Friday . . .

. . . and a happy St. George's Day to you all.  There's a slight frost (boring) and loads of sunshine this morning,  Yesterday might have been cold a.m. but it was still lovely and all the trees are in blossom down the main road, looking radiantly beautiful.  It only lasts a week or so each year but when it does, the whole world brightens up.

Chris and I cancelled our chat - it really did feel a bit chilly and we were both a bit otherwise occupied really.  Next week will come quickly.

The gym and swim worked really well.  I'm quite shocked (in a good way) at how empty the studio is although maybe, thinking about it, it's because it's a very big space and lunch-time on a week day.  I bet the weekend is quite a different story.
Anyway, I did the puffing and grunting bit and rather enjoyed it, trying out one of the machines that I wasn't shown.  It's quite true - no-one pays anyone else a blind bit of notice but there's always at least one member of staff there to help out if needed so, when I'm feeling a bit more confident, I might ask about a couple of the machines that look intriguing.
The pool was well short of the maximum sixteen and there I met an old friend.  When I say 'old' I mean someone I know years ago but we have rather lost contact.  She only lives in the next road along so we've made a coffee date.  That was a very nice thing to happen.

The Zoom meeting was lovely.  Very helpful too - Jen was talking about the 'psychology' of slimming.  It wasn't heavy or deep but it was practical and helpful and I appreciated it very much.  Next week is all about Body Magic - I'm OK with that side of it but I'm sure it will be interesting, all the same.
She also confirmed that we will be back to real life face to face, socially distanced meetings on My 20th.  I will miss that, of course, because of my holiday, and it looks as if I will miss the next one too because I'll be visiting Dad for a few days.  Not to worry, it will give me time to work off my holiday weight gain!

Today starts with an early-ish shop, continues with housework and a load of washing/drying followed by the cleaners and ends with me making a pavlova - the meringue part, anyway.
Tomorrow, Beth and Alex, Dave and Anna are coming round for a Chinese take away in the garden.  I don't really want a birthday cake but I do fancy a pavlova which will work well as a light dessert.  With any luck, the 'children' will take the leftovers home with them.

I've just realised I haven't allotmentated much this week.  Fair enough as there's not much to do, but I'd better go down, water, look around and blitz some weeds.  There's bound to be some!
I've noticed that my columnar apple has two, just two, heads of blossom developing.  That's to be expected.  I was talking to Beth about the pollination thing and she reminded me of the old strategy of do-it-yourself.  In other words, taking a bit of blossom from one of the the allotment apple tree and - er - doing the necessary with the one in the garden.  Good scheme.  Even one or two apples this first year would be a joy.

The next gym swim is on Monday.  A pattern seems to be developing here - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.  That's maybe one too many and perhaps Friday would be better than Thursday.  Next week is all booked (you have to get in early and they open up a new day a week ahead every morning) so I'll think of that for the week after.

Better get the day started with my bath and the shopping.  Have a good one and enjoy that sunshine.  xx