Repotting the plants

Another bad night’s sleep – so thought I would do something a little less cerebral and get round to repotting the plants I had been meaning to repot for the past 18 months. This, I had assumed, would take me an hour or so. In my dreams. I spend more than three hours pruning and digging, fetching soil, watering, pushing down, cleaning up after myself. It was still hot - 33°C, which, while not as hot as it has been, is still probably too hot to be repotting plants in. For the plants, as well as me. I came in, took some more painkillers, had a long hot shower to help with the incipient stiffness, and then sat down to catch up on my blips. Then the phone rang, with an earnest plea-cum-diktat from Ottawacker Jr. to come and pick him up at the cookery school on Dalhousie. Soon. Very soon. In fact, now. So, off I went, repeating to myself the mantra that I was very fortunate to be in the position to do this…
 
Turns out that the melted icing on the coconut cake he made yesterday had served as an alarm bell for Ottawacker Jr., and as today’s final offering – an apple strudel, with crème anglaise to go over it – was likely to be negatively affected by the heat, he was taking no chances. I drove the 30 minutes to get downtown, arriving just on time, then the 30 minutes to get home again. I am glad to report that the strudel was worth it. As one who refuses most cakes because of the risk of nut contamination, it is nice to be able to sit and eat in a more carefree manner. And the strudel was very good too.
 
A final check on the plants before bedtime revealed that most of them had survived the repotting.