Tuesday 5 June

• Plenty of rain last week! Nearly two inches in the buckets after the thunderstorm on Tuesday afternoon. The newly planted out tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes survived the battering!
• On my bike ride on the bank holiday Monday I collected elderflowers and the elderflower champagne is now bottled up.
• My bird of paradise plant, so pot bound the earth is 15 cm above the top of the pot, has two flowers this year. They last a lovely long time.
• All but one (one of the new, small bulbs) of my Amaryllis flowering this year - two already over and flower stalks removed, some others still in bud. The Amaryllis that hasn't flowered for years now has a flower bud - but one of the last to produce one. I was very puzzled why such a big bulb wasn't producing flowers, and still don't understand why it hasn't flowered for years.
• Friday evening a fox lay against the eastern fence in the evening sun all evening. I didn't need to go out so I didn't disturb it.
• I have started going out after dark as one of the courgettes was showing signs of snail/slug damage. And I successfully caught the culprit and found some snails on the other courgettes. I don't see how they are negotiating the slug collars.
• At the weekend I put in the slug collars where the French beans and runner beans are to go but only put out the beans that had actually germinated. The rest will follow as and when. They have survived their first night - always worry I've trapped a slug inside!
• On Saturday cycling through the Walthamstow wetlands I passed a family of greylag geese. One of the goslings (though nearly as big as its parents now) was sprawled on the path and just watched me as I cycled past it.
• I went to a vintage fair in Wanstead and was then looking for another fair but going down the wrong road. I was glad I went though as I found a female stag beetle on the pavement heading for the road, so picked it up and put it under some twigs in a garden.
• Rescued a small log of cherry while kayaking on Sunday which I brought home for the wood store. I have also ordered a log delivery for my next day off.
• There were instructions in magazine Simple Things for.botanical gins including rosemary and bay leaf gin. Two rosemary sprigs and 3 bay leaves in 70ml of gin, start tasting after 3 days and bottle when taste is right. The rosemary and bay leaves in the gin look very attractive in the clear glass - pity that will go when I bottle it. The suggestion for drinking it it for adding ginger ale. Seems a waste making a flavoured gin and hiding it with another taste.