It's almost August and we're suffering from major floods, some of the worst in a long time. We had one full day of sunshine this week and that was it. Is this the type of summer we need to expect in future years? Is Europe suffering similar weather? Luckily where we live we've not suffered from floods and thankfully we've not had to travel anywhere this past week.

Not much has happened this week really. We got back from my parents and have just spent the week doing a bit of work, clearing up the garden and the house. I've managed to plant out around 40 chilli plants now. They're all of varying sizes but some are starting to show flowers. We just need some sun to help develop the fruit.

I spent friday working on the new design for my business site. Not being a designer, or a writer, working on my own site isn't easy! I've done the bulk of the site myself, with a little help from Dave to do the graphics as I didn't have any software to create them. I'm still not 100% on the design but it's getting there. I've done all the content now so just got a couple of forms to copy from the old site over and then I should be able to set it live.

I decided this week that I'm going to start going back to the gym come August. I'm getting very uncomfortable with my weight and I just lack the motivation to do anything at home. I'd hoped that this summer we'd go cycling a lot more, couple of evenings a week plus perhaps a day at the weekend, however with all this wet weather it's just not an option. Cycling in bad weather isn't my idea of fun. I don't want to pay a monthly fee for a gym if I can help it. I've done that in the past and it was just wasted money. There's a gym in town which is a council run gym so I'm hoping that I can simply do the 'pay as you go' style. I'm trying to convince Dave to join me but he doesn't seem keen. I don't know if the council gyms up here will have personal trainers however and I'm seriously thinking of paying out for one for a month or two. Right now I need someone to literally kick me into exercise, and I'm happy to pay for it (within reason of course!).

Why not start sooner? Well we're away this week (yay!). We're off to Dumfries on Tuesday for 3 nights away. It's the holiday we booked in the Travelodge Summer Sale so it's £15 a night which is a bloody good deal in my books I've been doing a bit of research on the web and it certainly looks like a beautiful place. Hopefully the weather will start to leave off and let us have a nice relaxing time away. There are certainly plenty of places to go to see some amazing scenery and wildlife. I've been reading the manual on my camera and we've pinched some Digital SLR Photography magazines from Dave's brother in-law (who's got a very nice camera!). I know my camera (Nikon coolpix 7900) isn't a DSLR but certain features are similar and at least in the magazine I can learn about certain features and get a better explanation than the manual gives.

So, of course posting is going to be quiet here until the end of the week. I may add a couple of photos to my Flickr Album as I can do this easily from my mobile phone, depends on the signal So have a good week and I'll be back with some impressive photos I hope!

And if anyone's been to Dumfries or the area before and have any suggestions please let me know.