Saturday was spent knitting, walking the dogs, playing Frisbee with Dave and Gracie, tidying the house and eating tasty food. We had scrambled eggs (from Mum) and bacon (from Hillstown Farm Shop) for lunch. For dinner we had sausage and bean bake with a pile of buttered ‘no knead bread’.

On Sunday we went walking – a fine stroll, into the wind, along Portstewart Strand. Back at home we dozed, then we ate pasta with aubergine (cooked by Dave), then back to sleep.

Monday we took easy – I made oatcakes for lunch, which we ate with melted cheese and more of our bacon. It was a rainy day so we just went walking to Waterfoot Beach – nothing too strenuous. Then I visited my Granny. Later we had lightly smoked salmon, béarnaise sauce, mashed potatoes and puy lentils for dinner. All cooked by Dave and a marvellous job it was! I ate until I thought I would burst.

Last night I dreamt that there was something wrong with daylight – it was broken – and everything was the colour of a film negative but 3-dimensional.

So, that is what I have been up to. What is coming up is a week away in France, happy me! We leave on Saturday for a week in a wooden cabin in the Dordogne. Sadly, the dogs aren’t able to join us on this trip and will have to spend a week in the Leighinmohr Dog Hotel. On our return we will stop over in London for a night and maybe take in a few sights. I can’t wait!

In the meantime, I thought I may as well do myself a wee photography course. Just a 10 week thing, probably a load of stuff I know already, but a good way to see if I can hack the routine of doing projects and learning.

I will, of course, knit as well. I still need to work on a few easy-peasy designs and then try selling them by myself. It will be relaxed and I will enjoy it.

Oh – and the worms? They are doing okay and have settled back into their home. Turning the contents of the wormery over seemed to do the job.

I have moved some of them to temporary lodgings (a small plastic container). The rest pretended they weren’t trying to get out and hid in the food when I looked in.

My opinion is that something has gotten in to the wormery and is eating them. I can’t figure out what and none of the wormery faqs I have looked at has mentioned worms getting eaten.

Or perhaps the food is starting to rot rather than be digested by the worms and my womery is turning anaerobic! Boo hiss!

I have delved in with my rubber gloves. Turned as much of the food mulch over as I could reach. Here’s hoping it helps.

This year I am growing cacti, green beans, gernaniums, basil, coriander, chilis, sweetpea, tomatoes, salad leaves, spinach, lambs lettuce and a pot of grass (rye!). My little plants are doing just fine though I struggle to find the space to put them all and Gracie has destroyed a few sweetpeas. On Friday we called in at Slemish Gardens and their plants are so much bigger and nicer looking than mine! It made me feel ashamed of my own efforts and my teeny-weeny plants. I wanted to buy lots. But I restrained myself.

Well I never would have thought that I would think this way about plants!

D reminded me that of course the plants at Slemish Gardens are nice and big and healthy looking, their job is to grow nice plants and they have lots of time to do it. Whereas I am a part-timer.