Friday
Just back from "The Itchy Pig" where I drank two pints with Alan the CAMRA man. CAMRA stands for Campaign for Real Ale. This is an organisation that celebrates good beers and well-kept hostelries. Recently, Alan has been on his rounds across Yorkshire seeking "the pub of the year". It is a hard job but somebody has got to do it. This afternoon I was mostly out in the garden trimming hedges and bushes. Our garden is 45 metres long or 49 yards if you prefer. There's a lot of trimming to do but fortunately on the left-hand side the boundary hedge is only about twenty metres long. After that we have a fence, borders and the neighbours' garage. It was hot and sticky out there. I made a dinner of chicken, salad and new potatoes. I had grown the lettuce myself - lollo rosso which is strangely unattractive to slugs that clearly prefer other lettuce varieties. Later, after more garden work, I came back in the house to watch football on the television. It was ...