About 15% of me loves doing my VAT return – it reminds me of what I was doing a quarter of a year ago, between 1 May and 31 July. Judging from the receipts, it seems as though I spent a lot of time in coffee shops eating pastries. I also required more than the usual maintenance for the tractor and erroneously considered midweek football match watching as a ligitimate business expense.
More notably, I went to Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows, and much fun they were too (once I overcame the feeling of ‘imposter’).
The sun shone, as I recall, then rain most days since the end of Wimbledon – perhaps to laugh at them having put a roof on centre court.
And today, after a few weird inclings a couple of weeks back, it really does feel like Autumn. The first fruit have appeared on the Autumn olives. A finer hedge I can’t imagine – it looks fabulous, grows quickly, the fruit makes a great autumnal preserve and it takes nitrogen from the air to its roots allowing it to grow in less than favourable sites, and if that wasn’t enough it then releases that lovely nitrogen over your ground through it’s leaves when it drops them for a few short weeks in mid Winter.
So, I’m drawing a (dotted) line between summer and winter. It feels like it, it looks like it, and that way every summery day from now can be a positive and uplifting bonus, rather than treating every day that rains as a dilution of the summer. Plus it ties in with my accounts better that way.
Was it the same berry/pepper (or whatever) in all of the shots ?
Oh yes, the autumn olive berry. stacked (in case anyone's interested)on the DVD of Eagle vs Shark (with blue cover) that I've yet to get around to watching.
I've yet to see Eagle vs Shark, but as a fan of Jemaine Clement I will see it without doubt. Have you seen Diagnosis: Death? I think that one was billed as being "as funny as Shaun of the Dead".
Alas i havent..i seem to have spent to long recently watching old faves, rather than exploring new stuff. Mid life crisis clearly
I have got quite excited by Autumn olives. So much so that I have just put them into a planting scheme I was fiddling with: that fruit has a deeply attractive dimple.
I like your dotted line twixt seasons.
I have a similar line in about early July when I want the summer to hurry by so I can get a bit of planting right for the next year. This feeling fades quite swiftly.
Sadly, I cannot share the thrill you feel about VAT returns. The best day of my life was when I realised that there were people out there who could do it all for me. No longer need I ever worry about that complicated sum where you have to work out what percentage of your petrol was for business and what for personal use.
Ignorance is bliss.
Dont get me wrong, 85% of me hates doing the VAT returns, but there is a little pleasure in it on being reminded of the near-distant past. You're right, I should leave it to someone who does it expertly and for whom the 85/15% splitt is the otther way around. Maybe I like to think the world is a place where there's noone who enjoys it that much, but more likely its the council-kid in me who thinks the whole thing will crumble around me the moment i employ anyone to do anything, however briefly. Trent gets away with it on account of feeding me quality material for blogging.
I think I might have to try these. Hope they can cope with a pot, surrounded by other pots.
Should be fine – not too delicate at all