Hard work!

Sue had asked me to help her out with some gardening this morning and had arranged to call for me at 8.15am as the garden she wanted me to do was just up the road. Unfortunately, she was held up so it wasn't until after 9am that I got started.

It has been a glorious day today with plenty of sunshine and blue skies and really pleasant for spending time gardening, although it was hard work! Sue had to dash off to another job so she left me on my own to clear out some borders, rake up loads of dead leaves and do some weeding.

As the house was at the entrance to our estate it was great to see the comings and goings of friends and neighbours and I was astonished at how busy our little community is! It gave me a chance to say hello to people, some of whom were curious as to what I was doing! "You don't live here!" was a common exclamation!

Keith took Sophie to uni and then went for a walk. On his return I asked him to make me a big mug of tea and bring me something to eat, which he did, bless him! I worked on my own until 1pm and then Sue joined me for another hour. I had had to ask Keith another favour - to bring me our own wheelie bin as I had filled up the one at the house with dead leaves, fallen branches and weeds.

By 2pm I had had enough! I'm not used to physical work for five hours and I was longing to get home and have a shower. We finished the garden and just as I arrived home Keith came out to say that Sophie wanted picking up early from uni. We went to get her and then it was a long hot shower for me!

Like a fool, I'd decided to change our bed in the morning so that needed sorting out (Keith had done a load of ironing) and then I popped over to see Sue as she had some dates she wanted to go through with me for other gardening jobs. We went to see another garden on the estate and Sue asked if I could do it, on my own again, on Friday.

Back at Sue's house she bustled around and poured me a glass of Vouvray (always a treat) and brought out some feta cheese and crackers to nibble on. The dogs took a lot of interest in this spread! We looked at our diaries and organised some dates for next week.

Tonight's dinner was sausage casserole a la Hairy Bikers, and it needed quite a bit of preparing! Keith browned the sausages for me while I prepared the onions and garlic and it was heaven to finally sit down with dinner and relax. I was shattered!