So much for June

Horrible hard-working June doing vile new job. No time to do anything except work. When I'm not working I'm spending all my time on the Harper Collins' Authonomy website, which is like a ghastly computergame that brings out all the worst in human behaviour.

The garden is lovely. All I want to do is spend all day every day sitting out there, with a nice cold glass of wine, reading my book, and looking at roses.

Everyone is complaining about the heat but our house remains mysteriously cool. It was hell in the winter (a frozen hell) when we used to go outside to keep warm, but now, when all around are sweltering, the interior of the house is like some serene Andalucian palace, with delightful coolness emanating from the walls. Garden ditto, due to all the lime-tree bower-like shade and the delicious refreshing breezes.

Have discovered local swimming baths at the Merton Road Aspire Centre. We go every Sunday after church. Curly has finally learned to swim unaided. Hooray! We are all looking forward to splashy fun at the Lake Club in KL in August.

Eating lots of white Magnum ice-creams. Yum!

That stupid Scot, Murray. What did he have to go and get all our hopes up for, if he was only going to dash them to the ground yet again?

I am leading a strange bipolar sort of life, where for 5 days in the week, I am in miserable hell, and for the remaining 2 days, I am in blissful paradise. When will the bank start offering round those delightful 4-day week or 1 year off for 75% pay cut proposals that everyone else is doing?

Neighbours

Spent much time in the garden this bank holiday. Amazingly, not everything that we planted has died, and some of the seeds are coming up.

Unfortunately, the fine weather brought the idiot twenty-somethings who live in the first floor flat in the building next to us out onto their roof terrace, which directly overlooks our garden. I don't know what I dislike about them more - their pallid white skin in their pointless bathing suits, their execrable taste in music, their moronic conversation - was I this stupid when I was twenty-something? Is it possible?

On the plus-side, it makes a brilliant situation for a sitcom. LSS has found himself a potential writing partner and is looking for sitcom ideas. Snobbish hidebound elitist forty-somethings, living next to braindead shallow twenty-somethings, in a hideous co-dependent relationship fueled by mutual loathing. Well, it makes me laugh. When I'm not weeping.

Christian Aid

went knocking on doors for Christian Aid on Saturday. The old gave. The young gave. The salt of the earth gave. You know who didn't give? Middle-class WASPS. Only two white middle-class middle-aged males gave me money - one was Irish and the other was Greek. Interesting.

Star Trek

Went down to Southside last night to see the new Star Trek movie. All I can say is, I'm sick of working for an investment bank. I'm going to enlist in Star Fleet.

Gardening

Went down to Homebase and bought many berries, currants, herbs and leaves, and spent the whole day in the garden planting them out and preparing new beds. It was just heaven. I love my little house and my little 18th century walled garden!

Had to make cloches out of 1 litre plastic water bottles cut in half, to stop Russell Crow getting at our tiny sweetcorn plants. He spends all his time rustling around in the bushes at the back of the garden. As he is too fat to fly far, he hops around with incredible speed - I think he thinks he is some kind of squirrel or other rodent.

School Council

Larry just got voted onto the School Council by her classmates. This is the first time anyone in our family has ever been chosen for anything like that - neither LSS nor myself were ever anything at school more important than doing the hall monitor rota!

I'm very proud and happy for her - especially as just this weekend she was complaining that she can't be herself at school but feels she just stands there on the edge of the group smiling gormlessly. I'm so glad for her to have this demonstration that she is more accepted than she thought.

The Lakes

up in the Lake District doing one of those house-swap things and it is great! I am never paying for holiday accommodation again! Their house is much much cleaner, tidier and better organised than ours. They have matching guest towels. And coasters. Oh dear.

Every morning we troop dutifully off to see a lake - so far, we have seen Loweswater, Buttermere and Derwentwater. Then in the afternoon we watch their 3-box set extended DVD version of the Lord of the Rings which - hooray! - I will not now have to buy.

Have also eaten more Kendal Mint Cake in the past three days than I have eaten in the past 10 years.

And read their copy of Liaisons Dangereuses (good), Italian Neighbours by that chap who wrote A Season with Verona (pretty good) and Toby Young's Sound of No Hands Clapping (crap).