First off, I am reliably informed that today is Lurkers' Day, so would like to invite any lurking readers to pop in and say hello. Especially if you (or your ip address) currently reside in Kuwait or Brighton or Grimsby. Or anywhere else. Derby, for instance.



Someone posted this pick of my street on facebook:



undated, but you can see a horse-drawn vehicle of some description and the trees are tiny. I took this today and sepia-d it:



Look at those bastard trees now - and this is after they've been coppiced. They do make the street look beautiful, especially at this time of year, when the leaves are fresh and bright, but they block out virtually all the sunlight to the houses. This is the issue with a lot of architecture, isn't it? The pull between making it look good for passers-by (which wins out too often, I reckon) and making it a decent place to occupy (which won't win you any prizes). It is a dilemma, especially if you happen to find yourself agreeing with Prince bloody Charles, which can't be right.

Anyway, back out in Real Life, I am toddling along. I've started sleeping again, without any medication (woo hoo, happy dance etc). I am now a totally med free person. Apart from the odd self-medicating spliff, but only with my coffee after dinner at the end of the day, like a person might have a drink.

Yesterday we allotmented, Bloke still clearing tree, bramble and nettle roots out of the proposed flower bed, and me transplanting the three surviving raspberry plants. They were a total fail last year, barely grew let alone flowered and fruited. I'm not sure why, but they're now in a more open, less shaded site that has been properly fed, so we'll see how they do. Shop raspberries are shite - they're mental expensive and taste of nothing, so I hope we do better this year. I had wanted to plant more blackcurrant bushes as well but I left it too long and will have to wait till autumn now.

We stayed quite late:



which was OK as Bloke had driven up there, so I didn't need to find a parking space (bane of my life) (we don't live together).

Today all I've done is a yoga class, a bit of food shopping and made dinner. The yoga wasn't with the usual teacher (he does Mon and Thurs, but yesterday was a holiday and it was closed), but I wanted to keep the momentum of two classes a week so thought I'd give it a go. It was Iyengar style and very fucking strenuous. Jesus. Probably good for me and all - well, indisputably good for me in the long term, but in the short term I fell out of the Buddhist Centre and collapsed onto a chair outside the nearest cafe where I had to smoke several fags to regain some normality and the energy to walk back up the hill to home.

I bought a pack of mixed mushrooms - the first time I've seen this. They've had big packs of individual unusual ones, but I could never decide which to try. Tonight I had these:



No idea what they are, but I cut them up a bit, fried them in butter with some garlic, added a spoon of creme fraiche, grated cheese and chopped parsley and had it with linguine and another tomato salad which I did not chuck on the floor first. Delicious.

The cats have been enjoying the scaffolding, though there's been no sign of any workers:



That's the Bob, but I've never seen these two before:



Today I am grateful for: Reenie helping me with the stats thing; sunshine; getting off the valium; nice chats with several Sara[h]s; liking the mushrooms

Sleep tight