Wednesday 13th September - Morning All

Where have I been? Nowhere.

What have I been doing? Bits and pieces, this and that, something and nothing.

At least, that's how it seems.

In the garden;

I had enough confidence in the results of our intensive slug control programme to transplant the lettuces I had been nurturing in the greenhouse. They have survived the night. It's all looking hopeful at the moment; cauliflower seedlings, swiss chard, pak choi and kohl rabi, all growing on well. I have sown spinach and more pak choi. It give me so much pleasure to see the little plants in the pots. I'm rather sorry to pick and eat them, but that is the point, I suppose. There's a lot of butterfly damage going on with the pak choi leaves, so I might try cloches on the lettuce since I don't have any suitable netting. I noticed a snail or slug trail on one of the kohl rabi leaves; I shall inspect it closely by torchlight tonight! 

Planting out my cauliflower seedlings ha taught me a valuable lesson in the use of paper pots for module sowing. I didn't use them this time, and maybe I was impatient and transplanted them too soon, but they were a nightmare to handle without damaging the fragile stems, whereas popping a whole paper pot into the earth would have been simple. Luckily they seem to have survived and are managing to stand upright. The pale bobbly stuff on top of the earth is pelleted wool to dissuade slugs and snails.   

In the kitchen;

I've made a caraway seed cake - one of my favourites. I just do a 2-egg mix it all in one bowl victoria sponge and add a good shake of caraway seeds. How much? Well, how seedy do you like your cake? I was amused to read in 'Kitchen Conversations' by Agnes Jekyll (sister of gardener Gertrude) that seed cake was usually served at 'nursery tea'. I wouldn't have thought it would appeal to nursery children. The book is a collection of articles written for The Times, I think, back in the 1920s. Most of the recipes sound pretty unpalatable to today's taste and also unbelievably fussy. It also assumes kitchens with a cook and a kitchen maid, and servants to hand round dishes (previously kept warm on a hotplate behind a screen in the corner of the dining room). Evening meals seem generally to have soup, fish, meat, dessert, sweet and savoury courses, with of course, the obligatory provision of wines, cigarettes and cigars (pipe smokers apparently bring their own tobacco and need not be catered for).

I've also failed to make a slow cooker risotto. It would probably have been fine if I had switched off the cooker after 2-3 hours on high. But I didn't.

It's slowly unsticking from the pot with a good soak. 

Reading;

I was recommended the D M Greenwood 'cosy mystery' series. They are set in a fictional cathedral city which I strongly suspect is Norwich, and feature the inimitable Theodore Braithwaite, a deaconess as the sleuth. As the whole 9-book series is currently on offer for 99p on Kindle I thought I may as well...

I devoured book 1 (this could be part of the reason why I forgot to blog?) and am now deep into book 2. The context is very much within the machinations of the Anglican Church, at a time (written in the 1990s) when women could not be ordained to the priesthood. There is a fair amount of spiritual thinking going on in athoughtful and compassionate way, and I think there will be quite a lot to do with horse riding along the way - not too much, but I am enjoying the setting, the horses, the machinations and the spirituality.    

Lark Rise to Candleford (Flora Thompson) is my 'lat thing at night settle down to sleep' reading at the moment.

  

 

Monday 24th July - in praise of real books (and kindles)

 

I have come the to the conclusion that there is a lot to be said for 'real' books. The sort made of paper. Something that doesn't switch itself off when you are halfway through reading a recipe. Something that you can write in and stick sticky notes and bookmarks in. However many of my older books, especially all the cheap paperbacks, have small print on yellowing, crumbling paper. However did I manage to make out the words? 

If you read your book on a kindle you can adjust the brightness and the size of the text according to where you are and how you feel. And a kindle isn't very heavy compared to some of the paper books. And you can get a dictionary definition of a word just by highlighting it. 

But it is easier to flip backwards and forwards in a real paperback to find the paragraph referred to 100 pages further on. But you can have loads of books in the one little handheld kindle. But you can't share and pass on kindle books to your friends.  

Oh dear. Now, I am confused and can't really choose one over the other. But either one has to be better than reading books on a tablet, surely? I am coming to the conclusion that a tablet is the invention of the devil. There never had been such a device for encouraging one to waste so much time. 

In fact it might be a good idea to put the tablet somewhere out of reach and save myself from myself... I start to read with good intentions but then three hours later I have indeed read some of my book, but also followed an idea from the book deep into the tangles of the internet and youtube, taken in a couple of tiktoks, checked out twitter and the news and accidentally found myself playing freecell and sudoku. How did that all happen?

Ah, but, hang on... if I read books on a tablet I can zoom into an illustration, enlarge it, pore over it, examine the details, enjoy full colour pictures. I can select and copy bits of text to paste into this blog... I can even write this blog if I am prepared to stab it the little letters one by one of the screen...

The only solution is to pick the right method for the right time, and if that turns out to be the tablet, well aren't we all being exhorted to learn a little self-discipline? I suspect it may be too late for me. 

I've allocated this post to yesterday. I didn't get round to posting last night (playing sudoku instead, probably)

  

Thursday 15th June - Books! Tsundoku!

 I am devouring books at the moment.

I don't usually list what I am reading in my Commonplace notebook, but this month I thought I would... inspired by my 'upstairs' book, 'A Book Of Book Lists' by Alex Johnson

full of 'quite interesting' information. Such as, according to 'Dnld Trmp's' website, 

all of the books he personally authored are best sellers. 

Really? Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, My List.

So far I have completed

Ayala's Angels by Anthony Trollope (Victorian light romantic comedy)

A Room With A View by E M Forster (Edwardian light romantic comedy)

Amongst Our Weapons  by Ben Aaronovitch (re-read) (I love the Rivers of London series)

Murder In Province by T A Williams (fills the time well enough - I read the first two so I knew what to expect. But I wish the dog wasn't called Oscar because I kept thinking he was one of the people in the book)

One Enchanted Evening by Anton du Beke (better than I thought)

and I've started 

Sleeping Tiger by Rosamund Pilcher (1960s light romantic comedy)

All of the above books, apart from the Ben Aaronovitch, have been on offer recently, and indeed still may be, on offer with 'Kndl' for 99p. Less than a coffee and a cake! 

Which brings me to a Japanese word I learned recently; 

Tsundoku (積ん読) refers to the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf.

(wikipedia)

At least is they are on the 'kndl' they are not piling up all over the house. This is my current 99p tsundoku library;

The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins Valdez (the book club choice for this month; I am nerving myself up to start in case it is 'searing' or 'heart-breaking' or 'emotional' etc!)

The Bean Tree by Barabara Kingsolver (she has just won a major prize for women's fiction for her latest book 'Demon Copperhead', a reworking of 'David Copperfield, so thought maybe I ought to give her a try)

Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer (ever-reliable and fun Regency Romance. I can't remember this one from the title but I will know it as soon as I start. I've read them all - and have a shelf of self-destructing PAN paperbacks dating back to the 1960s which I can no longer read because the pages are so yellowed and friable) 

Friday 21st October - What a slug-a-bed!

I didn't wake up properly until gone 8 am this morning, and stayed in bed reading and (should I admit to this?) browsing blogs, the  daily Persephone post, the BBC news website and even twitter. I might be there till, except my phone's battery symbol went red, and then the screen went black.

So here I am, watching the rain scudding across the garden. I had just nipped out to sow some pea seeds when the first drops fell. Still one day will be as good as another.

I have read that you can sow green peas (the sort you eat) and sweet peas now, in a cold frame, so that's my plan. Then you can have seedlings to plant out in the Spring - unless mice, who appear to be partial to any kind of peas, find them first. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Johnny_Town-Mouse

I plan to keep them in the plastic mini-greenhouse (the one which doesn't have any plastic left in the cover), which sits on an old table at the side of the house. I thought I might put cut-up plastic milk bottles over the pots as extra protection;

https://planterspost.com/how-to-stop-mice-eating-pea-seedlings/

I imagine clear plastic bottles would be better, but hopefully the white plastic of the milk containers will let in enough light. 

 

Saturday 8th January - One week into the year

 Good morning everyone.

So, what have we accomplished this week?

I finished a mitten, and then ripped it out - it was the size of an oven glove, and the texture was far too open. Every little breeze would have gone through the fabric with barely a check. So I am nearly two inches along the ribbing of mitten number 1. By hook or by crook, I will finish a pair of mittens this month whether I want them or no.

I haven't taken a picture - two inches of ribbing on 4mm needles looks much the same as 2 inches of ribbing on 5mm needles after all.

One thing the last year has taught me, is that it is the process of  knitting that I enjoy, almost more than the product. Rather like growing vegetables.

I get all excited at the sight of little shoots appearing through the earth, but I am a good deal more 'take it or leave it' about actually eating the produce. I have ordered my broad bean seeds, and also a packet of spaghetti squash seeds - just 8 in that packet, but then, how many spaghetti squashes can one eat. They are very exciting - forget all that spiralizing stuff - these are 'ready-spiralized'.

 I can't remember which brand of seeds I ordered, so I am not endorsing Mr Fothergill's seeds.. But the picture shows you the general idea - when you open up the squash, you find delicious spaghetti-like strands inside. Yum yum. I am excited about these.

I've also ordered half a dozen seed potatoes for 'chitting', various other seeds, and also several little pots of tete-a-tete daffodils to brighten things up.

Our Polish neighbours who moved in last year are very enthusiastic gardeners, but have a different view of vegetable gardening; his parents, back in Poland, grow masses of vegetables as a matter of course. When I said I grew just a few large pots of this and that 'for fun' he paused, looking at me carefully, obviously revising his thoughts about vegetable gardening. I had meant to grow potatoes last year, but left it late.

'Potatoes are such hard work', he said.

'Not if you grow them in potato bags or large pots.' I explained about how you just cover the growing shoots with more earth until the pot is full and then tip them all when they are ready to be harvested.

'How many potatoes do you get?'

'Enough for a couple of meals'.

I think his idea of  a reasonable amount of potatoes is a cellar-full.

I'm planning to be guided by Huw Richards this year, 

   recommended by Ang in her blog 'Tracing Rainbows'. I don't have a 4 foot wide, 10 foot long raised bed, just an arrangement of 10 very large patio pots, each about 1 cubic foot in size, arranged on a moderately sunny patch of concrete where a shed once stood. I reckon I can adapt his plans

I bought the book too late last year; his detailed month-by-month instructions for December, January and February mostly consist of telling you what to harvest when - but I have nothing to harvest. I did just manage to plan garlic cloves in one tub within the deadline.

Meanwhile, I read the book, and other books (currently 'Miss Bunting' by Angela Thirkell, and listening to 'Over Sea. Under Stone' by Susan Cooper on audible), knit, and mooch about watching the rain.

The current bookclub 'read' is a podcast series on BBC sounds called 'Things Fall Apart' - all about how various movements suddenly sweep across social media - how, and why they started. Fascinating, and rather disturbing.  

Saturday 4th April - The First Warm Day

I'm defintely a warm weather person. Cold weather saps my energy, resilience, whatever you want to call it.

Today was warm and sunny all day.

I have spent the day doing this that and the other

 - cleaning the bathroom

 - reading

 - sitting in the sun; this involved moving a cat basket out of the way - an action which met with total disapproval from said cat

 - a few rows of knitting

 - planting seeds (tomato, basil, cress). The cress seeds needed to be sprinkled on some damp kitchen paper laid on a plate, and then kept in a dark place for a week. I've put the plate in this biscuit tin, reckoning that if I put them in a cupboard I would forget where they were.

I was a little taken aback to find there were only 6 seeds in the packet. They had all jolly well come up. 

 - making sauerkraut, ah, that also needed a dark place for 5 days. So I have put it in the bottom section of the cupboard in the dining room. On top of the tablecloths.

 - planting out my sweet peas into a container (The forecast is 5-8 degrees tonight so hopefully they will be fine.

 - walking to the post box and back, zig-zagging between both sides of the road to dodge other people out in the sunshine

 - weeding part of a flower bed - that was the hardest activity.

 - a few rows of knitting

 - playing the saxophone - I don't think I have opened the box for about six or seven years. One clue, is that there isn't a tag for saxophone on this blog.

 Everything was still there, including a couple of decent reeds. I had forgotten some of the fingerings, but even so

it didn't take me too long to work out how to play 'O when the saints' and 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot'. Playing the sax is an excellent work out for my lungs.

I expect I shall pay for all this activity tomorrow... 

Saturday 19th October - Finding my balance

Seven hard weeks of teaching this half of term and all other things that needed to be done...

Yes - I was coping fine - and would have coped fine for next week as well - I am a grownup, I have had children, (my usual mantras) and I have a husband who looks after me brilliantly even though he, too is having to deal with all the driving and housekeeping...

But this unexpected weekend off, thanks to the car being out of action until it goes to the garage on Tuesday, has been a real blessing.

Today has been an oasis of time - time without other people - Saturdays are usually filled between 8am and 6pm with teaching and travelling and so forth.

Today has been sleeping in, and reading and writing stuff.

It has been finishing off another of the shoebox-for-Roumania Christmas hats and getting going on the next

It has been sorting out the poor camelia that I was given about four years ago, which has been sitting it a tub of the wrong kind of earth, in full sun ever since. Today we planted it up in a tub of ericaceous compost in a shadier spot.

We have also discovered a small holly bush at that end of the garden which survived the Great Upheaval, so cleared away the nearby weeds to see how it will get on.

I've planted some beans - whether they are Magic ones which will lead us to the Giant's hoard of gold, or just plain ol' broad beans like the picture on the packet remains to be seen. I guess I'll know tomorrow.

I even got out my paintbox and did a bit of painting in my diary...

It was only after I'd finished that a realised I'd used the page for the first week of November. They are scenes to remind me of my walk home from school on Thursday. I think I'm ok about the duck on the right looking like a dog, and one of the ducks in the pond looking more like a puppy having a swim. As dogs they are pretty good.

Saturday 16th February - Knitting and Reading

Yesterday was a gloriously sunny day, which we spent waiting in for a delivery ('all-day' delivery slot turned out to mean around 3pm).

Today has been grey, dank, miserable sort of weather. Best get used to it, as that is the forecast for the rest of the week.

I had another morning-in-bed, surrounded by cat, cups of coffee, mobile phone, Kindle, diary, suduko. Excellent. I would have got up if the weather had made it worthwhile. Still,, in spite of spending half a day lolling about, I have cleared a reasonable amount of admin

• send in pay claim for music lessons
• send in completed registers for music lessons
• email parents about forthcoming music exam dates
• email round everyone on the Women's World Day of Prayer committee to remind them to gather numbers for the coffee morning next Saturday, and persuade some of them to bake Slovenian Apple Cakes 
• email to say I would Much Rather Not play for a memorial service on Friday as I will be baking Slovenian Apple Cakes
• email to give transport dates for fetching an elderly parishioner to church -  I try and share the duty with a friend - she does the taxi bit, which I dislike, and I do the 'looking after her in church' bit, which she dislikes.

And so on and so on. Stuff. Paperwork. Things to lose and find and put somewhere sensible and lose and find again.

I've also been reading a lot recently; currently I have got these books on the go;



Persuasion - Jane Austen
Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen - Fay Weldon   
Holding - Graham Norton (book club on Monday. I did read this last year, so am sort of skimming through)

and I'm about to re-read 'Arthur and the Seeing Stone', or maybe one of the others in the trilogy,



just to revisit the way the books have been written, like a series of little word-pictures.


I am determined to finish the red and yellow jumper that I finished knitting ages and ages ago - all it needs is to be sewn together, but I haven't dared tackle this until the right moment - that is when the ingredients of time, mental acuity and good lighting all coincide. I'm hoping that this conjunction of the stars and fates will happen sometime this week...

 

This picture dates back to 31st May 2018!

My current 'mindless knitting' scarf is going well; I started it at the end of January and it now looks like this;

It is meant to be an odd shape; all the increases are along the curved edge and the effect is a sort of crescent shape. I have had to switch from the circular needle I started with as some of the alloy near the point flaked off (never had that happen before). I would have swapped needles in any case - the metal tips are hard on your fingers compared to these nice bamboo needles, but I'm going to run into trouble soon as I will have too many stitches. You can see how the knitting is all bunched up at the top.

The knitting is progressing well - not least because I have discovered audiobooks on YouTube!

I'm halfway through listening to a dramatisation of 'Tiger in the Smoke' by Margery Allingham, originally a radio production. So far the Bad Man has murdered four people in one night, and Albert Campion's wife has survived a near miss. Thrilling!

Himself sitting back in his chair with a glass of wine and little olive palmieres - and apperitif before supper. He brought me mine earlier;

I've been making my way through them while I've been blogging. Ah well. Nothing lasts for ever.

He's taking a break from cooking, sitting and reading and consuming his own little dishlet of palmieres and glass of wine while the kitchen timer ticks away like an unexploded bomb beside him.

     

Friday 5th October - Connections

The book club choice for last month was 'A Time of Gifts' by Patrick Leigh Fermor'. I had already read it several years ago, and enjoyed it then.

I think it may be one of the first books that Mummy read after her stroke; I have one of those penguin '40s' books of just the first few chapters (my brother gave me 40 of them for my fortieth birthday, rather clever, I thought). She loved the descriptions of the Netherlands, especially Rotterdam, before the war.

I spotted this book by Robert MacFarlane and downloaded it because it was only £1.99 and I liked the cover picture;

Then I discovered it is all about Robert MacFarlane's reaction to having been given a copy of 'A Time of Gifts' by a friend.... and the effect gifts of books have on the giver and the recipient.

My father, a couple of weeks ago, insisted on buying me a copy of 'The Hare With Amber Eyes' by Edmund De Waal.

At the book club meeting, one of the members commented that there is a link between 'A Time of Gifts' and 'The Hare', in that a descendant of someone that PLF stayed with on his travels appears in 'The Hare'. I will have to finish the 'Gifts' i order to make the connection.

I've just started 'The Hare', but stalled in the first paragraph of the preface (I nearly always read the preface - it can be the best part of the book!) where De Waal recounts going to a language school in Shibuyah, Japan.

I teach an extremely popular chant in my music classes, which goes;

Shibuyah! Shibuyah! Ha! Ha! Shibuyah! Hoh!

You then go on to add individual statements before repeating the chant.

I'd always thought 'Shibuyah' was a made-up word; it has a lovely sound and feel. And then the word leapt at me when I was least expecting it!


The chapter names in 'The Hare With Amber Eyes' are so enticing that I can't wait to find out more;

I ought to get up. It is nearly lunchtime. Himself has been busy fixing the gates back to the driveway; a job which has been 'on the list' for a few years. Every time he goes to the tool cupboard in the next room, I hear 'hohoho Merry Christmas' from the Toy Father Christmas that was in a stocking so many years ago. Its battery is lasting well.

Thursday 5th April - Hello World

Apart from a fruity cold, I am feeling restored and revived after the exhausting efforts of last term - Hurrah!

I've started reading Ironheart by Charlie Fletcher, the sequel to Stoneheart. It's all a bit fast-paced and complicated,  and I would be surer that all will end well if there wasn't a third book in the series. At the moment no-one except the baddies are doing well.

I've knitted a foliage design on the scarf. I'll take a picture tomorrow when there's more to see.

I've learned the hard way that a 300 piece jigsaw is too fiddly for a tablet. I did finish it in the end.

We've beem to the garden centre to buy flowers for some friends, and more bird seed. Feeding the birds has become rather to watch. The expert in the garden centre recommended a slightly different feeder (at £3.50 it was worth a punt) and said the birds liked sunflower seeds best. So that's what we've put up, next to the old one, on a branch sticking out of the hedge.

I've done my 10-line drawing - honestly, just ten lines...

The squirrels have found our older feeder. Number One son caught it in the act. I've done the drawing from his description. Afterwards the pigeons waddle in to hoover up the seed scattered on the ground. The feeder goes from half full to empty in a few minutes.

There's a challenge...

Number One Son was in charge of tonight's meal. Chicken Satay - most excellent.

Sunday 18th March - Blog Catch-up

robertsoncooper.com

No, not news from home, not yet.

Just that I have moved the book list for this year - read, reading, not started, not even bought yet - from the sidebar of the blog to a separate page.

I've even rattled off a few sentences to excuse, explain, or otherwise comment on them....

culturenl.co.uk

Monday 5th March - Normal for the time of year?

Snow - gone
Clouds - back
Rain - forecast for this afternoon
Temperature - definitely chilly. and a bit damp.

Oh, to be in England...

hang on; the next line is "Now that April's there"

Fair enough - it is still March.



All that snow made last week a whole load easier than it might have been; several schools closed, and several pupils cancelled. I had been dreading getting through all the lessons, but in the event I had a gentle slide back into the world of work.

So far,

I haven't finished reading the Brambly Hedge "Autumn" book; Primrose the little mouse is still missing and everyone is still looking for her.



I haven't finished reading the Gospel of St Matthew; I'm a member of a "Bible Book per Month" Book Club and that's the one to finish before the meeting on Monday. I'll choose an "easy" version for speed; The Message, or Good News. But then again, if I use my grandmother's copy of the JB Philips translation, I can see all her annotations. Tempting.




I haven't finished Sebastian Barry's "Days Without End"; actually I've only just started it. I've joined another book club, one I've wanted to be in since a friend started it a number of years ago. At the time I didn't have the time or energy; too much going on at home with the family and work. Now is the moment! Carpe Diem! It really is time I started reading some "grown-up" fiction. At least I've got until Easter Monday to finish it. Chapter 1 was fascinating - very, very dense, and no real dialogue at all. I can see that it is going to be an interesting read, in an interesting style.



It is very pleasant taking a slow and steady breather in the middle of the day. We have become involved in a simple plan to go to Salzburg with my father for a few days later in the real Spring.



The plan was simple at the start; flights plus hotel for the three of us too and from Salzburg. I say simple; I need to arrange oxygen and get a fit-to-fly certificate and so on, which has a bearing on what flights we choose. A direct flight is better. Arranging oxygen on a series of different flights doesn't appeal - too many opportunities for things to go wrong.

I chose the word "involved" regarding our participation in the plan; there is also a 90th birthday party in a town some twenty or so miles away; so that means taxi or train or bus from Salzburg for the party.

Ah, but it looks as though separate arrangements are in progress to books us into a hotel in the town, so we only need flights.



That probably explains why when I tried to book flights plus hotel in the birthday town, the hotel was full. But the most convenient of the cheaper direct flights from England gets in to Salzburg at about 8pm... - fine for a local hotel, no so fine for travelling on...

And so it goes on. We shall discuss, make plans, "improve" the plans, confuse ourselves, finalise and then book everything tonight, come what may, and then I will set about the fit-to-fly and the oxygen and then it will all be settled. Apart from booking in our ancient cats to a cattery somewhere. 

 As St Julian of Norwich said

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” 
― Julian of Norwich