Thursday 31st August - every day, in every way...

I'm feeling better and better...

At the time I would have blogged yesterday I had just about nothing to say, except that Ang's August Cross-Stitch-Collaboration (or were we calling it Cross-Country-Stitching-Collaboration - I forget) arrived late afternoon, and as usual it is awe-inspiring. I shall photograph it and share it's glory this evening, when I can get the stitching, my phone camera and the laptop all in the same place at the same time.

Other exciting things happened just before we went to bed...

(don't hold your breath - it takes very little to categorize an event as 'exciting' these days)

To begin with, this was the first evening I felt up to going 'slugging' since Friday. I noticed a day ago that those marauding molluscs had been at my three surviving pak choi, chomping on the leaves. We went out and prowled around the pots, and, Eureka! A massive snail just getting started on the pak choi. He was first into the pot (NOT a cooking pot for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's slug and snail stew, I should add). In a few minutes we  had collected a dozen or more of assorted species and sizes and dealt with them.

Secondly, I actually remembered bout the supermoon, and opened the front door on the way to the stairs, and there it was, huge and pale and creamy-yellowy-white watching over us all in what I took to be a benign fashion.

...............

Pak choi check this morning; there they are, the little darlings, bedded down in slug-deterrent wool and surrounded by coffee grounds. The snail in question was stretching out from the edge of the tub to reach the overhanging leave - I shall take steps to thwart that mode of attack later today!

All the other tubs contain nothing except forget-me-nots and weeds, as the slugs and snails have already munched all the little cauliflower and spring onion seedlings for their suppers. I have swiss chad and kohl rabi all ready to plant out, but am strangely reluctant to bear any more mollusc-related disappointments...

This morning I am considerably improved, as long as I don't test the boundaries of the improvement too far.

The proof is in the killer sudoku test - I completed the 'expert' level without needing any of the 3 lives.

 I have spent most of the morning NOT using oxygen, until just now when I completed the arduous task of choosing 2 long-sleeved shirts, checked, 2 short-sleeved shirts, patterned, and two pairs of jeans for my father, having had an opportunity to look a what he was wearing to the hospital last week. I'll tackle shoes and slippers and a decent jacket for him next... thank heavens for mail order.

Tuesday 29th August - two days of August left

Just as well there still are Two Days Left... Ang has posted her August ctoss stitching to me already, having only started stitching a few days ago! I did an hour this afternoon, but ran out of brain before I finished. Tomorrow,  maybe, I'll have it ready to post?

.......

It's been another day of taking things very quietly, but patience has been rewarded by a steady improvement! 

........

I am watching 'Bake-off, the professionals'. Every week I'm astonished by the number of flavours and elements in each tiny morsel, and the fiddly twiddly decorations. I tend to stick to making an 'all-in-one' mix it all up in the bowl sponge cake, with very little decoration or topping, if any. The skill of the bakers is phenomenal. 

I wonder what happened to the uneaten food; do the production team all come equipped with boxes, and fall upon the cakes to scoop them up and take them home as soon as filming stops?. In a similar vein, the mother of one of my piano pupils used to turn up with trays of cooked ready meals or parcels of cooked chickens. The company she worked for tested cooking instructions for supermarket foods. They had to cook dozens of packets in all the different types of oven, bracketing the temperatures and timings to ensure that the instructions were correct. In the run-up to Christmas there were endless roast turkeys...

....

Some nattily attired young man knocked on the door this afternoon. 'I represent blahblahblah broadband.' (That obviously wasn't the name of the company but I had stopped listening as soon as I say the lanyard and the clipboard). I'm afraid I interrupted before he could really get into his stride and told him 'we quite enough broadband and did not want to buy any more so I'll let you get on your way'. 

I must have looked and sounded like some deluded old geriatric who thought he was selling something like household brushes or vacuum cleaners. He smiled sweetly, hesitated, but I was already gently closing the door. Toodle-oo, I thought, and toddled back to the settee.

Monday 28th August - slow, dull day...

 So let's start with the lid of the apple juice juice bottle I bought at the hospital on Friday;

I thought it was an unusual design with an appropriate message for a hospital snack bar!

It was delicious, and I don't know if you can make out the words 'a jubilant juice' on the label. I was very amused by the whole package. We took the glass bottles home to recycle. 

So, dull, dull day? I seem to have caught a summer cold, which has zapped my oxygen levels. So it's start on the coamoxiclav, tether myself to the oxygen concentrator and 'possess myself in patience ' until I get back to normal. Today's been the third day of inactivity and already I am feeling better.

My test is 'can I solve the expert and evil levels of sudoku?' Today the answer is 'yes' so I'm hoping to get back to the cross stitch collaboration tomorrow.  It is nearly finished but I didn't dare tackle it until my brain was firing on more cylinders.

Sunday 27th August - singing your prayers

 I always remember things better if they are set to a tune.

Recently I bought a copy of Angela Ashwin's 'Book of a 1000 Prayers' on Kindle. I'm reading through the Morning Prayers in sequence every morning and taking a phrase to remember through the day.

It's a bit late in the say now to share a morning payer, so here's one from the evening section. The tune is callIed Tallis' Canon.

Glory to thee, my God, this night 

For all the blessings of the light;

 Keep me, O keep me, King of kings, 

Beneath thine own almighty wings. 

Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son, 

The ill that I this day have done, 

That with the world, myself, and thee, 

I, ere I sleep, at peace may be. 

Thomas Ken (1637 – 1711)

Saturday 26th August - in praise of granny squares

 They are one of the most portable handicrafts around; a ball of yarn and a crochet hook in a little bag and you are good to go. 

My mother made hundreds of the traditional multicoloured squares, each bordered in white, on long haul flights when she was living in Indonesia and later in Singapore. Later she handed over the whole bag to my godmother (her very good friend and a superb needlewoman) to sew up.

 Almost perfect for travelling.

Almost? I made the blanket above a few years ago using adriafil knitcol dk wool on our long car journeys to my godmother every week, sometimes twice a week, as we did our best to support her in her final months. Instead of doing the traditional thing of choosing different colours for each round, I just let the self-patterning yarn do its thing, and kept going until the ball was finished. The lovely colours fascinated her, and she looked forward to seeing how it was progressing and changing each visit.

And even less to carry around!

I've just finished the Tunisian crochet square. It was a little small, so I went round and round a few more times in what might be double or treble crochet, or both, or neither (I'm a bit hazy and need to refresh my memory. until I finished the yarn.

I'm not too bothered either way, as it is only destined to be another dishcloth. I'm just happy it's another 'finished object' and another bit of yarn gone from from my stash.

Friday 25th August - slugs in love, joy of hospital gardens

 We took my father to the hospital for a day of various out patient treatments.

Before we set off I discovered this unlovely sight. I've left it as as amall picture because it is pretty ugh..

It is two ENORMOUS slugs twined around a great blob of goo.

If I were a naturalist I might be fascinated, but I am trying to grow vegetables. So I fetched the slugging tongs and dumped them in the garden refuse bin with the rest of their mates. I don't think they even noticed. 

Then we got into the lovely lovely new car, collected my father and set off on an unknown adventure, knowing very little more than we needed to find somewhere in the 'orange wing' for a series of checks and treatments arranged at very short notice by the GP. The day ward turned out to be right next to a charming courtyard garden where we could wait in between tests, treatments etc. Being able to sit outside in lovely sunshine made all the difference.

We took turns staying with my father throughout the day. When it was my turn the courtyard had become quite hot so I moved to the dappled shade of the little summerhouse and admired the shadows on the decking made by the trellis.

There are a number of gardens in between the various wings of the hospital, maintained by volunteers. They are so appreciated by staff and patients all through the day.

We got home at about 6 after a very, very long day. All's well that ends well.

Thursday 24th August - Falling in Love Again

 Yes, it's true... we are in love (I don't mean with each other, no, that hasn't come out right. We've been married for nearly 46 years and we are most definitely still in love...)

but a new love has come into our lives.

It is a bright red Fiat 500x petrol hybrid It is smooth, polite, deferential, willing, cooperative and incredibly well behaved. We have owned it for only ten hours, and our minds are made up.

It is also an automatic; I've never driven one before. I was seriously concerned as to how I would cope. I was also very apprehensive because since Lockdown in 2020 my driving journeys, mostly to visit friends locally, could be counted on my fingers, not including thumbs, so I am seriously out of practice.

Himself drove it the twenty miles from the dealers mostly in a silence of deep concentration but occasionally saying 'oh joy' or 'that was so much easier' every mile or so.

I have driven it round our local residential roads with some success so far, in that I didn't have any scrapes, bumps or near misses. Himself sat as copilot offering encouragement as necessary. I mostly concentrated on Turning Left, but have tried Turning Right and Reversing Out Of A Cul-de-Sac. It took a couple of circuits, but I am beginning to get the sequence of 'Mirror Signal Manoeuvre' in the right order, and to be able to interpret what I see in the mirrors rather than alternately staring straight ahead or looking wildly round in all directions without registering what I see. What impressed me most is that I only tried to use the clutch pedal once! ("Tuck your LEFT foot as far back and out of the way as you can").

If I can add half an hour's driving every day in ever increasing circles, and start introducing Traffic Lights and then Roundabouts I am hopeful that I'll get back into the swing of things. After all, in my previous existence before Covid I used to travel anything up to 100 miles a day from one end of the County to another between schools, filling in the time between driving with teaching samba drumming, djembe drumming, trumpet, clarinet, flute, recorder, ukulele, guitar and sometimes piano, cello or viola!

Luckily I did not teach ALL these instruments in the same day, just half a dozen on a busier day. Loading the car used to be a mix of memory test and puzzle solving. Do I miss those days? On the whole, no. The music, the fun, the companionship, the buzz, yes. The exhausting classroom management of difficult classes, and lugging instruments and resources in and out of schools, no.

........

We didn't go out slugging last night. This morning I discovered one of my pak choi had been et. I have sprinkled coffee grounds around then next, and somehow I need to summon the energy to go slugging tonight. Ang asked what I did with the slugs and snails. I drop them into the council garden waste bin, whereupon they spend their days trying to climb up and out. The slugs sometimes manage to ooooooze their way to freedom. 

..........

Somehow half an hour's cross stitch got done this evening. Not the best time for me, but there wasn't that much left in this particular section and and just about managed to finish it without too much unpicking. I absolutely LOVE my Sarah Homfray variegated threads. You can feel the quality as you sew. The colours are beautiful with so many shades in each skein. Worth the money.

   

Wednesday 23rd August - Super powers, slugs and snails, drawings

 I'm hoping that when I wake tomorrow morning I will have acquired a super power.... what will it be? I had an infusion of zolendronic acid, a sci-fi sounding treatment for osteoporosis, and with a name like that I would expect my hair to turn day-glo pink, to to get x-ray vision or something spectacular. But if it's anything like last time around I'll wake up feeling just the same as normal. 

We were out with the torch and slugging tongs last night; it's much easier as a joint hunting expedition. Himself peers in every nook and cranny, in, on and around the pots, swooping on the unsuspecting molluscs, snatching them up in the silicone ended tongs (non-slip grip!) and dropping them into the empty flowerpot I hold at the ready. We got at least a dozen, and nearly as many the night before. Not sure if we'll go out tonight - the spirit is willing but the flesh is sleepy.

I'm just about keeping up with the August pen and ink project. The current topic is using 'value'. I have done rows and rows of exercises practising increasing decreasing shade and shadow, finishing by copying pictures from the workbook.

 

 

I think my fascination with pen and ink drawings began with the illustrations in the Arthur Ransome books. My father had accumulated a number of books in the series when he was a child, and I loved reading them over and over again and looking at the pictures. Here are two of them;

 

Tuesday 22nd August - You'll be so pleased when it is done

This has been my motivation for much of what I have done today. 'Getting things done' is a mysterious and arcane skill that it can take many decades to learn - at least for me.

So I have hoovered downstairs, and yes, I am pleased that the task is completed.

I have paid an invoice straight away, rather than thinking 'I'll get round to that sometime'.

I did an hour's cross stitching in the earlier part of the morning, and I have to say it's turning out as I had hoped - so far. Ang does trial pieces before committing to anything that is a bit uncertain; I ponder for a while (sometimes days!) and then just GO for it. I have finished all the counting business, so can just play about with different combinations of colours and thread and see what happens.

An hour is about what I can manage before my eyes go funny. I'm sure I ought to visit an opticians at some stage. The main obstacle to enjoying the piano at the moment is being able to see the music clearly; my current vari-focals are hopeless as I need to look out of the bottom third for both the keys and the music, so my head nods up and down like the Churchill Insurance nodding dog;

https://admascots.fandom.com/wiki/Churchill

Trawling through the internet, I discovered that he has been replaced as part of a campaign by animal welfare organisations to stop breeders from breeding dogs with ever more extreme faces, causing all kinds of health problems for the dogs. A good thing too; this demand for 'designer' dogs and cats bred for their 'cute' appearance regardless of their welfare needs to be checked.

Now, what is it I ought to have been doing instead of hunting down information on nodding dogs... I've forgotten. I'll remember later when I find I didn't do what I intended to do...   

Monday 21st August - A new week begins

 One short comment on the news, the dreadful, dreadful news about that nurse and the poor babies and families, the missed opportunities to prevent further deaths, and the awful possibility that she could have harmed other babies.

 Most of us manage to trundle through our days without coming into direct contact with such unimaginable evil; my prayers are for everyone directly or indirectly affected by these tragic events. 

So while I am burbling on about my own relatively happy life I have not forgotten that many people here, and also in distant lands, have to endure very different circumstances.

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Last Monday I was feeling a bit low; leaving the hospital after a blood test I struggled with breathless walking up the gentle slope through the dark park. I probably had to pause for a moment about 3 or 4 tomes. Today, after I had the repeat test, I strolled through the car park with no bother at all. What was that all about? Maybe I had a bit of a lurgy? 

Anyway, today started well for me and continued in the same mode. Like receiving a text from the credit card company; 'thank you for your payment, and you can avoid interest charges by making a further payment of 11p by 23:59 tonight'. I always pay off the complete balance every month, but this time I must have somehow underpaid. Last time did - maybe 20 years ago - I was hugely irritated to get caught for the full charge. Sending a warning text seems remarkably civilised behaviour.

There was one glitch in my happy day, one fly in the ointment, as it were.  Or rather slugs and snails in among the pak choi plants. Overnight half my brave little plants had been ruthlessly devoured. It would make a Saint use deeply unspiritual language. After contemplating the scene for some time, I tenderly surrounded the survivors with sluggone wool pellets. 

Tonight Himself and Myself will be out after dark with a torch and the slugging tongs to see what we can see and catch anything that can't run away (that should be the easy bit).

We might be able to see the moon, which rose at half past eleven this morning, but doesn't set until nearly ten tonight. It is a waxing crescent moon.

 Meanwhile today continues well. I have already hit my step target of 3000, by attempting to average 300 steps an hour through the day, Only Connect and University Challenge are on BBC tonight, and there were a couple of chocolate truffles left for chocolate o'clock.

Sunday 20th August - Lionesses, and Learning more about the moon

 Lionesses, football, National Football Fever...

I guess a lot of church-goers were conflicted this morning; go to church or watch the footie? I could have had the best of both world; put the football on TV while joining with the church live stream on the laptop. It was an easy choice for me - I'm not that interested in any kind of football, so I joined the church (and also did cross stitch). I did wonder about the propriety of the whole church congregation decamping to the local pub to watch the match, and following it with either a 'service of celebration' or a 'litany of lament'...

I was thinking about how I go about learning new things. About this moon going round the earth going round the sun. It is just too much to take in all at once, so yesterday I focused on just a few facts.

Now I am comfortable with the idea that the moon rises in the east or thereabouts and sets in the west or thereabouts.

And with the way the times of moonrise and moonset shift by about 50 minutes later each day. 

So, surely, there must be a period when the moonrise and its subsequent journey across the horizon must be during our day time... ah, that explains about the a new moon, I think, when the moon is on the other side of the Earth all night, and too close to the sun to be seen during the day. Aha! Today's new fact!    

What will I learn tomorrow?

Getting the hang of the moon's peregrinations is a similar process for me as learning to play a new piano piece. It is a pretty big task to learn the notes, fingering, rhythm, expression and articulation all in one go, so it has to be broken down into steps, making sure notes are known, which finger goes where, and when, and how, bit by bit, revising and remembering each element until they all combine into a complete understanding.

Saturday 19th August - Moonshine

 

I find the unpredictable nature of the moon very disconcerting. It has all been explained to me, and I understand it when I see the diagrams, but it still unnerves me to find the full moon staring in through the back door as we lock up at night one time, and then another time peering in through the front bedroom windows as we shut the curtains. 

One month it is tangled in the oak tree at the bottom of the garden, another time hiding in the trees between the bungalows opposite us. Other times it is palely loitering in the morning sky, almost hiding in plain sight.

I have decided to keep a closer eye on it. It still all looks very suspicious, or at the very  least mysterious, to me.

A shallow dive into the internet has informed me of two useful facts;

There are two full moons this month

A full moon rises directly opposite the setting sun; 'if you watch the sun setting, and then turn and face the opposite way you can see the moon rising'. That's always assuming that you can actually see the sun set and the moon rise - trees, houses and so forth are inclined to get in the way, not to mention weather. The link for this picture is below.

https://moonphases.co.uk/moon-calendar

Friday 18th August - Snails and criss stitch, and Food or Medicine?

Not much to say about snails, except they are quite engaging creatures with their little 'horns' and beautifully patterned shells. Except when they are eating my lettuces and primulas. I spotted a couple wending their way across the path this morning in the rain, along with a slug or two. Slugs are not engaging creatures in my view. Anyway, I picked them all up using my slugging tongs and deposited them in the council garden waste collection bin. The ones I had dumped in there a day or so ago had all laboriously climbed to the top of the bin and then I heard them drop back to the bottom when the lid fell closed wit a rumble-thump. I did feel a little bit mean...

There's a lesson there, in the way the snails persist in their determination to reach the top of the bin. Persistence is the name of the game with this month's cross stitch; for some reason I keep forming rows of cross-crisses instead of criss-crosses, and have to embark upon unpicking and redoing stretches, sometimes twice over. What is the matter with me? 

I have solved this problem for the moment by doing an entire row of crisses, and then going back with crosses over the top. Hallelujah! It worked! I completed a section in about 15 minutes, having spent an hour getting the previous section right. With this tactic I might make some serious progress.

At the moment I am enjoying delicious 'medicines'. Seriously. Recent blood tests, in preparation for an annual infusion of - wait for it - zolendronic acid - (I love saying that, sounds as though I should get a super power or at least glow in the dark, but it's just for osteoporosis which is a consequence of taking steroids) flagged up low levels of potassium, so I have been advised to have a banana and a glass of tomato juice every day. Good job I like them both!

(That's the new tray cloth). Then there is a handful mixed of nuts, I forget why it is supposed to be a good idea.

 Finally there's the small bowl of four soaked prunes with half a portion of live yogurt and a generous sprinkle of whole grain cereal. That's because I have altered my breakfast from muesli and milk to white toast and honey to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of the iron tablets I have to take twice a day, which clash with dairy, whole grains and calcium supplements. I'm reliably informed by Best Beloved that pictures of prunes are not a thing anyone wants to look at. Can't think why.

Anything else? Well, Dr Tim Spector would probably advise adding kombucha (not keen on the sound of that) or kefir (I've tried it; I'm not enthusiastic unless it is strained and used as a soft cheese spread) or kimchi (Tried that too, even made my own, and that's a NO) or sauerkraut (I do like that) That's to combat the effect of the prophylactic antibiotics I have to take all the time (to protect me from the consequences of taking immune suppressants.).

Somewhere in all this lot I have fit in time to actually eat a meal... oddly enough, I don't seem to be very hungry at the moment...

Hey ho. We shall see what the repeat blood tests show next week.  

      

Thursday 17th August - Air fryer cake

The big problem I have with making cakes in the air fryer is getting the time and temperature right.  Today I might have cracked it...

Our Philips Air Fryer has a little metal on that fits inside the basket for cooking things that would otherwise run through the holes in the basket.

These pans are ridiculously expensive, but entirely worth the money in my opinion. (There are quite a few pans in different shapes and sizes out there now).

Our pan exactly holds a 2-egg sponge cake; the all-in-one recipe I usually use has 2 eggs, and 4oz each of softened butter, SR flour and sugar. I tip this all into the mixing bowl, adding extra ingredients according to flavour, and a little dollop of milk to loosen the mix if necessary.

For cakes I line the pan with foil or paper.

I made a coffee cake this time, and actually remembered to make a note of the temperature; 155°C, and the timing; 40 minutes. (I cooked it for 35 mins, then added 5 more as it wasn't completely done)

It looked remarkably like the picture above, which I snipped from an advert for the tins. I suspect that the one in the picture might really by a macaroni cheese, though.

I can almost hear half of you saying "why bother with an air fryer?"

We use ours nearly every day, for heating and cooking and reheating and roasting and baking. It is so quick and convenient for the pair of us, does the job with minimum of fuss and no preheating, and best of all, switches itself off when the time is up!

I know they're not for everyone, but suits the pair of us perfectly!

Wednesday 16th August - Sunflowers - a welcome distraction

 

There are a number of places now where you can pick your own sunflowers, and one is quite close to here. I rang a friend on spec, partly because I was putting off doing some tedious task or other, and partly just for a chat. She was quite near to our house on her way back from lunch at the sunflower picking place with a friend, and was keen to drop by for tea.

She very kindly left us with two of her four sunflowers! What a doubly, trebly welcome treat! Tea in the garden, with a good friend, and two sunflowers as a memory!

I thought I might start teaching a course in procrastination - not how on to overcome it, but on how to enjoy it without guilt. 'Tomorrow is another day' and all that ... 

I suspect it isn't the skill of procrastination that people might want to learn, but that of developing a carefree approach to whether things get done or not.  

It is heading for 8pm and I still haven't Done That Task. Still, there's plenty of time before bed? No?

Tuesday 15th August - on dressmaker's chalk, coleslaw, and associated things

 This morning I finally unearthed the failed dress I made a few years ago, and first thought I would turn it into a skirt, and then changed my mind and decided to use it for this that and the other. The first being another tray cloth. Do you use them? I thought not. But my mother couldn't bear to take a tray of cups or plates or glasses anywhere unless it had a tray cloth on it. 

'Why,' I asked.

'Because my mother insisted that whatever the circumstances we should always use a tray cloth.' Bearing in mid that she lives through the war in the Netherlands, where life was unbelievably tough, I guess the persistence of tray cloths was a stand against all the other erosions of decency.

So now in my turn, I can't help but use a tray cloth. Some things are hereditary.

So I took my tray and laid it on the fabric. 'I know what I'll use!' I thought. 'That lovely tailor's chalk Ang sent me as a flat present.' (Ah yes, that was quite some holiday, Ang! You'll have to go back a month or so on her blog to get the reference to the pavement.)

    

It was very reluctant to leave a mark on the fabric... after several goes I realised it is a pencil eraser, and a very good one too! So I dug out the real dressmaker's chalk which worked perfectly first time.

 It is not often we have coleslaw, because I so dislike shop-bought. I find it too gloopy and wet, and usually has too much onion for my taste. A day or so ago I made some using about 50/50 finely shredded kohlrabi and white cabbage, a couple of spring onions chopped small,and a handful of peanuts. This last is a throwback to school days; they used to serve us a salad of finely grated carrots, mixed with peanut and raisins and I loved it. Couldn't do it now, with so many peanut allergies on the go (how did all those allergies happen?) 

For a dressing I mixed French Dressing from a bottle (Newman's Own) and Shop bought mayonnaise, again 50/50. Excellent.

I took some out of what was left for the next day, which was still good, and sprinkled it with a little Hot Smoked Paprika. That worked! And I perked up the remains at the bottom of the bowl with a small amount of creamed horseradish sauce.  Kohlrabi Coleslaw three ways!

Lunch today was a bit odd. The baked potato didn't cook in time, and we were in a hurry, as Tuesday is the day we take my father to his Bridge Club. So we just had meat and veg.

Later I cut the offending potato into wedges, sprinkled them with salt and gave them 15 mins at 180 in the air fryer. So tea/supper tonight was a bit odd too; cold sliced beef, bits of salad and hot potato wedges. 

Both meals tasted fine. 

Now we shall watch those poor teams pastry cooks being driven to their wits end and sobbing into their mousses, by a combination of Benoit and Cherish's impossible challenges and demands, and the two co-presenters just getting in the way with endless witticisms. I mean ' Bake-off, the professionals' of course.   

Monday 14th August - blog admin, tunisian crochet, rice pudding, birdsong,

 The title lists the subjects for today in the wrong order.

Let's start with the birdsong.

I was feeling really bleah this morning - no particular reason, just bleah. As I opened the door and came down the steps I heard a brief moment of birdsong, so clear, so true, so beautiful, that I was lifted out of my grey inner world and transported to a full colour, joyous morning of sunshine. My surroundings were  drear (the hospital car park; I'd been for a routine blood test) but I hardly saw the tarmac for gazing up at the trees nearby.

Walking back to the car I spotted a corner of wilderness among the dilapidated sheds and stashed broken furniture in an unkempt corner;

Some of the blackberries are nearly ripe. I could have taken this photograph anywhere in the local nature reserve... indeed, it is a tiny, forgotten little nature reserve.

I have just about perfected my basic rice-pudding-in-the-slow-cooker recipe. Bear in mind that mine is a small slow cooker for two, or at a pinch, three people.

1 pint milk

2 heaped serving spoons rice (a generous 2 oz)

1 serving spoon sugar (about 1 oz)Cook on high for between 2 and 3 hours, stirring once or twice. At 2 hours it is still a bit thin. A 3 hours it is surprisingly thick - heading towards solid! 

This makes 3 portions. Of course, your serving spoons may be larger or smaller than mine... you might have to play around a bit. 

Flavourings; any of brown sugar, nutmeg, cardamom pods, bay leaf, lemon zest...

It is certainly the weather for a good rice pud.

Tunisian crochet - if you haven't come across it before it's a bit hard to describe. The proper crochet hook for this is as long as a knitting needle, and really needs to have a stopper of some kind at the non-hooky end. Also, the handle needs to be smooth all the way along. If you are making a dishcloth, or a strip, then normal hook is fine. Try going up one size - eg 5mm hook for DK. 

 

Having done the usual way of starting, ie a single chain, or maybe a row of single crochet which will stop it curling, you set off on the forward pass, doing a row of single crochet BUT KEEPING ALL THE LOOPS ON YOUR HOOK.

When you reach the end, do a turning chain, and then do a bind off until you are back where you started, with just one loop on your hook. You can see in this picture how I am binding off by holding the yarn round the hook and drawing it through two loops at a time.

You can see all the vertical lines created in the fabric, with chains running horizontally through them beneath the hook. When you get back to the beginning, with only one loop left on your hook, you are now ready to work the magic;

Do a turning chain, and go forwards again, doing the yarn over, and then INSERTING THE HOOK THROUGH THE VERTICAL LINE and drawing the yarn through, but keeping your new stitch on the hook. 

Then once you have created all the loops, do a turning chain and bind them all off again! Keeping going, backwards and forwards until you have finished.

I don't know how to do shapings and fancy stitches, and I don't have proper hooks but that's ok - this is fine for dishcloths and flannels. 

For properly detailed instructions I advise you to have a trawl round youtube, especially if you would rather look at right-handed photographs and videos!

Blog admin
   

I often whack out the blog on my tablet with Antiques Road Trip burbling on in the background, (unless I don't care for the presenters for some reason, or the commentary starts to drive my a bit crazy). But this means I have been very lazy with adding labels to the posts. Today I went through and labelled April, May and June, so hopefully July and August will get caught up soon.

Sue asked her readers a number of questions in recent blog post of hers  about what makes them choose to follow a blog, or leave a comment and so on. That set me thinking, and is one of the reasons I have gone back through and added labels.

Reading back through the posts was interesting - I found I had already consigned most of the events into dusty corners of my mind (oh, how quickly the dust, real and virtual, accumulates) so it was good to do a little remembering. 

I have to say that if you prefer a blog that doesn't skitter about from one subject to another then you are out of luck, because that's not how my mind works! It also set me thinking about 'who am I writing for?' I will come back to this when I have done some more thinking - that's if I don't forget in the meantime.

(One vicar at our church, long moved away, was convinced I had a 'gift' for organisation and admin... he was serious, but everyone in earshot who heard him say this were convulsed with laughter, including me...) 

Thursday 1st June - knitting and reading, reading and knitting

Suddenly everything is growing at once in the garden. Even another pea has decided to germinate after I had given up all hope. I guess that's one lucky outcome from being so washed out all week, in that I hadn't got round to clearing out the apparently inert pots in the greenhouse. 

So there are upsides to feeling so sluggish at the moment! 

Every afternoon I've been able to sit outside for a while with a book and a cup of tea. Currently I'm reading an Anthony Trollope romantic 3-volume novel, 'Ayala's Angels'. Not at all what I was expecting from Anthony Trollope,  but good fun, light and easy. More like a Jane Austen in many ways. I wonder what set him to writing it? It poignantly sets out the very limited options available for young women - can they marry for love, or must they marry for money, to secure a future. For a woman without a husband or money has a desperate future ahead.

'The Real Mrs Miniver' and 'A Very Great Profession' have been put to one side until more brain cells are available...

So what do I do all day? I knit the sock; no brain cells required there, not even when it was time to do the forethought/afterthought heel placement at 7.5 inches, thanks to my paper ruler

which has the measurements for the various important moments all marked up.

I found some really contrasting yarn in my godmother's stash

 Now I just have to knit round and round and round...

And remember to stop eventually...

Knitting and reading seems to be the main way I'm spending my time at the moment. That's okay.... for now....!

 

Friday 28th April - strange dreams

I found I was dreaming cross stitches last night, rather in the way I used to dream minesweeper and tetris grids in years gone by. Disconcerting,  and not restful.  After yesterday's lack of cross progress I set to big time today, so I suspect I'll be dreaming of stitches again tonight. But, I am within shouting distance of completing it and posting it tomorrow or Sunday. The bank holiday means that it's going to take an extra day to reach Ang. She's already posted hers to me!

When I can't sleep and my thoughts keep going round on a loop I distract myself with selected audiobooks. They have to be just interesting enough to distract me, but not too exciting or terrifying!

I'm currently most of the way through the second of the Green Knowe children's books by Lucy M Boston. It is nearly too interesting, almost too exciting to be properly sleep-inducing. I set the timer for 30mins, after which the voice fades away, but last night I gave myself an extra 30mins as the story had come to an exciting bit.

We've sent off for a light-weight compact folding rollator, not for me, I hasten to add, but because my father’s super deluxe rollator is an absolute nightmare to fit in the rather small boot of our car. We have to put half the back seat down, empty the boot and and wrangle with the folded rollator while trying not to injure ourselves.

Now that he's accepting lifts from us instead of driving, we need to solve the rollator issue as he prefers it to his walking pole. He's due a visit from an occupational therapist who will hopefully find a better walking stich than this pole he's been using for a couple of years. 

And I've made spring rolls in the air fryer! I made up a mixture of  cooked chicken, spring onion, sriracha sauce, a couple of pieces of jalapeño pepper from a jar, red peppers, fresh coriander and lime juice all chopped small and stirred together. Because I was using cooked chicken I could taste it as I went along.

Then I took two sheets of filo pastry, cut each in half, and made 4 spring rolls. I sprayed them with oil and cooked them for 8 minutes at 190°C, turning and spraying the other side half way through.  For a first attempt I was very pleased; we had them for supper with a little soy sauce for dipping them. It sounds a huge amount of effort, but was actually not that bad. I'll make them again to use up the rest of the filo pastry.

Sunday 13th August - Almost nothing

 has happened today in terms of events to write home about; 

• a friend called round to collect her very, very late birthday present on her way from the 8:30 service at church; 
• 
  
• I managed to persuade myself to join the live stream of the second service at 10:30 (joining very late at nearly 11!). I'm glad I did; I heard a very good sermon. 'How can I learn if I have no-one to teach me?' asked the Ethiopian when Philip, the disciple joined him in his chariot (the story appears early in the book of Acts) and explained the Old Testament book of Isaiah to him. Ethiopia is now called Sudan. So the new Christian faith must have reached Africa early in the 1st century.
• 
  
• The usual after church zoom for us stay-at-home members was, as usual, a lovely time to meet up and chat, if only via screens
• 
  
• I have done a minute amount of cross stitch, along the lines of stitch around the sides of a box shape, and unpick one of the lines... I spent some time last night (probably only minutes, maybe even just seconds) having vivid dreams about my chart being wrong and the stitching being wrong. The chart is ok, but the rest of the dream came slightly true!
• 
  
• Now it is heading for tea-time so it looks as though once I have put something on a plate to eat, I have done all that I am going to do today.
• 
  

   

    

Saturday 12th August - Second Breakfast with the family

 Every so often we meet up with the offspring, and today was one of those 'every so often' days. Today was at Cowdray farm shop cafe. We meet in the morning for breakfast when we can be sure that the venue won't be busy. They have breakfast - waffles, maple syrup and bacon, and we have a second breakfast, as we are earlier risers. The waffles and bacon and maple syrup for himself, and avocado on toast for me. 

It is wonderful to be able to talk face to face, catch up on news, and just enjoy each other's company for a few hours. The wasps came and joined us (maple syrup!) but asking them nicely to go away, as I read somewhere recently, really seemed to work for a while; a calm 'please go away and leave us in peace' did the trick for while. Why? We fell to discussing how they could tell - frequency? vibrations in the air?

I said it worked for a while; eventually the maple syrup overcame their natural politeness. We trapped the first persistent offender under a miniature milk jug, whereupon it spent the rest of the time trying (and failing) to escape via the pouring lip. The second offender we trapped under a drinking glass and our problems were over. We did release them, unharmed, as we went.

It was the day of the Pony Club Championships. Being Cowdray Park it wasn't a gymkhana but a huge gathering of junior polo teams; groups of children on highly disciplined ponies and small horses trotting and catering here there and everywhere to and from the two polo pitches. All very impressive, and very interesting to watch.

I'm keeping up with the Pen and Ink drawing course. After days and days of drills, 

we have now reached real drawings for a few pages. The exercise is to examine the drawing carefully and note the different kinds of hatching used. I have chosen to copy the drawing a couple of times and make notes. The originals are on the left.

        

Friday 11th August - Walking to Norfolk?

 No, I have sent an Eygptian Walking Onion to Norfolk by Royal Mail.

 And incidentally used up 7 stamps from the stamp hoard; only another couple of hundred to go.

The box is much taller than the photograph shows. Here is my Egyptian Walking Onion in its new bigger pot;

Ang's will have traveled all the way from Really Useful Plants in Devon to Norfolk. For a brief moment I wondered if it could get there by itself, walking across the country, but that would take far too long, and it might gt lost on the way. 

Thursday 10th August - shh, don't say it too loud

 but Summer may have arrived. I joined friends for tea at a local tea room and we ended up moving our heavy picnic table into the shade...

I read that wasps go away if you ask them nicely; we tried it and it seemed to work, apart from one wasp which was determined to share in a jam and cream scone. We trapped it in a nearly empty jam dish by upending another emptied jam dish over the top. I guess the wasp may have been happy enough if jam is what it wanted, and we were happy enough because wasps were not what we wanted.

.....................

A remarkably fat envelope arrived today - what could it be? - 163 assorted stamps!

84 First Class, 59 Second Class, 17 First Class Large Letter, 2 20p stamps and a single 1p stamp. I my have missed the penny stamp. 

I sent off my father's old-style, non-bar-coded stamps for replacement. He always bought stamps in quantity, to defeat the price rises that occur from time to time. I discovered he had £147 worth. 'No, I don't think I want any stamps anymore,' he said, so I doubt I will be buying stamps in the near future.

(Why did the penny stamp? Because the threepenny bit. Ba-doom-tish. The old ones are the best)

I said I would take a picture of the oak tree with its raised canopy this morning, and here it is;

 I reckon about 6-9 feet has gone from the lower canopy on this side; the other side is untouched. That bench has not seen the sun since the leave came out!

Up until now we haven't had much opportunity to make use of the shade under the apple tree- but if Summer has come... we can dream, we can hope... 

Wednesday 9th August - You've got to love British weather

 because it gives us endless variety and topics for conversation.

Yesterday I was regretting not wearing my thermal vest. Today I am boiled in a long sleeved T-shirt which I thought would be a good compromise between vests and fleece (Autumn/Winter) and cotton trousers and short sleeves (Summer?)

I seem to have two or three sets of part-worn clothes hanging off the handles on my chest-of-drawers. They've all been worn so I don't like putting them back in cupboards or drawers, but not enough to go in the washing machine.

There are some thin Summer trousers, thick jeans (I'm wearing them and they are too hot today) and leggings. A thin fleece top, a thick fleece jacket... it's all a bit untidy, like the weather forecasts.

Who knows what tomorrow will be like? It's a real 'wait and see' sort of month. 

Tuesday 8th August - all energy washed away

 A rainy day can do this; when the sun is out and there is a gentle breeze, well, anything is possible. I ran out of 'oomph' by evening time so this post is delayed 24 hours. 

James the tree-man and his teenager son (filling in time and earning a bit of cash in the holidays) came to deal with The Sleeping Beauty's Forest in the morning, and worked on in spite of rain, drizzle, mizzle, stair-rods and even occasionally in the dry moments. He has all the tools, including 'Nessie', a chipping machine that he can steer into the garden like a giant powered rollator running on tracks, not wheels.

It didn't take long before that end of the garden was buried knee deep in bits of hedge and tree and shrub.

He's cut the hedge to the level you can see on the left, leaving it untamed behind, what we call 'down the back' as beyond our boundary fence the ground slopes steeply down for about 6 feet to the footpath/cycle track and the woodland. This is to give us some privacy from continuous stream of people all enjoying this lovely area. 

Goodness! I hadn't really taken in how HUGE the oak at the bottom of the garden has grown!

While he was working on the hedge it did a good job of sheltering him from the worst of the weather. He has 'lifted the canopy' of the tree, being very selective about cutting all or part of the lower branches overhanging our garden, so that there is clear air between the apple tree and the oak, and also letting a lot more light through to next door's garden. I will take a picture tomorrow, because morning sunshine is the best time to show the improvement.

The previous occupant of the house on the left of this picture was keen to have the tree cut down completely; he was an enthusiastic astronomer, and his highly technical and computerised telescope, housed in a special observatory with a sliding roof at the bottom of his garden relied on getting its bearings from the North Star. Unfortunately within a coupe of years of installing all this equipment the tree had grown sufficiently to obscure the star... He's moved to somewhere miles away, with no light or air  pollution, no large towns, no airport, and a clear view to the North, and the new neighbours have turned the observatory into a shed, covered in grape vines and surrounded by 10 foot tall sunflowers. He has VERY green fingers!

'I love work, I can watch it for hours,' remarks one of the young men in 'Three Men in a Boat'. Me too, but watching all that activity for nearly a whole day tired me out! 

    

Monday 7th August - Kohlrabi and Swiss Chard and Hatching

Regulars will know that this year I am determined to follow Huw's one year plan in his book 'Veg in one bed'.

Regulars will know I fell at the first hurdle; he starts at the beginning of the year, and at the second, he is a great fan of kale. 

Slugs dealt a mortal blow to one of his August tasks; transplant your lettuce plants into section section 5. After three nights there is nothing left in number 6.

Apart from this, I am carrying on; I have sown kohlrabi and Swiss chard. The big question in my mind was "do I like eating kohlrabi and Swiss chard?"

I added some of each to our supermarket order and today was the day to find out.

Kohlrabi chips in the airfryer are very good. They didn't come up at all crispy, but are soft and delicious. 

Peel the kohlrabi rather as you would a swede, and cut into chips. Toss in rather less olive oil than I used, maybe a couple of teaspoons would have been plenty, some salt, pepper and paprika.

Zap in the airfryer for around 15 mins (depends on the size of your chips) at around 190 (depends on your airfryer). Serve as a side vegetable or as a snack.

We also had airfryer Swiss chard and salmon for lunch;

The American recipe says to discard the stalks and just use the leaves; shock horror! I separated the leaves and stalks and cooked the stalks in a little oil in a metal dish inside the airfryer (ours came with one that with fits inside the basket) and some chopped onion. After about five minutes, when it was looking sort of plausible, I added the shredded leaves, a red chilli deseeded and finely sliced, some herbs and seasoning, and gave it all another five minutes. The leaves completely filled the basket (but well clear of the heating element!) but soon wilted down like spinach would. I put the two salmon fillets on top, with salt and pepper, and gave it 8 minutes at 190.

Success!

So if the slugs and snails don't get there first I'll be happy to eat as much chard as I grow.

The pen and ink project is still happening;

Who knew there were so many different ways of doing 'hatching'?

Doodling is quite a good way of passing a quiet half hour or so... and a good way of putting some of the hatching patterns into practice 

Sunday 6th August - sowing seeds - hope over experience?

 In the sunny gaps between the showers I have been sowing seeds again. The chard and kohl rabi seeds are in module trays in the mini plastic greenhouse (Huw Richards says to put them on a sunny windowsill, but in the past a huge number of little black flies appeared). The lettuce seeds are 3 to a 1 litre pots, which is what the RHS Wisley did when they were testing slug repellents, and are in the ancient perforated-mesh-because-the-plastic-disappeared 'greenhouse'. We shall see.

The RHS experiment tested copper tape and rings, grit, eggshell, wool pellets and bark, and none of it was any better than no protection! That's cheerful news (not).

We had some merriment and fun in the after-church chatty zoom, discussing slug pubs, coffee grounds (thank you for the suggestion in the comments yesterday, ElizabethD ) and even one idea from RHS or somewhere to have a 'slugs are welcome' zone to encourage hedgehogs. The last time I saw a hedgehog around here was about ten years ago.

How would the slugs know where 'their' lettuce patch was? It would save them the hassle of climbing up the sides of my pots if they knew where to go. I wondered about making a beery path for them to follow.   

Enough of the slugs!

While I was out there I saw a Red Admirable (for that is the original name for them)

wikipedia states that they are a 'calm' butterfly; this one was rested on the tangle of rampant rose and jasmine against a fence for about twenty minutes before moving on.

I have been walking Hadrian's Wall, all 90 miles of it, no cheating with buses or taxis. Oh, I missed a word out of that statement. I have been virtually walking Hadrian's Wall. It is a computer - app? website, anyway, that you sign up to, and purchase a route. Then it's up to you. If you are travelling on foot you just enter your step count or distance, if you are exercising in some other way like working out, dance, exercise class, you can convert your activity to a step count. Best Beloved and the offspring only enter distances if they go out for a walk - I put in my daily total step count.

When you make an entry, your little marker moves along the map, and you can see what the view is like. I wasn't sure what to expect in the way of scenery. In the event it was mostly bleak moorland, with the occasional house or farm

(You can see someone else's marker up ahead)

Finally I reached the end on the Western Coast;

As you can see, the tide was a long way out (when the google maps van drove past!)

I received my completion medal yesterday;

 

  I've gathered a bit of a collection since 2020. I am still aiming for a step count of 2500 per day while I make up my mind where to go next... swim the channel? climb Everest? Yosemite? who knows...

Saturday 5th August - no more lettuces

We woke ridiculously early this morning, at 5am. In the end I went downstairs and made a tray with coffee and croissants and brought it back to bed. 5.30am is not my preferred time for breakfast.

While the croissants were cooking (frozen ones) I went outside and had a look at my lettuces. Or rather the pot where there had been lettuces. I need to rethink my slug and snail defence and attack plans. I read that they LOVE bran, gorge themselves on it, get bloated and then... die. Bran is going on the shopping list. I also read that they hate coffee. That can be plan B.

It has been a mostly dismal day, weather wise. As in rain, rain, and more rain. The view through the windows has been something like this;

There were a few dry spells so it was possible to walk around the garden once or twice for some fresh air and watch the bees rushing to gather what they could while they could!

Early night, then, tonight.

Friday 4th August - successful slugging, and lost all sense of time

 The slugging last night was successful. I went out in the dusk, but that was too early. When I went again later at about 10pm with a torch I collected about a dozen slugs and snails, sizes ranging from tiny to humungous. 

This morning my lettuces were no worse than yesterday; I think I should go out again tonight. I heard one lady drops them all in with her chickens... apparently they love them. I don't think I want any chickens. Do you remember that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got some special ducks to deal with the slugs in his patch, only to discover that the ducks liked some (quite a lot, actually) of lettuce with their molluscs?

I had an abdominal ultrasound at lunchtime today, hunting for gall stones, apparently - this is all to do with a lung scan back in December which showed up 'something' happening in my abdomen. They have been resolved into 'nothing to worry about' and the 'treatment' plan is to 'keep and eye on things and let well alone'. Today was a 'keep n eye on things', I assume. The radiologist was charming and efficient, encouraging me every few minutes to relax (I didn't think I was tense!) The previous time (I had a scan on the day of the Coronation too) a different radiologist was equally charming, but, after a period of silence and intense concentration, if I had ever had my left kidney removed? 'Not as far as I know,' I replied. As I was pondering the implications of this question he said 'ah, I have found it now'. Good to know I still have the pair. 

The only inconvenience today was that I was not allowed to eat anything beforehand; what, no breakfast?!? So I was jolly hungry when we came home. The journey up and back, and the time in the hospital, had all gone so smoothly that we were back more than an hour before the crockpot curry was ready. So we had a little snack at about 12:30, and the lunch proper nearer 3pm. The late meal timings threw us out completely as regards working out where we were for the rest of the day.

Ah well, tomorrow is another day - this could have been my phrase for this year... 

Thursday 3rd August - slug attack, and other distractions

 I was not happy when I came out this morning;

something has been eating my lettuces. How did it get across the copper tape?

I shifted the pot and had a look around; one slug and two snails were lurking underneath. Not anymore! As I type this, dusk is coming on, and I shall nip out soon with my slugging tongs and see what I can find.

I had a go with the 'flat present' that Ang included with her cross stitch parcel; some metallic markers.

 I had two surprises when I tested the colours; firstly, they are a lot brighter than the caps suggested! Secondly, as you might be able to spot from the way I folded the edge of the paper, they do not bleed through the notebooks that I usually use. Excellent; I will enjoy making notes in my diary with them. 

I had to deal with a sneaky intruder this afternoon; Aki, our next door neighbour's cat, slipped into the kitchen when my back was turned and nipped upstairs. I came back in shortly after to amke a cup of coffee and read my book. 

There was a rat-tat at te sitting room window; I looked up but there was no one there. Delivery drivers often knock on the window as they don't always recognise our door bell. (We have a 'Downton Bell', the sort where you pull down on a metal handle which rings a real brass bell just inside the door rather than the usual little bell-push). 

Puzzled, I wondered through to the kitchen, and there, the other side of the glass door to the hall was Aki, drumming on the glass with one paw! I opened the door to the garden first, so he could see a clear way through, before opening the hall door. He didn't waste any time getting out; was that a defiant expression on his face? He has been angling to be invited in for several months but has never been allowed through the door!