“St Swithin’s day, if thou dost rain, For forty days it will remain;

St. Swithin’s day, if thou be fair, For forty days ’twill rain na mair”

This proverb dates back to 1599 and means that, if it rains on St. Swithin’s Day it will rain for the following 40 days. However, if it’s fine on St. Swithin’s Day, it will be fair for the 40 days after. Today, 15^th July, is overcast with not a drop of rain, so looks like I shall be watering my vegetables daily for the next forty days. My tomatoes and runner beans are all flowering and I have already picked, cooked and eaten three courgettes. Unfortunately two snails and a slug discovered my lettuce. How do they do it? They have had to crawl all the way up the sides of the upturned dustbin on which the growbag is balanced. The distance must be roughly equivalent to a human climbing up one hundred metres. Can the pests smell the lettuce? Luckily I found the culprits before they did any major damage.

Did you plan to use the extra time at home during “lockdown” to tackle those jobs that you never quite got around to doing before? I had high hopes of completing half a dozen craft projects: updating my photo albums AND tidying my Craft Room. However, it has taken me all this time just to finish ONE project. It is almost a so if I am working in slow-motion. With the long summer days stretching ahead of me with absolutely no commitments in my diary it can take me until noon just to get washed and dressed. So I have decided to add some structure to my days:-

• Get up before 8am
• Drink morning cup of tea
• Do my exercises
• Shower and dress
• Eat breakfast
• Go for a walk
• Spanish lesson on Duolingo

Then it does not matter what pace I set myself for the rest of the day. I have experimented with leaving activities for later on – but that just means that they never get done.

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