Forked strawberries; Summer Exhibition; launch of the boat

Firstly, delighted to report that my CfBT geranium is flowering nicely and still seems to be flourishing. So pleased I rescued it from airless overheated office hell. This particular geranium was one of several given out at a team Away Day in 2006 - the day has pleasant associations and the geranium has a certain amount of sentimental value. (Ignore the state of the window in the picture. I do clean them occasionally. Well, OK, not very often.)

While on the subject of organic matter, while innocently getting my breakfast earlier in the week I came across this forked strawberry, placed cunningly, and not entirely accidentally, inside a mug. Foolishly, I have allowed Ruth to become aware of my long-standing fear of mutant and/or oversized fruits and vegetables. Historically, my sister Hannah would take great pleasure in chasing me around the kitchen armed with an enormous field mushroom or similar.

Last Thursday, courtesy of one of CfBT’s directors (a convoluted story), Ruth came by two free tickets to a private viewing of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, organised by the Hay Group. We duly presented ourselves and were allowed in, and spent a couple of hours wandering around - there's certainly a lot to see, as it spreads over several rooms all crammed full of exhibits. Damien Hirst's nude silver man without skin occupies centre stage but there's plenty of other stuff. We were also plied with champagne and delicious canapes so well worth going to.

At 8:00 am on Friday morning Ray and I were standing ready at the Thames and Kennet Marina looking at his boat on the back of a lorry and awaiting its launch into the water – him eagerly, me with some trepidation, especially when Ray announced his intention of driving the boat himself from the launch area round into the marina. In the end, once actually on the boat, he sensibly abandoned this idea and phoned the marina office to get one of the chaps to come and do it. I had been recruited partly to act as official photographer, so took over 100 photographs of the entire exercise ending with one of the boat safely berthed.

Ray and I had one of our frequent breakfasts on Monday at the oddly-named but lovely Julia’s Meadow on King's Road. It’s very much an office workers' café (it doesn’t open at weekends) that mainly specialises in sandwich fillings and takeaway baguettes etc but also does breakfasts including, what is officially (according to a panel of one) the best coffee in Reading. I always have a black Americano (or two) and a bacon sandwich (white bread, no sauce). The perfectly lovely owner/manager now just says ‘The usual?’ whenever I go in, which is kinda nice.

Book Group met at the house last night to discuss Melanie McGrath’s Silvertown, an everyday tale of miserable, poverty-stricken East End folk. I found the historical and geographical detail more interesting than the fictional(ised) story. Mildly ashamed to realise that I had had no idea how many (over 20,000 Londoners) died in the Blitz. I suppose I had been imagining it was a mere handful of people caught outside a sweet shop. I had been hoping that the removal of teeth episode wasn’t a general custom, but Ali, one of our members, commented that two of her aunts had had all their teeth removed for precisely the same reason that Jenny does, i.e. to save their future husbands money on dental bills. Blimey. I’ve never visited the eponymous London suburb but must once have looked across the Thames at it when Ray and I visited the Thames Barrier and associated visitors’ centre some years ago. It looked to be - as it evidently was in Jenny's time - dominated by the huge Tate & Lyle refinery.

The bunnies behaved themselves tolerably and my friend Claire, a former veterinary nurse, appeared to have managed to soothe them into a calm, almost trance-like state by the end of the evening, something that unfortunately didn’t continue into the next day. As of today, Harley has officially mastered the staircase and has been trotting inquisitively around the first floor. Ruth’s theory that rabbits don’t climb stairs would appear to have been proven to be complete cobblers.