(I’ve written a couple of blog posts over at The Really Good Life about our new allotmentlots of before/after pics from today’s clearing work :) )

(In other elsewhere news, I’ve been strangely super popular on Pinterest today – usually I get 20-30 notifications of follows, repins or likes a day, but today it’s been (literally) thousands. I wish I knew what had prompted it!)

1. I laugh out loud when I find the box of beer & cider tucked away on the bottom shelf – I assume it is forgotten reward juice. (It’s only when I look at it a little closer and see it’s quite out of date that I realise it’s probably for slug rather than human consumption.)

1b. The ease with which the rosebay willowherb can be pulled out of the ground.

1c. I flick back and forth between the before and after photos. There is a huge amount of work still to do but it’s nice to see how much progress can be made in just a couple of hours.

2. We take Lily down to the canal. Rather than waiting until our normal spot a little way down, she runs straight in to the water while we’re still back in the woods. I know the water is shallow there, and the bank easily mountable, but John urges me to run on to check just in case. Before I can though, we hear a little shake of her collar and a head appears over the grass: “I’m alright!” she seems to say with a grin.

2b. Not really understanding why she does it, she shakes off while still up to her chest in the water. The splashes exaggerate how her body twists – there is a good delay between her head and tail flicking off their excess water.

3. I feel utterly refreshed after my shower and I ache far less than I thought I would after so much gardening.