It’s been such a fabulous day today - the weather has been perfect and we’ve spent a perfect day enjoying the sunshine with our neighbours out in the street in front of our house.

On one side of us there has been a boat-painting party, further along the same side gardening and on the other side, playing in the school field for little Fin and his cousins. Fin’s uncle Neil was our sparky, who rewired our house and last weekend, he was playing on a friend’s motorcross bike, lost it and ended up crashing through a hedge and smashing up his leg badly. His three kids have been playing with Fin, while Daddy hobbled round on a walking stick and Auntie and Uncle looked on.

We spent the day gainfully employed - DM painted our new front door and I weeded the garden, planted a few bits and pieces from the nursery then mowed the grass front and back. The back garden looks like a garden now - it’s taken a bit of perseverance and dogged determination but I’m definitely winning the battle out there. I am going to need to break my own ‘rules’ now to clear the brambles and bindweed and spray with glyphosate. I think it’s probably the best of the alternatives but I’m still not really happy about it but the roots of the plants are inside the dry stone wall and I can’t see any other way of getting rid of them.

The crowd next door were getting more and more raucous as their boat painting adventure ‘needed’ to be well-oiled with wine and beer. At around 6pm they were pressing us so hard to join them in a beer we broke our own golden rule - 8pm is beer o’clock in our world and we don’t usually break that rule. So, we dragged some chairs outside and sat out in the evening air until nearly 10pm, chatting and enjoying being outside, however cold. Becky and Iain came along with Fin and joined the party and life seemed as close to perfect as it is possible to get.

This shot of the moon was taken after a debate as to whether or not it was a harvest moon because of the red colouration as it rose. I said it was just the pollution from Plymouth and was proven right when it rose above the red and became its normal colour. I liked the way the clouds were drifting across its face.

At one stage, I nearly wept with the pleasure of being part of such a cool community. One thing is sure, it’s never enough. We never have enough time to see the stuff we want to see and do the things we want to do. One day.…….

I was arriving in New York a year ago and it was just as stressful as getting there this time - but the start of a wonderful adventure. The year before, we were building the greenhouse.