My results section is through its second draft. I still need to give it a good workout to get it into halfway decent shape, but at least it’s now 30 pages long rather than five.

I had a cheery walk yesterday with third-and-final son, Sparky, Willis and my youngest brother’s Jack Russell terrier, Pippa. Pippa has the shortest legs I have ever seen on a dog. They’re so short - especially compared to the length of her body - that she can’t even sit down in a properly dog-like manner. So watching her trying to keep up with Sparky and Willis sprinting through the long grass was hilarious. She kept losing them, at which point she’d stop and jump high in the air until she spotted them, then race to that location… only to find they’d moved on already, at which point she did the high jump again. Consequently Pip got quite tired, so son and I gave her an occasional lift, which was very pleasant as she is a very cuddly dog. No, I didn’t have my camera. Is anyone surprised? I’ll take it next time.

Here are the rest of our haymaking pics, posted in tribute to my father’s several hours of labour on his own to get some hay off the top field. We got 211 bales from the hayfield in two hours. My dad working on his own got - wait for it - 17. But the grass was much thinner, plus the baler broke down and he spent quite a bit of time sorting that out. Here you go Dad. Always remember, the more the merrier.

Sparky has been brought up as a town dog, and she struggled with the idea of haymaking. She wandered around the field, had a few sniffs in the verges, but basically kept looking at me with a confused expression as if to say “why are we staying in one place?” I lifted her onto the bales for her portrait, and she looked positively traumatised.

And then there’s Walter, who is a country dog through and through, and had a whale of a time right up until third-and-final son got Willis out of m’sister’s car. Willis and Walter are sworn enemies, and eventually had to be unlatched from one another’s throats - by means I’d rather not go into in polite society - and were banished to 4WD and pickup, respectively.

Son-in-the-middle gets a tractor driving lesson from Grandad.

The hay in its over-winter stack. The one in the pink top is m’sister. I was just about to give her a hard time for not turning up until the last half hour, when she got in first and pointed out that she and her partner had done it all last year as I was unavailable. Sorry sis.

A hard but satisfying couple of hours work. Now it’s homeward bound.

Third-and-final son breaks up on Tuesday lunchtime. Firstborn and son-in-the-middle are already at home. I am despondent. No time on my own until September 8. And I still have the blasted RP to finish. I had a total and absolute brain freeze last week, until my youngest brother came round and got me moving. Then I taught all weekend, so the brakes went on again. Sh**, sh**, sh** and b***** it.

My language is getting worse and my patience ever shorter. It’s also my 20th wedding anniversary at the end of August and I want some congratulations around here. Presents would also be good. It’s been hard work at times and I want to feel the love. I’ve been trying to work out with m’husband how we can celebrate with immediate family (that’s 19 people without the two of his sisters who have run off to Antigua) and not spend a fortune. We are getting nowhere fast. I think I may consult m’mother for more bright ideas.

As I am in such a depressive, cranky state I went looking for a pic which would soften my heart, and here it is. My beautiful Waterside Duke, gleaming in the sunlight at the Great Yorkshire Show three (I think) years ago). He was placed sixth in a strong lineup, and I was very very proud of him.

I need to get the RP out of the way by the end of this month. I keep writing a couple of lines, then I get stuck. So I go and rummage around in the electronic databases (PSYCINFO, I love you) and find another paper to give me a little boost. This is despite having decided, three weeks ago, that I’d found all the research papers I could ever need because I was moving into duplication. In between writing and angst, I argue with my firstborn (16 years old, finished GCSEs, been hanging around the house doing sod all apart from minimal housework for the last six weeks) and make drinks for son-in-the-middle who has finished school a week early cos he had an operation on his toe this week.

I WANT IT FINISHED! I want to relax and do a bit of crochet, read, garden and walk the dog without feeling guilty. I want to go to the fruit farm to pick strawberries, raspberries and redcurrants before the season is over. I also want to stop eating so darned much, out of boredom and frustration.

Here’s a shot of Tinker, who likes to be busy. If she isn’t busy she eats everything, including tree bark, and is consequently a right little butterball.

Behind Tinker is Kizzy. They were in the trailer as m’sister and I were taking them to the vet for an ultrasound to see if they were in foal. Despite frolicking in the field with the stallion for a couple of weeks neither was in the family way. M’father has decided that in-hand covering is the way forward.

I spent three days last week at the Great Yorkshire Show, and I’m still knackered. I drove there every day, which  would be nothing to a regular commuter, but then I’m not used to commuting so next year I am thinking seriously about getting m’husband to tow the caravan up on the Monday evening so I can stay on site and have a little sleep after lunch every day. Age is obviously catching up with me.

The ground was pretty sodden before the show had even started:

But the judges and stewards were immaculately turned out, as always, they just added wellies to their outfits:

The main reason I go on the Tuesday is to watch the hunter classes, which are always good but this year the standard was incredibly high.

Plus there are always sheep, pigs and cattle to inspect. Cattle entries were definitely much lower than usual due to the bluetongue restrictions, but there were still some excellent specimens:

The weather was a bitch for taking photographs with my little camera. It seemed to be overcast, but after a couple of hours I realised I was screwing my eyes up all the time because the seemingly cloudy sky was so bright. Consequently my pictures are even more crappy than usual. M’husband came with me on Wednesday, bringing a slightly better camera and infinitely more technical expertise, so I’ll try and post some of his tomorrow.

It goes like this:

Richard (friend of parents) drives tractor and baler up and down the field, capturing the rows of loose hay and turning them into bales.

The baler is followed (at some distance, depending on how fast they’re working) by the other tractor and trailer team who pick up the bales I’ve tidied into piles.

Here they are, working hard. By this point I’ve been abandoned by third-and-final son, who has decided it will be easier to assist on the trailer.

Meanwhile, m’mother (and Fly the border collie) are raking bits of hay from round the edges and adding them to the rows, ready for Richard to bale. The lovely green bits are where m’father cleared the brambles and re-dug the ditches this winter - the grass didn’t get going in time to be cut this year.

After clearing the edges, m’mother moved into the middle of the field, along with son-in-the-middle. Although, as he is a total townboy, even more than his dad, I’m not sure how much work he actually did before sloping off to return with refreshments.

The forecast for the next four or five days is rain, rain, rain. So on Wednesday m’father cut his hay, Thursday he turned it and Friday evening we all turned out to get it baled and stacked.

I haven’t made hay for about the last 25 years, but it’s amazing how it all comes back to you once you set foot in the field.

We hitched a lift down the field on the trailer.

Son-in-the-middle gets the hang of jumping on a moving trailer.

Sparky with her ‘what are they doing to me now?’ expression.

The troops get their instructions.

Third-and-final son (and Walter) give me a hand stacking the bales ready for pickup.

Tough job this one.

And lift!

Tomorrow: rakes, tractors and more of the team.

It’s raining and I have a big, fat, infected insect bite on my leg. So I’m not walking the dog. It would be good for my mental state, and the state of my backside, if I did, but my leg hurts so I’m not doing it. Firstborn can do it. Then I’ll get m’husband to take me and dog for a drive, and look at lovely green grass out of the window.

In the meantime, here are some garden pictures:

Poppies in full bloom. They lasted barely a week before regular downfalls flattened them, but they were lovely while they lasted.

I love English marigolds which, being English, are pretty much rainproof. I planted loads in a pot and placed them on some steps in my garden so I can see them from my kitchen window. The guinea pigs love them too, so they get spare leaves when I’m feeling generous.

My garden is a pretty freeform sort of place, but occasionally it does itself proud in self seeded moments. The pink rose is the thornless climber whose name momentarily escapes me - oh, zephrine drouhin, I think - and the foxglove appeared all on its ownsome. Quite a few of the selfseeded foxgloves round here are white, so I’m rather pleased that this one managed to merge colours so beautifully with the rose.

Just out of shot is a shoot of stag’s horn sumach. I planted one which came from m’mother’s garden, which eventually died due to overvigorous pruning at the wrong time of year. However it had sent out a few exploratory parties to my back fence neighbour’s garden, so she now has a healthy bush in her garden plus more babies in pots. She handed me one back, plus they’re sneaking back under the fence. Slightly tyrannical, but beautiful foliage.

 Addendum: This is an embarrassing admission; in my attempts to add two new blogs (afreemaninpreston.blogspot.com and brightmeadow.co.uk) to my blogroll I have a)failed to do so and b)added my own blog. Which looks like the ultimate in vanity. If anyone has any idea how to change this, please let me know. I’m off to watch Blues Brothers - the second one, with John Goodman, not the original.

Well, I’m saying sorry but I’m not really. I’m just pissed off with myself and I don’t want to look at the luscious flower pics I’ve taken, or the busy market shots, because I want to KICK something because I hate myself and this research project so much. I don’t have time for this! Or the will. Or the drive, focus, whatever.

I’m still ploughing through my results section, statistic by statistic and table by table. Now I’ve found a reference which advises me that I should check my patterns of covariance to ensure that my test is truly unidimensional. Accordingly, I’ve rerun the reliability analysis and requested a covariance matrix and a summary statistic for each scenario. Now all that’s stopping me is that I DON’T HAVE A F******* CLUE what I’m looking for.

AAAAAAAARRRRGH!

I was walking Sparks around Oakwell Hall country park, admiring the wild roses

and the elderflowers when I started thinking “that motorway is a bit noisy today”. The M62 runs along the ridge behind the park, and there’s always a fair amount of traffic noise but this was even noiser than usual. I could hear horns blaring and thought there had been an accident until I suddenly remembered “oh, the fuel protests!” I wasn’t the only one who was a little confused; a coach driver in the car park asked me if a band was tuning up behind the hall. But once I’d got my thoughts lined up it all became clear - other clues such as the helicopter buzzing overhead, and the tunes some drivers seemed to be bipping out on their horns - made much more sense.

When we got back to the car I drove up the road, parked on the bridge and looked down at the traffic. It was moving, just not as quickly as normal. The BBC said this morning that they couldn’t go slower than 40mph, although a haulage guy on the BBC website was quoted as saying they’d stuck to 20mph. Trucks are also limited to the first two lanes so in theory the traffic should have flowed around them although, as you can see from the picture below, a van driver decided to show his solidarity and brought the whole lot to a crawl:

I am all for a greener Britain with less traffic on the roads, but simply upping and upping the price of fuel and the tax isn’t going to do it. More incentives to use public transport and move freight by rail would be good. M’husband saw a garage advertising petrol at 121.9p per litre on his way home today. Diesel is at least 15p dearer per litre. For my US friends, there are 3.785 litres to a US gallon - so that’s £4.61 per gallon or, with the exchange rate at just under $2 to the pound, over $9 per gallon.

Someone go slap the traders who are pushing oil prices up. And don’t simply tell me to drive less and take cheaper holidays. I have to drive my own car to do my job, and I am recompensed the princely sum of 20p per mile. We’ve been taking cheap holidays in the UK forever, in fact we have a touring caravan - which has suddenly become an increasingly expensive way to take a holiday.

I made a Victoria sandwich cake and a dozen butterfly buns.

I fed one butterfly bun to m’husband, who had just staggered in from work. That leaves 11. Then I walked round to the Co-op to fetch more sugar for my next batch of baking.

When I returned, 10 minutes later, I walked into the kitchen to find - just TWO butterfly buns remaining. I ran through the house, shouting “Who’s eaten all the buns!” Sons denied all knowledge. Then we noticed that Sparky was crawling round on her belly, looking extremely repentant. Yes, she had wolfed down NINE BUTTERFLY BUNS leaving not a trace of crumb, paper case or buttercream. She did not get any tea.

Firstborn son then polished off one more butterfly bun. This is as close as Sparky is ever going to get to a butterfly bun again:

I then got into an intense online discussion with American friends about the description and recipe for a butterfly bun. Once we had got through the usual quantity confusion (I say grams, they say cups; I say ‘gas mark’, they say fahrenheit) it came down to an issue of cake versus bun, and the size of the tins. Here are mine, to save future confusion:

That’s firstborn with tape measure, bun tin, a Victoria sandwich cake on the right and the last remaining butterfly bun balanced on the bun tin.

That’s my bun tin on the right, and my muffin tin on the left. However I suspect this is smaller than an American muffin tin, as when I make muffins from The Genuine American Cookie and Muffin Book, by Peter Shaffer (written by an American transplanted to North Yorkshire, all measures and ingredients translated into English) I always have more mixture than required for the dozen muffins the book says it will make. But I feel overfaced by an American muffin, so I’ll stick with the smaller tin size.

And finally, the Victoria sandwich cake (again) plus the chocolate sponge with chocolate whipped cream and chocolate ganache I just made for my oldest friend’s birthday:

Try not to feel sick.