Sunday 24th April - Another week goes by

The weather's been cold and tricksy this week - sitting inside in the sun, you would think that it was a lovely day out there, but the reality is it has been COLD. I've been caught out a few times, and then, a few times, I've dug out my winter lined trousers and worn a vest and then BOILED.

I suppose that's what Spring is all about... I stand at the back door looking down the garden to the bench and table under the bare branches of the apple tree... time was when we would sit under the shade of the tree drinking chilled white wine and eating tapas and pretending we were somewhere more Mediterranean.

Anyway, here are about four posts all rolled into one - you can either read it all in one go, or practice some self-restraint and make it last.

So, what have we been up to? He hoovered the house Everywhere, and changed the filters and cannula on my oxygen machine.... We changed the sheets on the bed.... I cleaned the luvverly loo... - you know, houseworky stuff.

I wrestled (and lost) with a Goldberg Variation (just look at those time signatures - is that some kind of a JOKE? and he swaps them over every so often just for another laugh)

On Wednesday the children kept dropping the extremely expensive also xylophones so I bought some "tub-trugs" for carting the instruments from the school to the village hall next door where their lessons take place. They were too small for the xylophones, but just right for disinfecting two dozen recorders every week. So, on Friday, I bought another three larger ones. No expense spared. And a glove puppet for a big Whole School Samba Event that I will be involved in later this term. I'm hoping that the puppet will be able to teach two-and three- year-olds how to play samba. Maybe. Maybe not.

  

Today, one of the cats was all pestering and restless. I wondered if we had forgotten to give them breakfast. We had, but that wasn't the problem. Nope. She wanted us to go down to the bottom of the garden to make sure there were no dragons. Both cats are suffering at the moment as there are some new fierce cats around. Not for no reason is one of our cats nick-named Fraidy-Cat.

Anyway, it was briefly warm enough for us to go and do a bit of gardening. Himself to scare the "lawn" with a a savage looking rake mounted on two wheels which you pull and push and clank around with, accumulating piles of dead grass and moss. I think this is the first time we have subjected the grass to this treatment ever. I hope it appreciates the effort.

I carried on digging up the ground under the laurel hedge and replanted a couple more pots of bulbs in the hope that they will joyously burst into life again next Spring. The ones I dumped in the earth a week or so ago don't look too shabby

 
So I am remaining hopeful for these narcissi (and one stray tulip)

They were truly lovely earlier this year.

The garden is full of blue-bells this year - I didn't plant them, so how did they get here?

Anyway, after all that effort we deserved a cup of tea and cake. The actual cake we had with the cup of tea has gone, but I made another one for the photograph. I doubt it will last very long...

Melt 30g (a 1cm slice) of butter in a large mug in the microwave. Beat in an egg, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 2 tablespoons SR flour, 2 tablespoons porridge oats. Add a drop of milk if the mixture is stiff. The recipe that this is based on says cook for 1 minutes 20 seconds on high in an 800W microwave. Ours is more powerful, and I find 1 min is about right. This makes a sort of brownie-cakey sort of thing. And it takes about the same time as the tea takes to brew.

I use a large plastic mug which is really meant for heating soup.

N-i-c-e.

Right. Himself, in his role of House-Manager is preparing tonight's supper (curry) and I ought to get this dining room table clear. It is covered in raps and chants at the moment, part of the planning for the Great Samba Project, There's "creative disorder", and "work-in-progress". And then there's "what-a-mess".

Monday 18th April - My New Bestest Thing

The new bathroom has been finished (nearly) for about a month or so now. The old bathroom had been installed back in 1984 - just before we moved in. I say "installed" - they hadn't connected the bath overflow to anything - if you over-filled the bath, the water just poured through the floorboards, They hadn't bolted the sink to the wall - it merely rested on the pedestal, held in place by the plumbing for the taps. And they hadn't bolted the lavatory to the floor - it rocked ominously, and any sudden movement would have caused a disconnect in the connection to the soil pipe.

After thirty two year of waiting, and eventually just blanking out the deficiencies of the cheap fittings and horrible colour of the old bathroom and loo, (obviously we rectified the installation faults as and when we discovered them) we have a Bee-uooo-ti-ful Bathroom.

Oh, enough with words, just let me show you. Let's start with the loo.

It is white, modern. The floor is tiled and sealed around all the edged (we have had many changes of lino and vinyl tiles and so on over the years). The walls are half-tiled tiled too (sooo much better than the series of vinyl wallpapers we have had as "temporary" measures). More to the point, WE CHOSE IT. We have never, in any of the houses we have ever lived in, CHOSEN a whole bathroom.

Here's the basin, in the bathroom next door.

Look, we have a "vanity unit" under the basin to store all the stuff. Up until now it was all just piled into a second waster-paper bin. I LOVE the basin. I LOVE the tap. I polish them both every day to keep it all shiny. Seriously.

We have a shower, running off beautiful mixer taps.

Oh my. Just fancy being able to CHOOSE the taps. I clean the bath every time I use it. Truly. Wipe all the splashes of water off the chrome, shine up the taps, dry the waste-plug (also chrome) so that we don't get hard-water marks.

 
We chose and fitted grab handles, so that my father could come and have a bath, I use them all the time - how convenient! And I wipe them down too. I am determined to keep this bathroom perfect for ever and ever and ever. Here are the tiles in the bathroom in close up.  

And here are the same tiles, but in the loo.

I love the way the colours in the tiles change according to the time of day, and whether the lights are on. The bathroom is all white tiled, with white spotlights in the ceiling, so the tiles tend to be silvery, as well as all the other colours. The walls in the loo are currently just bare plaster, sort of pinkish brown, and the light shade turns the light more golden. So the tiles appear more golden. One day we will have to decide what colour to paint the loo walls. I'd like to pick something out from the tiles - peacock blue? emerald green? bright pink? purple? gold? I'm in no hurry to choose.

In the old days, I used to spend my time in the bath planning the day ahead, thinking over things, busy busy, busy, mind working overtime. Now, I just look at the tiles, admire the taps, and think how lucky, lucky, lucky I am. Perfect.

Oh, sorry, were you expecting some "interesting" post from me?  Sorry - this really is my new bestest thing and about the most interesting and important part of the house at the moment.

Sunday 17th April - Intrepid Fire Fighters

Yup, last night there was an official-sounding ring at the door.We opened it to find a huge fire engine parked outside, and several fully-suited fire-fighters asking if they could go through our garden to get to a large and apparently out-of-control fire on the public land behind our house.

Sure, we said, a little uncertainly. WE haven't managed to get through the laurel hedge beyond our gate for maybe a decade, but maybe they would succeed where we hadn't tried.

No pictures - sorry - it was after dark.

Anyway, the conflagration turned out to be a substantial bonfire in the back garden of one of the substantial houses just the other side of what we call "the river" (actually a mild and inoffensive and barely-flowing stream, until the flood-prevention sluices are opened, when it turns into a broad, fast-flowing and dangerous river).

This afternoon I went down to have a proper lok at the laurel hedge.

You have to admire their determination and strength of character to venture into this lot in the dark. Especially when you consider that the ground plunges down a six-foot bank (which is why we are unconcerned when "the river" becomes a sudden twenty-foot wide spate)

We have been meaning to re-instate the access to the common land and footpaths for some while. At least we now know it is possible to get down the bank, and, back up it again.

Saturday 9th April - Goodness is its own reward

A couple of days ago I was interrupted in whatever time-wasting activity I was engaged in by a caller at the door.

It was a young man with a capacious bag of household cleaning things. He said he was an ex-offender trying to make his way, and brandished an amateurish looking laminated ID pass. I'm always reluctant when these callers come round.

Reluctant to buy anything because it is usually cheap and nasty and over-priced and not what I want or need.
Reluctant because they could just be blagging their way round, using the sympathy vote to guilt people into buying from them.
Reluctant, because they could be for real - truly - ex-offenders trying to get their lives back together in which case I feel guilted into buying from them.

There's a story about some Rabbi who gave a small handout to a homeless beggar in London. His companion commented that the "beggar" was probably a scrounger who lived in a decent place and had parked his car round the corner. The Rabbi's response was to say "If I he really is homeless and I don't give him anything, then that would be on my conscience, If he is lying, that is on his conscience. I know which way round I would rather have it." I tend to agree with the Rabbi.

So, I listened to the caller's spiel, and chose one of the cheapest things that might possibly have be any use to me. I'd noticed some thick cobwebs behind a radiator the other day, so chose this for £4.99 (me - "Don't bother about the penny" ; him -"Thanks, I'll put it in my little boy's penny pot"; me - thinks - yeah, right. But maybe he's for real? In which case I now feel a bit mean. Does life really have to be this complicated?).

The thingy looks pretty useless - too short to reach all the way down the radiator, and too flimsy.

I ripped it out of the packet and tried it out on the radiator next to the computer. My, but that dust is extreme.

And it feels all solid and lumpy. Solid? I squinted down behind the radiator.

There, wedged over the bracket that fixes the radiator to the wall, was the wheat pack that I have been looking for.

It was an exercise in patience, self-control, and wire-coat-hanger-bending lasting longer than you would think for himself to extract it, as all the wheat had flowed to the two ends and moulded itself to fill the indentations in the radiator. But he doesn't give up easily.

So, for £4.99 I have my wheat pack back. Which, compared to the cost (and difficulty of finding) a replacement, is a bargain.

    

Wednesday 6th April - Gardening

The weather this morning was hideous - that grey mediocre rain that varies from uncertain mizzling to determined downpour. It really got going as we set off for me to go and have a routine blood test (the cocktail of pills and potions I swallow means I have regular six-weekly blood tests to make sure that "kill or cure" is going the right way. So far, so good). As usual, especially as it was raining, the cramped local hospital car park was a chaos of slo-mo cars jockeying for position; a driver of one car waiting for someone who is about to leave so focused on making sure no-one else "steals" their space that they are oblivious to the log jam they have caused, stretching back out into the main road... But that's the huge advantage of a) a walk in clinic - you are not worrying about being late - and b) being driven there by BB - I can just leap out and leave him to slowly inch forwards and backwards.

A friend came round for coffee afterwards, bearing chocolate cake. She can come again anytime!

After lunch I was sitting about doing this and that - ie nothing - and suddenly noticed that it looked warm and sunny outside. A cautious foray proved this to be the case, and I made a start on getting the primulas and bulbs transferred from tubs to our "woodland area".

Digging proved to be hard graft. The soil was loose enough - it has been dug over a couple of times - by me, I might add - in the last few years. But any kind of exertion soon makes me breathless. So, two square feet, and a cup of tea.

I suspect these little violas may not survive the assault on the goosegrass. (My  Canadian friends regard them as a trial andf tribulation and spend their time rootling them out of their lawn. We don't have a "lawn", more a patch of rough grazing in the middle of the back garden)

The cats came out to keep me company. Hmm. That encouraged me to complete any work I wanted to do on the patch of turned earth, because I know that they like digging too.

Another yard - and stop to make a telephone call. A bit more, and another cup of tea.    

I got this amount cleared in the end, and two tubs of gallant primulas and depressed daffodils (they came to nothing this year, probably planted too deep in the tub).

I may have saved the violas, there, by those whitish daffodil stems - time will tell - and possibly some of the wild strawberry plans.

And I'm hoping that I have seriously discouraged the lush and over-enthusiastic goose grass that rises up to laugh at me every year.

Anyway, making a start has made me happy. Let's hope I can also make an end of the job too.

Wednesday 6th April - My Mother - photographs

I have over 1000 photographs on my phone at the moment, which is ridiculous.

This post is about my mother, just warning you. Have a tissue ready if you need one.

Some of them are unbearably precious, so one of this week's tasks is to transfer the important ones to the computer, save a few important ones on my phone, and delete the rest.

It's a fairly quick process - create the subject folder on the PC, select the photographs on the phone and click my way through the menus until they all magically appear on the PC screen.

Except - except - I have the pictures of my mother, taken during her last stay in hospital, taken in the Nursing Home, taken at Christmas, taken the afternoon before she died, taken after death...

You may think it was "bad taste" to take pictures of her, so still, just hours after she died... but I'm glad I did - various close family members weren't there, couldn't be there for a while afterwards, and she looks so peaceful, unruffled -  and gone. I think they were glad to see that she looked - well - all right.

Hey, don't think I'm sad, grief-stricken, cast into depths. I did my grieving over the last three-four years. I've also got pictures of her from our Wedding Day, nearly 30 years ago. My word, but she was pretty. Glamorous. Beautiful. Vivacious. I'll keep a few of those on my phone. I salute the courageous, lively, determined character she was in her last years, and indeed all through her life.

But if you have important, irreplaceable photographs on your phone, DO SOMETHING now, before it's too late...

Tuesday 5th April - My Mother - Cabbages

It may look to other people that the past months of my mother's final illness, her death, the funeral, the clearing up, are behind me.

Think again.

These ornamental cabbages and primulas were bought last November as a back-up plan for their 60th Wedding Anniversary Plans as possible table decorations at their Grand Tea Party.

They were not needed after all, so I planted the cabbages in pots outside the front door, and the primulas were stuffed into troughs which already had bulbs in them from last year 

The cabbages (the ones that weren't eaten by slugs) are now bolting, and have turned from elegant rosettes into ramshackle pagodas.

So, there they are - at my coming in and my going out - a little twinge of memory.

She was a great cooker of cabbages, my mother. Actually, she was a great cook. At the convent prep school I went to, they had acres of huge red cabbages in the vegetable garden. The sight filled me with despair. I knew that they would turn up at lunch time, boiled to a despondent murky grey. At home we had delicious red cabbage braised in butter with apples and onion and cloves red currant jelly and brown sugar and vinegar long before Delia Smith had ever educated the British public on the proper way to cook red cabbage.

Green or white cabbage should also be braised in butter, with bacon bits and maybe a touch of caraway seed.

Sauerkraut comes in jars - dead easy. You just need several different kinds of pork - cops, or belly strips, fried and the fat and juices used to make gravy, smoked continental boiling sausage, a chunk of boiled bacon, and floury boiled potatoes. Oh, and the sauerkraut, zapped in the microwave. And German mustard. Beer maybe, to drink. Rennies for afterwards. Difficult to make for less than a whole household.

We used to have Bratwurst-mit-sauerkraut-und-senf in bread rolls when we were ski-ing, for lunch.

I'll be replacing the ornamental cabbages in the next week or so. I plan to plant all the primulas and bulbs under the hedge at the bottom of the garden, where they will get morning sun next Spring, and see if they come up again. I was going to do that after lunch today, but the sun went in. Now, at half past five, it's sunny again. That's how it goes.