Excuse me, my pocket is ringing.

I fully intended to be productive today, and in fact was. I laid and cut out the purple chinese silk dress. I have yet to transfer the markings, but will do that soon. I did something incredibly chancy with the fabric, which luckily did not end up in disaster. The instructions on the bolt were �dry-clean only� and I am not one to follow those kinds of instructions. So I put it and the green cotton in the washing machine on the delicate cycle with a cold water wash, tossed them about in the dryer for approximately 7 minutes, and hung them on the line. As was expected, the silk shrank, but after being ironed looked fine, and there was definitely enough to cut out my pattern with only a little remnant left over for making a clutch bag.

Then I joined Hubby and Little Princess in the backyard picking currants from our bushes. They worked on the red ones (of which there are still many more to go) and I denuded both black currant bushes. I washed the berries, getting rid of leaves, stems and other detritus, and then left them to drain in a collander while I hopped in the car to get some sugar. As I sat down on the overheated leather seats I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to take it into the shop for a recall at 1 p.m. It was now 2:45! So I immediately jumped back out of the car, called the Subaru dealership and asked if I could still bring the car in. I couldn�t, so made an appointment for two week�s time. However, what was the song playing when the receptionist put me on hold? Well? Hotel California, that�s what!

I ended up with eight cups of black currants, and they made lots and lots of jam, a jar of which I took over to Vlad�s tonight as a hostess gift. Dinner was barbecued trout, baked potatoes and green beans, all delicious. I definitely ate too much. Dessert was fresh berries drizzled with cream. Heavenly. My cell phone rang just as Vlad was serving dessert, much to the merriment of all present. We had told Little Princess to call when she needed to be picked up from work, but I�m still not used to my pocket playing a Bach partita since we hardly ever use the cell. I missed a half-hour of dinner conversation.

Now I am tired and stuffed. I don�t know if I could sleep though, with my tummy so uncomfortably full. I definitely won�t need to eat much for the next few days, but unfortunately we have become very popular of late and will be entertained at Hubby�s tennis friend�s cottage tomorrow and at a composer and his wife�s in Montreal the day after. How can I manage this without gaining weight?

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