Mission Update

I've had mixed success lately. So positive news first.

Mission 036 was a success. (!) I managed to refrain from buying books or borrowing any extra books from the library until after 11 April. Of course, on the 14th, I went absolutely bonkers, taking out library books right up to my limit (22 books). I guess I was binging after my book diet. And oh, it felt goooood. Might need to get a sturdier bedside table though...

However, now for the failure: I have not yet grown an aubergine. (Or an eggplant, for that matter.) The damn flowers keep forming and then falling off, despite me taking to them with a cotton bud, poking each flower in return, and swishing it about inside their purple petals like a primitive IVF specialist. And now the plants have started to die off. Not sure if it is a disease, a pest, or just getting too cold for them, but something tells me that my time for aubergines is over for this season. I'll have to pick up my mission again in spring. On a more positive note, though - I have not had to buy tomatoes for the last two-and-a-half months, despite my father telling me that it was pointless planting them last December: "Too late - it'll be a waste of time." HA! It was not a waste at all. Although I concede that they were (are) a little tasteless - probably would have been better planted earlier and I will do that with the next ones. Definitely not a waste though this time. Oh no. No wasting going on. Not even with all the time spent watering and the feeding and the cost of it all. No waste. (Believe me?). The second crop of beans are also coming away wonderfully - although there is something eating them, which is almost making me consider going non-organic. Why won't the birds eat my garden pests instead of the grass seeds? Zucchini plants are about to die off too, sadly, so I will have to go back to buying zucchinis, after almost five months of picking them straight from the garden.

On a complete aside, I would like to have a rant about something grammatical. However as rants don't usually come under the category of missions, you'll have to read it here. (Please do, as I fear greatly that this grammatical failing is becoming more widespread, and a few short minutes of your time can help stop the degradation of language and thus society - do your bit!)