Granny's has a lake

Granny was going to write more about her dad today. But she will leave it till tomorrow after a very bad night. She was woken around 2 am by rain falling on her - she and Beloved had to leap out of bed - again - to move the bed. The rain continued to fall on the floor behind them, which bothered Beloved - Granny much less - there are advantages in being deaf. Even she, though, could hardly fail to hear the rain drumming on the skylight ever more heavily, let alone the accompanying thunder and lightening. This went on and off all night - every time she fell into disturbed sleep it started again. 'Why are wriggling?' demanded Beloved. 'You keep waking me up.' When Granny did finally fall asleep for longer it went along with taking all the bedclothes - or so he claimed in the morning. He gave up anyway and disappeared downstairs.

Result as always - apart from the usual leaks everywhere and the odd powercut caused by rain on plugs etc - is the lake at the bottom of Granny's land.

It looked as if the day was going to be sunny after. It was: now it's raining again... Granny has to get up to let in a very wet and very cross Feline Houdini whom she'd shoved outside because he had, rather foolishly, bitten the hand that fed him - or the leg anyway.

Oh dear. Granny, Pollyanna as always, tells herself that rain is good for the flowers and there will be plenty still for the eager natural historians in two weeks time. The flowers and grass are so deep in some places already, that Terrible Terrier disappears in them. Beautiful Wimp almost does. This is unheard of.

She's been making her second batch of marmalade - held over for a couple of days because the gas ran out. In her stupor from lack of sleep she left out the lemon juice. Thinks it may be a case of twice-cooked marmalade anyway. Jam thermometer claims it's reached the jamming temperature - it looks very liquid. What to do? Granny doesn't want to burn it. Has lost its young look for sure -the lovely stage when the liquid is dark and the peel is still a beautiful glowing orange.

Beloved reappears. Time for lunch: and sleep thereafter. (Dinner last night was a chicken tagine with pickled lemon and an egg in it; nice. A cook in the family is A GOOD THING. Granny's experiments with various kinds of risotto - some invented by her - spiced parsnip worked surprisingly well, - develop nicely too. Bottleblondshell and spouse when told this was on the menu for lunch looked horrified. In the end they gobbled it and asked for more. AND GOT IT.)