more cake

This week ended up as a mad whirl of social activity by my standards, as I met friends this morning for a coffee in a local garden centre, Craft Nurseries on the road from Lawford to Colchester.  The friend who organised the get-together has recommended it in the past, as having some nice plants and a good cafe, run by friendly people, but I'd never got round to paying a visit.  Sure enough, it was very nice, and I am honour-bound to go back, since today's organiser suggested we make it a regular thing and picked up the tab this time round.  I had not left the house intending to eat a piece of cake, but it seemed against the spirit of the outing not to join in, and I can recommend the sticky plum and date, though it was their apricot and coconut cake which won a prize in some contest for garden centre tea rooms.

I did not need to buy any plants at that moment, but their huge range of pelargoniums and fuschias looked very promising and I'll be back at some stage.  Altogether the place felt as though it had received a lot of investment, with a spic-and-span air that you don't always get in garden centres, and I was impressed.  The economy and the weather in the past few years have both been unkind to the garden retail industry.

At home the Systems Administrator refitted the wheelbarrow and lawn tractor wheels, but there was no sign of our friendly local lawnmower repair man with the Mountfield.  He left a message yesterday on the answering machine, sounding rather harassed, saying that he might be able to get it to us late today, but that was evidently optimistic.  The lawnmower repair shop in Colchester had a sign up saying the wait time was currently three to four weeks, so if we get it back next week we'll still be doing well.  The grass almost grows while you look at it, and does need cutting rather desperately, though I suppose its shagginess has a sort of romantic charm.

I used up my last two bags of mushroom compost.  The truck is on charge so that we can go and get a big load tomorrow.  I laugh that the SA takes me on all the best dates and knows how to show a girl a good time, but the fact of it is that I want a truck load of mushroom compost.  Just at the moment, offered a choice between a trip to get mulch and lunch in the garden centre's agreeable cafe, I'd take the manure.