The party was absolutely wonderful. Most people had gone well beyond “masks or moustaches” and dressed up completely – as you can see!

A wonderful time was had by all. The “birthday girl” danced all night long, and has some wonderful moves. Excellent.

Knackered the next day, of course, and slept and slept and slept, but have been taking it easy since then and feel ok now.

Phone – aha! have been wanting a smartphone ever since I decided it would be sensible to have a Google calendar, synching with our desktop computers, and the mobile phone, so I don’t have to carry a diary around with me as well. Trouble is, I had 8 months to go on the current contract with the crappy digital phone. It took three attempts to get Virgin to allow me to spend more money with them, for longer. But finally they graciously allowed me to, and I have a fancy schmancy HTC Wildfire S, for £15.64 per month, with 300 cross-network texts, 300 cross-network minutes, and 3000 minutes to other Virgin mobile users. Don’t actually know any, but there you go. And 1 Gb of internet usage per month too, which is plenty. Won’t be logging into facebook or checking my emails on it, just using the calendar. 

It was a major, major faff to set up the calendar to synchronise with the Google one. Unbelievable. But finally cracked it. Then, next morning, hubby said “you might have done something to the calendar, it’s empty.” Oh f**k. But sorted that relatively easily.

Next – battery life. It’s really a tiny little computer, with a phone built in, so it only lasts a day! Have ordered another battery, which I will charge for 12 hours first off, and see how that goes. YD swears that’s why her battery life is much better.

Got it all set up with the things I want – messages, weather, and a couple of apps (compass, torch) which will be useful. I am a techno-geek, but can’t cope with the flipping touch-screen qwerty keyboard, so have changed that to a phone-pad-type keyboard, and that works much better for me.

Now then, garden. We have a flowerbed which is being slowly strangled by something I thought would look pretty. It has tiny silver leaves and white flowers, and I have been yanking it up for three years now. New plan: dig everything out of the bed, keep the plants I want to re-plant in it next year, and dump everything else. Weedkiller the lot, then cover with black plastic held down with stones or bricks. So today I dug the bed up. It will need further attention I expect in a week or two, and I left the rudbeckias in as they’re still looking lovely. As soon as the flowers die back I’ll move them. 

Also have planted all the bulbs I dug out of said bed elsewhere. A good morning’s work. Bertie the cat came to check I was doing it right, and once she’d done that, wanted to go inside.

Health: have been referred back to different specialist for hand/arm, and saw the foot guy on Wednesday. He’s going to repeat the five steroid injections in my poor old feet, hopefully in a couple of weeks. Hence the gardening “frenzy” – need to get that done before I’m confined to barracks for a few days.

Right. Today went into Shirley, as planned, to collect new underwear from M&S Simply Food. Hmm. Shirley was gridlocked, and an ambulance was trying, loudly but in vain, to get through. Multiple stupid white van men were studiously ignoring him – how can people do that? and it took me 20 minutes to travel two miles and park. Interestingly, there were plenty of parking places. I guess because everybody was driving their car, not parking it.

Simply Food is not an ideal place to collect orders on a Saturday. Everybody is fraught and much too busy. But I got the stuff. Then discovered when I finally got to Sainsbury’s (mercifully on the way home, not further into the hell that was the Stratford Road this morning), they don’t have any avocados or goat yoghurt. Damn and blast.

Ah well. Got everything else. But got home fraught and wet (it had started to rain). Lunch helped.

After lunch spoke to my friend, at length, who has been having a horrible time. Then a short sleep, then Phase 1 of the gardening. Emptied several grotty pots (that involves separating out the gravel on the top, getting out the dead plants, then putting the compost on the garden, then sorting out the expanded polystyrene. Much better and tidier now. Green wheelie bin full! Also dug up almost everything (except the perennial poppy) in a bed where everything else was just dead. Next phase involves moving two plants (currently in pots) into a different flower bed, and repotting another one. Eventually will be able to dump all the pots with annuals in, and finally, dig up the oblong bed which needs replanting in the spring. Some of the plants I will keep in pots over the winter, but not many. Very satisfying. Needed hubby’s muscle with the biggest pot. Now they all need washing, but that’s for another day.

Post had arrived – some photos of elder daughter’s 30th, see below. Lovely.