Sunday 31st January - Here comes the rain

 The rain it raineth every day, almost. Sometimes it sleeteth, and occasionally it stoppeth and the sun shineth for an hour, and that's when I think that Spring might be somewhere up ahead.

It was getting dark, and still raining when I took this just now.

With all the rain we both decided not to go on a walk. I'd like to have a dog, maybe, but not when it is time for walkies. The new oxygen concentrator has been setup and the batteries charged, but it can wait until tomorrow. Or whenever it stops precipitating wetness out of the sky.

I missed a new variation in the game of 'who is allowed to be where' which our cats play endlessly all day. Somehow they both ended up asleep on the settee, one each end, and both woke and sat up at the same time and found themselves staring into each other's faces at point blank range. There was a tense moment, and then they both subsided. As you were, then.

I still have a bag of presents beside my place on the settee (the one that Leo is in). Yesterday I went through it all again and extracted the mini-marshmallow-toasting set. It works unexpectedly well. The marshmallows actually go up in flame with a noise like indoor fireworks. They taste pretty good too, sort of charred and melty (and a bit sooty).  There was a bit of a learning curve on getting the right moment to eat them - hot but not HOT.

Another present which I have brought out is a pack of post-it notes with origami instructions on them. I thought the glue would be a problem, but no. I made a penguin and a piano during a zoom-style call yesterday lunchtime. It is slightly disorientating in that you make the model by following the instructions on the page BELOW the top one... obvious when you think about it, but I hadn't thought about it. But that explains why the next post-it has instructions on it for the piano that I have just made, and why the word 'penguin' might just be visible on the piano. The penguin is labelled 'cat'. 

Finally, I have brought the 'procrastinator' pencils into service. They do have a lovely quality lead in them, and I shall enjoy doodling with them instead of doing what I should be doing.

This is the first drawing I have started (I plan to rub out the pencil and add watercolour tomorrow) since 5th January. Doodling with a procrastinator pencil, and then going over with waterproof pen.

 

 

 

Thursday 28th January - Adventures in - this that and the other

Here's a thought; quite often, what they mean by 'mindfulness' is actually 'mindlessness'. Like doing colouring books, or, in my case, playing freecell on the computer. And quite a lot of my knitting projects are selected for their 'mindless' qualities. I did see an expensive scarf knitting kit on a 'lifestyle' website; for a substantial amount of money you got a ball of wool which changed colour at regular intervals and a pair of needles. The idea is that you sit and knit (with or without the company of soft music and  candle) until the wool changed colour. Then you will feel - however you feel - presumable all calm and refreshed. 

I like mindless knitting that I can do while watching television or listening to the radio or a book. I'm not so experienced that I can knit and read a book like some people I know.   

The mitred square blanket is an excellent project for mindless knitting. You just need a basket of wool - bought for the purpose or left over, and suitable needles.

I made one as an experiment as and use it to protect the settee from the cat that usually sleeps there;

No, not that cat, the other cat. I followed the instructions to begin with, using thinnish wool and 3.5mm needles. However I kept getting confused as to which row I was on. And my diagonal patterns were all inconsistent. Then I had two brainwaves; I decided not to care about he direction of the diagonals, and I adapted the instructions so that it every row followed the same process. So once you have the right number of stitches on the needle (in my case 40) and the mark placed in between the 20th and 21st stitch, proceed as follows;

Knit to marker, slip marker, knit two stitches together to decrease by one stitch, knit the to the end. That's it. When you end up with just two stitches, get rid of the marker, pass one stitch over the other, cut the yarn leaving a tail of a couple of inches to be darned in later and pull this tail through the remaining stitch to secure. I did have hundreds (so it seemed) of tails to sew in later, but I notice on another blog the knitter just 'knitted in the tails as she went along'. Interesting idea for the future.

I had about 5 balls of double knitting, all part used, all left over from various ideas and projects. So, I have been mindlessly knitting for a while on sweet little short 4mm needles, whenever I was in the mood. It doesn't take all that long to complete a square. 

I know have a small rug with 84 squares, all done with almost complete mindlessness. It needed an edging and since my double pointed needles were still in the knitting basket, I embarked upon An Adventure; I have learned how to do and Applied I-Cord Edging, I kid you not!

Lookee lookee! Now, this is Mindful knitting; it takes a lot of concentration to 

Knit 2, slip 1 purlwise, yarn forward, slide the stitches to the left hand end of the needle, use that end to pick up a stitch through the ridged knobbly bit on the edge of the blanket, pass the 'yarn forward' stitch over the picked up stitch, and the pass the 'slip 1 purlwise' stitch over the picked up stitch, slide the remaining three stitches to the right hand end of the needle and start again. from 'Knit 2'. 

But what a neat and classy binding! Magical! So far I have traveled up one side and just turned the first corner - that has taken two Sherlock Holmes episode (Jeremy Brett) and one Father Brown.  

We have had more adventures with investigating oxygen concentrators; I had a long telephone  conversation with the respiratory nurse and, quite reasonably, she didn't want to advise anything without a consultation. She was also certain that the best solution would be to have a big oxygen cylinder at home, and a small one that we fill up when we want to go out for me to carry and breathe with. 

I feel less than enthusiastic about this. I was just imagining taking the big cylinder in the back of the car when we went for visit friends or stay in a holiday cottage or something - that's not going to work. And we know from our experiments with our big 'portable' concentrator that the setting of 3 or 4 on pulse is enough to make a huge difference. 

Well, Himself has spent several weeks researching what is available, comparing them all, reading the reviews and gathering information. Then he had a long phone conversation with a company that supplies these lighter-weight machines, and - reader, he bought one. It is sitting in the hall, quarantining before we unwrap it properly and charge it up and Take It For A Walk! I can't tell you how adventurous this all seems! I have celebrated by - going for a walk (without oxygen) of about 1.2 km. I could have gone further, but the pavements were busy and the temperature was dropping... 

My final adventure starts this evening; I have a piano pupil who wants to study for Grade 8. Which means, of course, that I, too, will have to study for Grade 8. It's a long, long time since I played 'difficult' pieces. The book arrived yesterday; I hope she doesn't want to learn this one; (Toccata by Khachaturian)

This looks more my style, although the next two pages have interesting' moments...(Snow, Moon and Flowers by Peter Sculthorpe)

 

Best get to work.

Monday 25th January - Knitting with Porcupine Quills

 Today I completed my hat and I am extremely pleased with myself for many reasons.

My main happiness has been using up all the leftovers from the crochet blanket I started in Spring 2019. I discovered this yarn called Knitcol in a a dozen or more wild colourways. Unable to choose which one I liked best, I bought one of each. I made crochet granny squares using a complete ball for each square, working away while we made the hour-long journey every week to visit my godmother. She had always been a keen knitter and crocheter (is that a word?), and had even knitted professionally for designers. Her work used to be sold all over the world. So the blanket, and the technicoloured yarn made a good talking point when we visited. You can see the blanket in the background. My godmother died in December 2019, and I joined the squares (fifteen of them, in the end) together over the course of last year.

However that left me with all the remnants; 50 grams, enough for... A Hat!

I started casting on, using a pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman's book 'A Knitting Workshop'. Then I discovered the instructions were for a child's hat. I pulled out an inch of ribbing - I hate ribbing - read on a bit further and worked out how many stitches I might want for my size. After another inch of ribbing - I hate ribbing, oh, I've already said that - I discovered another unrecoverable error and pulled it out again; I think I had gone halfway round the circle and then gone back instead of continuing.

Third time lucky? Yes, because I had given up on trying to achieve the hat using double pointed needles and found a circular needle of approximately the right size.

Elizabeth Zimmerman's instructions career wildly from precise to informal, so I chose 'informal' regarding needle size... it worked, anyway.

Of course, there comes the dreadful moment when double pointed needles have to happen. After rounds and rounds of decreasing the number of stitches you suddenly find they won't fit round the circular needle any more.

This is a bit of a hairy moment, transferring the stitches onto four separate, no, not exactly separate, but intimately connected needles, and trying to knit round them all. It feels very like wrestling with a small, wriggly, wilful porcupine. For the next hour I was continually being stabbed by the needles; in my hands, wrists, stomach, even, but in the end I won, and I have a hat of many colours. Even better, I used up all the scraps of yarn apart from about a foot or so.

There is one slight miscalculation; if you have used the remnants of fifteen balls of yarn, that means you will have thirty dangling tails to darn in...

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 17th January - No..... :

Yesterday's letter was N for NO!

Today's letter is a punctuation symbol; semicolon : for a longer pause than usual

I thought of an interesting thing to post yesterday, but I have forgotten what it was. Maybe it will come back to me? Maybe not. There is so much almost nothing happening to fill the day that I am losing track.

Last night was a 'non-sleeping' night. They come along every so often and there's nothing much to be done about it. When this happens I listen to the World Service or other things - audiobooks, podcasts, Cds, through headphones. Some programmes will get me back to sleep quite quickly, and others are too interesting and I stay awake. This time I continued reading a C J Sansom book, 'Sovereign' on my Kindle which is backlit, remembering how I used to read books by torchlight under the bedclothes when I was little. 

There's a knack to managing headphones when you are half asleep in bed, turning over without tangling yourself in the lead and having the music playing device crashing to the floor. It pays to stay still - too much tossing and turning over and over can leave you in a bit of tangle.

I have been testing a number of recipes today - I'm slightly fascinated by all these 'Just 3 Ingredients' recipes that have been flooding the internet recently. Today we had '3-ingredient cheesy biscuits' and '3-ingredient tomato soup' for supper.

The cheesy biscuits , are a winner; they are American style biscuits, a sort of scone-like thing

2 cups S R flour, 1-2 cups 'shredded' (grated) cheese, 1 1/3 cups milk. You just stir this all together and dollop little pyramids of this onto a greased or lined baking sheet, and bake for 15-20 mins at 180C fan. I made half quantities which was 4 decent sized 'biscuits'. Split and spread with butter they were excellent with the 

3-ingredient Tomato soup.

Now, this reminds me more of the story of Stone Soup; The Tony Ross re-telling of the traditional tale is far more dramatic;

‘Stone Soup’ retells the classic folk tale of the Big Bad Wolf. In this story the Wolf decides that he wants to eat the Hen, as he is a little hungry and wants to steal all of the lovely things she has. The Wolf tells the Hen about his plan, she suggests he first eat some of her stone soup, the Wolf is intrigued as he has eaten many kinds of soup, but never stone soup. She begins making her soup with a single stone in a pot of boiling water, as she adds more and more vegetable to her soup she asks the Wolf to help her with some chores around the house. Stone soup takes a very long time to cook, so the Wolf completes many chores for the Hen, such as washing the dishes, cleaning & dusting the house, bringing in the washing, cutting fire wood, fixing the TV aerial and finally cleaning the chimney. By the time the Wolf finishes all the chores the soup is ready and the Wolf begins eating. Then the Hen asks the Wolf when he is going to eat her, he tells her that he can’t as he is too full!

The recipe calls for a tin of tomatoes, half an onion and some butter.It is also pretty quick to make; you won't have time for much housework! 

You melt the butter (I used a couple of tablespoons of olive oil), add the chopped onions and tomatoes, and two more cans of water, a bit of salt and pepper (that makes 5 ingredients) and simmer until soft. Then liquidize, check seasoning and serve.

Hmm. It is improved by the addition of more vegetables, (I added a medium potato to give it some body), and by using stock instead of water. A drop of balsamic vinegar at the end helped, and a bit of chilli warmth. It was a good soup, and I have two more portions set aside for another day.

No walking, apart from round the garden. Tooooo cold!

 

Friday 15th January - Mmmmmm

 That was the letter for today, Mmmmm.

We have discovered the pannetone left over from Christmas, hiding in a dark corner of the hall, and also a large bar of Toblerone that I was gong to use for home-made chocolate truffles, but never got round to.

We bought our first microwave in 1986. It transformed meal-making in a hurry for hungry impatient babies and toddlers; one child-rearing book I read had the simple mantra

microwave - freezer - microwave - baby

and it proved to be so true. The technology was so different that cook books were required, and I invested in a couple while I got my head round this miraculous machine.

One thing that caught my eye was this;

Chocolate fondue; (Sainsbury Microwave Cooking by Lorna Rhodes)

250g / 8oz Toblerone broken in pieces

142ml / 5 fl oz double cream

put these in a bowl and microwave on MEDIUM for 3 minutes, stirring while cooking, until melted

This does make a lovely rich fondue to serve with fruit and marshmallows.

I misread the recipe and heated it all on HIGH - it didn't matter then when microwaves were lower power, but would probably matter more now.

HOWEVER, if you also have a bar of dark chocolate to hand you can add this to the mix - how much? I'm not sure, probably all of a 100g bar, you get a much thicker mixture, which will set firm when chilled.

Then you can scoop out teaspoonfuls and roll them in cocoa power to make chocolate truffles to give to people, and to yourself, as presents. 

We have skipped the 'making truffles' stage and are just eating the Toblerone neat.

 In other news, Brexit has already hit this household in the most irritating fashion. Our printer reached the end of its useful life over Christmas, so we ordered a replacement, and were given a delivery date of 12th January. However, the printers are made in the Netherlands. 

We can track the progress of our printer from the factory to our house; the delivery date has moved a couple of times but that is not a great problem. There's not a lot of difference between the 12th and the 15th, after all. However the date has now disappeared to be replaced by a message stating that the hold up is at customs because of incomplete paperwork. I have a feeling that this is going to be a common problem in the next few months.

It has lead to complicated discussions on how we can use the tech we have in our house (quite a lot) to make it possible for me to read the music (which I am now unable to print copies of) on one screen, and still have two screens set up for the zoom. Two? Yes; after six months of having the screen side-on to show the keyboard, and me sitting in a contorted position as though I am squashed into one of those magician's boxes for sawing a lady in half, I have changed to having a screen on top of the piano I can talk to, and another at the side to show the keyboard. Goodbye neck ache, back ache! I should have done this ages ago.  I am getting more and more techy by the minute. 

I did get out for a walk; this time I loaded myself down with 2.5kg of books in my bag. Why? That's the weight of the light-weight oxygen concentrator that I have my eye on. I did 230 m in the first 6 min walk (without using oxygen) which is uphill, and later was surprised that I managed 280 m in a second test on the way home (downhill!). If 2.5 kg makes this difference, it makes it appear more worthwhile to try and shed a few pounds in how much I weight. I must give this some consideration once we have finished the pannetone and the toblerone bar.

   

Thursday 14th January - Wha?

 Wha? Where have the days gone? It was Monday, and now it is Thursday...

I know why I didn't post yesterday. It was because the milk was off... that is the beginning of the story. One mouthful of breakfast cereal and that was that.

Soooo, Himself had the slice of toast that could be slivered off  the heel of the loaf, to fortify himself for dealing with a Waitrose delivery at 7am. And I made some drop scones with the gone-off milk;

2 tablespoons SR flour, and a matchbox sides lump of butter (ordinary matches, not long ones) and the tip of the tablespoon dipped in the sugar, rub together and mix with enough gone-off milk to make a batter the thickness of double cream.

Drop tablespoonfuls onto a hot non-stick frying pan, wait for the top surface to bubble and lose its shine and look settish. Turn over, hopefully the other side is golden brown. Cook for a few minutes, long enough for this side to become golden brown too. I can fit three in the frying pan in one go, four and they start amalgamating into drop scone instead of drop scones.

There was enough for the both of us for a decent start to the day.

Well, the Waitrose order included items for friends who hadn't been able to get to the supermarket, and they brought us some milk. Which meant that we had to evict the bottle of wine and bottle of sherry from the holder in the door. 

So, later that evening Himself finished off the wine - a very full glass, and I finished the sherry- another very full (but slightly smaller than his) glass.

It was a good thing that I had finished typing up and sending the lesson notes for the first two pupils of the evening. I types and sent the third set of notes this morning. Much safer.

And also didn't blog.

If I had, I would have done the Alphabet letters - 

Tuesday J; Jam; Jam on toast, or stuck in a jam?

Wednesday; 'K; I'm 'K; R U 'K?

Thursday; L. No, not that kind of L, no dropped Aitches! Let's be Elegant, Elevated, and Eliminate unpleasantness

Today was weeeeet and dissssssmal alllll day. I looked at the weather and decided to stay in.

Then I stirred myself into action and forced myself out into the drizzle... 780m in total, no oxygen, several pauses to catch my breath. I did a 6 minute walk test; not very accurate in that the route was distinctly uphill, so I was pleased to have done 280m in those circumstances. I don't like taking our oxygen machine out when it is raining because there is not proper way of protecting the control panel.

Anyway, going out was a good decision. I chatted with a neighbour who is a Pilates instructor. He says I should learn 'thoracic breathing'. He says everyone should learn thoracic breathing, and he used to teach it at a @Pilates for seniors' course he used to run. He says that there's too much diaphragm breathing going on and not enough thoracic breathing. I shall investigate.

Right. I have reached the end of tonight's glass of intoxicating liquor. Time to stop typing while I can still type. Today's piano pupil's notes will have to wait until tomorrow!   

   

Monday 11th January - I, me, myself

 That's the letter for today - I

Me, myself, and what is in my mind's eye?

I'm sure we used to have a copy of this book; 

and now suddenly this poem has floated to the top of my brain

The Tyger

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Ah, but it uses the word 'symmetry', not 'geometry'. As you were then.

I managed a 'quick' walk before lunch - I haven't been out while the weather was so cold. 

My Other Half was cooking lunch, so I had just 20 minutes. Being on my own I didn't have any oxygen support, and I can tell you I surely noticed the difference. Even so I managed 300 metres in my first 6 minute walk test, and then spent several minutes standing still until my breathing steadied. Once I was ready, I walked on a little further, stopped again to catch my breath, and turned for home. I made this a second walk test and covered 340 m. The further distance is because the return journey is slightly downhill. One again I paused, and then covered the final distance, just ten houses from home. Overall, 800 metres in the 20 minutes.

If I had been using oxygen, even at the lowest setting, I reckon I would have all this and more without needing to stop. 

My reward for all this effort was a glass of wine with my beef pie... well-deserved, I thought, although it made me quite sleepy all afternoon. 

I had a go at the next lesson of touch-typing. It is as I thought; adding two more letters has more than doubled the difficulty (although some of that might have been the wine??)

It does mean the little stories are getting more involved;

i sigh like jill; jed has a high hall; see jaffa as he jigs

a sad seal did fall; dad filled a field; a sill leaks alas;

i like a fig; half a heel has  held; jill has a gash; i hike

This is Such Hard Work now!

I'm spending more time going over each word, and then each line, until I manage to get it right. Then, of course, I ruin it by rattling in this post using my 'eyes on the keys, using three fingers' method.  Tomorrow, if I dare, I get to learn o, n and the shift keys. To be honest, a Bach four-part fugue is easier.

   

Sunday 10th January - I promised you proper pictures

 Proper pictures of ice-flowers, as in taken on a proper camera;

You can see how the ice has formed  feathery strands.

Today's surprising discovery is that Cillit BANG! Lime and Grime can do a decent job of cleaning brass. I was trying it out to see if it would remove the lime deposit on a candle stick that had been sitting in some water.

This is the one - it had been doing duty as the centre of the Advent ring. I do find a lit candle is good company when I am doing admin or typing stuff

Considering that I put this together at the beginning of Advent, and the water in the dish dried out several weeks ago, I'm surprised the greenery has lasted so well. One type has shriveled, but the rest, and the ivy looks more or less the same as when I assembled it. The wreath outside the front door is still going well, and I have left it there as part of my 'defiance against the dark'.

I did my typing practice again today. I was doing ok when it was just asdf jkl; and I was using the 'proper' computer. Now e and i have been added; two more letters has more than doubled the think time I need. On the plus side I am now typing little phrases. I'm sure there's a story in there, somewhere.

Next time I will be adding g and h - this could be a straw that breaks my brain.

For some time now I have been unable to do more with the tv than switch it on and watch whatever is in the tv guide for some time now. W have a selection of remotes and mobile phone apps called humax and roku and I haven't got round to learning how to operate them. Now it is looking as though our tv isn't smart enough either these days; we thought we'd watch a BBC programme on iplayer, but that doesn't seems to be a possibility at the moment. Tech support has gone silent; he's in think mode. Oh well. I can read a book!

    

Sunday 10th January;;;;;;;;;;;

 Semi-colon;;;; an even longer pause than a comma!

I looked out of the window - the ice flowers are back!

Only on the salvia - they look like tiny curled down feathers escaped from a duvet. Other Half has taken proper pictures on a proper camera but is sitting with book and coffee and purring cat on lap so I won't disturb him. I'll put his pictures up later. 

Saturday 9th January - Letter H

 

H for - heaven, hell (the latter two tie in with the third of the Gifts of the Magi, Gold, for a King, Frankincense for a God, Myrrh, for death)

which reminded me of Blake's poem, The Clod and the Pebble;

"Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

So sung a little Clod of Clay

Trodden with the cattle's feet,

But a Pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another's loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

I guess the truth is somewhere in between... too much clod or too much pebble in one's character is going to end up in tears either way... maybe H is for Happy medium?

I have discovered my new challenge - I'm not sure how well I shall stick to it. 

'Learn to touch type in just 10 hours'

we shall see. I spent some time on it today - lesson 1, or Hour 1, doing the drills and consolidation exercise. It is very like, and very unlike, learning a piano piece. \i think one problem will b that I am already quite a fast three finger typist, which means that I have a multitude of terrible habits to painstakingly eradicate.

Like I said, we shall see...

   

Friday 8th January - F and G

 It's quite handy doing alphabet letters on one day because then no one need know that I got them the wrong way round - I was so delighted that E coincided with Epiphany that I launched straight into 

G for Gold - gold moments in every day, even if they only last as long as it takes to drink a cup of tea (or glass of wine) or see the sun catching the leaves on the tress - I took this picture on my birthday while waiting for news of my father who was in hospital... 

The tree will be bare branches now of course.

This morning I realised that yesterday should have been 

F - frankincense, fragrance, and friends suggested frangipane, frangipani flowers, and, of course, friends.

I went out into the garden for a few minutes - just long enough to feel my face begin to freeze, to see why the salvias had suddenly all got white fluffy flowers

 

I don't know if you can make it out, but they were made of thin strands of ice, like little tufts of that fiendish 'angel hair' you can buy to decorate your Christmas tree.

I had seen some photographs of ice hair that someone discovered on Dartmoor a day or so ago.

This article states that it is a consequence of temperature and moisture and the presence of a fungus - I don't think fungus was involved in my ice flowers, but they looked very similar.

I've certainly never seen anything like it before - I'll have to look again tomorrow.

Christmas clearing up is in progress and will probably last for a few more weeks. The tree has been wrestled into a swaddling of bubble wrap and gaffer tape - it managed to destroy its box. It is a truism that artificial trees are reluctant to return to the compacted size they were when first put into the box in the factory. Baubles and tinsel are in their respective carrier bags and are being carted up to the back bedroom every time one or other of us treks upstairs. Only a couple more trips to go.

Last year none of the Christmas stuff made it into the loft - I suspect the same will happen again. It certainly made things easier this year.

We are sitting up waiting for the delivery of a new printer. The old one printed its last page a week ago. I'm impressed that it lasted as long as seven years, the rate I use it. This morning that tracking service said it had reached the Netherlands, and would arrive by 9.30 tonight. So that's thirteen minutes to go.... but when do we decide that 'running late' has become 'not arriving today'? 

Waiting up, did I say? We've been going to bed pretty early, taking hot chocolate and books.

Now, about hot chocolate... take an espresso mug, drop in a square of 90% and a square of 70% Swiss or Belgian chocolate, (I suspect 2 squares of 80% would come to the same thing, but I'm using what we've got) and a small teaspoon of sugar and top up with milk. Heat in the microwave, watching like a hawk, because after a minute it will boil over! I let it rise up once or twice (quick reactions on the stop button) and then give it a good stir.  

It makes a smooth, dark, rich, concentrated drink, and the small sized mug is plenty! I make it for himself, but not for me, much as I would like it, as my stomach no longer enjoys a milky drink at night. Sad, but I console myself by thinking of all the calories I am NOT consuming!

Tuesday 6th January - Alphabet (E), and burble burble

 Let's do the alphabet first - I promise it wasn't a 'fix, but I was very pleased that the letter E conincided with EPIPHANY!

So I went out this morning and 'chalked the door'

I only came across this custom a few years go, and this is the first year I have had any chalk (about 30 sticks - I ordered three packets by mistake)

20 + C + M + B + 21

the 20 and 21 make up 2021, and in between are C M B; this could be Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the traditional names for the three wise men, or it could be for Christus mansionem benedicat, meaning Christ bless our home.

You can google and find complete litanies and make a ceremony, or, as I did, just stand there in front of the door for a second and say 'Lord have mercy' which is about all I can manage at the moment.

The letters will be gone tomorrow - it has been raining of and on most of the day.

No proper walk today - I did have a quick look around the garden this morning but it was so cold and raw outside that I didn't stay long. Just long enough to see that this year's sweet peas which came back to life after I cut them down and put them in the 'waiting to go into the compost bin' have all sprouted again and survived the frost, and to notice the shoots for bulbs poking up through the ground here and there.

I had some good news this morning - I've been using a new exam board for students wanting to take piano exams. Last term two young lads took their 'Prep' test and both passed. This is a slightly more nail-biting exam than the old Associated Board version which didn't have pass/fail - just an encouraging report. Today I leaned that the girl doing her Grade 2 a week before Christmas passed, in spite of being quite distracted by everything Christmassy in her life. I had my fingers crossed for her, and my toes, but all's well that ends well. Phew.

Today has been remarkably free of chocolate and so on - I expect we will hit the biscuits quite soon. We did have Christmas pudding after lunch - Green Thai Curry (Waitrose cook from scratch meal) followed by a Heston Bluhmental pudding and clotted cream> Perhaps a tad more international than normal but these are Strange Times.

Here's a poem to finish with, by Edwin Morgan;

Another view of things…

What I love about music is its scale  
what I hate about muesli is its adherence  
what I love about meaning is its itinerary 
what I hate about the printer is its reproduction 
what I love about the sky is its aspiration 
what I hate about the world is its weight 
what I love about saltires is their ire and their salt 
what I hate about Kings Cross is its intersections 
what I love about chickens is their coronation  
what I hate about morning is repetition 
what I love about Veronica is her proliferation  
what I hate about Janus is his duplicity 
what I love about the sprite is its effervescence  
what I hate about tower blocks is their eyelid-batting 
what I love about nostrils is their déjà vu 
what I hate about candour is its putridness 
what I love about closets are their ecosystems 
what I hate about springs is their optimism 
what I love about deviance is its recreation 
what I hate about absence is its omnipresence 
what I love about discretion is its sensibilities 
what I hate about poetry is its abandon 
what I love about headlines is their brevities  
what I hate about the universe is its expansiveness 
what I love about love is its inheritance

I found this poem here when I was looking for his first version of the poem, written much earlier, called

'A View of Things'. I like this one better. 

      

Tuesday 5th January - January Alphabet letter D, and blah blah blah

 

D - dismantle the tings/thoughts that have had their day, and deploy the thoughts/things that will help you journey onwards.

Not that I have journeyed further than the settee today. We were promised snow! Or, less welcome, but more likely, sleet. Instead we had Grey, cold and uninviting. It seemed to be already dusk by half past three.

'Half past three. Have-a-cup-of-tea!' That's a djembe rhythm I have been teaching to primary school children since I learned it myself twelve or more years ago. And that's exactly what I did, have a cup or two, of tea.

Tea tastes better from a cup in my opinion. These were at the bottom of a cupboard; I bought them in October 2015 from a charity shop - how do I know? It was my parent's 60th wedding 60th anniversary that month, and my mother stipulated that the table decorations should be small sprigs of flowers and greenery stuck in wodges of oasis stuck in white teacups and saucers... Ten cups and saucers took some searching out, but the end result looked very pretty and I have been using them for this purpose ever since, although nowadays I buy small pots of bedding plants (primulas, usually) and just plonk the pot into the cup. I wrap the pot in a but of tissue first if I feel so inclined. 

I've also been disposing of the candle ends by BURNING them - I do like a bit of flame and fire.

  

The red candles are meant to be wonky, I should add. I've had them for years and years, discovered them at the back of a cupboard this Christmas. (The one with the white teacups). They were twice that height to start with (the candles, not the tea cups); slow burning, and they don't seem to drip either.

We have taken down the tree and most of the Christmas cards. Tomorrow we will take down the rest of the card and the lights around the sitting room, but we are leaving the ones in the window until - Epiphany?, no, that's tomorrow. Candlemas - 2nd Feb? Maybe. Easter? Now you are talking. An act of defiance against the dark...   

We didn't go for a walk - grey weather, and a couple of glasses of wine at lunchtime removed all inclination for exercise. Tomorrow is another day.

 

Monday 4th January - more walking, this and that,

 I don't think I've done so many walks in a row for, since, oh I don't know.

We only went out for a short while this morning as it was dripping when we went out, and it turned to rain quite soon.

The next few paragraphs are all about walking so ignore if you like... 

About 12 minutes, give or take, and 750m, approximately. I know this because I did two 6 minute walk tests almost in quick succession. This test is what I used to do every time I went for cardiology or rheumatology tests at the clinics in London, in the days of yore. Such a simple test; they check blood pressure and oxygen sats, then I walk up and down a 30m length of corridor for six minutes, they work out how far I have travelled (back in 2019 it used to be around 400m) and check blood pressure (crazy high) and oxygen sats (alarmingly low) again.

I don't drag the blood pressure stuff around, and there's no point trying to gt oxygen sats reading when my hands are cold, but I can see how far I can go in six minutes. It's down to 300m, give or take, and even more inaccurate because every way from our door is up - be it slope or gradient -  and that really slows me down.

Yesterday I did a longer loop; a total of 1300m wit the portable oxygen concentrator set to 2 litres per minute (pulse). Today we set it to 3 litres per minute (pulse). I would have been happy to do at least the same loop as yesterday, or maybe further, but rain and portable oxygen concentrator seemed a bad mix so we turned back after the first walk test.

The next plan is to see what happens if I load a bag with about 2-3kg of books and try the loop with the machine set to 2 or 3 litres per minute. The lighter weight machines come in at around that kind of weight, depending on which one you choose. 

All these experimentations are showing one thing for certain - using oxygen when I am out does make a huge difference to what I can manage, and staying even-tempered, even uphill. I can even talk, rather than grunt! 

We are in the data collection phase as the moment...

While we were walking I had brain space to notice things as well, such as the big fat buds on magnolias, wrapped tight in their furry blankets, and a camellia covered in right red flowers. This is all good stuff!

I've started reading some of the books I was given for Christmas. This one was on my 'wantables' list for some time - I resisted buying it for maybe a year or so. I love Ravilious prints and paintings and now I have 54 in one book, along with rather dark little verses. If I can consume them slowly, like rich chocolates, I will be able to make them last a while.

I'm quite glad to have finished the Advent book 'Frequencies of God, reflections on poems by R S Thomas' written by Carys Walsh. A whole five weeks of R S Thomas was quite a workout for this brain - not many of the poems were what one might call 'accessible' and by the New Year I was feeling like elastic which has lost its stretch. 

I'm looking forward to reading 'A Word in the Wilderness' in Lent this year, another Christmas present;

he has chosen different poets so there should be a good mixture and hopefully not all as densely packed as R S Thomas.

Then there is this, also on my 'wantables' list, an a surprisingly heavy little book;

To begin with I just want to make a drawing of the cover picture!

I've made a start on this book (a bit of a cheat to include this as it is a book I ordered for myself and then handed over to be wrapped up)

 The little squares for drawing in are only about an inch and a bit square - I'm enjoying doodling when the advertisements come on. If I see that Go Compare man once more, that will be one time too many, but I think we are stuck with him. Oh well, at least he's got a job...!

  

    

Monday 4th January - Potificating alphabet

 

Bonkers Alphabet 

C

what do you see? 

what are you searching for? 

Sunday 3rd January 2021 - Ponderosa Alphabet

 I expect you had already worked out that January has 31 days and there are only 26 letters....

today I invite you to consider the comma

,

a tiny pause, a little breath,

a butterfly

Saturday 2nd January 2021 - 9th Day of Christmas

 Today was a bit of a red-letter day - we went out for a walk!

You are starting at me, wondering what is going on here. 

A couple of days ago I had a conversation with a respiratory nurse regarding an appointment for oxygen assessment. In view of the amount of covid that is around, we have deferred the appointment until April or May.

However, this appointment was to assess whether using oxygen would help me when I am going for a walk. The problem is that I already have quite severe pulmonary fibrosis, meaning that the oxygen can't get through the membrane of my lungs into my bloodstream. Because tests showed that my levels dip below what is sensible when I am asleep, I have to use an oxygen concentrator overnight.

Any exertion such as going upstairs, or getting dressed in a hurry because I've forgotten about a piano lesson, or walking up a slight incline, leaves me gasping like a landed fish. 

Getting low on oxygen is quite unpleasant; it makes me feel grumpy, and anxious. If I have really pushed myself too far, I start panicking and have to 'speak firmly' to myself to keep control. I don't think these are 'mental' issues; I think it is part of the physical side of low oxygen, because as soon as I have recovered my breath - three - five minutes - I feel completely normal again. My oxygen saturation levels will dip to below 70%, but will recover to around 90% if I just wait. And gasp. 

As a result of talking to the nurse, we decided to take my portable oxygen concentrator, the one we use when we are going away overnight, for a walk. It is 'portable' as in having a carrying strap and weighing 'only' ten pounds... 

We set off to test how this would go. Himself  acted as porter, we set the machine going and I would the nasal canula around my ears. We also held hands (how sweet!), partly because we always do except when I get grumpy, and partly so that we would remember that we were attached by the canula.

Well wow.

Not only did I do the full loop around the block (a whole kilometre!) but I added an extra length down what I consider to be a hill and back up again (200m) and kept going at a slightly faster snail's pace than normal. I didn't need to stop and catch my breath (although the machine complained a few times that I was breathing too hard) and I didn't get anxious or grumpy or feel I was forcing myself onwards (as far as that drive, as far as that lamp post, as far as that car)

This is excellent news; we had set the machine to deliver 2 litres per minute 'pulse' rather than 'continuous stream', in other words the oxygen is supplied when the machine senses my breathing in. The reason for choosing this setting is that there are a number of smaller, lighter machines around, weighing in at about 2.5 pounds but will can only deliver up to this amount of oxygen, and only on a   pulse setting. 

The nurse was of the opinion that I would need to use an oxygen bottle delivering 4 litres continuous, and I don't doubt that this is what I would need if I wanted to go cycling or be more active.  But for ambling along a promenade, walking along the path through the woods, or

...... joining excursions when having a River Cruise Holiday in France or Brussels or along the Rhine..... 

it looks as though the smaller little portable machine might keep me going for a year or two! I could carry the machine and Himself can load the spare batteries into his back pack. I would be able to go off on my own! We need not hold hands! (Although we probably would!) 

We shall experiment further over the next day or so, before I try and persuade the nurse to give us the form we would need to buy, or even be prescribed, the lightweight machine.

But I am so encouraged my today's walk - 1.2 km - who would have thought it possible!  

Saturday 2nd January 2021 - Ponderous alphabet

Here are the pictures for A and B - but I'm not promising a picture every day!

2

B

To be - and how to be? Now that is a question...

Friday 1st January - To Ponder

 I've decided to create a crazy alphabet - a letter a day for January.

1 

A 

Alpha, 

the first, 

the beginning

Friday 1st January 2021 - 8th Day of Christmas

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As I said previously, last year has taught me not to MAKE plans, just yet anyway. I do have travel hopes for a possible future date; they are relatively modest in scope, if not financially. I'm talking about a river cruise, or two, or three; like Amsterdam, Bordeaux, or the Rhine?

Other daily routines and resolutions are more problematic. I don't know why I am so attracted to 'daily lists' and routines, which I know I will never manage keep.

• lose weight - exercise every day
• write every day
• draw and paint every day
• practise the piano every day
• go for a walk every day
• do some housework every day

Maybe a good resolution is to not mind if I don't do these every day? Just a couple of times a week? Keep these things ticking over? 

Here are my official resolutions for this year which I think I will manage to keep (I have a policy of not setting myself up for failure); 

• write up the day in my new diary, as I have been doing now for seven years.   
• eat chocolate several times a week
• enjoy the pleasure of life singly (this was suggested by a friend and is a really good idea - the number of times I have absent-mindedly eaten biscuits or drunk coffee with hardly any memory of the taste - what a waste.)

Finally;

I found this poem on twitter - so far no sign of the author (but if you know, please comment and I'll acknowledge)

I won’t arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

I’ll sanitise the doorknob and make a cup of tea.

I won’t go down to the sea again; I won’t go out at all,

I’ll wander lonely as a cloud from the kitchen to the hall.

There’s a green-eyed yellow monster to the North of Kathmandu

But I shan’t be seeing him just yet, and nor, I think will you.

While the dawn comes up like thunder on the road to Mandalay

I’ll make my bit of supper and eat it off a tray.

I shall not speed my bonnie boat across the sea to Skye,

Or take the rolling English road from Birmingham to Rye.

About the woodland, just right now, I am not free to go

To see the Keep Out posters or the cherry hung with snow.

And no, I won’t be travelling much, within the realms of gold,

Or get me to Milford Haven. All that’s been put on hold.

Give me your hands, I shan’t request, albeit we are friends

Nor come within a mile of you, until this virus ends.

There's a cheerful start to the year - but yes, it did make me laugh. 

view through arch at Field Place, Leith Hill, Surrey

One day....

n twitter