Friday 1st April - April Foolish weather

 No, I'm not posting any April fools - there have been plenty of of them on twitter etc.

And anyway it is now too late - half past five.

Yesterday it began to snow at about ten minutes to four. And finished snowing at about five minutes to four. I began a piano lesson over zoom with a girl at four, who lives about half a mile away, which was almost instantly derailed when she announced it hard started snowing and could she go and bounce on her trampoline in the garden in the snow? Before I could frame a response, the snow stopped. Like that. So we carried on with the lesson.

Half an hour later I was having a chat with a group of friends, again over zoom. Some live in Scotland (no snow), some in Norfolk (some snow) and two live a couple of miles away from me, and - it had just started to snow! For about five minutes and then stopped. Mad.

Today it has been alternating between snow, sun, sleet, snow, more sun, hail (!), sun.... and again bitterly cold.

I've stayed indoors, watching the weird weather and staying close to a radiator, all wrapped up in a blanket. The cats have felt the same way. I feel for them - our bathroom is chilly with the wind in this direction, but they have to go outside. 

Yesterday and today, with the weather being so cold, I opened a packet of 'Cold Warrior' tea. Whether this is to fend off a cold in the head or cold weather I don't know.

Eucalyptus leaves, aniseed, lemongrass, chilli, echinacea, peppermint

  Not as pretty as the flowery one from Wednesday, and a strong smell of Olbas Oil, which was slightly worrying. I love the smell of Olbas Oil 

 Ahhhhh

but I'd never have thought of drinking eucalyptusl...

Once brewed, the flavours mellowed. I'd drawn the curtains so I don't know if the weather improved, but I felt better for it. Perhaps because I'm not actually unwell?

Noah's Ark for Friday

It's a jackal, or maybe a fox - I think it depends on which Bible you use. This is the King James Version;

1. 17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.

2. 18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.

3. 19 Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.

4. It's not a good idea to try and make sense of random verses taken out of context... but verse 19 seems a good one to hold on to.

1. 
   

Tuesday 9th February - morning - Snow!

 After Sunday's rather disappointing effort, snow started happening again on Monday morning and has continued since, falling in small, fine dusty flake which slowly accumulate. Yesterday  there was a decent dusting of snow on the grass; today the tips of the grass are just poking through the snow like Mrs Tiggywinkle's prickles showing through her cap;

A friend told me that her children had been sledging on the local hill on Sunday. They returned home completely coated in mud. I don't think there had been anything like enough snow, but it might be better this afternoon. 

James-the-garden-expert came round on Monday morning to finish the work he started last Monday (and also retrieve his hat which he had left behind). He has covered all the long flower border, and most of my larger patio pots with a layer of rich topsoil. It was steaming and smelling faintly of farm manure as he transferred it from barrow to flowerbed! But the weather is so cold that the snow was soon able to form a new layer on top. The smell seemed to disappear quickly as well - thank heavens!

.......

A pleasant surprise yesterday was that when I opened the Kindle app on my tablet the 'print' was black on white. Now, why should that be a surprise? Because for the last few days it has appeared as pale blue, almost invisible against the white background. Very weird. It was possible to reset it by changing the colour of the 'paper' to cream or sepia or whatever, whereupon the letters would turn black, and when one reset it to 'white' paper the letters stayed black. 

.........

Another pleasant surprise is that we actually have a delivery date for the printer we ordered on Boxing Day when our old printer printed its last ever sheet of paper. Or part sheet, as it happened. It has been a bit of a saga; we think it is because we took the option of an offer on extra ink, which probably doubled the number of customs declarations and other paperworky stuff post-Brexit. A bit like the problems that a cheese supplier is having with exporting mixed selection boxes of cheese to the EU, needing a complete and separate set of paperwork for each of the cheeses in every box.

Now we are waiting to see if we will have to pay tax or admin charges before we can have the delivery... and although the delivery date is tomorrow, or was that today? we are not placing any great expectations on seeing it so soon. Especially as it has been sitting over in the East of England, where most of the snow has fallen.

Meanwhile I continue to teach piano using my telephone to read the music - reading the music two bars at a time and scrolling from side to side and up and down. Yesterday I used the tablet to read some music, sent to me by a pupil who is using a book that I don't have. I propped the tablet on the music rest and hoped it would not slip and chop my fingers off on its way to the floor. There comes a point when tech cannot conveniently replace paper and pencil... 

  

Sunday 7th February - Vaccinations, events,

 Let's see, what has been happening since Tuesday?

Wednesday was surprise vaccination day for Himself - the local centre had an unexpected delivery of Pfizer vaccine so they were phoning round all the people on their list. 

No real side-effects apart from a sore arm for several days - sore enough that I was slightly apprehensive when I went for my vaccination on Saturday lunchtime. 'Good, it's not bleeding', said the nurse, who was actually a pharamcist. 'I don't like it when they bleed, makes me feel a bit ill'. What a job if you don't like the sight of blood - shades of the 'Doc Martin' series. I had the Astra-Zeneca one, and have had no side-effects (so far) at all.

We went round to my father's again on - must have been Friday, and this time we took the books, and this time he let down the string and hauled them up, to the interest of the lady in the ground floor flat. She knows my father quite well, so probably wasn't too surprised - she had been amused when he threw the last lot of books down to us when he had finished with them, a week or so ago.

We were promised snow this weekend, and it has been sleety drizzle all day. Most disappointing. Every so often the sleet becomes slightly snow-like, but everything melts on contact with the sodden ground. The only tiny scrap of snow that hadn't melted had been blown into a cobweb in a sheltered corner ofthe garden bench.

Oh! Now that it is getting dark, the sleet is snowier, and beginning to lie! I went to take a picture of the cobweb full of snow

 and discovered that ore snow had settled on top, and is beginning to cover the slats on the bench.

And the table, and the triffid

Now I want it to be tomorrow morning, and wake up to a world of wonder....

Patience.... 

The yoghurt pot seedy cake has been and gone - it was very good. The replacement, a yoghurt pot 'finishing a half jar of mincemeat cake' is down to a final lump. I used the same recipe as the last post, but reduced the sugar and replaced with dark brown sugar, and used slightly less oil, as the mincemeat has sugar and suet in it. I added a handful of dried fruit, and used mostly brown SR flour as the white four bag was nearly empty. It is good, but not AS good. But at least the eggs and yoghurt didn't go to waste.

The cooking 'topic' for this month is 'separating puddings' - I know a lemon one from the book that came with a Belling cooker decades ago, and a chocolate one that came from a fund-raiser church cookbook, and Eliza Acton's rich rice pudding which Delia Smith has included in one of her cookery books. I've jotted down another one from the internet, but it involved dessicated coconut which is not something I particularly like. I am mulling over a substitution - or maybe one can leave it out?

Meanwhile I have been munching Anzac biscuits, which do seem to contain coconut, and enjoying them. I should reconsider my dislike for coconut. They were a present from a friend, in exchange for lending some of our Wentworth whimsy jigsaws.

This tray of tea and biscuits is probably the only reason have I managed to get through writing up the lesson notes this afternoon to send out by email.

Learning to touch type as my January skill has been a very good idea - it has speeded up my typing and my accuracy. I should put that sentence into more of a past tense; I realize now, after having neglected both the book and the on-line tutorial that the skills are only shallow and need a lot of reinforcement - and soon.

So - February.....

February skill... hmm. I have an artbox of ink-drawing materials to investigate. I can see how getting a handle on how this could link in nicely with lino-printing...     
   

February craft - I have a summer top which I wish to convert to a dress by adding a skirt in the same material. The mindless knitted shawl is still a work-in-progress, as is the mindless crochet shawl, but the mitred square blanket is complete, including i-cord edging and all the ends sewn in.

 All the ends bar one. Have just dealt with that now. 

And February Spring Clean - I have just about finished the bathroom and loo - already! - only the bathroom floor and turning out the cupboard under the basin left. I may even get ahead of myself and deal with the hall-stairs-and-landing this month.

 

  

Sunday 24th January - Consistency

 Consistency is NOT my middle name.

I find it extremely difficult to stick to any kind of resolution or plan or schedule. It feels as though every time I make a promise to myself I do so with my fingers crossed behind my back - for example

I will do some piano practise every day

I will do one housework task every day

I will go for a walk every day

I will draw or paint every day

I will write something every day

Perhaps a better approach, which would save me many self-reproaches, would be to rephrase the above;

I will do some piano practise every so often  

I will do one housework task every so often

I will go for a walk every so often

I will draw or paint every so often

I will write something every so often

I'm feeling much better already!

In other news, we have SNOW!! Sort of snow. Kind of like snow. Not very much like sleet.

Although it does appear to be getting a bit sleetier now.

Sunday 18th March - Weekly Round Up

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Falling_Snow_-_stuck_at_home_(3234280718).jpg

Being British, of course the main news has to be about the weather.

Today we woke to a grey morning, but with a cover of snow on cars and roofs, an untidy scattering of white on the grass. So there must have been a bit of snow in the night. Nothing all day - just cold, cold coldness, in spite of the met's 60% promise of snow. We were stuck in the 40% area. Now, hurrah! Real Snow! I wonder what it will be like tomorrow morning...

I scrambled through the week's teaching, greatly assisted by a number of students being absent from their lessons (sore throat, school trip, imminent clarinet exam). The worst moment was accompanying a Grade 6 violin exam. The candidate is vastly, vastly improved from the first session we had together, but his counting still can't be trusted. So the bar he "always" got wrong, and I was prepared for, he got right, which caused me a few problems. There were places in all three pieces where I needed to be super alert, like when I suddenly had to turn my page earlier than I was expecting, and other places where I had to wait and judge the moment. Hey - we started and finished together, and didn't stop along the way! That has to be good.

Wednesday was a birthday for someone special. He received presents in pretty paper or Amazon wrappings from the offsprings, but I hadn't managed to wrap my tokens of appreciation. Not exactly true - they were "wrapped" in a shopping bag a friend brought me as a souvenir from Hong Kong. So, rather than wrap them 30 seconds before giving them to him, he played "lucky dip". No chocolate, as I had bought a giant dark chocolate Toblerone

in advance and already handed it over when emergency chocolate was required.

Today has been highly satisfactory from my point of view. I've had a pyjama day, or rather a nightdress day. Cups of tea and coffee, and meals, have materialised at regular intervals - what a treat.- and I have accomplished a number of things that I wanted to do, and many more that I just felt like doing.

Perfect.

Tuesday 27th February - Snow!

Yup. Woke up to a white world.

It's lunchtime now, the snow's all gone. You can stand down until the next time.

Thursday 30th November - Endings, Beginnings, Anticipations

ENDINGS
I'll rattle in this last National Blog Promotion Post before I forget... because once I'm in bed I'm off-line, switched off, hibernating, until 7:30 a tomorrow morning!

BEGINNINGS - not of Advent, but of Advent Calendars.
He has filled my Advent Calendar with Good Things. I haven't even begun to think what to put in his. So long as I can remedy that before midnight tomorrow I shall be happy. My afternoon school has cancelled their whole class guitar lesson on Friday afternoon as they need the time and space to set up for their Christmas Fair. That gives me a window to search the town for itty-bitty things to put in the itty-bitty drawers.

ANTICIPATIONS
After my birthday is when I start thinking properly about Christmas. We will usually have talked about dates and plans within the family before then; who will stay where, when they plan to arrive, how long they think they might be there and so on.

ADVENT begins of the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is Sunday 3rd. I'll be playing at the early service. I've chosen

O Come, O Come Emmanuel - I'm always pleased when I get to choose for the first Sunday becuase this is one of my all-time favourites   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkQ4QdFfD3c

Come Let Us Sing of a Wonderful Love which I rather suspect no-one will know... I can't find a good youtube with a choir, but this one has the tune, the words and a lovely video of sheep and the moors and so on....  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BZfXTCUbr8

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear because I love that song, and it is all about peace and goodwill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtV477Cqni0 

I rather think I may get some stick for the last two. But no-one is paying the (organ)-piper, so I gets to call the tunes....

I've signed up to  join a group of bloggers posting Advent Reflections on the theme of "A Pause for Advent" for the four Sundays in Advent - It is being hosted by Angela at http://angalmond.blogspot.co.uk/ 

If you look at the top of her page, you will find a list of Advent Pausers, Posters and Readers, including A-Letter-From Home - how exciting!

I've yet to work out what I shall be reflecting on. Is it cheating to read everyone else's first for ideas? Possibly....

Oh, it snowed today. Just a fine dusting at playtime, enough to make the children really excited!
 

Saturday 19th November 2016 - Early this morning

As in Very Early....

Woke up at 3 am (why? wish I knew).

After spending a little while trying to get back to sleep, I decided to wake up properly. There was a odd brightness to the light coming through the gaps in the curtains, not entirely due to the neighbours ridiculously bright security light that comes on at random times of the day or night.

I peered out of the window - SNOW! When I put my glasses on to inspect the scene outside properly, it turned out to be a wondrous white frost, so that the grass and the shed roof, and the remaining leaves on the big oak tree were all a shimmering silver.

Still very beautiful.



And I was still awake. I finished my book, dozed, the alarm went off, and the real day began.

It is half past eight in the evening now and I am more than ready for bed after such an early start.

Saturday January 31st - First Snow

It's just about gone now, (10.45 am) but for the record:

It must have been - ooh, let's make a guess - at least an eighth of an inch, maybe as much as a quarter of an inch deep. Not enough to start shovelling.