Cake, compost and a bad dog

It was history day yesterday which went well - I did about the Early Greeks with Rosie and Tallulah and we used the 'Jason' and 'Diana' Greek Paper Dolls book that I had bought for Amber some years ago. They are very good if a little too authentic and I decided not to use the one of the traditional Cretan costume which involved exposed breasts...! I stuck to a soldier and peasant woman which seemed to have most areas covered up. We also made an apple cake:

Yum! Unfortunately I have my parent's dog staying with me who is remarkably agile when presented with a Dietary Indiscretion opportunity and we found the remains of the cake on the floor and Jonty licking his lips. The cake had some sultanas in it which did rather concern me as a few months ago my brother's whippet Viggo had been forced to regurgitate the raisins he'd eaten (after a Simnel-muffin-stealing incident) as apparently grapes and their dried relations are toxic in quantity to dogs. I rang the vet who knew Jonty and he said it would be fine apart from a possible digestive system response but to get back in touch if the dog started fitting or rapidly deteriorated - "highly unlikely of course". Unsurprisingly I found it quite difficult to relax after that and spent until the small hours listening to Jonty who was breathing rather heavily, then rapidly, then seemingly not at all so I kept having to lean out of bed to poke stroke him to check he was still with us. Scruff thought all this disruption was marvellous and spent his time wimpering by the back door asking to be let out so he could, you know, sniff the cool night air. I was not in the best of moods and I think if Jonty had carried on snoring and Scruff woofed once more then the raisins would have been the least of their problems.

So today I woke rather reluctantly but it's been a lovely autumnal day and I have planted some bulbs and tidied up in the garden a bit. I gave the ducks some duckweed from nextdoor's pond:

And gave my enormous borage plant to the hens to pick over.

 They seem to love both the flower heads and the seeds:

I also took out the compost from the bottom tray of my new wormery. It's great! I had a wormery before but it didn't work very well but this is a Worm Cafe from Wiggly Wigglers and they seem to love my kitchen waste and excess cardboard.

Look at that! 6 months ago that was teabags and potato peelings and stuff!