To escape my growing pile of rejection slips

I dashed to France for a hit of Mediterranean sun-and-sea and found the perfect slightly-difficult-to-get-to cove for my morning swims - just me, the fish and the sea-birds - until a boatload of Peeping Toms turned up.

Before France there was Derbyshire. Celebrating my father's 90th birthday. We hired a blazing-fireplace-cosy-cottage near Bakewell. There was a Grand Supper, my niece made a Bakewell Birthday Cake, the way we love our Bakewell Tarts (lots of Almonds, butter and sharp red jam) - it was truly delicious. Next day we visited Bakewell, a town consisting solely of tart vendors, each claiming to offer 'The Only Real Authentic Bakewell Pudding', two versions were sampled, the first was awful and the second inedible.

Mrs China has now been with us for a month. On Sunday she is moving to her permanent accommodation and I think we will both be relieved, she is still baffled by our rubbish disposal system and I can't understand her system of slippers and mats,  nor the systems of which things must see the sun and which things are not allowed to see other things.

I have come back to a little job which is a bit Top Secret - I drive to a massive aircraft hangar and unlock a series of doors until I arrive at a room where 214 objects have been collected, some of these pieces are worse than rubbish, others are worth millions (of which currency I shall not tell) I must unwrap these items, photograph them, say something about them and then seal them away - perhaps for ever.

I am trying to explain compost

my Chinese guest  is looking puzzled

any vegetable waste,  peelings, tea, coffee grounds ... put them in here  

I point at the kitchen waste bucket, she shrinks back in horror. Maybe I need to show more of the process, I pick up the bucket and beckon her to follow me up the garden, open the compost bin and tip the bucket  into it. She looks stricken 

Why would you do that?

It feeds the garden, the worms and insects break it down to make a rich soil - don't you feed your garden?

I feed my garden with yellow beans 

!!!

Two Crowds

22nd September
More people than I’d expected turned up to the Grand Sunday Barbeque. I’d asked everyone to bring along something to share: a salad or tart perhaps? an elderly neighbour handed me a huge washing up bowl full of cooked green beans and told me to get them dressed immediately while they were warm and that I’d better find a larger bowl to do it in.

I have a suspicion that Mme Bic Biro is a school teacher, she has short, shiny, stripey hair and a voice for reaching the far end of any school playground. When I realised how many people were turning up, she conjured up extra cutlery and made enough rice salad to feed a small country.

It was really hot yesterday. The French and non-French contingents kept pretty much separate during the afternoon, the two groups were clearly differentiated by the fact that the French guests sat in the shade and they did not bring their dogs.

We’re all trying not to scratch our itchy red aoûtat bites. I'd never come across them before coming here, my body looks like it has measles.