rain stopped play

The brown tide of spent mushroom compost was advancing splendidly up the long bed and it came as a blow when after lunch I realised that it was raining.  Not just the sort of pervasive dampness that scarcely counts as rain so much as moisture condensing out of the air, but proper drops falling from the sky.  Fortunately I'd bought my radio in for a mid-session charge, the battery not being what it was, but I had to scurry out to retrieve my tools.  Rain was not forecast at all, but when the Systems Administrator checked the rain radar there it was, a great solid lump moving across the south eastern corner of England.  So much for weather forecasts.  Come to that, I don't remember any screaming newspaper headlines in the autumn warning us of the Barbecue Xmas, I'm sure they just carried the usual dire warnings that it could be a very cold winter.  There's still time for that, of course.

So far I have managed to stick to the plan of not wearing my new glasses for gardening.  I am terribly pleased with them.  The hinges in the side arms are very lightly sprung, and this together with the fact that they are much lighter than my old ones means that they stick to my face almost as if they were glued on, and sit on the bridge of my nose instead of sliding half way down it. Pushing my glasses back up my nose has become such a nervous tic I find myself still trying to do it wearing the new glasses, and they already are up.  If they went any further up they'd be in my hairline.

In the afternoon I wrapped parcels, since I could not garden, made a shopping list for the Christmas food, and tidied some more of the mess on my desk.  I've done most of it but am now down to an apparently endless residue of slightly dog eared bits of paper which it might or might not be OK to throw away, or which might require some action on my part.  When I started I was able to make the great heap of mess smaller quite quickly by dint of putting anything doubtful to one side, and chucking out the obvious rubbish, but now I'm down to the hard core of things that have already been put aside once, and there is really no help for it but to work down through the pile, forcing myself to make a decision about each sheet, like a chess game where once you touch a piece you have to play it.

The Systems Administrator nobly tackled the other end of the study a few days ago, and cleared out so much stuff it took two trips to the dump to get rid of it.  A tottering pile of books over two feet high is now back on the shelves, and the surface of an Ikea desk I hadn't seen for years has come to light.  I have put Christmas cards on it to celebrate.

We are no closer to answering the question of why we have not trapped any rabbits.  The wildlife camera was left trained on the bottom lawn for three nights, but didn't take any pictures.   The SA first of all blamed the camera card, and then tried new batteries, but nothing worked so it is now drying in the airing cupboard to see if that does the trick.