nagdenlife: The days are getting longer...

Looking back over the past two years this has always been a tricky time of the year for me - if I compare it to the same time last year I am astonished at how low I had got as now it barely seems possible. So, I had a lovely birthday. It started with a pile of presents with my tea in bed, then a walk on the beach with my friend Lesley and our dogs followed by posh breakfast in Whitstable. Then lunch at a friend's with a botttle of bubbly - almost late collecting Raff from schools! Later the kids, with Michael (or should that be the other way around) made a lovely chocolate cake - which we are still eating. M then cooked me rib eye steak and fat chips with a Bearnaise sauce (no, not from a packet!) and then on Friday night we went to a new Japanese restaurant in Canterbury for sushi. I no longer have to get my fix at Victoria station! No one could ever doubt the importance food plays in my life...!

This weekend I have had an absolutely uplifting weekend in the garden, bright sunshine for 2 days straight so lots of winter tidying and sorting, alot of pruning, with my very cool birthday present loppers! Buddleia to no-buddleia in 5 minutes, shredding and the compost heap turned too! So much is starting to emerge; all the usual bulbs, irises etc and the buds are swelling. It's amazing what a huge difference it makes to my soul to see the garden coming alive again, and the kids have spent most of the weekend outside - last night they were there after sundown, biking and scootering around.

Last weekend we had Katy and the sprogs down and the pictures that follow are from then. Stan spent all week telling me how his best friend in the whole world is Polly "because she follows me around everywhere!"