Typical Summer Weekend - Not

It rained pretty much solidly yesterday. I was feeling slightly under the weather with the hint of some cold or other, and since it was so wet there was little to be done outside. We wandered in to Witney as a family and I treated the boys to a new Monopoly set since their old one was getting limp around the edges. Tim got an old railway book from the Oxfam bookshop and I got a jigsaw puzzle! I rather think that's a winter pastime and its one of my favourites and its true you don't expect to be doing this in August but still, there it is. And so we spent one of those afternoons that reminds one of wet Welsh cottage holidays when you end up staying in and exploring the cottage's board game and book collections. I'm sure I could smell a woodburner in the air as other villagers had the same idea. It was rather old fashioned and nice - no telly, just all the family around the sitting room, keeping dry and entertained.

I decided that we'd eat well instead, so boiled a gammon joint which we had with new potatoes, broad beans and of course parsley sauce. I thawed out a box of filo pastry and made a gooseberry and apple pie with it for pudding. That's it pictured

Today (Sunday) has started off brighter but there are dark clouds around so we've not tarried. Tim has mown the lawn including the new bits which look fab and you can barely see the join now. Then we all set off for the plot to check on the bees. The showers have stopped us looking at them in detail as well.

We were up to 2 full sized hives plus one smaller one that was the product of a split earlier in the year. The small one was found to be empty of bees and its clear they've 'gorn orff' somewhere. It had plenty of visiting wasps instead. We don't suspect disease or anything suspicious as we had a quick but careful look. There were no dead bees at all. The other two are doing well and there is another super full of honey on each one ready to take off so we've set clearer boards on - this roughly means that we put a one-way bee valve in which enables the bees to come down from this super and back to the other parts of the hive but they can't come back up to it. Left for a day or two this means we can safely remove the super ready to take it home and it will be empty of bees

I meanwhile, got the boys picking and they've a fine basket of turnips and beans. I added some chard leaves and an onion that had come loose in the row.

Its still sunny currently but the clouds are gathering and the ground is still too soggy to work on - we risk compacting it and doing more harm than good. Back to the jigsaw and Sunday papers I think