My lovely Landlord was not killed, maimed nor damaged in any way and his very tall sons drove diggers, shovelled and stood about making helpful suggestions,all without dying.
The garden has had a little "mulching" with yellow clay that has turned to a skid-pan in the rain showers we had yesterday, but has been "whacked" down to permit the application of topsoil and should recover in time.
Really the only casualty has been my Mint plant, but it was uncovered by a contrite digger driver and will probably make a full recovery - I'm just glad that I harvested and froze all the leaves I am likely to need over the winter!
Mary, as you can see, has been supplied with electricity and lids and is now bubbing away, doing her job with quiet efficiency. All I can really add is, "Thank you" to The Landlord, Landlady, their Offspring, friends and contractors - also the Balmoral Company for their fine product!
It strikes me that there has been little other news here since Mary came into our lives, and that is because nothing has really happened apart from the harvesing of pumpkins! We have 15 Crown Prince -
all about a foot across, which is just about the right size and 10 Butternut Squash 
that were grown from the seeds in a supermarket fruit. Since we only had four and three plants respectively they have done really well. If you look on my Yahoo! Group (there's a link on the right of this post at the top) you can get my recipe for one of my favourite vegetarian dishes. Please have a look.
The runner beans are finished and I have left a couple of pods on the vine to produce seed for next year and yesterday set some tomato seeds to ferment prior to storage for next Summer. I decided that 31 plants was far too many and so we are only having Black and Marmande (Beefsteak) toms next year.
I'm hoping to get the second greenhouse* up over the next couple of weeks and we are (again!) moving the small one. This time they are going at the side of the house, now that the hedge has grown tall enough to keep the wind away from their fragile bits. I plan to use the little one for tiny, baby seedlings and move them to the big one once they are out of trays and into fair-sized pots or grobags.
* This is the second Freecycle'd greenhouse I have been given! It's 6' x 10' and in wonderful condition, we are planning to put this one on railway sleepers so that it will be higher on the sides to allow for the really big things like melons(!) My "crop" was one galia melon the size of a cricket ball. Ho hum.
Think it's been a bit wet in your garden? This is where the swede are supposed to be growing!!
The perpetual spinach seems to like the wet, tho.
Likewise, the marigolds that were planted near the broad beans (which drowned and were a disaster!!) to prevent blackfly. It worked, too. I shall do it again next year - although I don't expect the marigolds to be flowering in October!
I promise not to mention Mary again,although I shall probably go on at length about the mud problems we are going to have this winter. Still, I have actually BOUGHT some meat! I have ordered a forequarter of beef from Chambers The Butcher in Beccles, which they are hanging for five weeks for me. Also a whole rump! This is being paid for with Pig Money (that's what we raised by selling pigs, by the half, to friends).
I really can't wait, so till then,
Cheerio!
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