Suzy and I are off on an Austrian adventure tomorrow. And while some lucky people (those who live in Linz, for example) get to just wander down the road to attend the Linz Europe Harbour Festival, for us it’s a bit more of a trek. And because the journey wasn’t grand enough, we’ve now added a bit more hoohah, just to exhaust delight ourselves further.

(You might find it handy to have this map open in another tab or window now.)

The original plan was: Fly to Linz, return a few days later. Simples. Then Ryanair decided to reduce the number/convenience of their flights, so that became: fly to Salzburg at ouch o’clock, take a train to Linz and fly back from that city a few days later.

Then Hubert – I believe on seeing that I was content with my plan – decided he’d do some street concerts around the region in order to give the harbour festival a bit more publicity. He’s already done a number of little street concerts with some of his guest musicians from across Europe this week and on Thursday he’ll be doing the same again.

So instead of landing at Salzburg and getting a train to Linz, to our hotel, where there are beds on which we can lie, we are taking a train to Gmunden. And, I hope, not forgetting to change at Attnang-Puchheim. In Gmunden we will meet up with the musicians and tag along with them to their street gigs in that town and then Hallstatt and Bad Ischl, where there will be a concert in the evening at the local theatre. Then we’ll return to Linz with the band, finally falling into our hotel beds some time after 1am. Assuming of course, that the hotel hasn’t ignored my mail about how we’ll be checking in late and given our room to someone who needs it far less than the girls who have been up 21 hours. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday evening Mum spotted a hedgehog at the end of our drive, just ambling along. I went outside to say hello as it headed down the pavement and into the road. To keep it safe I accompanied the hedgehog on its way. We were in the middle of the road when a car appeared around the corner. I stopped it coming any further and mowing down me and the ‘hog with a – perhaps slightly over-officious – raise of my hand, the driver being happy to stop when she saw who was crossing. The hedgehog had now given up on the idea of going much further and so I tried to scoot it across the road with my bare foot, but it turns out that hedgehogs don’t slide very well. Dad then appeared with a pair of oven gloves and scooped up the ball of spines out of the way.

We took it into the back garden to play with for a little while, taking photos and watching it scurry about with surprising speed. I like to think that it then spent the night in my vegetable patch clearing it of any remaining slugs and bad beasts. Or, if it didn’t, that the thunderstorm that followed that night washed them all away instead.

Click for the set

First of all we get potatoes coming to the party and now we get a variety of pests coming to join the fun uninvited. The blisters on the beetroot leaves are made by mangold fly maggots, which could eventually kill the whole plant if left to their own devices. So I removed the blistered leaves and disposed of them. Or, as in this case, cut open the blister and photographed the icky maggots. Then disposed of them.

I think that a number of my vegetables have got hold of my gardening book at some point. They’ve read it and paid particular attention to the “Troubles” section. Mmm, they thought to themselves, in what clichéd way could we be slightly annoying now? We’re not growing all that fast and that’s already ticking off Little Miss Impatient. Let’s see if we can also throw in a few things from the book…

Mangold fly – Leaf miner – set up home in a few leaves of my beetroot plants. Those leaves have now been removed, staining my thumbnail pink.

The blotches on my aubergine leaves were caused by exactly what the book said – red spider mites. You may consider those mites found and smeared into the ground.

My cucumber plant didn’t choose a high enough SPF and got scalded by the sun.

As did a few tomato leaves here and there. Because why come up with something new if you can just copy what the cucumber did?

Oh, ok, this tomato got a bit more inventive. Its top was bitten clean off by an idiot slug in the night and now it’s growing a new bit.

Stoopid vegetables.

Yesterday evening I caught sight of a couple of balls of fluff hiding in the viburnum bush in the garden. Two baby sparrows had been stored there while their parents went off to a rave. A rave nearby, as I could hear the occasional protective cheep. The two babies were quite content to sit there quietly among the close branches, so I grabbed my big zoom and broke my arms with it taking photos of them bobbing about, yawning, fluttering their wings and trying to eat each other.

Click for the set

The Good: a cluster of ladybird larvae, getting ready to chew on the following …

The Bad: greenfly

The Ugly: blackfly

Fortunately that last photo doesn’t show any ants doing all the pervy stroking they are wont to do in order to milk these buggers. Gruesome. All this helpful and unhelpful wildlife is currently to be found on the hibiscus in the garden. Friend and foe having set up camp within inches of each other on the juicy new growth of the shrub. Of course my trigger finger might yet have something to say about the enemy settlements, accompanying as it does the rest of my body when I go to peer at the plants in the evening. Not too closely though, because you might find …

OMG AN ENORMOUS MAN-EATING SPIDER, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

Or, you know, don’t. Whatever.

Positive thigmatropism, said my partner in grime. I looked it up and she’s right. Twisty runner beans are starting to grab onto the strings I put up for them and are showing signs of new growth. The sun is shining after a rainy day yesterday and so the plants should feel free to grow a few inches today. And the slug that’s made the leaves of one of my cucumbers look like a doily should feel free to chew on a slug pellet.