MRS TITCHMARSH

What a nightmare! I've just spent the last hour married to Alan Titchmarsh trying to decide whether or not to plant any more euphorbias in our garden, then, mid argument I fell over (or was I pushed?), started rolling down the sides of a deep landfill tip and woke up trying not to "fall" out of bed. Not very happy about the cricked neck - nor the un-intended bigamy to be honest - but especially not happy about now being WIDE AWAKE when what I really need to be is FAST ASLEEP.

We've had a bit of a crazy long weekend, Mr M and I have been back to Welsh Wales to visit Mr M's Mum who has been in hospital for a rather nasty operation. We were lucky enough to have great weather again and enjoyed our drive down, stopping off at Symmonds Yat for a cream tea on the way. This was the view from our table...

... just beautiful.

We made some more progress with the garden and now only have one more area to tackle before hopefully it will be fairly maintenance free.

Grandma Wales (Mrs M's Mum) managed to make a remarkable recovery from her surgery and was allowed to come out of hospital on Friday, so we picked her up and took her on to Mr M's sister's in West Wales where she is going to convalesce. This meant that we could take the scenic route home on Saturday, and, after popping in to visit again for lunch, we drove home through the Brecon Beacons (hilly side, not mountains) with a quick detour to watch the fantastic spectacle at the Red Kite feeding station at Llanddeusant. Unfortunately our little compact Fugipix wasn't up to the job of taking decent closeups of the Kites (Mr M's favourite birds) but this shot at least gives you an idea of the number of birds there were. We were forced to take this photo from a nearby road as a quick tot up of our available cash finances gave us £3.10 - not enough for us both to pay the £3 entrance fee!

We then ambled our way northeastwards through the Wells (Llandridnod, Builth etc) stopping off for a lovely cup of tea and Welsh Cake at Erwood Station a local craft center where I picked up some fabric scraps which I aim to use in my scrapping. Artist Amanda Skipsey sells her lively contemporary landscapes through the Gallery there, and if the colours had been right for Moonshine Manor I would have persuaded Mr M to invest, as it is we bought a coaster for my craft room and a card with Red Kites on as fab souvenirs of our lovely weekend. Having set off at 9.15 we eventually reached home at 7.30 completing a 600 mile round trip. As you can imagine we were both feeling rather done in and hence the reason for feeling particularly dis-chuffed with A.T. about invading my sleep.

Going back to bed now.

Oh - in case you were wondering - euphorbia issue - not resolved.