What happened in/to June (Part 3)

Is it me, or is June always very busy? It certainly seems so, and I guess that's my excuse for not blogging more. Or maybe it's just that I couldn't live up to my last post title, which worked on three (count `em!) levels. This time I'm just going for mild humour through repetition.

All the same, it has indeed been busy. Alli's birthday was upon us as soon as we returned from Athens and Atlanta, and somehow she got to have two parties. There are photos from the second party which probably shouldn't see the light of day. I can recall playing beer pong and getting involved in a cupcake-based confrontation, but it's perhaps for the best to leave it there.

Three days after all those shenanigans, the parents-kind-of-in-law rolled into town---their first visit to Eugene since Allison moved here, and the return leg of our previous match-ups. We visited Ashland for the Shakespeare festival, did some fun stuff in Eugene and grilled out. A lot.

Oh, and in the meantime, the garden's been growing. A lot. And here are some pictures. Remember the little herb garden? Look at it now:


We already had to cut down the coriander by half, as it was scaring the other herbs. We also have some lettuce and rocket, and some budding tomatoes:


Plus there's the grass to take care of, which simply wouldn't respect either the landlord's rusty reel mower or our weed strimmer. So I now have a little gas lawnmower from Willie the lawnmower man. As you can see, it's a 4HP beast of a machine. Respect the beast.


Finally? The roses. Oh, the roses. They are somewhat magnificent.





And all in our back garden. Boy, I like the Eugene Summer. Now I just need to finish up this next paper. Which I very nearly have.

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A lot of music to catch up on. First, it's Blondie's birthday, so how better to celebrate than with a bossa nova version of `Heart of Glass'? It's by French band Nouvelle Vague. Of course, they would be French. Give it a listen if you don't know it already, it's actually pretty awesome.



Speaking of the French, I really liked the soundtrack from a film that came out a couple of years ago, `Tell No-One'. The composer is a guy who goes by the name of M (again, only the French, right?) and here's the outro for the film. A cathartic moment, as you'll know if you've seen it.



Finally, my favourite song of the moment, by Elvis Perkins:



I like it a lot. It's been a strange week, and this is a good song to listen to for that, I think.