It's an area worth three or four days of quiet pottering.

I am not a member, of course, and the gray-headed clerk, probably a retired enlisted man, went on pottering with his entry books.

On duty late, half an hour's pottering.

I had left the ceiling light on when I'd gone pottering off to bed, and the clock on the wall said it was three-thirty.

Downstairs, in the hydroponic gardens, a tall, thin, bony-faced man was pottering about cheerfully.

Each offers a different mixture, ranging from ambitious day cruising, through gentle local pottering to sizzling high speed catamaran sailing.

And all this jobbing gets them into bad habits, lots of cups of tea and so much pottering - not any real work."

Also ideas of what we should do in this length of time (interests are a mix of wildlife, culture, beaches, and just generally "pottering round").

I'm looking forward to reverting to my traditional weekend routine of reading war books, pottering about in my greenhouse and catching up with my grandchildren.

Saddle Skedaddle (0191 265 1110; skedaddle.co.uk) Reasonably priced, gentle self-guided pottering and demanding guided mountain road cycling.

Being home was delightful pottering in the garden, helping her mother round the house, going for long bike rides with Willy, helping in her father's surgery.

In a week Jesse was pottering around the house, and soon after he was giving Idus Bray his two days a week on the other houses.

From there it's a matter of pottering south through Dumas, Romain Rolland and Suffren Sts.

A cruising area worth two or three days pottering, based on the little town of Astakos - busy and Greek with little concession to tourism and lots of facilities.

Those too young for sailing still enjoy pottering around the beach and paddling around on old windsurfers, though a parent should stay to look after them and keep them from the nearby road.

I turn to what 'Harry Pottering' said on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. He said that his Group is altogether in favour of the Constitution.

The Navarros employed a man to do the gardening and he undertook his duties thoroughly and professionally, but Perky would always find a pretext to go out and do some pottering.

Given the poor state of many roads, the often aggressive driving, and the possibility of unwittingly ending up in a dodgy area, I wouldn't recommend renting a car, except possibly for a day or two's local pottering.

My old faithful King Penguin, one of the first of her class, was all right for coastal pottering, but we had the idea that one day we would do some ocean voyaging, and we wanted a bigger boat.

I hope that 'Harry Pottering' will sort out his Group – wave his magic wand, perhaps – and ask those Members who apparently want to belong to his very federalist group in the European Parliament to draw the consequences of that.

Arrive unannounced at the Harmans' beautiful Kentish farmhouse and oast on a summer evening and you may find Lindi tending her soft fruits, her son Max, 13, watching his grandfather Robert pottering in the workshop or riding his tractor, while grandmother Anne works in the vegetable garden.

From the distance came the puttering of a small car engine.

No time now for summer's idle puttering, there's real work to be done in the garden.

I think they're trying to revive that one; that's what all the puttering is about.

Even the technicians stopped their interminable puttering and watched the people concerned.

We all withdraw and seconds later hear the puttering of a moped up the trail.

Van Gelder heard a puttering, droning sound in the sky.

The chatter of his teeth came clearly over the puttering of the engine.

In these situations, the appetite turns to dishes that require some puttering and simmering.

Neither took to the suburban pastime of outdoor puttering.

As he fell asleep he heard the puttering of a minicopter out over the sea.

As the noise ceased she heard the puttering of a car's engine, and a little black Renault came into view along the recently paved road.

I throttled back and heard the puttering of an outboard motor quite close to starboard.

I spend the next hour puttering around, checking medications, adjusting the humidity, cleaning one of the life stations.

She could score no points by it on those terms, and almost any reader can see that her work was the uncalculated puttering of a novice.

Before they could turn away the puttering of the white trainer was drowned by the roar of a twinengine Junkers.

I didn't suppose he would discover anything useful, but he would enjoy himself puttering around and finding clues the others had already discovered.

Just more of Neelix's puttering.

But a moment in the Badlands of South Dakota put all of our logistical puttering into perspective.

Did Michelangelo's wife say: "Oh, Mike's puttering around over at the Sistine Chapel."

All of the above, which can be made in one afternoon's puttering, leaves the dieter feeling as smug as a student with a perfectly ordered pencil box.

Hell-for-leather buses are replaced by puttering fishing boats, and locals sit on their decks mending fishing nets in a tropical twilight.

Puttering When I strolled into the kitchen the other day for a coffee refill my wife, Bun, was on the phone, reaching out and touching her friend Melba.

The puttering of an engine that Violet had heard emerged as an ambulance, khaki with red crosses on its boxy sides, coming into view at the end of the meadow.

Mr. Tudor's electronic music is overtly graphic, full of watery gurgles and fishy swishes and grunts and the puttering of a ship's motor.

Val had been puttering in the galley as usual, paying no attention to what I did in the control room, but the glance he gave me showed he knew something was up.

I puttered around the house the rest of the day.

We puttered around a while longer and I was ready to go back.

We were puttering around the house, not really doing much of anything.

The want more time - to be puttering around in their gardens.

"I spent a lot of time puttering around the stream."

I could hear him puttering around in the main lab.

The engine was out on the ground; he had been puttering with it for two days.

On days off, he puttered in the garden or went fishing.

She cut back her work hours to four a day and was right there puttering around the house with him, smiling all the while.

While I worried, he puttered through the whole apartment and back to the living room.

I'll be happy puttering about in the lab while you will rule the world.

You seem to always be puttering around with those sheets of yours.

Something he was eternally puttering around with but finally gave up.

Through the window he could see the station taxi puttering up the long road.

Tom smiled as the old man puttered around behind the counter.

I puttered and napped through the middle of the day.

You must have six people puttering around the house.

"He'd be right around back, puttering about in the garden.

Inside he can see a black woman puttering around.

He was still puttering around afterward, trying to figure out what to do next, when something clicked against the front door.

He puttered around in the spare bedroom, setting up his office.

Her father was still alive and puttering downstairs in his library.

We went inside, and I puttered around the kitchen, trying to will my erection away.

He puttered around the house that day doing small chores and cleaning up.

It seems there are laws governing the things that we women have been puttering with.

When more money was required, the boy would potter around for a while.

He is certainly not ready to potter around in the garden just yet.

Some days, it was enough to potter through the lanes around our house.

I pottered on out there until it began to get dark.

Next time he'd come by himself and spend all day pottering about.

After getting to town we pottered around the street markets.

He pottered round in the office for a little while.

No military discipline, lots of reading and things to potter around with.

They would have an early tea too, and there might even be time to potter in the garden.

I do want a couple of quiet days for pottering.

Just pottering around with some research for a paper I was planning to write.

But he pottered around the place unable to get on with things.

He was pottering along on about six hundred a year when I married him.

Inside, he could see an old man pottering around behind the counter.

"Why wait to enjoy yourself when there is plenty of time to potter around later?"

I asked him as he pottered muttering among his things.

Pottering in a shed is apparently good for men's health.

Every morning after breakfast she went out and was happy pottering about in it.

He pottered off to his afternoon patients, very pleased with himself.

And he came into the bungalow that day to potter about a bit in the bathroom.

I spent it pottering about the place, and that was just terrific.

There he would sit on a bench in the sun and watch the old people potter around the graves.

"I still want to potter around here a bit.

His father got up; he heard him pottering about.

Logan spent the rest of the afternoon pottering about the flat.