Thursday 27th June - A short(ish) week

This week has ended (already?) on a reasonable high.

Yeah, I know, it's only Thursday. But I'm not teaching tomorrow (grand family celebrations all day), so as far as I am concerned the teaching week, which begins on a Saturday, has ended a day early.

Quite a few of the lessons went much better than I expected, and only a very few went worse than expected. (There are always a couple of tricky pupils, who, for one reason or another, are difficult to teach).

Accomplishments so far?

I have become adept at getting the painkiller medicine into McCavity. I studied a youtube video, and more or less replicated the action;

• prepare the dosing syringe and get a handful of cat treats
• give the cat some of the cat treats
• stroke cat while it munches
• interrupt the munching by grabbing the cat by the scruff, bringing its head back enough to be able to get the syringe into its mouth, steadily pushing the plunger while the indignant cat reluctantly slurps the stuff down, 
• give the cat the rest of the cat treats

This has been reasonably successful five times in a row; she must know what is coming, but it seems that the cat treats are worth the disgruntling.

The other night it was only a partial success, but that was my fault. I got the actions slightly out of sequence and started pushing the plunger on the syringe before I had got it properly into her mouth. Messy. I reckon she got at least half, though, and most of the mess fell on the cat treats, which, after some consideration, she decided to finish up anyway.

The plate is empty, because the deed has been accomplished. You can see she's not really bothered by the whole procedure.

I've done a bit in the garden - mostly picking (and eating) strawberries, and sorting out one of the big tubs of plants, evicting all the random daffodil bulbs I stuffed into it last year, and replacing them with random patio roses that I haven't quite killed through neglect. 

This is last night's 'practising for the holiday sketchbook' effort. The large brown reptile lurking bottom right is actually a stone-and-iron-railing wall at the edge of the viewpoint looking over the ravine. And the brown train crossing the bridge is really the houses at the top of the hill on the other side of the ravine. I was copying a photograph of Knaresborough from last Summer. 

How hard is it to draw ears of corn? Not hard at all, it seems.

The random twiggy seed-head thing on the left reminds me; this morning I saw a Giant Hogweed growing in the verge of the lane I was driving along. They always cheer me up, looking like some alien triffid. If you look them up, you discover that they are an invasive species (see, aliens!) which can cause serious skin burns if you touch them (see - triffids!) so I suppose I shouldn't be so happy to see them...     

 

Sunday 23rd June - maybe day

Maybe what?

Probably because yeah perhaps.

I feel as if I've been inside my own little foggy cloud today... most of today... I did get to church because I was on duty and because I'd promised a lift to someone, but as soon as I got there I had my doubts. Surely handing our hymnbooks and saying a cheery hello wasn't too difficult? Sure, that was fine.

I'm glad a certain member of the stewarding team wasn't there as the rest of the morning didn't go so brightly. I think the visiting vicar was off-colour too - he missed out the communion prayer and nearly invited us all to receive before doing the consecration bit, but realised, and back-tracked through the service just in time (visitor beside me was as confused as me, but we got to the right page in the end).

Anyway, I didn't hang around long afterwards, took my friend to her house, braved The Fast and Furious Roundabout, came home and went to bed. What's wrong with me? I dunno - probably just the last three months. I've spent the afternoon dozing, and crochet, and reading, and pottering about and am feeling sleepy but less 'aware of my innards', if you know what I mean.

What else?

The cats aren't eating - the vet and the vaccinations have put them properly out of sorts too. The last couple of plates of food have only been nibbled and licked and pushed around. So we gave in - 'Sheba' (half the amount in the pouch for twice the price' was on offer, and we set out a saucer each.
Result.

But they needn't think that's going to be the new diet from now on - we've ALL got to be able to eat in this household, not just the cats.


 I've had to find another footstool because McCavity been melded to mine all afternoon.

I've finished the green granny square (I think the colourway is called 'Verdi' - for the composer as well as the colour. Thinking about that, calling it 'Green's Requiem' just doesn't have the same dramatic ring, somehow)

I've now started a pinkish red one;

When I finally sew them all together I think I'll not put these two next to each other.

Himself has put down same 'ordinary' cat food. I say ordinary - it is the most expensive of the ordinary cat foods - and there has been complicated manoeuverings  as to which cat eats from which saucer. It is getting fairly impossible to ensure that McCavity is the one that actually receives the medicine for arthritic hips rather than Leo.

Well, energy levels exhausted again - just enough to make a cup of tea and take another doze. Normal service may possibly resumed tomorrow (three pupils in the morning, four in the afternoon, three after school - an average sort of day...)

Friday 21st June - the longest day...

It started with promising sun shine. Sort of warm, sort of cool, sort of sunny, sort of cloudy.

We took the cats to the vet this morning for their annual checkup and vaccinations. We were the only people there, arrived early, and yet were late going in... how can that be? Oh well, what else did we have planned? Nothing.

Leo got off lightly; she's got bad teeth and gums; if she were younger maybe we would consider dental treatment, but when a previous cat, at about the same age, had treatment, the anesthetic pretty well did for her; she came home very sorry for herself and unwilling to eat, and went to her eternal rest a few weeks later. So, while Leo can manage as she is, (which she can!) we'll leave things as they are.

McCavity has been diagnosed with arthritic hips - she certainly expressed full and comprehensive dislike for having her back legs manipulated. So she was carried off by a nurse, and returned later, looking very thoughtful and wrapped in a towel, having had a blood test to see if she could be given painkillers. Luckily, she can, and the plan is to conceal her medicine in her cat food. There is always the risk that Leo gets the painkillers instead of McCavity...

They have spent the whole day asleep; poor dears, they are all of sixteen years old now, which I suppose translates into Very Old Indeed, and clearly found the whole morning Too Much.

Apart from getting up, turning round, and lying down again, they have barely moved.

I've been practising watercolour sketching in preparation for the holidays. I print off photographs from the internet, and copy them. It is a lot easier than doing things from real life. For a start they are already reduced to two dimensions, and then everything is also frozen in time.

My other new acquisition is a little willow basket sort of thing. When we went to the Weald and Downland Museum last weekend, I made it - it was such a pleasure to make. I was enchanted by the developing twist along the sides as the inward spiral grew (you start at the open end).

I've hung it from a window hook at the bottom of the stairs so that I see it every morning.

Now, about this longest day... it is evening now, and so the day still has some time to go. We should be out in the garden. celebrating the solstice and all that...

Nah, that's not going to happen!

Friday 14th June - Flowers in the Garden

When we had the garden border done I specified that I wanted to have something to look forward to every month of the year.

Of course the success of that does depend on going out into the garden so that I don't miss anything...

At the moment I still don't know what most of the plans are called - but now that I have handed over communications with the gardener to Himself there might be some more information on that score. I've discovered that my patience has run out... so stepping back is a Good Idea.

Anyway, I went to have a look this evening;

The bottom of this picture shows a little lavender plant coming into flower - I remember asking for lavender... I've got another bush in a small pot which needs planting somewhere more sensible at some stage.

This might be a geranium

Look at my strawberries! I've never grown them before. There all came from friends in Northern Ireland; we brought them back as small pots last Summer and I just shoved them all into one of my vegetable tubs. Sunday's task is to net them against the birds.

This little pot has a 'rescue' miniature rose. There were two pots each with two dried out and dying rose plants in Waitrose last Summer, for just a couple of pounds each. They are still not in great shape, but this one has a most enormous bud.  Potting them all up looks like being another job for Sunday.

 
It's been a gruelling couple of weeks, well, months. We are coming out of the worst; it feels like a lull before the next crisis, whatever that may be. There are still a lot of uncertainties regarding my godmother's future, and we are still going up at least once a week when we can manage it. She's back on form now, though, looking after herself just like before all this blew up.

However I have to admit that I seem to be in a 'one step forwards, one-and-a-quarter step backwards' phase; one day I will be well organised and deal with a myriad of tasks, and the next day I will mis-read a email and totally, but totally, fail to turn up to a school (I thought they had cancelled, no, no, they meant NEXT week!). I'll sleep like a log one night, and be wide awake listening to the World Service, or 'Slow Radio' podcasts for the next two. Hey Ho. Himself is in  a similar state same, so we prop each other up as we make our shambolic way through the week.

Never Mind. Things are changing, and there are extra 'Catch Up With Yourself' moments along the way at the moment; muddling up the school means that I will have had TWO unexpected free afternoons this month, and also Friday evenings are free as there are no Drumming workshops in June. We're just spending this evening watching television with our eyes closed....     

Sunday 2nd June - Drawings

I mentioned that I had bought (another) 'how to draw' book. This one,



was recommended somewhere. I think there is possibly a problem with the title... I'm drawing with  pens and pencils and also the drawing app on my laptop. I haven't yet moved on to drawing with children... (hahahah, geddit?)

Anyway, it takes the view that drawing is a taught skill, like playing the piano, and you start by copying increasingly intricate diagrams constructed from using the five elements shown in the first row below

Add caption

to sharpen up your observation and drawing skills from a very primitive level.

Following on from this, using the elements of dot, circle, straight, curved and angled lines, I have reached the drawing level of a - shall we say - twelve-year-old?

I drew these using the Artrage app on the laptop. I'm actually rather impressed. I reckon they are not a bad effort. Quite how I get from here to a realistic picture I'm not sure, but this is only lesson 1 in the book.   

I forgot to add this picture of snapdragon flowers to a previous post. They have survived or self-seeded from last year, and seem to have overwhelmed the fuschia which shares their pot.

The roses are looking good too.

Sunday 2nd June

It's a crazy day. We are running about two hours early;

Woke up around 5am and had breakfast because neither of us were likely to go back to sleep.

Second breakfast at about 8.

I went off to church, played two of the four songs on the piano and was grateful not to be playing everything else (two hymns and all the music before the service, during communion and afterwards). The organ has something wrong with it; the organist of the day had it set up to play with some soft stops, but on certain notes it would unexpectedly couple to a more brilliant stop, producing a sudden blare of sound. 'Is the organ supposed to do that?' a churchwarden asked me in passing. 'Nope. Time to called the Organ Man.'

I suddenly lost patience with the way everyone chooses seats two rows back from the front row. My first thought was to remove the two front rows before the service began. My second (and, to my mind, even better thought) was to remove the two front rows during the first hymn. Heheheheh. In the end I made a solitary statement and sat by myself on the front row, handy for the piano later on. It felt very isolated, but I did have the advantage of hearing everyone else singing, which boosted my own efforts. 'Thank you,' said the vicar afterwards. 'I didn't feel so lonely.' He was all by himself in the other front row.

Driving too and from church was too interesting. We have a truly bonkers non-system of road closures everywhere 'to improve traffic flow'. Back to the drawing board, I say, and stay there until you have come up with something better!

My latest 'this will make you an artist' book has arrived. It is actually quite fascinating. In order to improve your observation skills, you copy intricate little diagrams. I'll put this all in a separate post, I think, as I'm already rabbiting on for ever.

While I was being holy, Himself was being practical, which, in my book, counts as being holy. He has restored all the coat hooks, and the red storage unit to the hall, and we are now trying to be Extremely Selective about what goes on them.

It's looking pretty good with Nothing on them... 

We had lunch at about half past eleven.

He zipped out to Argos, the source of small thin (front-to-back) bookshelves to replace the elderly and dilapidated ones that stood on the landing. 

We stuck it without a bookshelf there for all the time the painting was in progress, saying how wonderful the extra width of the landing was. But we were also cursing the lack of somewhere to put things that were on their way up or down stairs. And, of course, there is the little matter of what to do with all the books...

I'm quite glad there was only one in stock when he got there. If he's feeling anything like I am, building two bookshelves would be one too many for current energy and ability levels. 

My contribution to the home front was to water the garden, and get supper on the go. We are having BBQ ribs (ready meal) boiled potatoes (bottom of the fridge) and various veg from the garden, all somehow unified by the addition of fried tomatoes - sorry, that should read 'pan-fried' tomatoes. I've managed to pick some broad beans, fighting off the aphids, and some spinach - and found a couple of still crisp carrots in the fridge.

Broad beans are a bit of a swizz; all those pods for a handful of beans. But worth it, nothing like those horrible great grey pebbles we used to get served at school.

I zap the beans with a little water for 45 secs in the microwave, and then remove the outer skins to reveal emerald green pearls of deliciousness. The pods make a contribution to the compost.

It is now just gone 5pm, and we have enjoyed an early supper. The weird vegetable medley worked out ok; the tomatoes did their job effectively.

Today is nearly finished. 

I've two emails to send out, to let people know that my Godmother is leaving hospital and returning to her bungalow on Monday afternoon. The hospital are arranging transport and home care support but it is not all over yet. The 'difficulty with swallowing' business started right back at the end of March, I think; she telephoned us for help at the beginning of April, it took six days to get a home visit, fourteen to get an endoscopy, seven more for the barium swallow, another seven for the followup appointment and eleven days in hospital to reach this point... still, let's see how the next few weeks go.   

The wear and tear on her, and us, has been enormous, and the future is still an unknown quantity.

If our day is running early, it can only be a couple of hours until bedtime...