The worst thing about going away is coming home

I wandered down the garden just before lunch and it's quite obvious that there has been little if any rain here while we were away. Sure, the grass has grown - and now needs cutting again! - but the ground is very dry. The vegetables have, on the whole, managed to survive the lack of water, but I will need to run the hose for quite a while to prevent them from dying of thirst.

I have been trying an experiment this year. As our garden has shallow soil which is full of stones it is not really suitable for root crops such as carrots, so this year I have tried growing carrots in pots. One of those pots is actually the bottom third of an old water butt and the carrots in that were coming along nicely before we went away. But while we have been away, something has dug up about half the little plants. I will have to find something to deter those wretched cats! Another pot was sown about ten days before we left, and the lack of rain means that they have not yet germinated. Neither have the French beans, but the runner beans (which I started in the greenhouse) are coming along just fine.

Despite the dry weather, weeds continue to grow and it looks to me as though I will need a couple of hours in the vegetable patch to straighten things out again. Plus another hour to cut the grass. And the car needs washing. And it also needs cleaning inside and a thorough going-over with a vacuum cleaner. Meanwhile, there are other, far more interesting things to do.