It’s has rained so much and there are some green fingers itching to clear more weeds in the area surrounding the house. I hesitate to call it a garden as such a lot of bindweed, couch grass and brambles proliferate that it isn’t a garden any more, it’s a weedscape!

As fast as we clear an area another appears needing eradication and as G says our last garden was much narrower… yup! We did that so my husband could lose me in the urban jungle. But I’ve lost interest! I tried to muster some energy in May/June but we were spending so many weekends shuttling kids here there and everywhere for Jamboree preparation and now I’m hovering over WhatsApp to hear what further disaster has befallen the actual camp. British scouts pulled out first and as the largest contingent had a lot of criticism but kids were getting heat exhaustion and bad bug bites, some of which caused anaphylactic reactions or hospitalisation. A friends son needed 12 stitches after hitting a wall when they were overcome by heat, which was verging on +30 degrees.

This has meant my attention wasn’t on the weeds or being hugely active. Job hunting hasn’t been high on my agenda either! None of my recent jobs have been creative enough says G and I’m inclined to agree. I just need to find a creative employment stream that pays for the extras we’d like to add to the basics but truthfully with all the extras we ended up paying for the Korean adventurer, basics are getting harder to afford.

WhatsApp has meant we’ve been able to make real-time phone calls to Korea so we are in regular contact and knew about the many issues after the BBC told the world (ie before the Scouts knew!) but we have a pictorial link via Instagram too and my camera-shy teen isn’t always featured! The unit parents have also found Asian newsfeeds with current criticism of the Korean organisers telling us about the splurging of the budget many months before the Scouts arrived! And we thought the UK excelled in spending money all wrong!

But buying plants and not getting them planted is my specialty, so I’m sure the Scouts are much better placed to find activities in Seoul to replace the camp programme and come home with amazing memories: fingers crossed!