Household plants and PVA glue

Just returned from deepest, darkest Catford, where we’ve been celebrating Julie’s birthday with a lovely brunch which involved the biggest and dirtiest chocolate cake I’ve ever met. Very pleasant conversation, mostly about knitting (crumbs, we’re getting old) and the idea of forming a craft circle was mooted. (What are we? Pensioners!?) Sadly, I don’t have a craft so it was suggested I try decoupage. Not sure that ripping up little bits of magazine and gluing them to boxes isn’t a little too reminiscent of being at junior school, but I’ll give anything a go in the search of pleasure. Actually, I remember once gluing a mosaic of magazine cuttings to a plastic cup and my teacher being so impressed she brought me some soil and a cutting from a money plant so that I could turn it into a flower pot. I gave it proudly to my Mum and it flourished and gave birth to many other little money plants, one of which now sits proudly on my kitchen table; 20 years old and still going strong. I'm not sure anything I've just written is interesting at any level, so feel free to punish me with your own anecdotes about household plants and PVA glue!

Crafty: Julie actually crocheted this hat (modelled here by Judith)

350 years ago, Pepys seemed to be falling apart. His mouth was still hurting from his ulcer, and his left leg had started to feel sore again. Not sure we ever found out how or when he hurt his leg; perhaps it was when he fell into the ditch behind Westminster, or maybe it was just another ailment in the long line of ghastly symptoms that Pepys endured throughout his life. After his death, an autopsy revealed the most astonishing number of afflictions which included terrible scarring from the operation on his bladder stone, black spots in his lungs and several new stones scattered through various organs. He must have lived his life with a great deal of pain.

Later in the day, Pepys took his wife to visit his parents, and his mother, as is a mother's won't, fussed around her poorly son, sending the maid, Bess to Cheapside for some herbs with which to make an ointment for his ulcer.

Sam (composer and friend, not Mr Pepys) in his allotment today