Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!

Off to a slow start, blogwise . . . Have spent the past two weeks working full time at the Lab (minus the two days off work sick) and haven’t even managed to keep up with the housework – let alone a blog!

So – looking back:

I didn’t get Christmas cards out . . . the first time ever. Apologies to those who were expecting them but didn’t receive them.

All my boys were home for Christmas :-) That was the only thing I wanted LOL Karl and Ricki caught the bus home Christmas Eve morning, and left again Boxing Day afternoon.
Anne, Nicola, Dylan & Jaykob were also round for lunch. We had a really nice day, although we didn’t get any gifts opened till after five in the evening!! Liam had to work a morning shift at the service station, then the others arrived before he got home. Just before Anne & co left, Kaye and Bruce turned up.

I worked at the Lab between Christmas and New Year. Dallas stopped working for Christmas Day and I made him stay home on Boxing Day, too, although he wasn’t very happy about it.

Our cherries were beautiful! So juicy and sweet. They were given as parts of gifts to some. Having said that - all the ones around the bottom of the trees were eaten by the dogs. They also ate the strawberries. And the Christmas chocolate – including that which was wrapped and underneath the tree. They unwrapped the socks, boxers, books, etc that had chocolate hidden within. They went into my wardrobe and ate the after dinner mints that were hiding in there. Obviously they weren’t hiding well enough. Chocolate is supposed to be toxic to dogs. My dogs are alive and kicking with minimal disruption to their digestive tracts at the time of the offence.

Our lettuces have been growing well, but are quite bitter. Apparently this is because they haven’t been watered enough. I think next time I’ll get a lettuce with a heart instead of frilly ones – it will be easier for me to tell if they are ready to eat.

We lost the cucumber plant – thank you dogs, again – but have one watermelon doing OK. A stray pumpkin has also turned up in the compost.

The tomatoes – grosse lisse – are doing well and are leading the way in the bet of alcoholic beverages that they will be ready before the neighbours. D swears that ours have the beginnings of red tinges, and he has requested ‘good’ beer, not cheap stuff.

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OK, so the above was written last week. Yesterday I carefully picked our first tomatoes and the neighbour mentioned above cooked fresh scallops and offered beer on our winning of the bet LOL. And boy, do those tomatoes taste SO good! So much better than shop bought ones!