On three successive mornings we woke up to find that someone or something had moved the waterlilies out of their tub and into the middle of the back garden.

The curious thing is that they weren’t simply knocked out of the way, but were placed with apparent care and respect about a metre away, upright and undamaged.

The most likely candidate must be a fox wanting to drink from the tub – there’s plenty of them around – but it seems like hard work for a fox to move something that heavy. I hope I’m not being unfair to the vulpine community when I say that I wouldn’t expect them to be so careful about it, either.

I’m sure there’s a reality-based explanation, but you have to admit that the week leading up to Hallowe’en was suspiciously spooky timing.

I’ve been refretting a friend’s broken mandolin that I’m repairing. I used some Gotoh fret wire and it’s an absolute delight to work with. Don’t bother buying cheap no-name fret wire, it’s not worth the hassle.

I’ve blended in the colour around the repair with some stain pens, so now all I have left is to refinish it and to make a new bridge.

It’s more effort than the instrument is worth, but it’s good practice and I enjoy it, and I’m optimistic that it will be really nice when it’s finished.

I cooked and ate black salsify (Pseudopodospermum hispanicum) for the first time in my life. I bought it out of curiosity. I wish I’d read the Wikipedia page before peeling it, because it was, indeed, extremely sticky!

Since the root contains an extremely sticky latex, it is often more convenient to peel it after boiling the root for 20 to 25 minutes (or less). Residue of the latex can be removed by rubbing with a drop of oil and then washing with soap.

I’d buy it and eat it again, but next time I’ll try boiling it before peeling.

I don’t know whether it’s directly related to the sale of Royal Mail to some Czech billionaire but it feels like the service has deteriorated recently in more ways than just the loss of daily deliveries.

The two regular friendly posties who delivered to us have gone, and now we seem to have a different person every time. One of them decided that the best place to put a delivery from Waterstone’s on a wet day was outside, even though I was home at the time. Of course, I didn’t know it was sitting outside until later when I came home from a walk and found it behind a plant pot, soaked and ruined.

L— will hopefully get a refund, but it’s a hassle, it’s infuriating, and it feels like another symptom of the neoliberalisation of everything that destroys jobs and services so some far-off oligarch gets a tiny bit richer.

A few links I bookmarked: