Springjoy.....

Weather here continues to be great, with plus-20 temps most days, and clear blue skies and sunshine. We manage to eat al fresco most days and, if eating early, the odd evening too. It's definitely the precursor to Summer, I'd say. It makes a welcome change from Winter, and being back home also a welcome change from sad old Blighty.

J spends most of her days in the garden, trying to change the overgrown field into something resembling a garden plot. Our local farmer has offered to come over and plough a potager/veg plot for us but he is waiting till the ground is harder so the tractor tyres do not rut too much. In the meantime, we will plant seedlings - yet to be bought, but abundant everywhere - in large pots and go from there.

This is the garden in its current state:

An improvement on its condition when we snuck out for a week or so in October last year. Then, we were faced with this:

Fortunately a couple of kind Brit neighbours came over to help tame the beast, so it was more like this by the time we returned to Blighty:

You just can't leave gardens alone over here. The growth is phenomenal! And the effort needed to clear it all, equally enormous.

Our Hens have settled back in nicely, producing three eggs a day; remarkable really given I was sure one of them - rescued from drowning at our above Brit neighbours place a few weeks ago - was a Cock!:

The cats are also relaxed, clearly happy to be back where the mice are plentiful:

I'm clearly getting known/accepted by the blues-press peeps and the bluesers' press and promo peeps. Most days I receive CDs in the mail, sometimes a fair number of them. All of which is fine by me. It gives me a variety to listen to and I've come across some stuff that I'd otherwise have entirely missed! So can't be bad, although Lord knows what our mail-lady/facteuse must think of it!  The stuff has a variety of start points from all over UK and Europe and the USA. Similarly, the magazine copies I receive come from far and wide. It's keeping her on her toes and in work, so the Froggo system will be pleased with my endeavours.

Sad to learn of the passing - as the old bluesmen are wont euphimistically to say - of Tony Benn today. He was a man of principle. A rare thing these days in politics!

An apt little number now from a guy from my hometown, Glasgow: the great Jim Mullen, an ex-journalist, I believe:

http://youtu.be/khsqNhzxRlo