Tesco boycot

Having managed to add an extra 2 hours to every day by avoiding neighbours I've now had them taken off me again by my Tesco boycot - it's to do with turtles and China - so this week have had to make good on my threat to Sir Terry somebody that we'll be shopping elsewhere - in fact, we'd rather starve than give him any more of our money. This is already an exaggeration. Only I'd rather starve. The husband and dogs would rather go on supporting an organization who refuses to take seriously the rights of turtles everywhere so long as they can carry on eating. It's bad timing because this would normally be a great season to boycot Tesco in. The allotment I run with Vivienne could certainly feed vegetarian me (though prob. not husband and dogs). Sadly rain has caused exposion of slug population so it's nurturing giant slugs and their families instead. Today down there we have a sort of rainbow coilition of slug-kind in every shade. All boycotting Tesco quite happily thank-you very much. They have left just a couple of spring onions and one of those dark-red lettuces Vivienne insists on growing for people to leave on the side of their plates.

I press on to find shops that sell food. Wander round looking in windows at cameras, novelty figurines and pictures of houses that look nicer than mine. I now find that apart from Tesco all the local shops sell non-edible stuff, if you don't count shoes. Good news for dogs who do count shoes. Bad news for husband.

Finally back home again, a neighbour offers some runner beans. After re-telling me all her favourite slug-stories. Takes ages. The one about her Uncle Sidney and the Eccles cake makes me feel sick.

with waterside access

Since coming back to the village I've noticed a few changes. We seem to have several new water features. Walking the dogs this morning and agonising about what to say at looming book launch (of Salvage) - for example why out of all the words in the English language did I go and call it the one that sort of defies launching? - I find the grass I'm walking on has gone. It's turned into something that slops over my wellies. Obviously the whole wetness-theme has leached out of the text and is overtaking so-called reality (you never know with this village) in that Philip K.Dick style that you can use to get any plot out of a dead-end.

It's not as if the village didn't have everything in the way of natural hazards already: barbed-wire that someone does macrame with and then drapes over farm gates - as though that was going to stop me - then there's the filthy stuff they spray on all those fields of 'finest' vegetables, smells like Domestos and strips the polish off your boots. I am SICK of decontaminating two dogs morning and afternoon as though they both worked in the nuclear industry. If I didn't have that to contend with I'd write an extra 500words a day.

And now the place is semi-flooded. Not flooded note so you can stop normal life altogther and go to the shops in a dinghy - just very very soggy.