I'm having a change of plan here.

Well, not a strategic plan, but more of a tactical plan. I've finished my Labrador pages and I've been making a start on the Newfoundland pages of my mega-voyage to Canada.

However one thing always leads to another and once you make a start you'll be surprised just how many other things that there are. I now seem to be writing a mega-opus about the Viking exploration of North America. Ahhh well.

So that took me to midday and then I went outside and made more progress planting seeds - more of those that I planted two weeks ago. And to my surprise I now have some baby leeks sprouting - the first of the seeds to come up. I wish the others would get a move on.

Those of you with long memories will recall that ages ago I built a heat exchanger that was basically the radiator out of an air-conditioning unit. I put a 70°C thermostat in it - to switch on a water pump when the temperature reached that figure - but that was far too high. It only ran 4 times that summer. After that I stuck it on one side and forgot about it. I bought some 50°C thermostats a couple of years ago and so this afternoon I rebuilt it, and I've sited it next to the solar shower unit. The aim is to run some electricity to there, plug the pump in and wire it to the thermostat so that when the temperature inside the heat exchanger reaches 50°C it will start to pump water through the heat exchanger so that the water will heat up.

Once that was fixed up (but not wired in yet) I took down the old heat exchanger and demolished the old beichstuhl. That was another link with Liz that has now gone, but it was redundant since I've had the dry composting toilets and apart from being an eyesore, it was in the way and I'm in a vague tidying-up mode as you know. Still in gardening mode I dug a small patch out at the end of the raised beds, just under where the apple trees are, and then planted the 2 blackcurrant and 1 blueberry shrubs. I'll be in jam-making mode later this year I hope.

To finish off, I gave everything a thorough watering. About 100 litres of water has gone onto the plants and seeds this evening and they needed it, that's for sure. There's been no rain of any substance since a week last Monday.

Now it's back up here with the Vikings. I'm enjoying writing this.