A week of autumn

Took last week off to to a lot of boring things, like clearing out old clothes from the wardrobe; but midweek, went over to Stratford-upon-Avon to catch one of the last shows in this season, The Tamer Tamed, by John Fletcher - a contemporary rebuttal and sequel to The Taming of the Shrew. As the play opens, Kate is dead, and Petruchio is remarrying - but this time the tables are turned, and (apart from the moral and another wedding), the play ends with Maria, the second wife, saying "Dare you kiss me?" to Petruchio. A good fun bawdy romp of a play, with much stealing from the Lysistrata.

Also saw Kill Bill - and as a fairly squeamish person, was surprised at how un-squicky it all was. It would make a fine Vingan Red Vows workout video... Eagerly awaiting part II.

At the start of the week, the cherry tree in the lawn was still in full leaf; each day it shed enough to need raking, and now it is almost completely bare. There are a few leaves on the plums, but the apples and elders are all still green. The Japanese maple was a brilliant fiery red display during much of the week, but that has shed most of its leaves by now.

I had hoped to do some more garden clearance, but between the drought breaking, and the weather being mild apart from morning frosts, things are still growing - the escholzias that started flowering in late May are still squeezing out a few flowers even a month after I stopped dead-heading them, which means that the front bed is still cluttered and is not yet ready for a good cover of rotted compost. Meanwhile some new seedlings are growing quite large.