shewhomust | Jul. 5th, 2015

I put off defrosting the fridge until I could put it off no longer, and every time I took something out, a pool of water spilled from its lid onto the floor. I am not proud of this. Since the fridge claims to be 'self defrosting' (hah!) there is no way of speeding up the process, but it started on Friday morning and was complete by the time I got up on Saturday.

Friday was Summer Phantoms: as I wrote on Gail-Nina's website, it was hard to believe that the three readers had not colluded a) to produce three completely different stories and b) to go against our expectations of who would do what. So Gail's retired teacher and pillar of the church encountered a scene with Sean's touch of the macabre, while Sean's classic fantasy fairground offered prizes of impeccable mythological significance (will you choose the pomegranate or the ring?) and Simon efficiently scooped up the task of lightening the atmosphere and leaving us laughing.

After which we ate at Mario's. Since we were last there they have moved across the street and slightly closer to the Bigg Market, and they no longer offer the all-day antipasto platter (which staved off indecision by offering a little - though not so little as all that - of everything). Other than that, they are as before, friendly and informal, accommodating to the member of the party with her arm in a sling (nasty fracture caused by a fall in Edinburgh), giving no hint that we had outstayed our welcome though we were, as usual, the last customers to leave,

That month in shewhomust's garden... I missed the last garden waste collection, being on Lindisfarne, and returned from a week away to find that the garden had run amok: tendrils of bramble, which I thought I had done a good job of cutting back, were reaching across the path, and trying to creep in through the kitchen door. I went out this afternoon with gauntlets and secateurs, and filled my wheelie bin in the space of an hour.