Weeding

We’re at the cottage. I took the train up this morning, which is, in my opinion, the loveliest and most underrated way to travel. I’d planned to get a bit of writing done but, in the end, the emphasis has to be on ‘a little.’ Helena and Isabel had driven up on Thursday, so Helena was there to meet me at the station.
We had an ice cream outdoors on what passes for a town square in the village of Rovensko pod Troskami, and it’s less than a 5 minute drive from there.
Now, when I go to the cottage, I like to have something to do, because I get bored as hell just sitting around the house, watching Czech TV. So, I was quite happy to go out and pick a couple of bowls of red currants. The bush was absolutely thick with the brilliantly red little globules, it looked like some people got drunk and went crazy while decorating the Christmas tree. So, it was easy.
The next task was less so. Helena and I walked up the hill to just outside the village where her dad has a small potato patch, and spent a couple of hours weeding it. I was short of breath and sweating and aching before we’d even got properly into the first row. After a couple of hours I felt like I’d just completed a marathon, but we did get the job done. Maybe not perfectly, but we got rid of all the big weeds and didn’t kill any potato plants, and that’s about the best you can hope for. Also, the potato field is at the top of a hill so there are spectacular views all around. You can see the troski (ruins, in this case of a 12th century castle) which give Rovensko pod Troskami it’s name (Rovensko under the ruins)
A dip in the above ground pool, a walk down to the pond, a nap, and then we had a cook out. Not in honor of the 4th, just how they do it at the cottage, but that’s O.K. I’m counting it as a holiday meal.