Doug’s DIARY

So much has been happening in the past few weeks that I barely know where to start, so I’ll begin as I often do, by telling you what’s going on in the countryside around us.

Everywhere there are great swathes of purple-spiked rosebay willowherb, creating an incredible spectacle, towering high above a creamy froth of meadowsweet, with its heady fragrance sending poor Hannah and Fred into bouts of sneezing, eyes streaming with hay-fever allergy to the mid-summer pollen. The trees in woodland beside the workshop are wrapped in honeysuckle, and the scent of its blooms, combined with that of the roses that surround the workshop door, and alpine strawberries, which grow wild in every nook and cranny, is intoxicating.

The weather has been scorching, so the doors have been flung open. The sunshine has helped bring about the demise of the midgies, which were making outdoor life so uncomfortable, and the sounds, scents and scenes in the garden tempt us out of the workshop to soak it all up. That doesn’t happen for long. It can’t because, regrettably, we’ve had