September

You know summer's over when the Christmas stuff makes an appearance on the supermarket shelves! August wasn't even over when the selection boxes, tins of biscuits and Christmas cards hit the shops alonside the Halloween merchandise. Anyway a miserably wet summer has sloshed seamlessly into a drizzly autumn. September was more of the same, weatherwise - rain, high winds and just the occassional glimpse of bright sunshine and what might have been ... The poor old garden took a bit of a hammering with plants and shrubs blasted all over the place. We salvaged most of them, but the lack of sunlight gives the garden a dismal air, brightened only by the (very) occassional ray of sunshine. The garden promised so much this year but there's nothing you can do about the weather. The vegetable 'harvest' (pictured) - carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, spring onions - is unlikely to sustain us through the winter months! While the gardening wasn't great, I did take the opportunity to be at one with the local wildlife and decided to train a spider to do tricks. I selected Sammy (above) from a promising list of potential candidates, and the first session went very well. I was hopeful that by the end of the first day I would have Sammy doing somersaults, so you can imagine my disappointment when I returned after lunch to find that Sammy had 'left the building'. The ungrateful little sod had just disappeared! I have put further training initiatives on hold until I have built a new training centre out of cigarette packets and nilk cartons. That's very much a work in progress but should be completed next month - Caroline has helpfully suggested that perhaps I should look for a job, but how can I when I've got all this building work to do? The long-awaited arrival of baby Evie was the big event for the family this month, and she's pictured above with her proud faither and slightly over-excited grand-faither. She's settling in well, but her mum and dad have come to look back with nostalgia on the days and nights of pure, beautiful unbroken sleep! Life's full of ups and downs, and on the down-side was the demise of Knutt's car, Nigel. It's fair to say that Knutt has fallen out of love with Nigel over recent months - with with exhausts and spare tyres falling off, too many punctures to mention and the odd case of non-starting it's easy to see why. However at the end of the month one kindly motorist took pity on Knutt by slamming into the back of Nigel. The upshot is that Nigel is no more - the bad news for Edinburgh and Lothians motorists is that Knutt is on the lookout for a replacement car ... We took in the Festival fireworks finale at Ann's house in Murrayfield and while we all had a very enjoyable evening the winds and drizzle meant that we disn't see too many fireworks! A damp squib - save for Evie's appearance, that just about sums up September.