Warm.

A bit hazy today but still with a warm wind. A pleasant start to autumn.

In the morning I cycled over to the community gardens for lots of chat, some lovely cake (date, prune and chocolate) and a little chopping back of stinging nettles and brambles.

I stopped in the lane on the way back to pick blackberries. The ones round the corner which I picked while holding onto my bike with one hand, were much larger but these were so prolific I contemplated jam making. Then decided that without a jam kettle it was going to be too much bother and possibly mess. Purple stains on my white kitchen, aargh! Instead the blackberries I took home were destined for blackberry and apple crumble.

I got home to find Peter working in the bathroom making a start on removing a heavy peice of wood board that is attached to the ceiling and stretches across the whole width of the room. Instead of trying to rip it down in one go which would probably bring down half the ceiling he cut out a section with the jig-saw. Much more sensible.

My outdoor task was to give the back garden a good weeding and general tidying up. All the ultra tall lettuces have been uprooted and in their place I've planted out ......... well I was hoping to say aubretia seedlings but I have my doubts. As I want a lot of aubretia in the garden I thought it sensible to grow it from seed. I carefully sowed a packet of seeds in a tray of good potting compost, waited and waited until eventually my patience was rewarded by hundreds of tiny seedlings. I carefully potted seedlings into small pots and then began putting the rest straight into seed beds. Tonight as I tenderly removed more seedlings from the tray my suspicions began to be alerted by the fact that the now much bigger leaves don't look anything like aubretia. (I even double checked on Google). I can only assume that a weed spread its seeds across the tray at some point. Strange though that the tray into which I sowed the thrift seeds doesn't have any of these seedlings even though the two trays were next to each other. 

This evening Peter is out while I stayed home, baked more peanut butter and chocolate cookies and made two blackberry and apple crumbles. Blackberries from the lane and cooking apples given to me by friends. I don't use a recipe, just throw in vague ammounts of ingredients and hope for the best. How can you go wrong with fruit, sugar, butter and flour?