WELL we have had a bit of sunshine at last. Luckily, it coincided with a rare, schedule- free, weekend at home.

For the first time in nearly a year I didn't have to rise to the rude interjection of an alarm call. My sleep was deep and relaxed, woken only by the brightening of the day.

There is something gently beautiful about waking up naturally to the soft rays of morning sunshine streaking in through a gap in the curtains. It makes you smile snugly inside.

The first job of the weekend was to wander over to the polytunnel, mug of coffee to hand, and check on progress. It does get a daily watering, but usually this is done after returning from work and before rushing out again to undertake some other activity or attend an event or function. This time, though, I had the luxury of spending quality time in the polytunnel.

The sweetcorn had done well again. I have tried two varieties this year. The first one is called "strawberry pop", which bears red-tinged, small, but plump little cobs, which are meant to be easily turned into popcorn by placing in the microwave for a few minutes. I did try this but only ended up exploding the cob in the machine and filling the kitchen and the whole house with an acrid black smoke. Maybe there is a knack to it.

Despite my culinary failure, the strawberry pop plants are thriving and are filled with plenty of cobs. The other variety I have grown, an ordinary short season sweetcorn, is not as mature as the first one, but should soon be filling out with fat juicy cobs if the sunny spell continues.

On a more positive note, I did manage to pick the first of the tomatoes. The large marmande and the stripy tigrella are all still green, the yellow pear and ildi are turning, but the sungold and the gardeners' delight are beginning to reward me with sweet, juicy, tangy globes of fruit.

The round squash, courgettes and cucumbers are producing like mad. I am trying to crop them whilst they remain small, but have left one or two to swell into marrow monsters for winter use. Instead of the mammoth pumpkins that I grew last year, I went for smaller ones.

The bright orange, head-sized spheres are already dangling from the plants that are scrambling down from the stack of tyres that hides the oil tank.

Outside in the vegetable plots things are thriving. The beetroot are the size of baseballs and taste of the sweet earth.

The glossy leaves of the Swiss chard and spinach are being harvested on an almost daily basis. The slugs don't seem to have discovered them yet. The runner beans are doing well, but the borlotti are now too tough to eat as a pod, and are being left to form the beans, which will keep all through the winter. The peas have been bountiful, but are just about over now.

It was the potato patch that gave me a shock though. The plot was full of large holes, with dead leaves strewn all around and half-eaten tubers littering the bed. It didn't take me long to recognise the signs of a badger attack. There was no other action to take but to get in and dig up the rest of the crop. If the badger had found them once, he (or she) would definitely be back to snaffle the rest.

So it was, that I found myself, on my day of rest, bikini-clad, fork in hand, wading my way through the soil in the potato bed in the sweltering late summer sun. I pulled out knobbly pink fir and slightly less irregular anya. There were pipers and valors, Vivaldi and Nicola's.

The red-skinned Duke of York had done well, but the blue potatoes were slight scabbed (apparently they are prone to it).

The sun was on my back as I swung the fork and scraped the soil. My shoulders were beginning to smart by the time I wheeled my bounty back to the house. I flopped into an outside chair, wiped my brow and let the light breeze cool me down. The work wasn't over, though, as I spent the next two hours picking over and scrubbing each tuber.

By the time they had been put to bed in second-hand hessian sacking, my back was aching. The day had disappeared in a flash, and I hadn't got that relaxing rest that I had planned. However, I did go to bed satisfied that I had enjoyed a productive day, and happy in the knowledge that I would soon be drifting off into another deep and peaceful sleep, filled, perhaps, with dreams of chips, mash, boiled and roast potatoes.

Jobs this week

* EMPTY houseplants from their containers and re-pot them with some fresh soil. This should set them up for the winter to come.

* CHECK apples on the tree to see if they are ready for picking yet. They should come off with nothing more than a gentle twist of the stalk.

* EMPTY patches in the garden can be filled with in-fills of sedum, helenium and shistolysis, prolonging the colour in the border for a few weeks more.

* Brigid presents the BBC Tees Gardening show every Sunday from 1- 2pm. Questions will be answered on the day by emailing brigidpress@bbc.co.uk anytime during the week, and texting 07786- 200995 or phoning 01642-225511 during the show.