A day in my life

The 14th this month was a very ordinary day spent mostly at home. I had my early morning coffee at the allotment after dropping my son off at work for 7am. Almost every "day in my life" this year I have written that I drove my son to and from work but this will be the last month. He has given in his notice now and will finish in three weeks time. This gap year has gone really quickly and six weeks from today we will be taking him to University.

The rest of the morning I spent at home doing the usual things, a load of washing, making the bread, and a general tidy up.

I am trying to have a bit of a clear up and turn out at the moment. My eldest has been going through his stuff prior to leaving for Uni and it has inspired me to do the same. I find it difficult to get rid of stuff but at the end of the morning I had two small carrier bags to take to the charity shop.

I went to our nearest charity shop after lunch, best to get rid of the bags straight away, if I leave them hanging around I might start taking things back out again.

My youngest son came with me to browse the books so I took advantage of the extra manpower to take my Ecover containers to be refilled at the Organic shop. These aren't that heavy but they start to feel it by the time I've walked all the way back to the car park so I was glad of the help.

My son bought a book but I managed to come home without buying anything so at least we had a net decrease in things in the home.

After picking up my eldest from work we spoke to my husband in America. I am still amazed by the whole web-cam Skype thing, its so different from when he used to go away just a few years ago. Then we used to get two very short phone calls during the week, anything more would have been too expensive. The children were quite small and found it a long time between phone calls so he started faxing a letter to them each day. He would write a page early in the morning and then fax it from the hotel at breakfast time which meant it was waiting for them after school. I remember it being quite expensive but not as much as a phone call. Now of course we can talk and see each other over the Internet and it costs us nothing extra. Amazing how things have changed. I still have those faxed letters though, you have nothing lasting from a phone call.

Dinner was chilli beans with tortilla chips and grated cheese served with lots of veg from the allotment. The rain while we were away made everything grow well so there is lots to choose from.

I watered my pots on the patio in the evening. This is the very first aubergine I have grown and I'm very proud of it - quite an attractive plant as well, very good for growing in a pot.

While watering I noticed that my nasturtiums were covered with caterpillars determined to eat every scrap of green leaf. I had seen a cabbage white fluttering around so I suspect that was the culprit. I picked them off and was wondering how to get rid of them when I thought- chickens. Whenever I empty the compost bin or do any gardening I am always followed by Sage and Onion who seem to eat anything that wriggles. I was sure they'd like these juicy caterpillars, but no, they wouldn't even try them. They gave me this typical chicken look that seemed to say "humans can be so stupid!" and then they turned and walked away. So you learn something every day - hens don't eat caterpillars, well, mine don't anyway.