My gardening hasn’t gone as well as I’d hoped. I hadn’t realised but the Swiss chard plug plants I bought were meant to be potted on before being planted out. What I’ve got doesn’t look very well but there are new green leaves starting on some plants so there is still hope. A couple of hanging basket tomatoes look ok but my other few outside ones are struggling. I think I’ll blame the May weather and having to make a decision with plants getting straggly indoors more than me for that. I’ve lost a row of French climbing beans and I don’t know why. Some replacements are on order.

I’m very annoyed with Suttons and my clubroot resistant brassica collection. The plants, which I potted on yesterday and may yet pick up, arrived in poor condition. Not only that, they couldn’t be bothered labelling which plants are which. I’m not planting (and don’t have space for) all 22 here but had hoped to sort out my own subset and give the others away. I can’t tell which are cabbage, callabrese, sprouts or cauliflower.

On a brighter note, greenhouse stuff, potatoes, leeks, lettuce, courgettes are looking fine.

I’ve got a fly screen for the patio door coming today (dad wants the door open in this warm spell and mum is getting bothered about possibilities of bugs and birds getting in…) so, depending on when it comes, I might try to fit that later. I’m not sure what that will involve but I’m reluctant to drill and screw into the UPVC frame. Perhaps I’ll see a better way with a bracket, perhaps not… One thing there is that is by any remote chance I could picture a simple (it would need to be simple..) bracket to help, I could possibly draw it and print it.

We’re having more visitors this week, I think just for an afternoon and the only thing I’ve been asked to do for it is to make a chocolate sponge cake. Even though we have all had our second jabs here, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with people calling from away yet. There again, we don’t see many people and it will probably be nice for my parents. I think they’ve known one another since the 1950s, starting with dad and Ray both being stationed at RAF Pembrey for National Service.