A Quick Catch-Up

Lobbing in here after several weeks of busy-ness, but not having time right now to post much of a catch-up. Last time, I celebrated the abundance of our fruit and tomato crops; but while the fruit has continued to do very well (we've had so much of it that we've had to make at least one apple-and-pear pie a week in order to keep up -- when a fruit pie is something we usually make only once or twice a year), the summer weather (or lack-of-weather) has heavily impacted the tomatoes. The summer has been no damper than usual, but the cooler temperatures and lack of sunshine that we've experienced since the highs of May have magnified the impact of the damp, and much of what was on display in the photographs posted less than six weeks ago has succumbed to blight, and has had to be yanked out and thrown away. Judith will perhaps be able to provide a better estimate, but I reckon we've lost at least a third and possibly as much as a half of the crop. Bum donkey poo smells! (as we say here)

On the other hand, we have kept up the leisure travel and culture programme -- a weekend in Hastings with a side visit to Bodiam Castle on 13-14 August, followed by a few days in Weymouth on 8-11 September, with a walk around the Isle of Portland (partly in and sometimes above the low-level cloud blowing in from Lyme Bay to the west) and a walk along The Fleet from Abbotsbury to Weymouth, part of it in the rain. But at least we can say we've finally done it....

....and in a few days' time we're off to Eastern Crete with the holiday company Travel Editions, with whom we visited Western and Central Crete in 2007. Part of the reason for going back is (as it were) to "complete Crete", so that we can tick it off the list; another part of the reason is that our guide will be the same hugely knowledgeable and enthusiastic local we had in 2007, which was a real bonus. After which, winter will be closing in, and it will be time to concentrate on my promised (to myself) winter projects: albumising the physical photographs of our trips to Andalucia, Madrid and Catalonia in 1998, 1999 and 2005, and uploading to Facebook public photo albums of our visits to Sicily (2007), Provence and the Loire Valley (both 2009), Purbeck aka The Land of My Boyhood (2009 and 2010 -- and in due course 2012 as well) and of course Crete. In the meantime, here's a photograph from the window of our B&B in Weymouth, one of a terrace of tall Regency-era houses at the southern end of The Esplanade backing onto the harbour. Under its former name of Melcombe Regis, it was through this port that the Black Death entered England in 1348, resulting in the loss of a third of the population and -- as a consequence -- the end of the feudal system.