A month of weather - sometime last weekl

I really haven't enjoyed most of the last week.

It has been too full of difficulty and hard words and a fair amount of grumpiness. I actually got as far as checking the fine details of my work contract and thinking about what other ways I could earn my daily bread.

Some of the tough parts have been to do with recognising my own failings; there are so many things I should have done, or done better, and then there are things I maybe shouldn't have done at all!

Oh well. Time runs forwards, not backwards. I have to start each day from where I am, not where I would like to be.

Two things have cheered me on my way. Every day I have been enjoying the beauty of this rose. It is right next to the car, so it watches over my goings out and my comings home.

And my last lessons on Fridays all last year have been really hard work; large classes of beginner recorder players where I needed to use every trick I knew to keep them focused. It's a bit like lion-taming, except that if I lose control they all just tootle and lark about rather than eat me.

This week I had the first lesson with the new year group. Their behaviour was exemplary, with barely a sound out of place. Then, to round off the day, there was a glorious double rainbow right across the playground. The colours were glowing as bright as electric lights against the dark skies. It seemed to be a promise for better times to come.  

A month of weather - 2/10/12

There was a pale golden light this morning at around 8 am. In order to get a view of the garden from upstairs, I had to open the bathroom window and stand in the bath.

 

 

The russian vine is tumbling over the roof and side (and all over the inside) of the garage, and behind that is the smoke bush, rather a strange shade of blue in the photograph. The two sinister "eyes" in the right hand corner of the garden are actually roses.

 

The mobile phone camera is not really coping with the conditions! I could see that the golden effect of the light was not being captured, and it was also fading fast, and everything beginning to look rather ordinary.

 

 

At the front of the house, facing east, there was stunning spider's web, hung with dew around the outer strands.   

 

 

The morning sun seemed to promise so much, so I was surprised to find myself succumbing to an increasingly black mood as the morning drew on. Tiredness, maybe. There are days when the future looks bleak and fearful, and days when optimism will carry me through. This was not an optimistic day.

 

Towards lunchtime I went in to town to do some errands, and parked at the top of the multi-storey car park. Looking out across the to the North Downs, the view was like a mirror of my state of mind; grey clouds and blue sky battling for supremacy.

 

 

In the end I managed clear the clouds from my mind using an old trick I first discovered back at university - window shopping. This isn't the same as retail therapy, as there is never any intention of wanting to buy anything.



Back at York, I would browse in a china and glass shop in a street near the cathedral called The Shambles. It was full of beautiful objects, Minton, Crown Derby, a pattern called "Haddon Hall",                                 

        

                                                                            

and Caithness Glass are some of the names I remember. In London, it would be the fabric department of Liberty's - wools, silks, velvets, embroidered cottons.

 

 

Today I spent a few minutes in the wool shop in the company of all kinds of different yarns and textures.

 

Rowan Yarns (picture from their website)

When I emerged, the weather was, if anything, darker and more ominous, but my spirits had lifted and I was back to my sunny self again.    

Friday 8th June - The Lawnmower - chapter 3

A real-time post - the events as they are happening.

It's still broken. You never got to hear chapter 2, nor see the photos, because one can't blog about EVERYTHING. There has to be a stop point, some when, usually around bedtime. (Last night it was when it became clear that Someone was going to have to cook something for supper NOW. Right Now.)

The lawnmower started sounding sick last Summer, if one wanted to be brutally honest. In fact, last Autumn might have been a good time to sort things out, but it went into the lawn-mower-sized space in the garage and stayed there. Out of sight, out of mind. Life moves on. Harvest. Christmas. New Year. Cold January. Miserable February. Easter.

Aaargh! Summer! Grass growing and mowing! Chapter 1 of the saga is here; worth pursuing only for the sound clip of the horrible noise it was making - the mower's website obligingly has recordings of sick lawnmowers.    http://www.briggsandstratton.com/support/frequently-asked-questions/Why%20is%20my%20new%20engine%20hunting%20and%20surging/

Chapter 2 happened after the first box of bits was delivered from the mower website; a diaphragm, I believe - I know several places where you might find a diaphragm (one is constantly trying to use it properly when singing, and the ones on our ancient Mission loudspeakers are perishing) but I hadn't realised that lawnmowers also had them. Son and father "enjoyed" some bonding time in the sun over the Jubilee weekend, and the result was that half the back lawn got mowed before the next bit broke.

Chapter 3 began with sound of someone drilling out pop-rivets in the kitchen; beleive you me this is a noise from hell, causing exquisite distress to anyone who had been enjoying a quiet morning in the sitting room. This was followed some time later by a short burst of mowing, thanks to the fitment of a new carburettor. The activity was short lived; the mower wants more attention (it is very needy, making up for all the years of neglect, I suppose.)

I am half hoping that mowing might be over for the season. Our front "lawn" looks really pretty to my eyes; buttercups and "granny-pop-out-of-bed" (plantains) and coltsfoot and clover and tall, wavy grasses and vetches and things I don't know the name of. It is quite a contrast to our neighbours' patch; they are keen gardeners and are out there mowing and clipping and edging and weeding and deadheading at every opportunity.


I'm glad I took the photo of the meadow before I started typing. After the first three swathes of grass were reduced to stubble, the mower temporarily packed up, but its going again now. Don't know whether to be glad or sorry. Reckon the neighbours will pleased, though.



Postscript; In spite of all the lawnmower's desperate attempts to avoid the work, it has been coerced into starting enough times to start the job (leaking o-ring - at least that's only pence, not punds, but requires a major disassembly). It won in the end; I'm sure it deliberately hurled itself at a lump of something or other buried in the long grass at the bottom of the garden - clunk! thunk! and that's that. Husband has appeared, hot and cross and needing a cup of tea. Lawnmower wrangling is not his favourite activity.

Saturday 17th March - Down-time

Okay, I confess. I should have gone to the doctor last week, or maybe the week before, but I wasn't "properly" ill, and every day is so full of teaching and travelling, that an appointment for, say, 11am, could knock out an entire day, and cause endless scheduling problems for the next thre months in order to manage fitting in all the make-up lessons. So which causes more stress and hassle? A cough that doesn't go away and wakes me up every other night, or finding cover for a whole day and messing up the teaching timetables and letting down children and colleagues who are preparing for school concerts and exams....
I called round at the surgery when the doors opened yesterday, and was told that there were no appointments and my requests would go to "triage" (they are two doctors down, off ill). Later, I was allocated an appointment for 2:20 pm (that means cancel three recorder classes, but at least Friday is a day when I am working in my home town as opposed to up to thirty miles away). In, listen to my chest, and out, with a prescription for antibiotics and a diagnosis of a chest infection, and advice to clear the decks for at least the weekend.
Hey! Didn't I just say that I'm not "properly" ill? However, what's the point of seeing a doctor if you don't do as they say. I have cancelled three hours of Friday night teaching (six phone calls), two hours of Saturday morning teaching (one phone call), and am trying to find a replacement organist for Sunday morning (three emails so far). Whoever said that the weekend was for having a rest.?

Husband and daughter have taken over, and in order to ensure that I stay upstairs in bed they have kindly brought up my laptop, phone and Kindle reader.

And the cat.

But I don't feel "properly" ill!