La raccolta della patata

I've been reading. I go through phases, reading and not reading. Just now it fits with the schedule - Jussi awakens me in the morning with a cuppa before she goes to the goats and I have half an hour to read before getting up and getting Ailsa up and ready for school.

By chance, the last two books I've read were based in Italy. And it has unbalanced me - my senses seem to be yearning for the scent of carob, the whine of moped and the crunch of sunflower husks under foot. And the light! And the heat - that almost lightly grilled lamb scent of skin in hot sun. Mama Mia!

Instead I've been in wind and rain, or when they relent, midges, digging up the tatties.

And here is the harvest. Not as much as I hoped - even allowing for the fact that much had already been harvested as black leg threatened - but not bad - and I'm quite pleased. I've dug them up early - they'd died back too quickly and I suspected blight so best to lift them asap - and indeed there were a few distinctly mushy ones. I'm hoping that with the obviously infected ones removed, these will last long enough for us to eat them - if the harvest had been more prolific I would have doubted our chances.

But there is so much to do - and so many interruptions, delightful and otherwise. I was at a meeting on Sunday and someone used the phrase 'time management' - the first time I heard that for 18 months or so - and it echoed inside like the jangling chains of a ghoul. Oh yes - time management - prioritise what you have to do and do things at the top of the list. Stop fannying about, stop faffing around and hiding in the things that are easy or heaven forbid, enjoyable and do the stuff that needs to be done.

È tempo di vedere un uomo riguardo ad un cane!**

**Hopefully, there is someone out there whose translation skills are better than Babelfish. This isn't quite what I meant!