Monday 31st May - prevarication, procrastination...

Ten days since my last post! Did you miss me?

I have been doing things over the last week, but what, I am not entirely sure. Everything seemed to become slippery and slide through the cracks of timetables and schedules. To be fair, that's what usually happens towards the end of term, or the end of half a term.

We are now in the half term week - indeed, it is Bank Holiday Monday so it should be raining, but it is not, so Himself is out there watering. There is a plant halfway down the border which will have masses and masses of radiantly yellow flowers at the end of Summer, and is also an excellent indicator of whether we need to water the garden. It suddenly, and without warning, goes all wilted and collapsed and we rush to get the hosepipe out. Useful for non-gardeners like ourselves, but rather over dramatic, in my opinion.

What have I been doing over the past ten days? I knitted a sock.

Just the one; I found a tutorial for knitting a small plain sock so that one can learn to 'turn a heel' and 'graft a toe', without committing to the full blown expenditure of time and money that a pair of socks for a grownup would require. This one would fit a labrador-sized dog, at a pinch, certainly too small for a Great Dane and too big for the cat. Will I knit the other? Hmm. This sock has been carefully posed and arranged for the photo opportunity so that it appears to its best. It would be a case of knitting a replacement for this trial effort, and then its twin. But you only need 20 stitches which is not too much effort.

I am trying to work out why I took this picture of laundry waiting to be put away. Perhaps I didn't mean to take this picture at all. I can't think of any deeply significant point in connection with it.

 

I have finished knitting and finishing off the weird poncho thing. There is something very wrong with the neck; if I had sewn it up as meant, there would be no way I could have persuaded my head through the hole. So I am pretending that it has an asymetric collar (just visible in the photograph), and have banished it to the bedroom. The various patterns are entirely random, made up, and imperfect; I decided early on in the process that the mistakes didn't matter. 

However it has turned out to be the perfect thing for wearing as a sort of shawl when sitting up in bed to read or have breakfast-in-bed. So, even though I'm not a fan of the colours and it is more mistakes than anything else, it is functional and appreciated. I'm sure there's a metaphor for life in there. 

I'm making hats for Christmas shoe boxes with the left-over yarn. This is a 'Magic Hat' and you can get the pattern for free from a knitter called P is for Parsnip; it stretches to fit a child or an adult.

You can wear it with the brim down

or the brim up, and I seem to have managed to photograph the side without the miscalculation which caused the wiggly lines in the pattern to go straight for a little while.

 

Hurrah! This blog post has caught up to today, and lookee lookee - 

for the first time since Christmas we sat at the table to eat our lunch. 

We usually sit in the sitting room with a tray on our laps watching yet another episode of 'Aerial America', 'Antiques Road Trip' or some Famous Name travelling around Britain/Europe/The World by train. But eating spaghetti bolognese from a tray on your lap is fraught with difficulty and I finally reached the end of rescuing strands of tomato coated pasta from the front of my white shirt. 

So I cleared one end of the table, found a piece of cloth to act as tablecloth (you may have spotted it in previous posts as I have used the rest of it to make project bags and tray cloths) and we sat and had lunch like civilized people. I have hemmed most of the cloth this afternoon, and will make napkins as well, for future meals.  

If we are desperate to watch Richard Osman's House of Games, which we both enjoy at tea time, we can always see if we can make it play on the computer.

Meanwhile, I think I deserve a pot of tea; I've chosen the 'Revitalize' tea but I'm not sure it it will help me to be all that energetic in this heat. 

Now, before I can totally switch off, I need to type up the lesson notes for a piano lesson from this morning (yes, indeed!). The slow movement from Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, and a Bach Prelude and Fugue was a bit of a full-on way to start the day. Luckily she's at the early stages of learning them, so I don't have to appear to be very proficient yet. But she'll be catching up with me soon.  

21st May - Definitely Friday

 I've managed to get Monday and Friday straight in my mind this week - not sure what happened to the days in between. I've falling steadily further behind in writing up and sending out the notes from the piano lessons, which is why I am writing a blog post instead of Wednesday's lessons, or Thursday's, if the truth were to be admitted to.

So, since I finally levered myself off the settee and away from knitting and television and surfing the net I have been procrastinating

Firstly, by making another bread pudding. I made one earlier this week, on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday - does it matter? Well, yes, slightly, because we have finished it, and if I made it yesterday that would have been serious gluttony. I think it may have been Monday. Last time, I could only find a handful of very dry bits of dried  fruit in the back of the cupboard, so added a couple of spoonfuls of home-made marmalade (not made by me!) dated 2019. This gave it a very agreeable lemony orange flavour, mild, but good.

Turns out there is/was another bag in the overflow food storage in the hall (memories of stocking up for Brexit and lockdowns, and yes, we are keeping ahead of the loo-roll situation 'just in case'). So today's bread pudding has plenty of fruit, and I have substituted maple syrup for sugar. I used about three tablespoons but this is meaningless if you don't know how much bread I used. Neither do I as it was all cut it up and put it in the bowl before it occurred to me to weigh it. I heated the maple syrup and milk and butter together and stirred it all up into a thick - slurry is a good descriptive word, if rather unappetizing. Then a couple of handfuls of fairly fresh-looking dried fruit and a beaten egg which still sinks when you drop it into a jug of cold water. (Do the dropping thing before you crack it open, I beg you).

It is in the air-fryer as I type;

      If it is done before I finish this post then I will be able to add an 'after' picture. Don't hold your breath - it takes 45 mins to cook.

Why the bread pudding phase? It is a sad fact that I have had to become accustomed to, but Himself can lose weight as easily as I can gain it. I am keeping my weight 'level' at several pound heavier than my summer trousers can comfortably encompass. But He is losing weight. I have dealt with this in the past by making vast quantities of bread pudding - He was working in a warehouse at the time and the weight was visibly dropping off him. Large slabs of bread pudding in his packer lunches provided easily consumed mega-helpings of calories, so that His weight stabilized at 'thin' rather than skeletal. He has been 'not putting on weight' over lockdown, unlike so many of our friends, so bread pudding is happening. I allow myself a cube slightly larger than a matchbox and he munches on a proper slab.  

Before I started on the bread pudding I made myself a pot of tea from the selection I ordered in our grocery shop;

I opted for 'feel new' as I am feeling rather ancient. All this cold grey rainy windy weather.  I have the tray beside me

   as you can see I haven't made a summer teacosy (yes, I know that is symptomatic of some very confused thinking) but bearing in mind the weather and the way the heating has just decided to click to 'on' I think the teapot is probably grateful for its winter coat. What am I thinking? As if a teapot has any idea or views on teacosies? 

The tea is still warm, however, even though I had to delay starting on it until I had made space on my side of the dining room table for the laptop.

His side is completely clear apart from his own laptop, and the part of my tray which is encroaching over the divide. I was thinking of trying to develop a 'clear desk' policy, but soon abandoned the idea. I find that by the time I have finished teaching in the evening both the table/desk and the piano and the extra stools either side of the piano are completely littered with papers, books, whatever.

All I want to do is walk away. So that's what I do. 

Once I have finished rattling out these words I will tidy the piano area, pupil by pupil; three on Wednesday, two yesterday - find their books, decipher and type up the notes, end out the emails and file everything away. 

I'm 'getting things done' at the moment by convincing myself how happy I will feel when I have done them. Plus the reward of bread pudding to come... 

   

Monday 17th May - Definitely Monday

 It was an odd sort of weekend. Luckily I knew it was Saturday on Saturday morning, so I did manage to teach the couple of lessons scheduled for then. But by lunchtime I suddenly became convinced it was Sunday, in which case today would have happened yesterday instead of today, no, that is not making things any clearer.

Anyway, I am fairly certain today is really Monday, so things should proceed at normal level of disorganisation instead of abnormal levels.

Yesterday, Sunday, the real Sunday, was a bit of a a washout. It poured most of the day; I went out as rescued the seedlings which were drowning in puddles of water in the cold frame. Setting the little pots on trays is a good idea except when it rains and the trays become puddles. With all this warm and muggy and rainy weather (Saturday, Sunday and today have all had at least their fair quota of rain so far) the garden is exploding into life - where once was bare earth is now a luxuriant carpet of weeds, safe from my hostile attentions because I am a strictly fair-weather gardener.

So what has been happening here in Happy Vale? Knitting. Lots, bordering on too much, so I may need to give it a rest before I do wrists, fingers and arms a damage. I am knitting a sort of poncho-type-thing based on a friend's. Her's has been made from two pieces of extremely textured pieces, knitted in thickish aran-weight 'wool' (acrylic). Each piece is 30 inches by 20 inches (multiply by 2.54 if you need centimetres). When finished, you sew them together like this;

making some kind of shape with a triangularish hole for your head to go through. Of course, I am using double knitting and making up the patterns as I go along - it is a sort of extended workout in learning not to hate doing plain and purl stitches. I'm also using a yarn that is self-striping - it changes colour every so often, and on the whole I change the pattern when the new colour arrives at the needles.

 Further complications arose when I discovered that I measured* the first piece wrong - the 30 inch side is only 27 inches. I'll sort that out later when I've finished the second piece. And more complications - I as using a 'cake' of yarn that I had bought for something else and then decided I don't like the colours enough for what I thought I was going to make (whatever that was - I've forgotten) but then discovered that there was not enough in the 'cake' so I thought I'd buy another, and found that there wasn't any more of that particular colour, so I bought something similar in another brand, which looks the same in the description but  knits up slightly thinner...

oh, you must know this scenario - a whole series of compromises and bodges and 'it will probably be ok...

* guessed. A close guess - 27 inches, but not close enough.

I'm also fighting a strange urge to knit a Summer-weight cosy for my teapot. The Fair-isle, pure wool is to warm and cosy I worry about my tea over-heating when the weather gets warmer, and besides, the colours are more 'Winter' than 'Summer'. Yes, I know, knitting a 'cool' cosy for my tea-pot does sound mad. I worry about myself sometimes.

Now, technical note for anyone who hates doing rib, like me; I have found a way to halve your pain if it is not vital to have the stretchiness;

If you look closely at the band of cream knitting above the yarn cake, you might be able to see it looks like ribbing, but is actually alternate bands of Knit, on the right side, and K1P1 rib on the wrong side. There is a narrow band of  Knit on the right side and K2P2 on the wrong side in blue above the bottom cream stripe. Looks ok to me.

Himself went to see about having a hair cut today - first since before Christmas. He reappeared looking a Changed Man. The barbers, conveniently placed beside the corner shop, said that they had been inundated by customers when they first opened but the rush has dwindled to a steady trickle.

Well, we are not rushing out to book tables in restaurants, meet up at the pub, or any other indoor social activity any time very soon. We have a dentist appointment booked for June - scaree for all kinds of reasons, not the least what he will find gone wrong with our teeth. The need for a visit to the opticians is becoming apparent - these glasses have done me well for two years but reading the music and small print is more of an effort now than before. Come September I am supposed to be going to London for a clinic appointment - who knows what the situation will be then? I'm not going to worry about it now.

Apparently it is lovely and warm outside, so I'm going right now, before it starts raining again.    

   

Tuesday 11th May 2021 - Under the greenwood tree

 This post has been procrastinating itself for a day or so, which means I will have forgotten most of what I meant to put in it.

"That's a relief," I hear you murmur under your breath.

Tuesday was a 'get up and go' sort of day, so I got up in time for us to went somewhere. We went to see the Queen Elizabeth I oak tree, reckoned to be possibly around 1000 years old. The weather was sort of pleasant; clouds and wind and sun, and lovely when the clouds and and wind desisted and let the sun do its thing. You know, that shining and feeling warm thing.

How many layers do you need to wear to go for a walk these days? One fewer than you decided upon, unless it was one more. However I had gloves and a 'draught excluder'; one of those 'neck tubes' which fill the gap between neck and collar, and they made all the difference.

This tree, then. I have had a whim to visit the oldest trees in the area this year; church crawling, our previous 'out and about' project has been on hold since last Summer, and I had a sudden revelation that many of these trees are bound to be in wide open spaces where keeping your distance from 'mapils' (middle-aged persons in lycra', whether running or cycling, and joggers and dog-walkers would not be an issue.

A few moments on Google turned up the Queen Elizabeth Oak; park at the Benbow ponds just outside Midhurst and walk up the hill, past the next pond, and - there it will be - and - there it certainly was;

It is a 'sessile' oak (now I need to do some research needed on different kinds of oak trees) and the thinking is it is that peculiar shape because it may have been pollarded at some time in the past.

I made a video because the weather and the clouds and the birdsong was so wonderful. The grey patch over to the left at the beginning is actually a bank of bluebells; when the sun shone on them they glowed. You might even see the hawk that was circling above us (it looks like an annoying bit of fluff that needs to be brushed of the screen, floating from left to right). The funny 'snorkel' sound is the oxygen concentrator supplying me with roughly 4 litres per minute of oxygen which was a massive help in walking up the fairly steep hill.

O wow! I have posted a video! this is so exciting! Watch out, I might do this again....

I have got myself a copy of 'Meetings With Remarkable Trees' to do some research for future ventures tree hunts.  

     

Monday 10th May - Another week

 I have cast a clout - again. I did try casting a clout a while back - was it days? weeks? who can remember anything longer than three hours ago anymore?

Anyway, that clout casting was premature, and up until today I have gone back to three layers, two of them thermal. Today I ditched the non-thermal layer, and right now I am wearing just a thermal vest and a sweatshirt. Although I have a crochet blanket close by to swaddle myself in as the evening progresses. 

We had a tea-party in the garden on Friday afternoon

.......... soon, tea parties in the garden will cease to be news ...................  

for various family members. It was sunny, but briskly cold. I should have wrapped up in a blanket that day, I had put them all ready, but didn't. Too much getting up and down to refill the teapot. Somehow the conversation got round to 'what can you buy my brother for Christmas' - apparently the most successful present in recent years was sticky tape with a zip pattern printed along it - I shall be searching for such a thing. He is a fan of gadgets, so I brought out the egg-opening device we were given as a silver wedding anniversary present;

It is an Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher, or 'clack' for short.

The instructions are pretty clear; boil the egg, put it in an egg cup. Put the dome of the Eierthingywhatsit on top, raise the metal ball, and let it drop onto the top of the dome. 'Warning', it says in the instructions. 'please use a strong egg cup'. 

The bevelled edge of the dome cracks the egg in a need circle which you can prize off with a knife.

I brought it out, and my father insisted I go an boil an egg. Why not - it only takes a couple of minutes, after all. The egg was boiled, the Eierschnappenburstenkontraption did its stuff and made a perfect inscision, surgically precise. Now what - my father had no intention of eating the egg, but luckily it was just what my sister in law fancied eating before setting off on the long drive home. Which brought this passage from 'Emma' (Jane Austen) to mind;

An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you.

It is a long time since I have had a boiled egg for my tea... this was placed into a pan of warm water, brought to the boil and given exactly three minutes; perfect. My godfather was the last person I saw eat a boiled egg, he wanted his 'very soft'. Ah, said my Aunt, in Dutch 'enn snot ei, ja'. It's pretty close to English - so no need to translate, I think. Three minutes is a bit firmer.

I've been making a point of wandering around the garden nearly every day, rain, wind or shine, for a couple of minutes at least. Sometimes I get involved in repotting seedlings, or a skirmish with the goose grass - you think you've got it beat and then, 'it's behind you!' Other times I just look and see what has grown since yesterday. (Ah yes, those marigold seeds I planted a couple of blogs ago are coming up!)

Today my attention was caught by a movement among the leaves of what will turn into 'that big clump of yellow flowers' later in the Summer. It was a grass snake, about nine inches long, about as thick as my finger, slithering between the stalk and leaves. Himself came out just at that moment, and was in time to see it wriggle smoothly through the plant and disappear under the fence into next-door's garden. That might be one of the garden highlights of the year. 

Bank Holiday Monday 3rd May - The predawn of the new era?

 I had my second covid vaccination last Tuesday - how pleasant it was, standing idly in the car park in the warm sunshine, waving to friends further down the queue... everyone keeping their distance, oh well, a bit of a hard stare at the couple behind me; they had a tendency to shuffle a little closer to the person in front but they sort of 'came to' and realized what they were doing...

'This is going to be fine, like the last one', I thought as later that evening I could barely feel the vaccination spot on my arm. Oh ho ho and no no. Nothing serious, but as the next day wore on I began to wear out - eventually rescheduling the last piano lesson of the evening to Friday. On Thursday morning I cancelled that evening's teaching, and spent another day sitting about, tottering around the garden for fresh air, knitting, listening to old episodes of 'The Kitchen Cabinet' on BBCSounds. On Friday I taught the one rescheduled lesson (she is an exam candidate and I didn't want to leave her for a fortnight) and found myself breaking into a sweat - what!? - and promptly cancelled the three lessons I usually teach on Saturday mornings. 

Now it's Monday, a week later, and I am feeling 'normal' again - what passes for 'normal' these days - for a day or so. Just as well, as I have a chatty social zoom and three challenging piano lessons to teach this afternoon. That's as good a test of the level of my recovery as any I can think of.

Challenging? One is a hard-working advanced student who is learning a Beethoven sonata which I used to be able to play, the other two are younger, and require a different set of skills to make the lesson go well...

Monday morning is the day for recycling the coffee pods.

 It seems like such a small task; but also creates a lot of dirty bowls and mess. Clockwise from left; emptied pods, coffee grounds, the contraption that does the work (plastic thing with green top) and last few pods waiting to be emptied. Back in the days of the cafetiere we just swilled out the dregs (making sure they were at least cool if not cold) into the nearest flowerbed. Pre-cafetiere we just chucked the whole paper filter into the compost. 

Now here's what I do;

I put the pod onto the green thing, press down with the dark grey lid which inverts the pod so the grounds go into the base of the green thing, put the emptied pod into a tray for rinsing, and every dozen pods empty the grounds into another tray. Got that? Then I rinse all the pods and put them in the general recycling, pour the rinse water through a sieve lined with a piece of kitchen paper to collect the grounds and prevent them from blocking our idiosyncratic plumbing arrangements. 

Nearly done now.

Take the grounds and the soggy piece of kitchen paper to the compost bin, and finally wash everything else up.

There. It now takes two paragraphs instead of two sentences to deal with the coffee grounds. 

Have I saved energy? It's hard to know. I can't wait until I can get back to John Lewis and just dump all the used pods into their collection point for Nespresso to deal with.

I have used up some of my energy, though - it is a little bit of a work out, pushing down on the pods to expel the grounds.

(I should add that this is over a week's worth for two people - we try and limit ourselves to three coffees per day, although some days do require a second 'second' cup of coffee late morning, or even a third 'third' cup of coffee after lunch).  

'Pre dawn of the new era' is the title of this post - and in a sense, the coffee palaver, and possible end of it, is part of that sense of expectation. I am being strict with myself about waiting for three weeks before I start going out and about, visiting shops, going to a cafe, walking around a National Trust garden. By my calculations, assuming the covid infection numbers continue to fall, this 'pre-dawn' has only two more weeks to run, and sometime after 18th May I can consider venturing out into the big wide world again.