… to all those people whose comments I have not yet acknowledged. I will do so shortly.

After a wonderful holiday here with daughter and her friends, I had nearly caught up with myself, but lost a few hours when our farmer friend came by to see to his potatoes yesterday evening. Instead of admiring what I thought were my prize tomato plants, he shook his head, pursed his lips, tutted, then fought his way through their jungular growth to reveal patches of mildew eating away through the stalks.

He urged me into an immediate and brutally merciless campaign of disentangling, cutting out, pulling off, stripping away and spraying with that essential cure-all, Bordeaux mixture. Done all that, but now have to re-stake all the blighters – and pray.

Normal service will be resumed, eventually.