Hello everyone,

Well it's piddling down here, has been all day but is really coming down now and the flood watches are in effect until tomorrow morning... 3-5 inches of rain through the night.

Sarah, hope you get the allotment... Glad to hear there's other people who are as happy as me getting a wasing line full of clothes dry... I love the smell of fresh off the line stuff, especially sheets...love to watch them billow in the wind too.

Jen... about hanging curtains, can you not get those rods that are spring based, so you just put them on the inside of the ftames, not drilling or anything, then the curtain hangs nicely from it...they're made for nets more than curtains as such, but you could always find some light cotton one's that could hang inside the frame to keep the light out. The asparagus loaf sounds nice... I love asparagus.

Helen, that idea about running the race in NY with that guy sounds lovely... I hope that you get to do it with him, what an inspiration he must be. I'll keep fingers crossed for you.

Michelle, I love sitting outside in the garden, especially reading a book or having a cuppa and a natter with a friend...I love being outside... glad to hear your Dad is doing good and you had your Sunday drink with him today.

Veggie, why don't you like the heat my woman? And what has happened to your avatar? Remember if you feel too hot, rub cold water on your wrists to cool down.

RSG, keep warm and safe these next few days, can't believe the marathon is still going to be on...at least the runners shouldn't overheat though... bless em. Hope the hair dryer was turned off when it fell in the loo... I thought those sort of things just happened to me...

CG, where are ya? Still recovering from your shopping expedition with B... check out Walmart for casual smart trousers.. can't think what they're called, that's what Dave wears... under fifteen bucks a pair

Well I'm going to go and have a soaky bath and then head to bed... see you all tomorrow if we have power... they're warning about that on the telly now as well.

Sarah Ann looks like a smurf! Pass it round!

Twice this weekend I was frantically looking for my glasses and while looking for them I thought "I must push my glasses back onto my nose cos the dark frames annoy me and get in the way".. Duh!

Poor marathoners, 47 degrees and pouring. They are interviewing a guy from Phoneix on the news.

Red Sox game was moved until noon, we'll see if they play it.

I really feel like going for a run this morning, not sure if I'm going to venture out or not.

Helen if you run New York maybe I'll make a road trip, the bus is $15 from Boston, it crashes a lot but I'd risk it Chris come with me

How did you know????? I didn't think you could see my blue face and white pointy hat through the 'puter....

Oh Helen - HOW EXCITING!!!! it all works out!!! Sounds like a fun weekend.

Sarah Ann - I hope you get that allotment. I would hae thought having horses on it there would be a lot of poo! Useful surely for an allotment?

You look luverly as a smurf by the way!

Miche - glad your Dad is doing well. I would encourage you to grow your own spuds. Definatley tastier than those in the shops and quite easy to do.

Aero chocolate - hmmm - not that thrilled although I do like the mint one if pushed. I don't like any kitkat chocolate either. In fact, even if I was despearate for choocie if you put it on my desk, I would not eat it! I am gettign very choosy about choccie! One I really love I cannot get from my local small Sainsbury's any more. I think it is made by Reissen's? It is about 5 chunks of a dark rather chewy chocolate that goes slightly fudgy at the end. I still love Cadbury's Fry creme or whatever it si either the original or mint. I cannnot be doing with Mars bars now but love the finger of fudge sticks and curly wurly and the dipped flakes or the galaxy evuivalent (ripple) -less mess. I used to love when I could get a whole box of flake from Iceland and put em in the fridge until they were really cold. Yum!

I tried a bottle of that Fridji milk shake stuff in a 'limited edition' caramel flavour. Gorgeous! Anything caramel is alright by me (as long as it is not kit kat!).

I was warned off having an allotment that has recently been used to keep horses by one of the old boys - I think its because if the horse poo is too fresh (!) it can burn baby plants - its needs to be well rotted to do its magic ... or so I'm told... I'm not really an expert on horse poo. I would think it might also be a bit difficult to turn over if its been compacted - although I don't think I'll be doing any digging - as with everything in this village, there's an old boy who'll happily rotivate it for a tenner.

Talking about old boys.... I worked this morning and waddled home with the following pressies from my aged admirers:

3 dozen free range chookie eggs
2 carrier bags of spring greens
a large red cabbage
and, but not least, a HUGE pumpkin

Any ideas for recipes will be gratefully received.

Those caramel kit kats are an abomination! (I'm a secret finger of fudge addict as well - especially frozen)

I'm sure you didn't really want advice about horse poo, but what the heck.

If the land has been used to keep horses, even fairly recently, it's pretty unlikely that the amount of fresh horse poo will be sufficient to burn plants. When horse poo is lying on the surface of a field, exposed to wind and rain it actually breaks down pretty quickly and it's nitrogen content drops quite quickly. So unless the horses were kept in particularly unpleasant conditions and the whole place is knee deep in muck you should be ok from that point of view.

Horses are however very tough on the ground. They poach it in winter and compact it and graze it hard in summer, so it probably won't be ideal allotment material straightaway. The soil structure will probably be pretty knackered and will need aerating and organic matter digging in. If you can get it rotivated that will be a pretty good start.

(please don't mention kitkats - I'm trying to be strong today!)

Oh right so the horse poo is too 'fresh' - a bit like your aged admirers no???!!! Ignore me, only jealous!

I suppose once one of the old boys rotivates your land you could maybe just keep weeding it until you think it is ready for planting. In the meantime squeeze as much info as you can from your admirers. I dunno about you but I am obsessed with those gardening programmes - except the ones where they use bits of metal etc for sculptures and stuff. I like a garden to look like a garden. I might not have one myself, but I know what I like!!

Morning girls. Well I think we're over our bad weather. The outlook for the week is sunny and 70 degrees.

Chris and RSG stay dry. Do you have any flooding Chris around the house? Be careful out there.

Sarah I've read your post and every time I read it as 3 dozen choccie eggs. Caramel kit kats yum

I love pumpkin pie here's a link for some fresh pumpkin recipes

http://www.healthy-eating-made-easy....n-recipes.html

Helen hope you make it to New York, you may even have your own cheering section.

I'd love an allotment. OK, I'd love the aged admirers too

It's scorching in Switzerland too. I'm sick of blasted BBQs to be honest. Sick of them, I say. NO MORE CHICKEN BREASTS. I want a steak with BBQ sauce and a baked spud with lashings of butter.

Parcel Farse are still being w*nkers, but VirginRunner are re-sending my trainers today on Next Day delivery, with FREE SOCKS Bless them and I hope Parcel Farse get it right this time and can "find" my apartment block

Are you ladies talking about caramel KitKats or Caramac KitKats? I love Caramac ones... But I haven't heard/seen caramel ones? I like those peanut chunky ones though

2frus - to be honest - because I hate kitkat I dunno all the flavours but I think the others are talking about a caramel one. This is cos I was mention ing how I love caramel flavours.

Fingers crossed for a 3FC meetup in New York then!

I haven't really tried any of the kitkat flavours. I don't mind kitkats, but I don't crave them and tend to save my chocolate splurges for the things I do crave or the things that get brought into the house. Like the aero which is no more. The Green & Blacks easter egg is still safe in its packaging though.

Virgin Runner are nice people, run by Up & Running but cheaper...

I love the idea of an allotment, but given the amount of work I don't do on my garden, I'm not sure I deserve one!

I skived running club tonight. I didn't get much sleep over the weekend, and I had to be up at 5.30am this morning to take mum to the station. But don't worry, I decided rather than waiting 2 hours after work before running, I'd just run on my own, get it done earlier and come home for a bit of an earlier night. I did just under 7 miles, so I was pretty pleased with that.

Tomorrow will be a new experience - I'm playing netball We've been talking about setting up a work team for ages, and it's finally happened. We're playing our first game without a practice session, so that could be interesting!

Hello girls,

Well the wind and rain have finally stopped. The wind gusts last night took out the power which we didn't get back until noon today, and two fence panels blew down.

Hubs was very impressed with my idea to put one panel back up as it was on the corner and the post had broken right at ground level and we don't have another one. I told him to tie string from one post on one corner panel around the middle and to the other one until we can get a post... so out he went and was well impressed that it worked...Men! They don't think we have any brain cells working apart from housekeeping, kids and such...

RSG... if Helen comes to NY, it's agreat possibility that I would go down there with you to cheer her on... 15 bucks for the bus from Boston? Do we have to put our feet through holes in the floor and run like the Flintstones?

I've worked today and had a great workout while I was there... broke out in a good sweat as they've put new cylinders on the machines...am now working every day this week too, as two people need their shifts covering.

Helen have fun with netball tomorrow, I used to prefer hockey at school cos you could slap all the mean girls in the legs with your stick...but netball was ok.

CG, I thought Sarah said she'd come home with the 'choccie' eggs too, had to re read. Must be chocolate on the brain... and I could eat a whole mint areo to myself

OK, time for 24 and a cuppa... see you all tomorrow.