All about the picture

 Never have I added a photograph that sums up a week more. I know it's not an exciting photograph, but that probably also illustrates the week well.

There wasn't huge amounts I could do this week. I had to recover from the sprained ankle. I've sprained it so often now that at some point it's just going to give up on me. So as much as possible during the week I rested it. Though as you'll discover there was plenty to get in the way of that.

Dog walks were ok (yes you'd imagine that my family would leap into action and take over this responsibility wouldn't you - you imagine wrong). Fortunately the dog loves to chase a ball, so I made my way to the recreation ground locally, walked a little bit around it (but not much) then sat on a bench and threw a ball for her. I basically kept throwing that ball until she lay down exhausted. Then when she got up I did it all over again. One of the things the dog does well is bring the ball back. It wasn't a great walk, but it was a walk.

On Tuesday dog had her long awaited visit to the froo froo parlour. Much needed, she looked like a crazy scientist with big bushy eyebrows and a beard (not great on a lady), she also stank. The more I tried washing her to get rid of the stink the worse she smelt. Because the dog groomer we go to is so good (4 Crufts winners this year), they are very in demand. So when she'd got desperately bad I tried to arrange an appointment, but there was a 3 week wait for a slot.

Ankle was still bad, I just managed to make it into the village to hand the dog over. The groomer said to come back in about 1 hour and 10 minutes. The second we walked in there the dog looked horrified, it jumped up putting it's paws on my waist and just looked at me begging me not to leave her there. However, I'm made of stern stuff and so is the groomer. 

Husband said he'd pick dog up to save my ankle, he was just leaving the house to be on time when the phone rang. It was the dog groomer, he said she was so bad it was going to take another 30 minutes. I'm not surprised, basically her hair has completely filled the hoover bag for about 3 weeks, there was a lot of hair to get rid of.

When she came back she looked a lot better - it was good timing too because as the week went on the temperature went up and up, but more about that later.

On Tuesday night out on the patio I spotted the prettiest little harvest mouse. How it got there I have no idea. Our house is built into a hill and the patio at the back has high walls. The one in the picture is split into two patio areas, but on the other side of the patio it's a sheer 8 froot wall. Even the steps up were too high for this tiny little thing to get up.

Dog went mental and the mouse shot off behind a plant pot. I assumed that it would sort itself out over night. It must have got in somehow. Well the next morning the mouse was still there, desperately trying to get out - a bit like a spider in the bath (but cuter). I was considering what I could do, I was thinking I could put a box over it and then a tray underneath and then.... well with my ankle there was no way I could go up the steps into the garden carrying something and going down the steps by the side of the house was equally impossible. There was no way I was taking it through the house.

I had a burst of inspiration. When we have spiders in the bath I create a ladder with loo roll so it can climb it's way out. I could put a duvet cover up the steps and this would be something the mouse would be able to climb up. So I limped up to the airing cupboard, got a couple of duvet covers then layed these out up the stairs, draping the bottom down to the patio.

Within about 5 minutes the mouse had made it up to the middle patio (I call it my kitcshe patio because it's where I have all my kitschy garden stuff). By now husband and I were keeping an eye on it from our respective offices and giving each other a running commentry (it's behind the palm plantpot, it's behind tarquin - our stone dog....). Husband decided to give it a hand and went out to encourage it up the rest of the stairs. We only needed to get it to the next patio level and it would be fine. There's plenty of ivy and access to other gardens at that level.

The mouse ran up to the top, found something to eat and then ran all the way down the first patio to eat it. Gagghhhh, I told husband to just leave it. About an hour later it had made it's own way to freedom, it didn't even leave a thank you card.

By Thursday a mini heatwave had started. Every year I forget what a ball ache watering the garden is. You try pulling a 100ft hose to the top of a garden up about 50 steps. It's not easy or fun. Having a sprained ankle didn't help. Yes again, you might assume I'd get help and support from the family, again you would assume wrong.

We've been given an extra day off at work. We were supposed to take it on Friday, but I needed some clear time to do a complex task, I'll take that day off the following week. It was wonderful being the only person in, always an amazing way to get through huge amounts of stuff. 

Son's job delivering the local magazine got in touch, the next batch were ready and they would drop them off. Gaggh, how was I going to manage my bits of it with sprained ankle. When work finished I decided to see how much of mine I could get done (I can't wait until son gets another job and I can stop this nonsence of delivering magazines! Not exactly what I'd imagined doing at my age. But it does give him some good money. I think I've explained a million times that he and husband do half together and I do half alone because they annoy me too much putting stuff off and eeking out tasks for whole weeks).

I suprirsed myself and with my ankle well strapped managed to get about 1/3 of it done.

Saturday was incredibly busy - not with anything exicitng. First I took tog for a walk, then I delivered the rest of the magazines on my patch. Coming home I got my summer clothes out and did an epic iron that took hours. That done I went out to the patio to turn it into a summer patio. The covers came off the table the chairs were pulled out from under the table. Table and chairs were washed and then summer staged. I washed and then painted the white walls to get rid of the worst of the winter staining. Then  hoovered (yes hoovered) and then mopped (yes mopped) the patio. Ready for husband to do a jet wash.

A friend was coming over for a bbq later, so I then went in to marinade all the meats and prepare salads.

Sunday was blazingly hot. I took dog out for a walk at 05:30, again going to the rec. There was a camper van in the car park and a group of young men were playing a game of tennis. I was very impressed that they'd got up so early. It was only later in the day that it occurred to me that they'd probably been up drinking all night and it was actually less impressive because it was probably the last thing they planned to do before sleep. Well I wish them luck with that because I happen to know that around 08:30 about 100 kids turn up to play 2 hours of football on a Sunday.

After this it was time to get ready to meet a friend for a coffee and a natter. In my blog you'll notice a distinct lack of such events. I'm really not a coffee and natter kind of person. But I hadn't seen this friend for ages. I needed to find something suitable to wear, this was my next trauma.

I don't know what it is about summer clothes, they hate me. My body shape just doesn't work with anything. Whatever I put on makes me look 10 times wider than I am and hangs off me like a dish rag. Over the years I have tried many many different types of summer clothes.

Then last year I thought I'd cracked it. I found some summer clothes I liked. I put them on again this year and once again I hated them. Summer clothes and me are just not meant to be put together. I must have tried on about 30 things. I then ended up in one of the outfits that I happily wore in Rome when we were there, thinking I looked great. This year I looked at the very same outfit and hated it. It looked horrible.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, that's it really. the heatwave finishes towards the end of the week. As ever making sure it's raining on my birthday (every fucking year it rains on my birthday). Then by the looks of it June is going to be typical rain rain rain. The plus of this is that it means I dont' need to water the garden. The down side is that the garden will become a jungle.

I'm hoping that the cleaner let's us know she'll be back again this week, but realistically it will be next week. I pray that she does come back. She's one of the best we've had for ages. However, she's had a 4 week visit to her family in Brazil and I have a horrible feeling she'll not be back. Watch this space.

Do you understand now why I said that the boring photograph actually did sum up the entire week.