Green and country in the city 20 August

• Asked a guy putting up a screen around lift that is going to be worked on if I could have the two little bits of wood he had just sawn off for my wood burning stove. I was overheard by his foreman/boss who has said he will bring in the wood they have - sawn up as well. I have said I had to get this home on the tube so hope ne doesn't bring in too much at once. Especially as I haven't got room under for storage as I have lost property from a recent big event under my desk (and a load more to come).
• Got a yard of thickish pine from skip on way to girls club, a 5ft length of skirting propped up against a wall down the road, and several bits out of a skip on my way home from the shops yesterday. And I've got them all sawn up!
• Day off this week, weather better tan forecast so did Parkland Walk from Highgate to Finsbury Park. Got a small totem mug from the RSPCA shop in Highgate which makes my 10th Totem item.
• Luckily I resisted temptation to get hare cushion from a catalogue for my bed, even though golden yellow background, as I already had one and two would mean it would be in danger of becoming a collection. In a week I've seen 2 other hare cushions, so good thing I nipped it in the bud!
• Posted an order to Sarah Raven - tulips (scented and they naturalise), Iceland poppies, anemones a self seeding camassia and a daisy (9-months flowering and it self-seeds). As just over £40 I will get some free tulip bulbs I won't have room for, so will have to find them a good home.
• Rain Thursday night. Friday morning out picking autumn raspberries for breakfast and catching snails late home to bed and found a frog sitting on the huge pile of stuff too tough for the compost heap behind the shed.

Green and country in the city 6 August

• Picked surviving plums - 6. But that's 6 more than I've had before!
• Two catalogues, both autumn ones but with large Christmas sections. (What's that to do with Green and country in the city? Well, it's a seasonal marker!)
• When we arrive at the canoe club on a Sunday this summer there is usually two swans with 6 cygnets. We have been watching them grow. They are now nearly as big as their parents. Today there were only 5 cygnets. Sad the brood survived when they were small and vulnerable and lost one when nearly full grown.
• Saw a comma in the garden - first for some weeks. Also a gate-keeper, a red admiral and a cabbage white. Also a moth but it was on a leaf by the fence so I could only see its underside.