I wish all weekends were this good.

Friday night, we went out with Matt and Jo. Matt is Andrew's squash partner, and Jo is one of their former colleagues, who works at a nearby local authority. She's currently flat sharing with Matt and his partner, Ty. We started out in Salt, which was incredibly smoky, very puzzling as there didn't seem to be anyone actually smoking in there. Maybe they have reverse air conditioning? They also were playing music at a volume that even Matt and Jo (who are bright young things not fogies like me and A) couldn't talk over. The other weird thing, while we're on the subject was the way they kept dimming the lights and then suddenly would turn them back up to the top of a halogen white scale - the overall effect was of a naff 80s pop video with lots of dry ice and spotlights - all we needed was the big hair to finish the effect.

We escaped to Nando's for a bite to eat, which was great fun, then on over to the Water Quarter, which had funky decor and was fun and finally back to Mimosa until they threw us out after 1 o'clock. A great evening.

Saturday went down to see Aunty Floss, who is in her late eighties and truly wonderful. After having us all worried by being very ill last year, she has now pulled through and was looking great. She has an incredibly hectic social schedule, knits profusely and is sharp as a needle. Had a great lunch followed by a run in the car then took her back home. Returned home and had a quiet evening, to my astonishment found myself in bed by 9.45 and liking it. Just goes to show that I can't do late nights like I used to.

Sunday was an orgy of planting and yet more plant purchasing. We found another good nursery and filled the car with lots of lovely things. Andrew has now put down green slate in the corner of the garden, we have potted and planted so that now our main structural plants are all where they should be. We only now have to source our multi stemmed birch and the rowan.

Today was relatively quiet for a Monday. Did a site visit this morning to an area where there are lots of student and multi occupancy households causing problems with waste in their frontages. By looking at the rubbish and talking with local residents, it seems that we have some Polish and Somali residents - we will probably need to think about producing literature in these languages to ensure they can better understand how to manage their waste. Spent the afternoon in arranging greatly reduced and limited opening hours for our public conveniences. We have a number of staff off sick and a vacancy and the current budget crisis means we cannot use agency staff or overtime as a remedy. So public services will suffer.