Stinging Flies on Runaway Courgettes

This is what happens when you go away and leave your garden to its own devices. Monster marrows instead of petite courgettes like this normal sized one above. Courgettes are the thugs of the garden. They terrorize their owners. You have dreams about them at night in which they invade your house and tie you up in stickiness. Ahem. Better get a grip. The main thing is not to panic. This is helped by having a compost heap on which you can throw the outsizers and, in a real emergency, the whole plant.

The red Val Doonican stool at Bar Eight @ the Museum

I was in Galway on Thursday night reading at the Stinging Fly's west of the country launch. But this is not about that as much as about the venue. It was in the Museum Café which is run by the same people who run Bar 8 down beside the harbour. This is why it's called Bar Eight @ the Museum. We had lunch there the other day and it was delicious if a little pricey.

It worked really well as a venue. Big windows, easy to get out for a breath of air and a great view, comfortable and, above all, spacious. And we got to sit on a Val Doonican stool. I loved the wine bar above Sheridan's cheese shop but it was impossibly small. So here's the plug. On September 10 my poetry group is launching its anthology there. Watch this space.

We're off to the boat again tomorrow. Hurray! This will be our last week of it. Joe's back teaching soon and the summer is at an end. Sigh. I hate all those Back to School signs the shops and papers trumpet with such glee. But not as much, I suspect as the school children and teachers do.

Just for the hell of it here's a picture of one part of the garden. This is called the Grove because when we moved here thirteen years ago it was full of huge fir trees and out-of-control laurels. The people we bought it off called it the Grove and so do we. I also kept digging up bits of old shirt, buckles, the odd shoe and other detritus. There's a car buried to one side of it too. An old mini I think.