A Bit of This and That

   What a splendid day it has been! Wall-to-wall blue skies - not a cloud in sight - and hot but not uncomfortably so. Tennis first thing, home for a swim by 11:00 a.m. and a bit of shopping before lunch. Since then it has been a mixture of napping, baking, gardening and reading, with several cooling dips in the pool. Now I am ready to settle down with a drink and some avocado and salsa dip. The avocado came (free) from a booth at the Roger's Cup and was just ripe enough - I timed it perfectly as it's sometimes hard to tell when an avocado is ready to eat.

    I picked rhubarb this afternoon and made a rhubarb cake in case I have company later in the week, and also roasted some peppers from the garden.

There are several more almost ready to pick - as with the tomatoes they all seem to ripen at the same time and I have to keep eating it all up.

   As promised, some photos from the Roger's Cup:

Our station at the Main Entrance.

The Mazda VIP Lounge entrance.

Up high in the stands.

The Final - Novak Djokovic defeated Kei Nishikori in a hard fought match.

Simcoe Day

    Up early to make sausage rolls for today's holiday social at the tennis courts. I also took the spinach and faro salad that I brought home from yesterday's volunteer party. I didn't get to try it - it was all gone before I got to the buffet table. However, there was enough food to feed an army so I had plenty of tasty stuff - and delicious desserts! It was pretty hot on the courts but I played three sets, one some, lost some - oh, well!

    I did a bit of gardening after I got home and had a swim, and then spent the rest of the afternoon finishing my library book - "The Taming of a Queen" by Phillippa Gregory. Its subject is Katherine Parr, the last wife of Henry Vlll. Although it's a novel, it sticks pretty closely to the actual historical facts and I enjoyed it. There's another book waiting for me at the library so I will pick it up tomorrow.

    After the big lunch I just needed a light dinner so I had half of a turkey ciabatta sandwich which also came home from the volunteer party. I toasted the bun, added some roasted red pepper and had it with some cherry tomatoes and a peach. Very tasty!

  

  

A New Perennial

   I put this new plant in my garden this Spring and it has come on gangbusters. It's called "Bee Balm" and is supposed to attract bees, butterflies and other good insects to the garden. I plan to move it next Spring as it's in rather an unattractive spot and may be able to split it to give me a second plant.

A Surfeit of Tennis

   I have been absent for the last few days as I have been busy volunteering at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament at York University. As well as my six hour shifts I have had to battle traffic there and back with roadworks and traffic jams to contend with. It makes for a long day.

    It has been extremely hot but, thankfully, the ticket takers are in the shade. I tried to sit in the stadium to watch a match on Monday but only lasted 40 minutes! Now I am watching at home. Today was my first day off since Saturday and I am on every day from tomorrow until Sunday. I will try to post some photos after that.

    One good thing is we get at least one free meal each day we work so I haven't had to do much cooking this week - I am still eating leftovers from the weekend! I made a pot of soup this afternoon and stewed some plums for dessert and that will be my backup if I come home hungry.