Made in Heaven

It's been a bit of a mixed week.
Is it not ever thus?

For two days (over my birthday, inevitably) it rained as if the sky's heart was broken.

The scaffolding they erected to do some repairs to the bridge in the village nearly washed away. It turned into quite a spectator sport.

Apart from that, it has blazed with sunshine, although - lest we get carried away like the scaffolding - there has been the odd breeze snaking out of the north to keep us under control. Mostly though, it has been lovely, hot sunshine.


All good so far.

But then there was the Incident with my computer.
Let us not go into the gory details - you really don't want to know - suffice it to say every single - SINGLE - document of mine has gone. Probably forever. The computer is now in hospital, in the Recovery ward.
It's a bit like being burgled. I won't know what's missing until I come to need it.
The recovery process is also rather like the aftermath of a burglary.
Imagine finding the entire contents of a large filing cabinet hurled out onto the floor and swished about a good bit in some noxious substance. Half a page identifiable here, a paragraph there, maybe even a whole something or other amidst the mess, if you are lucky. But hard to know what any of it is...

I don't care much about the letters to the Passport Office, or articles that have long since been published in some magazine or newspaper, or the egg labels for the market. I can even - at a pinch - forgo the file of things I wanted to keep.
And I don't mind about most of my own work, because I have that backed up.
But I mind incredibly about the work of the last three weeks that for various reasons (all pathetic)  was NOT backed up.
How could I not have backed it up?
Does one learn NOTHING in this life?
There will be a prize for anyone in the Recovery Ward who manages to salvage some of those recent documents.

Enough of that!

I was just getting over the horrible shock of the Computer Incident when No 1 son's departure day arrived, after just over a week at home. Always a bad moment. Heaven to say hello - hideous to say goodbye.

At least I had other things to take my mind off his absence.
(No - not the computer! I am trying not to think about that.)
Last week someone from RTE rang. I have known her for a long time, and spoke to her last summer to try and beguile the TV station into coming to film the market for Irish Nationwide (arguably the most watched programme on Irish telly). I had told her too about Secret Gardens of Sligo of which I am also PRO. She was ringing to say they had decided to do a piece about SGS and could they film my garden, amongst others.

The vegetable garden with Model Dog supervising.

So the minute the In-Charge left for the airport with No 1 son, I rushed outside with an assortment of trowels and dogs and weeded frenetically until dusk. It was certainly outdoor weather - hot and wonderful - and as the fab French wwoofers had done such a great job, not an insuperable task, but even so, I could hardly stagger out of bed on Monday morning, and parts of me ache still!

The filming all went smoothly, and as we were still basking under azure skies, sunnily. Sadly it is a bit early in the summer for lots of things - most of the vegetables are only about an inch high - but that's the way it goes, and the flower garden, although battered by the recent rain, doesn't look too bad.

More of a potager than a vegetable garden

Today I have picked the first of our strawberries. Top Dog volunteered to help. He is very partial to strawberries, and sometimes picks his own, but knowing it is deeply impolite to do so, he usually refrains. Model Dog hadn't heard of strawberries before. She is very suspicious of food she doesn't recognise. She sucks and then spits out any pretend food we give her, and for the first week or two everything except dog biscuits came into this distasteful category. Now it is limited to carrots, bananas, broccoli and other obviously inedible substances like onions. 'Tiggers don't like those', she tells me.
Tiggers do like strawberries.
Now there's a surprise!
She very kindly offered to eat the ones that were a bit overripe or which the slugs or birds had got to first. Top Dog reminded her gently that he has first dibs, but they came to a most amicable agreement. Under Dog had one or two and then returned to the cool of the kitchen.

Quickly, quickly - let's make a crumble

I also picked some rhubarb.
If - by some massive oversight - you have never tasted rhubarb and strawberries together, lose no more time.
It is a marriage made in heaven.

As the In-Charge's computer is also going into hospital, I may not be back for some time - it depends on whether my own daily companion can be made to see reason.

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