Wednesday 30th January - Tea Day

I ordered some speciality fruit teas at the weekend, and they arrived today.

I'm partial to a herbal or fruit or spice tea blend in the middle of the day and I'm down to the last few Pukka teabags, the remnants of a mixed box. But this time I wanted to have loose tea, rather than a pre-measured quantity, and some more interesting mixes. I think I've found what I want;

Enter 'Bedknobs and broomsticks' blend from the Bird and Blend Tea Company!

Apple pieces, hibiscus, elderberries, chamomile, nettle, rose petals, rosehip, lavender, freeze-dried strawberry, jasmine blossom, natural flavouring.

Tregina, Makoidees, Decorum Sadis Dee!  This is delicious! I've ordered several other packets, in small quantities, to try. So far I have resisted the Creme Egg Tea and Hot Cross Bun Teas... one can Go Too Far with inventive combinations of ingredients.

Noah's Ark

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow;

We start with what might be Guy the Gorilla - let me just check; no, possibly not;

"The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons."

Of course not; the nose is quite different n a gorilla. The ships in question were bringing treasure to King Solomon; "King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth." 

I think this might be a raven; yes;

 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!

And tomorrow will be a dove;

I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!

    I would fly away and be at rest.
7 I would flee far away
    and stay in the desert;

That sounds like a cue for a song;

Tomorrow? I hear you ask. I was momentarily confused as to whether it was Wednesday or Thursday. Ah well.  

Monday 28th March - Jigsaw, flowers, Noah's Ark, Prayer for peace

BB received a Wentworth jigsaw a couple of weeks ago. progress has been slow,

but then he realized that the light brown tint to his 'reactive' lenses in his glasses were not helping. Now, if it had been me in that position, removing my glasses would have made it impossible, but his eyes can still focus at that range. Short sight versus long sight, I suppose, no, don't explain it to me please. 

The tray belongs to an IKEA traytable

but short dimension of the tray was fractionally to small to accommodate a 500 piece puzzle. He dismantled the sides, removed a sliver from the long edges on the inside, and reassembled it, so that the bottom edge of the puzzle just slots in. It looks as though the completed puzzle has been framed! 

The buds on the Mother's Day flowers are opening now; it is just SO pretty.

Here are yesterday and today's Noah's Ark pictures;

Moles and bats

For today, one very fierce bear;

Today's seems appropriate in the light of the recent news both at home and in the rest of the world.

If you are joining in with taking a minute to pray for peace at 8pm every evening, you could do worse than just listen to the Cape Town Youth Choir singing 'Ukuthula', one of the most moving songs I have heard for a while.  

Here are the words;

Ukuthula - Peace Kulumhlaba we zono - In this (broken) world of trouble Igazi like Jesu lin yenyez' - The blood of Jesus flowed (so that you could have:) Ukuthula - Peace Usindiso - Redemption Ukubonga - Praise Ukutholwa - Faith Ukunqoba - Victory Induduzo - Comfort

Monday 28th March - New word

I love words, the sound of them, the look of the, and the feel of them when you say them. We watch Richard Osman's 'House of Games' (BBC2 at 6pm) and particularly enjoy the word games, especially the final game, 'Answersmash' when the answer is a combination of a picture and a word clue;

Answer; Father Teddy the Eagle

Today I've found a word that feels lovely to say; and appears to exactly describe me.

BB was given a pad - for shopping lists? To do lists? It's that kind of shape, long and thin, and has a new word on each page. The next page has 'extemporize' (I peeked) which is not a new word for me, or many, I suspect. But 'abulia'.....

Hang on, once you start googling, it is less amusing than it seems at first sight - abulia is a recognised medical condition, caused by a brain injury, needing diagnosis and, if possible, treatment.. Perhaps we all tend to be a bit free in our use of medical terminology to describe something moderately trivial in our own lives which is actually serious and debilitating illness in 'real life'..

Here's a better definition. Note the inclusion of 'abnormal'.

  Well, no, that's not really me. I won't have much use for this word after all.

Lent Reflection 4 - Noah's Ark

 Today's church sermon started with the story of 'Moses in the bulrushes' as a text. (Exodus Chapter 2.)

This must be one of several 'suitable for Mothering Sunday' texts, in this case starting with the idea that women, overlooked by the patriarchal authorities, can subvert cruel and evil laws. 

In the story, the Hebrew midwives, Shiprah and Puah, refused obey Pharoah's decree that new bord male Hebrew babies should be killed at birth, making the excuse that the Hebrew women gave birth too quickly for them to get there in time. So Pharoah decreed that male Hebrew babies at birth. Jochabed, mother of Moses, hid her son for three months, before placing him in a basket covered with pitch, and putting the basket into the bulrushes at the edge of the Nile. Miriam, sister of Moses, fixed it so that when the baby was rescued by Pharoah's daughter, he was given back Jochabed to be nursed.

The men in this story, apart from Moses, are not named, only the oppressed Hebrew women, although Pharoah's daughter showed some courage in defying the decree to adopt Moses.

So where does Noah's Ark come into this?

I learned that the Hebrew word used 'basket' is the same word used for 'ark'. 

And the Hebrew word for the covering of bitumen and pitch used for both the basket and the ark is also the same. 

But, amazingly, the Hebrew word for 'atonement' is also from the same word as the one for bitumen and pitch. (see last week's reflection, where I learned that words in Biblical Hebrew carry several meanings)

Atonement, what happens when Jesus dies on Good Friday, that word, contains the meaning 'cover with a protective covering' and also 'make right a wrong'.

And that is what I am reflecting upon this week.

 

Saturday 26th March - Another day of sunshine

 I have spent most of the day outside in the garden apart from a couple of hours n the afternoon. I stayed inside then as our gardener warned us that one of her household has got covid, although she herself was testing negative - at the moment. So we stayed indoors while she carried on outdoors. 

There is some slight urgency to what she is doing; a cubic yard of mushroom compost was delivered last weekend, and the bag is currently mostly on our neighbour's drive, as that was the only sensible option for where to put it. It is not in their way, but will be quite a surprise when they come home from a week away tomorrow evening. Luckily we are on very good terms, often helping each other out (and we ARE feeding their cat!)

We had hoped to be able to drag it across onto our driveway today, but it is still too heavy, in spite of being more than half empty. It was very compacted; I reckon we have got more than the usual amount for the money! Another couple of hours on Monday and we should be able to shift it.

The mushroom compost is being spread on all the borders once they are weeded and watered to enrich the soil and keep the weeds down.

Like Ang, I am using Huw Richard's book to 'do' my veg this year. There are some drawbacks, as she and I are both discovering. I should be enjoying eating the spinach and kale I planted last Autumn, according to the book, but I wasn't 'doing' the book then. So I have taken matters into my own hand and sown some anyway. I've put the kale seeds in individual pots to transplant later, assuming they grow. The kale pots have joined the lettuce seeds and spring onion seeds in my new mini greenhouse. 

Noah's Ark; as the scripture verses are from the book of Proverbs, I'm almost certain that these are ants, and the verse will be 'go to the ant, you sluggard, and consider her ways...'. Let's do a quick google

Yes, here you are... here's the full passage

Go to the ant, you sluggard;
    consider its ways and be wise!
 It has no commander,
    no overseer or ruler,
 yet it stores its provisions in summer
    and gathers its food at harvest.

 How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
    When will you get up from your sleep?
 A little sleep, a little slumber,
    a little folding of the hands to rest—
 and poverty will come on you like a thief
    and scarcity like an armed man.

Friday 25th March - the day after the day before

 Yesterday was a series of social events;

Coffee with friends  - the Lent group I am in - sitting in the sun among the daffodils and violets under the old apple tree at the bottom of the garden which is just coming into leaf. The sun was warm, there was hardly any breeze, and it was a lovely slow morning.

We had just spent a hectic half hour arranging chairs and tables so the less mobile friend could sit in a chair with arms, with the only reliable table beside her, and trimming low branches, and clearing trip hazards along the path. Sitting and relaxing was doubly good for me!

Lunch, outside again, just soup, ryvita and some bits of salad to munch. One of the coffee morning friends stayed. We moved up to sit nearer the house as the patio was now in the sun, and just enough of a breeze had arrived to stop us from melting. We had marmite with the ryvita - that brought back memories! Back when I was at university, there was a sudden craze for marmite and cottage cheese on ryvita... note to self, add cottage cheese to the shopping list!

Then two lessons to teach - they do count as social events, as listening and conversation takes place, at quite an intense level for me, and usually for the student as well.

Do you want to hear what they are learning? In the first one we were working on 'Bransle de la Torche' composed in about 1600 by Michael Praetorius and also one of my favourite pieces, 'The Snow Melts', composed by Brian Chapple fairly recently.  (He's got a Steinway! have I given up envy for Lent?)

I think I may have mentioned the piece that the second student is learning, another of my favourites, Rumores de la Caleta by Albeniz. 

Finally, I had an evening zoom meeting - the Lent group has been meeting in the evenings on zoom until the weather has made it possible to meet outside.

The point being, that today I have been moving at half speed. I have managed to write up yesterday's lessons, and put some red lettuce seeds into pots into my new plastic greenhouse

Here's the sketch I made on Wednesday, after we had moved the dodgiest of the benches to the side of the house and put the old greenhouse on it. I wrote down the measurements because I wanted to get a new cover; the plastic mesh has perished so that it is just a criss-cross of  webbing and no little plastic squares in between. I wasn't able to buy a cover to fit this shape, so bought a new one. The old one is second hand, bought fifteen years ago by a friend's daughter! It will still give some protection to the plants inside.   

The notes on the side are from tracking the movement of the sun to see where to place things.

Noah's Ark - who knew that there were ostriches in the book of Job?

Last year, or the year before, I forget now, I was enthused by the idea of Spring Cleaning and bought an ostrich feather duster. It is very efficient at sweeping dust and swiping down the cobwebs but only if I take it out of the cupboard.

 
 

Thursday 24th March - A Little Light Lifting

 The weights have arrived - a small heavy parcel.

I was slightly alarmed, but of course ALL the weights for BOTH ankles were in the one parcel, a total of 10 pounds, or rather nearly 10 pounds. It's not entirely clear to me what the unit of measurement is - does it matter? Nah, not really.

Each anklet has five little pockets, and each pocket has a little packet of some kind of heavy sand, and each packet of sand weighs around fifteen and a half ounces, or whatever that is in kilos. Or grams.

So I have removed four packets from each anklet, and tomorrow (or the next day) I shall have a go at strength training, starting at below level 1., as then I'm more likely to succeed. Never set yourself up for failure - aim low, and you will taste success, as I tell my piano pupils. It blows their mind after all the years of inspirational, challenge yourself, must try harder, gubbins they get all day at school.

They whole lot is stored in a stout canvas shopping bag at floor level, as advised in the book.

Low target setting is why my step count target at the moment is only 1250. I'm much happier reaching my step count most days, even without going for a walk, than missing it every day. I've got 1000 steps or so already, (it is 6pm) from pottering around in the garden all day, and should be able to get the rest by bedtime. I have been known to pace up and down the landing for five or ten minutes just to reach the magic number.

Noah's Ark

Yesterday; Bees. The book of Sirach is not one I've encountered; before. It is in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Bible, but Anglicans keep it in a separate section called the apocrypha. I'm not going into all that... although I did encounter another book in the apocrypha in the novel 'Miss Garnett's Angel' by Sally Rooney, which references the story of Tobias and the angel.

anyway, Sirach 11:3 is 

"The bee is small among flying creatures,

    but what it produces is the best of sweet things."

Today; Song of Songs 2:15 is a fox;

Catch for us the foxes,
    the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
    our vineyards that are in bloom

 We used to have a problem with foxes, the little foxes, that ruined our milk, delivered by the milkman. They would pick up the plastic bottles and run around the garden with them, piecing the plastic with their teeth. We fixed that by putting out a milk protector, an upturned bucket with a half brick screwed to the top to act as a handle. Our usual milkman is used to the way that the bucket comes too when he lifts the brick, but I wonder what temporary milkmen think.

Sewing;

I can reveal what Ang sent me (if you haven't already seen it on her blogpost) She gives the details of how she made each motif in the post

These are on the cloth that has her name and address on it, and are her mementoes of her month of March.

The embroidery I sent to Ang is less topical as concerns current affairs; I sewed a picture devised from a selection of my favourite prints, and also celebrating my new developing skill of making a reasonable fist of satin stitch (aim low!) I also enjoyed using the variegated threads I bought,

and also learning how to start and finish bits of stitching without leaving knots. Of course, the cat is on the cloth with my name and address - but, do I end up with the cloth with Ang's name or mine? Either would be appropriate!  

Now I am starting to think about what I sew onto Ang's cloth for April - Easter is an obvious theme... and I need to create the 'postage stamp'. But I think I know what I am doing for that - I just have to practice drawing it a couple of times until I have learned the shapes.

Piano teaching has had its moments this week; you need a surprisingly mathematical head to work out how to play the first movement of Mozart's sonata K331. We've been working on the ornaments variation 5, the slow one; (I can spot the error in my notation now, but it gives the general idea. For perfection, there should be 4 horizontal beams joining notes grouped under each bracketed 3...oooops) 

I think we got there; my student had sort of crammed the notes in together in a flurry of activity, very similar in result to tidying a room by shoving everything under your bed.

Here's Daniel Barenboim demonstrating how 'easy' it is. The slow variation starts at 7'58", but listen to it all; it is divine! I haven't heard my student play any of this except the slow variation - she says she has already learned it, which makes me a little worried as to HOW she has learned it! There was a time I could play it, after a fashion... 

Tuesday 22nd March - weightless

 I guess that's what you would call a 'click-bait' blog title.

The book I bought, breaking my Lent resolution to NOT buy any books in Lent, but supporting my Lent resolution to do exercises every day, which, so far, I have just about kept, arrived yesterday.

It is a book of strength training exercises, and a group of ladies of - shall we say - more mature years - are all trying it and recommending it. So I bought a second-hand copy, and skim-read it yesterday. It is basically a set of 8 gentle, slow exercises, done standing or sitting, but using weights on ankles for leg exercises and dumb bells for arm exercises. The weights one uses depends upon age and fitness; reading the charts I should use one pound dumb bells and two pound ankle weights, or the equivalent in kg. You increase the weights over time as your strength improves, but the emphasis is on progressing slowly and steadily. Festina lente. 

I don't have any weights, so today I followed the plan, but without weights, hence, weightless!

This is not a bad way to start; I can learn the moves without strain (actually, it was strenuous enough for me at the moment!) while I am waiting for the ankle weights to arrive. I shall follow one of the suggestions to save money by grasping the little weight packets in my hands for the arm exercises, rather than investing in dumb bells.

You do the 30 minute workout twice a week. That seems manageable. 'while watching tv', she suggests.

There's a lot of background about muscles,  and bones, and staying  motivated, and the effect of strength exercises on the general level of fitness and bone density and so forth. 

Nothing venture, nothing gain. 

I shall continue do my normal stretches on non-workout days. 

I have taken a gamble and planted out the broad beans; they were growing out of their peat pots. and also the one pea that germinated, and the few peas that escaped being eaten as pea shoots. I've come to the conclusion that the reason the peas didn't grow in their little pots on the windowsill was that I forgot to plant them, apart from one. Something must have distracted me at that point. 

The broad beans are mulched with a mix of torn packing paper and paper napkins which had a design of poppies printed on them. The peas are under one of the plastic cloches behind them.

They been experiencing 'hardening-off' as I have forgotten to close the cold frame several times over the past few days. Come to think of it, I think I have left it open again tonight. Oh well. There are only seeds inside; nasturtium, calendula, wild flowers, and as of today, snapdragons.

Noah's Ark;

Who is hiding behind this door?

Dogs!

Here's the story;

 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Monday 21st March - Planting Seeds

Today was bright and sunny again. I pottered about in the garden for most of the morning, sowing flower seeds; calendula and nasturtium. These can be sown out doors where they are going to flower, but that requires me to know where I want them to go. Ah. So I've put them into individual cardboard tubes in the cold frame. If I plant them in the ground, then I get confused between seedlings and weeds; this way I should now what is going on!

I had never seen anything like calendula seeds before; they look like little dried up worms;

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/calendula/

I've also planted a 'bee-friendly plant bomb' that I had  been given a while ago.

https://kabloom.co.uk/

Instead of hurling it into the undergrowth, I have spread the contents over a seed tray so see what comes up. I have a notion of creating a wildflower patch somewhere in the garden, and I read in a blog post from 'notes from a smallholding' about starting the wildflowers from seed in pots, to be planted out later.

I had some other 'seed bombs' last year, and they did seem to come up, in a random sort of fashion. This way I can be a bit more certain.

Noah's Ark; Saturday - these look like quails; the reference is Exodus, but this morning I had reached the chapter in Numbers where the Israelites have a big moan about the food, and God says he will give them so many quails that they will get sick of them.

Yesterday; Some deer, and a phrase from a well known Psalm;  As a deer longs for flowing streams,
    so my soul longs for you, O God.

Today; It's an eagle, and those verse from Deuteronomy will be familiar to readers of Tolkein as well as  Bible readers;

As an eagle stirs up its nest,
Hovers over its young,
Spreading out its wings, taking them up,
Carrying them on its wings,
12 

Lent Reflection 3 - Hear, Listen, Obey

I was wondering what to write today - quite often I know early in the week and spend several days reflecting on the reflection, as it were.

The leader at today's church service (what a blessing it is that our church does a livestream for a number of the congregation who, like me, can't get to the services) is a man who has spent a lot of time studying what life was life in Biblical times, and how the words in the written scriptures were interpreted in those days.

He says that Biblical Hebrew has only about 7,000 words, compared to the 100,000 plus words in modern English, so the Hebrew words had many meanings.

So the word for 'hear', also means to listen, and to obey. 

This brings a whole new dimension to what Jesus means whenever he is says 'he who has ears to hear, let him hear' .

The familiar phrases and stories suddenly take on a new urgency - it is not enough to let the words flow through the air, towards our ears, but we need to act upon what we hear.

I've joined in the international movement to stop and pray for a minute, every day, for peace, an end to all conflicts, for people to turn to God. The time for the UK is 8pm. It's a drop in the ocean. It's a start, a step.

(I haven't worked out if it will still be 8pm when the clocks change - I'm guessing it will!) 

More reflections over at Tracing Rainbows

Friday 18th March - In the garden

Today was glorious.

Sun all day, so I could spend plenty of time outside. 

I've sorted out a row of four patio tubs and grow sacks for my potatoes, and have managed to get them in (with help - much appreciated!) 

They are in the right-hand row of containers, the equivalent to rows 1 and 2 on Huw Richard's plan in 'Veg In One Bed'. They are covered by a layer of soil, and then some scrumpled brown packing paper as a slight protection should there be a frost. 

I have probably put too many chitted potatoes in each container, but how could I throw away any of the valiant little sprouts? The soil is very rich - straight from a brand new bag of potting compost (peat free, of course) so I'm hoping it will all be fine. I have discovered that I can order potting compost from the milk man, which makes life very easy to get hold of more bags.   

I have labelled the pots, or rather, I will label the pots, to correspond with the plan in the book. Here are pots number 5 and 10, with lettuces and radishes respectively. I'm hoping the clear plastic domes will encourage them along.

But wait - I already have a pot number 10! Out of sight, to the left of these, there is a pot with the garlic I planted back in November, in pot number 10! Luckily my system, although small scale, is very flexible. I solved the problem merely by writing out another label.

Noah's Ark; today's picture appears to be a frog;

Exodus chapter 8 1-3 confirms my guess;

1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. 3 The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls.

A hideous thought. It could have been a lot worse; in Australia they are plagued by poisonous cane toads, introduced from South America in 1935 to deal with two types of native beetle that affect the sugar cane crops. Like many of these 'good ideas' it seems to have gone spectacularly awry.  

I think, on the whole, I'd rather have the ants that seem to be everywhere in our garden, and occasionally in the house, than cane toads.

Thursday 17th March - can it be....?

 Can it be (sh, softly now) spring?

After yesterday's washout I didn't hold out much hope for today's weather, but today started well and turned out even better.

I managed some time in the garden heaving out weeds and cutting away at some shrubs; apparently one follows the rules of the three 'D's when at work with secateurs, removing anything

'dead'

'diseased'

'discoloured'

and also 'duplicated' if embarking upon larger trees and shrubs.

I have prepared two very large flowerpots ready for radish and lettuce seeds, and I have plastic cloches which will exactly fit over them so that should help them along. That's tomorrow's work. I'm also coming to conclusions about where to site the potato growbags, currently somewhere in the shed, so that the potatoes can go in. According to Huw Richards 'Veg In One Bed' that's the main target for March.

Today's Noah's Ark; an allegory on the banks of the Nile. Alright I know, it's a crocodile. Actually, looking up the scripture verse, it's a monster!

'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “'I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, you great monster lying among your streams.'

We had to study Sheridan's play 'The Rivals' at school, and Mrs Malaprop, a character in the play, describes someone as being 'as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile'. So that's what popped into my head when I saw the picture.

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

I used to teach a rather good jazzy setting of this poem when I was working as a primary school class music teacher. Not this one; which is also very good. I don't think I can find the version I taught.

The crocodile poem comes from 'Alice in Wonderland', when Alice discovered that she could no longer remember the poems that she had learned. Here is the original, by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day

Some good account at last. 

 

Wednesday 16th March - not twiglets

 I had one of the last bread rolls, cut into cubes and toasted into  crunchy croutons and spread with marmite as my 'little snackeral' this morning. They tasted just like twiglets! 

I had the 'every so often catch up' blood tests done last week, and there weren't any real surprises except for low folic acid. So they've sent me a prescription, but I remembered from years and years ago that marmite is a good source of vitamin B so bought some in the last shopping order to have on toast.

I didn't spread butter on the croutons so that made it more or less zero fat - but I suppose all that salt will be bad for me in some other way. 

Noah's Ark; two days again;

yesterday; Storks "Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration." Jeremiah 8;7

today; Mountain goats "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?" Job 39;1-2

Wild, or mountain goats reminded me of  'Wild Asses' from 'Carnival of the Animals'  I learned the hard way never to play this to the children unless they were calm, sitting in their own space and completely forbidden to get up and dance. 

'Now, children', (in my best Joyce Grenfell voice), 'I would like you to let your hands move with the music, but you MUST stay sitting down and you may NOT make any noise.' 

I adopted this kill-joy approach after one disaster lesson when 30 small children completely lost the plot one wild, wet, and windy day. I was lucky to get away without having to dial 999, or, even worse, call the head.

This version of it shows the score.... do you suppose the pianists play the whole lot in one breath?

This is the BACK of my current piece of embroidery - there's still a lot more to do, some green, some grey, some black... but I'm just so pleased about how tidy this looks. So far. It won't last! I've learned how to start off without leaving any knots. I'll post the completed picture sometime next week, hopefully.

The variegated threads are all that could have hoped for.

Yesterday was so ,lovely and sunny that we got out into the garden and cleared the winter detritus of leaves, weeds, and general scruffiness from the front of the house, pulling up more goose grass along the way. I mulled over sowing lettuce and radish and planting seed potatoes, but decided against. 'Tomorrow is another day'

Tomorrow yesterday is today, today, if you follow; In the morning the sky was dusty yellow from Saharan sand to begin with, and the temperature had dropped to that seeping cold that penetrates through to the skin. I expect the sand is now coating the car and everything else after half a day of determined, persistent rain. 'Tomorrow is another day?'  

Monday 14th March - Bread

 Today's Noah's Ark;

 'As for the earth, out of it comes bread; but underneath it is turned up as by fire. That no bird of prey knows, and the falcon's eye has not seen it'

Looks more like a blackbird to me, but let's not be too picky; if I tried to draw a falcon it would probably look just like this.

I'm more interested in the first part of the quotation; 'out of it comes bread'.

Experiments with bread making are still under way. While I was looking up youtube videos about satin stitch (try this one for starters) I tripped across this one for making bread without using the oven, and now I can't find it anymore which is ridiculous.

I've just had a go at it myself, and can tell you what I did;

I used my usual recipe for no-knead bread, reducing quantities slightly because - I don't know why I chose to do that. Anyway I used 12 ounces of  strong flour and about 3/4 teaspoon Doves yeast and 3/4 teaspoon salt and enough warm water to make the dough. It was fairly wet compared to traditional dough - what they call 'shaggy'. I mauled kneaded it in the bowl for a couple of minutes, and left it to double in size. 

Then I tipped it out onto a floured board,- very sticky, but a floured spatula overcame all resistance - gave it a good sorting until it became dough again, cut it into seven pieces and rolled them into balls.

Next; arrange them in a non-stick heavy pan

cover, and leave for half an hour. I'm glad I oiled the inside of the lid. You will be too. Cook for 15 minutes, covered, on a low heat - I noticed the setting for the hob in the video was 5, so did the same. 

This is what it looked like. Now here's the tricky bit, you have to flip it like a pancake, no, not like a pancake. Using oven gloves(!) hold a plate over the pan, tip it over, so that the bread is cooked side down on the plate, and then persuade the whole thing back into the pan. Hurrah! This looked very promising.

Cover and cook for another 15 minutes.

After which time it turned out, when I turned the bread out, that I had burned the bottom slightly.

  It still looks plausible. We shall find out at suppertime.

Gardening news,

It is as I thought; the reason why the strawberries didn't do so well last year is that they were infested with vine weevils. I had my suspicions, and when I upended the pot into an old dustbin lid to take a look I saw that the soil was packed with little fat corrugated white grubs curled up nose to tail. I've disposed of all the soil into the garden waste bin where I hope they will meet their end, and shall invest in nematodes.

What a brilliant name for the stuff! You mix them up in a watering can and water your pots with it.

The goose grass is just emerging, but thanks to a major effort in the past two years there is hardly any - yet. I pulled every strand I could find, early in the year before it had a chance to flower and seed, and kept at it, and managed to discourage it from getting a hold.

The little rosemary bush by the back door has just started flowering. It is one I bought from a supermarket and planted up when the old one died last Summer.

More Noah's Ark;

yesterday;

'Cast not your pearls before swine'

I've always enjoyed the quick wit of Dorothy Parker;

. According to the story I heard the other person was the glamorous socialite and playwright Clare Boothe Luce.

“Age before beauty” said Luce while yielding the way. “And pearls before swine,” replied Parker while gliding through the doorway. Is this quotation accurate and is this tale true?

Quote Investigator: There is more than one version of this story, and the earliest description does not refer to Clare Boothe Luce by name. However, the second oldest version does identify her and Dorothy Parker as the antagonists. Further, this version was written by the Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham who claimed that she heard it directly from Parker in 1938.  (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/06/29/pearls-before-swine/)

Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. 

Hm.