Help! Drafts!

I should be blogging about- apple cozies that are ready to go, Betty's box that is nearly ready to go, Angela's Thrifty Thursdays and how amazing that is because of the Year of Living Small, the Year of Living Small.

However, I am having more and more difficulty posting anything, admittedly since this new machine arrived in all its slick, quick flick of a technological hooray.

I can't get photos to download first time for sure- they disappeared completely from a post last night, literally when my back was turned, and were only retrieved when I went into Drafts.

I can't publish by hitting this orange button at the bottom; it just doesn't respond at all. I have to publish by going into Drafts.

I can't highlight text to put in a link- I got Mise's link in last night, but then couldn't at all highlight the next thing I wanted to link through. Not even in Drafts!

And now I'm going to go and watch the rest of the fabulous French series thing with Jack Dee and Adrian Young Ones. So clever, so beautiful, and tonight so Provence!

I want to have a bright and light-filled entry to Autumn like the one that Mise has chronicled! But it continues cold and grey and damp in the frozen North! I don't actually want an entry to Autumn at all just yet- for the last two years at just this time we are on Portstewart Strand for the summer's last swim and a bit of wistful looking ahead to the suns' next school year!

Instead we have been coaxing less ill little strawberries out into fresh air, and tramping through the glistening grass below the High Tower just across the way. So it would seem that it's conkers instead of vast sand stretches and dusky clouds this year round! Back to replenishing pencil cases, then!

Glastobirthday

All summer long we have been delighting in the anticipation of Patrick's and Neil's and Rowan's joint 21st and 18th birthday celebrations- a mini music festival, a secret garden party, a seriously enforced and stylish dress code! The power of the beauty of youth was palpable- but you might spot a middle aged interloper with her crocheted daisy chain headband!

Dusk fell, as did the temperature! Layers required!

Far left, past the power of the beauty of youth- PC besuited and behatted and playing well into the night!

The final proof of the power of the beauty of youth- I taught two of these young women...

And the winner is...

Betty the Wood Fairy! I ran all your lovely names through a most reliable thing and Betty was The Chosen Wood Fairy One. I shall be in touch to ascertain the leafy bower to which we should send our little box of little things.

I am very grateful for blogs today: reasons not to feel disappointed that I forgot to watch The Great British Bake-Off this week, and reasons to believe that boys will be boys!

Never mind, there is now only one sleep until Glastobirthday and I really must find out how to get photos back on here because we are all very excited!

Late as ever

If you had asked, I would have said with absolute conviction that I started blogging in August two years ago- wrong again! Happily Ever After, still one of my favourite posts, appeared in your superior midst on 30th July 2009!

Oh well! There'll have to be a little anniversary giveaway, obviously, though I haven't given that any thought at all- if you'd like a little random fraise feast do leave the customary comment below!

Much has changed since that evening on the stool: Jo is six and no longer four. The suns are now old enough to say wedding, instead of happily ever after day, although I ruefully miss that! Not only was that dishwasher replaced, but its replacement also went the way of most technology in this house, and so with our environmental hats on we just fervently wash the dishes now! Well, I just fervently wash the dishes now, with sunny drying assistance! It's all still worth every minute on the corner stool, and possibly more so.

The biggest number of comments came in response to Cooking Catherine's guest post on picnics in the Wind in the Willows week that we all did! And indeed the next biggest came after the invitation to that same week- that was way back in January when we were all mostly snuggling down into mole holes; maybe we should do an Autumn one? And indeed the wet weather here today starts to usher in the cool undertones of crisp leaves and comforting scarves!

Any old how- Happy Second Birthday, Fraise, and thanks to those of you who call in to see us in our sometimes tearful patch!

Camping is...

You know when you put your blogs down the side of the thing and the Internet magically updates the titles? So all you have to do to get everyone's latest posts is to click on the side of the thing? And everyone gets to see that you do honestly read them too?

Well, when I got in there from my SECOND night out without any strawberries this week, I read down through the list of latest posts:

Camping is = Crabapple jelly, sorting sheep, and the perfect summer's day.

Now I can honestly say that none of these things would appear in my definition of camping. Which is relevant here tonight because as I got in from my SECOND night out without any strawberries this week PC was googling away on the search for some suitable accomodation for the week he is taking off soon, and unimpressed by results he said, "We could just go camping?"

This is fine. I love camping. We did say that we were taking a little break this summer. But camping is fine. There's just never an absolute guarantee that in the frozen North there will be crabapple jelly, sorting sheep or even the perfect summer's day....

(Still no pictures here in Strawberry Land, so no shots of glamping or even google snatches of The Guard- both of which I would most highly recommend!)

Greatitudes 418 - 433

First of all a resounding thank you to Prince Charming and to the Provider of Provision for a new computer. Our long cherished and much upgraded machine died exactly as I was reading an email that was important and urgent and crash, there it all went. But my wonderful no drama needed PC went out last night and sorted a replacement PC with great aplomb and characteristic wisdom. Which means that his wife can go on blogging instead of cleaning his house. Most gracious man! And in case you're interested in the technical details, it is black.

And the main reason why I can be blogging instead of cleaning the house this week is that, apart from available technology, suns are shining away at tennis camp every morning this week. Oh the sheer relief and bliss of a respite oasis in the middle of the dry and parched land- which it isn't, by the way, because normal summer weather has returned to the frozen North!!

We are (PC is) slowly reconnecting bits and retrieving what we (he) can from the machine wreck, so no photographs yet, but we are all very grateful for a most exciting weekend of glamping! Cooking Catherine informed me that this was in fact what we had just spent two night doing when we arrived at the latest fabulous Cooking family birthday party at the Giant's Causeway on Sunday afternoon.

We thought we had slept in a glorified garden shed, spent days on the beach with bodyboards, a surfboard, and buckets in which to catch crabs and minnows, and had breakfast on the last day in a nice hotel simply because of the amazing offer they were running- but no, it seems we have joined the Cath Kidston generation at last! (There will be more to come on Cath Kidston, when I can psyche myself up enough to reveal what I actually, really, unfortunately think...) Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to prove our foray into contemporary culture!

I am extremely grateful for blogs and more importantly bloggistes. Fraise is nearly two years old and I feel a time of evaluation settling upon me. What I do know with great certainty is that reading the thoughts and journeys of women across the planet has been a great revelation, encouragement, stimulation and privilege. And when you discover that you do actually know someone you would never ever have met, to whom you now email and with whom you now share and for whom you now care deeply, well, that it is a use of the Internet that is wholly holy.