Our tomatoes are ripening thick and fast now – we’re eating them every day and still there are more – tomorrow is going to be the third day in a row our lunch has come from a great vat of home-made tomato soup that I brewed up on Sunday for lunch!

We also have more things ripening in our world, through a lucky break that I didn’t even know was coming my way.

I was sitting opening a stack of post earlier this evening, after work. We’ve got friends coming tomorrow from ‘the smoke’ and I was trying to get a bit of tidying done. I opened something from a big financial institution where I have an insurance policy, thinking the envelope was going to contain my annual statement but it contained a very pleasant surprise – notification that the policy matures in a month! I thought it had another six months to go but no, it’s a month alright.

When I took out this policy, what seems like a lifetime ago, I thought the day of its maturity was so far away as to be irrelevant to me. Well, now its relevance has come into sharp focus and more of our core objectives can be met!

What this means to us is huge. We can go full-steam-ahead with the next two phases of the grand plan in one go, without having to save the money first. This is wonderful news for us.

So, we’re busy ‘ripening’ our plans this evening and looking forward to the end of these two phases coming much sooner than we’d hoped……sweet, sweet fruits for our labours. Maybe by Christmas we will be sitting in front of that roaring fire in its newly restored fireplace while it heats our hot water after all! Our ambitions of eco-friendly carbon-neutral energy are coming to the boil!

Yeah, yeah, it’s all giving you the pip, it’s so corny – I know…..can’t you tell I’m full of free-radicals tonight!

Last year's shot was pure desparation!