We had guests over last night for dinner and a drink and I had a good time. Two of my work colleagues whom I am particular friends with arrived at seven and when they left at eleven thirty it seemed to me like no time had passed. I certainly hope it was the same for them. I made dinner and while it tasted nice I rather thought it was unremarkable. But the flowers...the flowers were spectacular. I picked three vases for the living, dining, and bathroom and all that research on flower arrangement has paid off. I haven't had many flowers to work with for the past few weeks; the first flush of roses is over and while they're budding up again, I haven't had any blooms and the rain has slowed down a lot of the growth on my other flowers. Or any flowers I do have don't last well when cut, such as my poppies. I love the poppies but they can last only a few hours indoors.

I'm surprised how early I got up today and might go back to bed.

What with all the rain we've had lately, a lot of my seedlings have disappeared. I just wish the rain would drown my weeds as well. I went out and bought some replacement plants at the garden center and picked up a few bargains as well. I got four rosebushes for the price of one and now I have to decide where to put them. I still have a dream of picking bowls of roses. One house we lived in when I was a kid had a hedge of pink roses surrounding part of the garden. I didn't appreciate them then but I would love it now.

I hung a few of my paintings on the walls. I want to paint more. I'm thinking of branching out into landscapes. I love painting flowers but I think there's only so many flowers one can put on one's walls.

My foot is a lot better and so long as I keep it completely level when I need to put weight on it, I can walk quite fast and even run a bit. Walking down stairs still presents minor difficulties as I need to keep my whole foot on the stair in order to navigate. We walked around York yesterday and as long as I avoided the cobblestones, I could walk easily on the pavement. York is a mass of uneven cobbled streets and sunken ancient flagstones and modern brick paving. Charming, though slightly hard to walk on with injured feet or high heels.

Partner printed off Chopin's Revolutionary Study for piano and I've been working on it. I have the first page down ok. I can play it sort of andante--never mind it should be allegro. I've discovered that my interpretation of allegro generally sits at around andante anyway. I need to practice more. I played for about an hour today and my hands actually began to hurt with all the stretching.

I have an injured foot and knee from falling down the stairs. The dog was involved. So I had a week off work but now I'm back. Not fully healed but able to limp adequately. When I first did it I was going nuts with the inactivity: all I could do was lay down. Going up stairs was tricky and seeing as our bathroom is upstairs I tried to hold it for as long as I could. Down was fine because I could scoot on my backside. Now I can maneuver the stairs fairly easily though it takes a bit of time coming down. I can still scoot. If I need to.

I'm working on storage solutions for our house. We don't have a lot of built-in storage so we have to make the best of movable storage, i.e. dressers, shelves, and boxes. Problem is, our house is full of junk. If it were just me I'd toss it all but Partner loves his junk. He needs his junk (allegedly). What's more, he loves to get new junk. I blame it all on him. After all, not one piece of the junk in all the house belongs to me. Everything that belongs to me is useful and necessary.