Well, I'd never winner 'Blogger of the year' as there 's no time to blog! Far too busy growing monster marrows. Yet again we mourn the passing of the garden show. So that's 10 jars of wonderful chutney (we hope - you have to be patient with chutney)  My brother-in -law, clearing out his mum's house a few years ago, found some home made jam dated 1956. However , if you're into that sort of thing, the brambles are brilliant this year - huge and juicy and masses of them. I always freeze them and end up making jam the following July.

Village is over the summer rush so no exuberant dances  or exciting golf matches ahead of us. And sadly the famous Carradale Duck Race is no longer ,which is a huge miss for all the visitors.

And yet more depressing news - the shop has finally closed. We all had great hopes last year when
a young couple moved in, but it just didn't work out . We can still get milk in the Post Office - and digestive biscuits - but it's a trip to the toon for anything else, so be warned.

I can offer wonderful dark skies however.  We've had a couple of nights with amazing displays of stars, and with Mars and Saturn both hovering above the southern horizon it's very spectacular. Out with the telescope.

And just to sum up the recent weather, we have an Israeli couple in the cottage just now, and last dreich, drizzley Sunday  he said to me  'Trish, what is this weather called - we don't have it at home?' Thank goodness we've now had 2 sunny days.