Saturday 30th September

I have surpassed myself....

My September stitching has arrived at its destination before the month was over!

Is that a first? Quite probably. 

I still think the way letters and parcels travel across the country, or across the world, as a kind of magic. ("I don't", says BB. "It's an integrated system". Yes, we'll. Say 'integrated system' in the right tone of voice and it sounds like a magic spell to me).

It could be a model for international cooperation, indeed for all kinds of cooperation inside and outside our own country. If we can do it for letters, with a reasonable sense of trust that all the way along, from postman to sorter to driver to local depot to delivery, it is more likely than not to reach its destination, why can we to it for other so-called 'integrated systems'? 

Anyway, here's my September piece;

a selection of cross-stitch patterns in harvest/autumnal colours. In the end I had to resist filling in all the white spaces as the end of the month was about to happen. The bigger crosses are 'woven cross stitch; work a cross over 4 squares, and then another one on top, but weaving the needle between the threads of the lower stitches. (May and March stitcherings are alongside).

I've sown half a dozen chard seeds... am I too late? The whole year seems to be running late, weather-wise.

Full moon, and the Chinese Moon festival were last night. I saw the moon, misty behind thin cloud, as we went to bed.

Friday 29th September

Nearly the end of the week, nearly the end of the month!

The stitching for September went in the post today. I've remembered to take a photograph this time before I boxed it all up so I'll post about it once I know it's arrived; I don't want to spoil the surprise. 

Otherwise, not much has happened. I'm in the middle of the first of many episodes of 'hunt the stitch' with the sock I'm knitting. There were 60 stitches a few rounds back, now there are only 59. How come? That's a mystery to be solved tomorrow in daylight.

I picked chard, but have put it into a jug of water like a flowerless bouquet for now. And I pulled up the three full grown pack choi plants, which we had for lunch as a green medley with shallots, peas, beans and broad beans. I'm planning to sow some more chard in the space where the pak choi was, and hope it will manage to grow before it gets too cold.

No watercolours today; yesterday's picture was really the best of the bunch. These are what I did, warts and all!

I started by trying to do washes;

and progressed (?) to trying wet in wet, with less or more success.

I was cross with the top right picture ended up by sloshing water and paint all over it!

Thursday 28th September

Another month nears the end....

One more motif to stitch and I can post this month's stitching to Ang and post the picture on this blog... She's already posted hers to me!

I taught just one piano lesson today, with yesterday's that makes two this week instead of seven (or eight or even nine; one has fortnightly lessons and another has 'as and when' lessons). I'm sorry to have cancelled so many, but taking this steady has worked wonders.

Every so often I get fed up and think 'why am I fussing and inconveniencing myself and upsetting people, especially my father, by being so super cautious?'. Then something like the covid vaccination has such a drastic effect and reminds me why I really, really, really don't want to catch covid or flu. It's all tedious and annoying but - when I consider the alternative....

I've had a good time with the watercolours today. I checked the label on the tubes; they are made by M Graham. I've two white china snack trays each with three sections,  so I  squirted two dollops of paint into diagonally opposite corners, and mix and muddle in the space in the middle.

Everything just lives on this teatray which sort of fits in the nearby bookshelves.  All I have to door is get some water and paper and I'm ready to go. Most of today's efforts were boring (practising flat and graded washes) or not any good, but I'm pleased with this random scene of nowhere in particular.

 

Wednesday 26th September

 I spent an entertaining ten minutes or so watching a squirrel bustling about burying acorns in various pots around the garden. The upturned wire pot stands and hanging basket supports seemed to be enough of a deterrent to prevent it burying them in the freshly planted tubs, so it had to make do with scrabbling in the parsley and basil, and even in the pot with a dahlia in it. The squirrel dashed off, looking very affronted, after checking out my little water feature and discovering  that the solar powered fountain was not a stable stepping stone.

I shall wait and see if oak trees start growing out of my herb pots.

We nipped out before it got dark, well, He nipped, l walked slowly like a very, very old person (!), to earth up the potatoes. Should have been done a few days ago, but the days keep ping by without wait for us, 

I'm wearing the second pair of socks that I made. I was wondering if they would survive the washing machine, zipped up together in a net laundry bag, but they still fit comfortably and are very warm.

Back in the days when I would only ever knit things in at least aran wool on biggish needles I could never see the point of knitting socks. I suspect I may have become addicted,  especially now I have discovered the traditional Norwegian heel. It's a pattern that I have memorised without effort so all I need is sock yarn and needles and away I go. Sock yarn will be on my Christmas wishlist!

While I've been sitting around waiting for this episode of breathlessness to go, (which it is, little little) I've been watching youtubes on various topics including watercolours. 

Today was the day to have a go at trying out one of the demos for painting random 'made-up' flowers;

this was done very quickly by spattering some violet and red on the page and pushing the colours around with a wet brush, and doing the same with some greens. Later I added the lines to kind of make sense of it.

From another youtube a couple of years ago I learned to mix greens from pressman blue and azo green. I don't know if this works for paint in pans; my paint comes in tubes, but I can't offhand remember the make. 

I'll find out for another post, when I've rummaged for the tubes.

This is the Five Minute Watercolour book I might revist; I used it a few years ago and found the tips and techniques very interesting and useful. 

Tuesday 26th September - another quiet day

 More sitting around today, with a couple of little walkabouts in the garden. I can understand why the patients in a sanatorium were put out onto a veranda,, well wrapped up, to benefit from the fresh air. I thought I would follow their example when the sun came out in the afternoon, and sat outside with a crochet blanket arranged around me and a sun hat to shade my face, and read my book for an hour. 

I'm still reading the 'Lark Rise to Candleford' trilogy by Flora Thompson. The pace of the books is gentle and slow, making the 'Miss Read' books seem racy and pacey, and a mile away from the TV series. Perfect reading at the moment, and light relief from the Book Club choice of 'What Strange Paradise' by Omar al Akkaad which is working to what could well turn out to be an ominous and terrible climax.      

One of the things I've been doing is ruling up my 2024 diary. It's about September that I start having appointments arrive for 2024, and although I can enter them on my phone, I like to keep a paper diary as well. Oh, but which one? Which layout? 'How do I plan to use it? Back when I was working nearly full time as a teacher, the September - December academic was the best. Now I prefer January to December, and log piano lessons in a notebook covering the tax year; April to April. 

I've been using this A5 one for 2023;

but it irritates me that Saturday and Sunday are only given half the space of the other days, when they can be just as busy. I also don't find I need as much space for notes etc on the right hand page.

I've bought a lovely A5 notebook, made by Rhodia using Clairefontaine paper. The paper is one of the nicest to use for pens, a great point in its favour as far as I am concerned. (I freely admit to being a notebook nerd with a bit of a stationery obsession).

It doesn't have enough pages to allow for a week on one page and notes on the other, but that's OK as I reckon I will have enough space for notes as well as appointments with this layout.

I suppose some people - many people - will think ruling up an entire year's worth of days and dates in glorious technicolour is a monumental waste of time. I find it a rather 'zen-like' activity, done over several weeks. I'm up to August now, so over halfway.

Cross stitching - yesterday I ran out of yellow in the needle with two stitches to go. Today I threaded up the needles and sewed two stitches. That's it.

But I have finished knitting the toe of the second sock - not as impressive as that might sound, as it is a 'toe-up' sock.

Changing the subject again, here is a photograph of my vandalised pak choi.

There are still 14 seedlings in there, just about hanging on! I put a wire pot stand over the top yesterday, and that seems to have prevented further disturbance.Maybe they'd prefer a cloche. I'll ask them tomorrow.

I am continuing to improve; used the oxygen concentrator a lot less today and by breathing really deeply and doing nothing I can maintain an almost respectable oxygen level of 92%. Using the portable concentrator to get up the stairs helps too.

I did cancel piano lessons timetabled for this evening and tomorrow evening. There's no point rushing things. 

Monday 25th September- on the way up

'Every day in every way I'm getting better and better'

Where did that come from?

It turns out that this little saying has quite serious scientific origins - who knew? It sounds more like something Mary Poppins would have said.

A very quick search on the Internet and I'm on the Wikipedia entry for Èmile Couè, a Frenchman, who developed a theory of heling oneself through auto-suggestion back in 1920.

Anyway, it is holding true for me. Not the auto-suggestion bit, I  mean, but how I am feeling today compared to yesterday. 

The same can be said of my tomatoes; here's how they were a few days ago, on a sunny window upstairs

and now half of them are ready to eat.

I've picked out the ripest, and left the orange and green ones on the other tray on the windsill. I reckon this is much better than shoving them in a paper bag with a ripe banana; that seemed to have no effect at all.

It's been another day of sitting around reading, with some cross stitching. 

Going upstairs was been a real trial yesterday, but this morning I hit on the plan of having the small portable oxygen concentrator ready at the bottom of the stairs. I set it to max and took it with me to go upstairs and into the bathroom without feeling I was going to expire when I get there. Result! 

Slugging is not going to happen tonight either, but I'm hopeful for tomorrow. I went out to look at the garden before it got dark. Still 14 pak choi, but something has been digging in the pot, so they are looking a bit bedraggled. I've had very little success with hanging badko ver the years, but the redundant wire baskets make excellent protective covers to keep 'varmints' off my pots. I've put one over the pak choi.

Tomorrow is another day....

Sunday 24th September

 It's astonishing how one day can be so different to another.

Yesterday was great - warm sunny weather, so many lovely things happened all through the day

and then today. Grey and a little chilly apart from an hour this afternoon.  The covid/flu vaccinations have hit me like a club. I've spent the day on the settee watching back episodes of bake-off (again) apart from a turn round the garden when the sun came out. If my step counter reaches 500 by bedtime I shall be amazed. 

I have almost completed yesterday's cross stitch motif; just a few stitches to go. I stopped when I was losing the plot trying to thread a needle before lunch! I might give it another go now, while the bakers try and create a layered sponged cake and Himself heats mini sausage rolls for supper.

Saturday 23rd September - an extraordinary day

The day was special from the start; just look at the date

23/9/23 

I like a date with a bit of a pattern.

The day got better and better. Himself produced a beautiful pen for me at breakfast time, and a lovely card for our wedding anniversary. (My present would come later)

Then a friend came round for coffee with cards from herself and another friend and a big bunch of flowers

Our wedding anniversary 'treat' was - covid vaccinations! OK, perhaps a different day would have been more romantic... they offered flu vaccination at the same time so we said 'why not?'. I'll have to cancel our flu clinic GP appointments for next Saturday, but perhaps someone else will be grateful for our places.

We came home via John Lewis where we collected my present; a selection of Neudigger marzipan confectionery which is his favourite.

While we were off gallivanting, my gardener had spent a couple of hours sorting out and replanting half a dozen patio tubs with tulips, daffodils, muscari and 'mystery bulbs' rescued throughout the year. I love the appearance of the tubs, full of beautiful fine dark crumbly earth and the promise of an exciting spring show. I could just sit and admire them for hours. Well, quite a while anyway.

Not much cross-stitching got done, so I'll try and catch up tomorrow. We are already beginning to discuss next year....

Friday 22nd September

 Wasted most of today, scrolling and sudoko-ing...

But no, thinking back, I did do a fair few things...

The Household Task; washing bathroom tiles and bathroom windows as far as I could reach after my bath. I  may have to polish the windows with a dry cloth tomorrow. And I'm hoping that Best Beloved will do the top quarter light and the top rows of tiles sometime.

The Admin Tasks: checking bank accounts, making payments, and looking to see who hasn't paid me yet! Also updating the records of the weekly shopping for my father.

The Music Teaching Tasks: two students to have lesson notes written and sent and one invoice to send out.

The Gardening Tasks: walking out to see if any more pak choi seedlings have been chomped. No, there were 14 last night, and stillx14 this morning. We didn't go out on Wednesday night because it was raining so heavily, and I reckon some of those tiny snails, looking like little pearl buttons, had come out and helped themselves. 

I had potted on 25 pansy plants yesterday, and today it was the turn of 15 Brompton stocks. I also rescued a couple of trays of cuttings which were several inches deep in water after all the rain.

The Cross Stitching Task: Another motif competed. I stopped at that point, as I had already caug ht and tangled the thread three or four times before I had finished the first stitch!

I also did a 6 minute walk test, the first in over a month. I managed 211m; a personal best! I wasn't even wearing proper soes, just my gardening clogs. My oxygen levels have been low recently so I wasn't expecting much. I pretended to myself that I wasn going to push myself, and it was just to give it a go. I still don't quite believe it, so I'll try again tomorrow and see how it goes.  

So, not a wasted day after all. And there's still tonight's slugging...

Tuesday 20th September - how? what? when?

 It's 7.30pm, and I am finished for the day, apart from slugging last thing tonight.

Yesterday and today were just FULL of one thing after another - mostly minor but a couple of bigger things to deal with, and today has felt pretty much the same. I was on top of things until the last music lesson at 6.30;

'can you help me with my music theory homework?' 

so from the depths of my brain I retrieved the information of transposing orchestral extracts into different keys... we got there, and now I have decided it is chocolate o'clock and time to disappear into my book.

I will just add that I am charmed that the first potatoes to sprout their little leaves above the earth were the ones called 'Swift'. Arran Pilot were next, and now the Maris Pipers have appeared. Every veg pot bar one is now growing something; lettuces, or pak choi, or chard, a few carrots, the Egyptian walking onion (no sign of baby onions yet), potatoes and cauliflowers. I have put a perspex cloche on the cauliflower pot as they seem to be growing very slowly. How will I know when the kohl rabi are ready, I wonder.

I finished the area of cross stitching I started yesterday, ready to start the next bit tomorrow.

Where did September go?

I started this drawing a few days ago and have been tinkering with it ever since - the little white house on the Fulham Road. I wonder how far back it goes? A an with a bicycle came out of the front door; where does he keep it? Does he have to sort of pull it in after him or is there enough room to squeeze past it? 

Monday 18th September- three seasons in one day

But not winter .... yet....

We had hot sun, cloudy skies, and solid rain off and on all day. 

Best Beloved was busy busy busy on errands connected with my father; driving to the next town to collect a click and collect replacement mouse and keyboard, and back to his flat to install it took up a good chunk of the morning. The afternoon was a walk in the sunshine into our town to buy a replacement mobile phone. 

The staff in the shop were fascinated by the old one;

This phone is probably more than 10 years old, I'm guessing. Anyway, it was definitely broken, and overdue for replacement. I'm hoping that my father will take to the new one...

I always see Mondays as an opportunity for a fresh start... I  fill up the to-do list with all sorts of good intentions. We'll just have to see how th8s week carries on. 

I did manage to get on to a housework task which was impacting on my happiness; a window which I look out of every morning on the sunny side of the house is no longer  dirty. But I won't know if I managed to polish the glass to my satisfaction until tomorrow morning. For some reason cleaning windows is an excellent way of increasing the number of steps on my step counter. I'll happily keep them; I might not have been moving my feet but window cleaning is more energetic than walking. 

 

Sunday 17th September - Hello again, Autumn!

 At least, after this afternoon's thundery heavy rain we won't need to water the garden!

Slugging yesterday evening; only caught three. Are we winning?

Supper is coming (capeletti and pesto) in a few minutes, before I embark on the fourth zoom of the day (one piano lesson which was a go-no go lesson to assess whether student might possibly have a chance of passing a Grade 7 piano exam later this term; you have to book 8 weeks in advance and hope they will actually put the work in over the subsequent weeks - nail-biting stuff, and three various friends and family zooms...) 

What with one thing and another I've reached the end of my communication and typing skills for today...

Back tomorrow - maybe!

Saturday 16th September - hello Summer!

I'm back! Not that I've really been away; we spent most of Thursday morning driving to London; the traffic was something else. We had allowed plenty of time, but 3 hours was ridiculous. I baled out of the car at a red traffic light just past the hospital (our intended destination) and had enough time to make my way to the lung function testing unit. 

The tests went smoothly, and once again the results were roughly the same as last time.  It's clear that my lung function is very slowly decreasing as the years go by, which is only to be expected. I'm grateful that this disease is progressing so very slowly at the moment,  and that unlike many auto-immune diseases it does not seem to cause me any physical pain.

We had a lovely lunch sitting at an outside table in the hot afternoon sun.

I was fascinated by this little tiny white house, squashed in between a Thai restaurant and a shop, painted black all over, selling sequins and beads and glittery stuff for expensive couture dresses. I was trying to imagine how it would be arranged inside. 

While I was watching a man came out with his bicycle; how on earth did he get past it in that narrow hall?

Afterwards we came home, taking a mere hour and a half! We put the parasol up and sat in the garden enjoying the peace and quiet.

We both spent yesterday recovering, no, I spent the day recovering; Best Beloved went supermarket shopping for my father. 

Today has been quiet; BB has just about mended the kitchen drawer, and I have charted and begun to stitch the September cross stitch collaboration. It's always a great relief to me when I finally make the plunge. I had a sudden crisis when a tempting design crossed my screen, but sense prevailed and I've stuck with plan A!

Wednesday 13th September - Evening All!

Two posts in one day! I'm unlikely to post tomorrow because it is all bit of a full-on day, so I thought I'd do another post today.

Autumn has arrived again! We both woke up feeling cold in the middle of the night - we've just been using an empty duvet cover instead of a real duvet while it's been so hot - but last night it was definitely NOT enough. So it seemed the right moment to change the sheet and pillowcases and duvet cover and go back to using the duvet again. I love sleeping in clean sheets!

............................   

We have been revisiting the problem of the impact hammer in the kitchen. By which I mean the effect of the cutlery trays 

shifting in the drawer as it is opened and closed;

This is not the first time it has happened. As the cutlery trays slide to the back of the drawer they slowly dislodge the end piece of said drawer until finally the whole is decanted into the baking tine drawer below. Last time, Himself ordered all the screws and bolts and washers and whatever to effect a repair, and saved said bits and pieces ready for the next time - but where? However, by hook and by crook and by mail order he has assembled everything and started work;  

It's going to take a few days, with the various stages being fitted in alongside everything else.

 

Wednesday 13th September - Morning All

Where have I been? Nowhere.

What have I been doing? Bits and pieces, this and that, something and nothing.

At least, that's how it seems.

In the garden;

I had enough confidence in the results of our intensive slug control programme to transplant the lettuces I had been nurturing in the greenhouse. They have survived the night. It's all looking hopeful at the moment; cauliflower seedlings, swiss chard, pak choi and kohl rabi, all growing on well. I have sown spinach and more pak choi. It give me so much pleasure to see the little plants in the pots. I'm rather sorry to pick and eat them, but that is the point, I suppose. There's a lot of butterfly damage going on with the pak choi leaves, so I might try cloches on the lettuce since I don't have any suitable netting. I noticed a snail or slug trail on one of the kohl rabi leaves; I shall inspect it closely by torchlight tonight! 

Planting out my cauliflower seedlings ha taught me a valuable lesson in the use of paper pots for module sowing. I didn't use them this time, and maybe I was impatient and transplanted them too soon, but they were a nightmare to handle without damaging the fragile stems, whereas popping a whole paper pot into the earth would have been simple. Luckily they seem to have survived and are managing to stand upright. The pale bobbly stuff on top of the earth is pelleted wool to dissuade slugs and snails.   

In the kitchen;

I've made a caraway seed cake - one of my favourites. I just do a 2-egg mix it all in one bowl victoria sponge and add a good shake of caraway seeds. How much? Well, how seedy do you like your cake? I was amused to read in 'Kitchen Conversations' by Agnes Jekyll (sister of gardener Gertrude) that seed cake was usually served at 'nursery tea'. I wouldn't have thought it would appeal to nursery children. The book is a collection of articles written for The Times, I think, back in the 1920s. Most of the recipes sound pretty unpalatable to today's taste and also unbelievably fussy. It also assumes kitchens with a cook and a kitchen maid, and servants to hand round dishes (previously kept warm on a hotplate behind a screen in the corner of the dining room). Evening meals seem generally to have soup, fish, meat, dessert, sweet and savoury courses, with of course, the obligatory provision of wines, cigarettes and cigars (pipe smokers apparently bring their own tobacco and need not be catered for).

I've also failed to make a slow cooker risotto. It would probably have been fine if I had switched off the cooker after 2-3 hours on high. But I didn't.

It's slowly unsticking from the pot with a good soak. 

Reading;

I was recommended the D M Greenwood 'cosy mystery' series. They are set in a fictional cathedral city which I strongly suspect is Norwich, and feature the inimitable Theodore Braithwaite, a deaconess as the sleuth. As the whole 9-book series is currently on offer for 99p on Kindle I thought I may as well...

I devoured book 1 (this could be part of the reason why I forgot to blog?) and am now deep into book 2. The context is very much within the machinations of the Anglican Church, at a time (written in the 1990s) when women could not be ordained to the priesthood. There is a fair amount of spiritual thinking going on in athoughtful and compassionate way, and I think there will be quite a lot to do with horse riding along the way - not too much, but I am enjoying the setting, the horses, the machinations and the spirituality.    

Lark Rise to Candleford (Flora Thompson) is my 'lat thing at night settle down to sleep' reading at the moment.

  

 

Sunday 10th September - Harvest Moon

 The full moon this month is the Harvest Moon, traditionally the nearest full moon to the Autumn Equinox. This year it will be on Friday 29th September at 5.57 am. There's a very good chance I'll be awake then, as I have been waking just before 6 most mornings.

This is the month of Harvest Festivals - some churches (but not ours)had theirs today. I have been enjoying the little food I have managed to harvest this year. At the moment it is tomatoes and pak choi. I am tending to make a mixed green vegetable medley with the pak choi, shallots and any other vegetables to hand. It is always a good idea to cook the stalks first, and then add the shredded leaves at the last minute.

Being in the garden just makes me happy; today I transplanted cauliflower seedlings (we shall be keeping the slug hunting going!) and sowed spinach (which I haven't been successful at so far this year) and more pak choi. I was going to sow some tatsoi as well, until I read the packet more carefully and saw it said 'pak choi' in brackets after the name!

I read this quotation from a John Masefield poem earlier today;

'Best trust the happy moments - what they gave

Makes a man less fearful of the certain grave

And gives his work compassion and new eyes -

The days that make us happy make us wise.'

(It's from a very long poem called 'Biography')

I don't know if I will get round to reading the whole poem, but those lines are lovely.

I think I'll be marking Harvest Festival Sunday (whenever that will be in our church) with donations to the Trussell Trust and the Salvation Army, to help with their work alleviating food poverty. More practical for me than taking in jars and packets and cans.

Saturday 9th September

 Possibly the hottest day of the year so far? I didn't blog as I was too hot to even think (it's now Sunday morning). So hot I couldn't even remember if I had even done anything all day.

In fact I'd done quite a bit of this, that and the other;

Sorting colours for this month's cross country collaboration cross stitch thing

Knit the first two rounds of the heel of the first of the current pair of sock for the second time (are you still with me?). I thought of a 'clever hack' to keep things simple on the decreases. Unfortunately,  when I was ready to finish off the heel I discovered that my 'clever hack' resulted in the end of the heel had slowly spiralled round to be at right angles to where it needed to be. Deep sigh, rip it back, pick up the stitches and find the will to carry on.

Finish sewing them hem of my father's trousers

Cook ra 1violi in the air fryer for supper! I've seen a recipe for fresh ravioli (from the supermarket) dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and cooked in the air fryer, but this one skipped the egg and breadcrumbs. This was surprisingly easy and surprisingly good. I used ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta. Carefully separate them, brush lightly with oil, fry for 8 mins at 190°C in a single layer, turning halfway through. 

We had si mple dips; mayo and lemon juice, mayo and chilli sauce, and the remaining salads from a few days ago. Even though doing it in batches was a bit of a fuss, I'm still putting this on the menu. 

Going out slugging was a pleasure; I hadn't realised how hot it was inside the house and how blissfully cool it was outside. We only found four. 

Friday 8th September

It's been a lovely day.

I did a housework task which has been nagging at me for a few days.

Then it was time for our curate, also an old friend, to come round for coffee and Home communion, for the second time since March 2020... the garden so peaceful... the lovely familiar words... 

In the afternoon I slowly got to work shortening the new trousers for my father;

I've finished one leg, just another to sew, and I can let him have them back. 

Later in the afternoon I went out to see about planting the seed potatoes into spare tubs which won't be involved in the panting schedule again until spring. Himself came out to see what I was doing, and very kindly took over the heavy work of emptying the three large tubs, and then putting just 4 inches of enriched soil back to make nice soft bed for the tubers. I've put three in each pot, and then covered them with a few more inches of more enriched soil. I even remembered to label each pot; Maris Piper, Arran Piper, and Swift.     

I've also given up on my tomato plants, and put all the green ones in a paper bag along with a ripe banana. Monty Don says this is what you do, and he should know!

We'll round off the evening with a bit of slugging...

Thursday 7th September - the pace is slowing down...

Morning - dental hygienist for me; it wouldn't take long if we had changed to a dentist closer to home, but since we are still going to the same practice nearly an hour's drive away - well, we have only ourselves to blame!

Afternoon - for me, a very pleasant time in a local cafe, sitting in the shade in the corner of their courtyard having tea and shortbread with a friend and a little flock of sparrows. They were twittering about in the thick hedge immediately behind me, taking turns to see if there were any crumbs (there weren't!)

for Himself, a far more strenuous time - shopping for my father and taking the food round (which also involves checking the fridge, clearing up any consequences such as storing the apple juice carton on its side - it always leaks  -and dealing with any food past use-by dates etc). He does all of this now - I used to go round too, but the trek up to my father's flat is too far for me these days.

and - whoop whoop - he persuaded my father to try on a pair of trousers and a shirt from the selection I had ordered, and they have all been accepted! I have to shorten the trousers, but I knew that was going to be necessary.

Evening - look what we found when we were looking round the garden and doing the watering;

I thought it was very obliging of them to flower so close to the path. I planted the original corms several years ago much further back, nearer the main trunk of the smoke bush.

And these were delivered at some point during the day; I shall do my best to get them into their ready-prepared containers in the hope of new potatoes at Christmas.

 Tomorrow we only have one thing in the diary; our friend, the curate at our church, is coming for coffee, and also to do a 'Home Communion' service for us; like a Communion service in church but just for us. I am so looking forward to it.  

Wednesday 6th September - Mission Accomplished!

 I think the last few days went pretty well for my father and his brother - it was a pretty packed schedule for them bearing in mind their respective ages...

My uncle lives about 2 hours drive away, so packing, travelling, tea in our garden and settling in on Monday, plus my father cooking (microwaving) their suppers was a full day.

Yesterday after breakfast (Oat-so-simple porridge, with clotted cream and honey) we took them to a local pub for their lunch. I'm not good at drawing people (yet - that's a project for the future!) and as I try to never post photographs of family and friends on the blog you will have to make do with my rough pencil attempt;

 I took the picture from the outside of the pub looking in, much to their surprise as they were already awaiting their beers and beginning to study the menu. My father's on the left; he takes after his mother, being stocky 'like a Cornish miner', she always used to say. (Regretfully I take after him too). My uncle is thinner and leaner, like Grandfather was. 

(People always said he looked like the man in the moon from the John Lewis Christmas Avert some years back... when they were in Ireland on a family trip, people were always mistaking my uncle for the then Prime Minister. Does everyone always look like someone else?)

My father was worried about how to entertain his brother - he needn't have been, as they both spend their days having a little nap before and after lunch...

Today we collected my uncle and took him to his next hostess, about half an hour away, where he caught up with old friends and had lunch. He was taken home by his daughter-in-law, while we returned to take my father to the dentist after lunch! I shall ring him up later to make sure he wakes up and has supper; you may have noticed that reference to clotted cream; he is tending to lose weight and since he doesn't eat biscuits, cakes, sweet, and certainly not chocolate (!) it is hard to find things that he easily add to the day's meals to add calories.

'I can't really taste the clotted cream, it is wasted on me so you better have it' he said. But I assured him that if he didn't mind having some on his porridge it would probably be a good idea and keep the nurses happy... Goodness knows I really mustn't add clotted cream to my diet!

It is very touching to see them together - 'we must do this again sometime,' said my uncle as he climbed into our car with his overnight bag (2 pairs of glasses - check, phone and charger - check, razor and charger - check) and maybe we can fix something for them.

Other news;

our haul of slugs and snails decreases every night, I am glad to say. Before people mention wildlife and feeding toads and whatever, we only hunt in the top half of the garden, and I know for a fact we have a toad near the vegetable patch, a frog in the weeds by the water fountain, and a wren that goes through the undergrowth of the long flower border most days...

Our cardoons aren't as giant as I had hoped - maybe they are the wrong sort of cardoons? The are still about 5 feet high, and forming flower heads now. I had to stand on tiptoe to take this. 

Tomorrow will be busy; hygienist for me, and tea with a friend at a local cafe. The an evening zoom with my church group. Himself will be taking me to the hygienist (I need to start driving again now the world chez nous is calming down a bit) and doing my father's shopping in the afternoon, and also starting the first steps in persuading him to try on the new trousers and shirts I have bought in the hope they might fit.  

Tuesday 5th September - Second Summer?

I didn't write a post yesterday - by the time the evening came I was zonked...

My father (aged 94) has invited his younger brother to stay for a few days n the guest room of the sheltered accommodation where he lives. My cousin, his daughter brought him over yesterday, and tomorrow we are taking him to another friend where his son will meet up and drive him back home.

Oh, the planning! Oh, the covering every eventuality! Oh the thinking about meals, when and where! Oh, the exchanging of telephone numbers!

I hadn't realised quite how much mental effort it had taken until last night, and now, in this heat, I still feel very sleepy. I'm still waiting to get the directions to where we need to go tomorrow. 

The rest of Wednesday, Thursday and possible Friday are pretty full days for us too.

In other news; have you spotted the moon, high up and chalky white against the pale blue sky in the mornings towards the East? I expect it has a special name - I just call it a 'chalk moon'.

Slugging seems to have been a success; we are still catching and dispatching some every evening, but nowhere near as many as before, and not so many monster slugs. So I think my theory about them all escaping from the council garden bin every night might be true. My pak choi, kohl rabi and swiss chard are all still there, just as I left them (but hopefully a little bigger?

I've just realised that piano teaching starts next week. I spent half an hour on Oscar Beringer exercises (dull dull dull but effective if you do them properly) and need to begin working on the pieces I will be teaching. I'm quite looking forward to it after the break.

This is the old village school (now four houses) opposite where we had our picnic.

I had a go at sketching it. All those roof lines...

  

Sunday 3rd September - Job Done

I shall be putting August's cross stitch collaboration piece in the post to Ang tomorrow morning. It's gone 9pm and I finished stitching about ten minutes ago.

We've just been out slugging, but it's too early. Yesterday evening's jaunt round the garden with a torch was a great success and I can report that slugs appear to be as susceptible to cider as they are to beer. We'll go out again later before we go to bed. I'm still obsessing about these sneaky molluscs as I have transplanted the swiss chard now as well;

They are all looking a bit despondent at being turfed out of their pots, but hopefully they will recover. I have covered the entire surface of the pot in slug wool, and also propped up any leaves that were flopping towards the edge of the pot so the slugs and snails can't reach across. 

It was a beautiful day for being in the garden; I cleared a number of pots which had optimistic labels like 'spring onions', 'spinach', 'cauliflower' stuck in them, but after over a month no evidence of anything growing. 

The earth is so lovely and soft and crumbly that I prefer not to use gloves but stir it around with my hands - I love the feel of it. The pak choi and kohl rabi have survived overnight. The pot right at the back is labelled 'lettuce' but now only contains forget me nots. I haven't decided whether to let them stay or weed them out.

That's Aki, the cat next door. He had been an 'indoor cat' for the first year or so of his life; he was completely astonished when tentatively exploring our garden to discover other cats. He obviously knew about, and understood people, but had not met another cat since he was a kitten. It was very amusing to watch him and our elderly (sadly no longer with us) cats; he was non-plussed by our cats, and they were alarmed by him. Partly because he was a new cat, and partly because he had no idea what was going on when they hissed at him, or tried to stare him out.   

My friends in Canada were asking if we had issued our slugs with passports and sent them their way - apparently their borders are crammed full of them too....

Saturday 2nd September - brilliant day (so far)

This morning began with a morning meet up at our favourite farm shop cafe with son and daughter. Husand and they had their usual waffles, bacon and maple syrup, I had what is becoming my usual; avocado on sour dough toast. (Guess who was NOT plagued by wasps?)

After a rather ominous start to the day, weather-wise, the sun came out, so we walked over to the picnic area and played a board game in the sun - oh joy - we haven't met up for a family games night since the beginning of 2020. 

 

We are playing Ank Morpork, based on the Terry Pratchett games. I wanted to buy another set a few years ago and was astonished to find that they are available on e-bay at over £100 now; they have stopped making them (why?).

Daughter won; himself and I can barely remember the rules, let alone the winning strategies. 

After lunch was an intensive cross-stitching session, followed by an hour in the garden. With some trepidation I decided it was time to transplant my kohl rabi and swiss chard plants after all our diligent slugging.

Horrors! When I looked inside the garden bin, I could see all the snails up at the top, waiting to make their escape, but not a slug to be seen! Some, no, most of the slugs were absolute MONSTERS when we chucked them in - had the snails eaten them all? I doubt it.

I think they spend every night oozing their way under the lid, and it had been the same slugs we have been trapping and chucking every night.

There's nothing for it - we will have to take my friend's advice (she is over 80 and been a true countrywoman all her life) and 'finish them off'. But how? 'Don't ask, don't tell' can be very good advice in certain circumstances and this might be one of them.

Meanwhile I have planted out the kohl rabi;

 Each little plant is surrounded by slug wool, and I have set cider (we haven't got any beer) traps in the tub, unprotected by slug wool, and placed a cider trap at ground level. We have also put a cider trap next to the garden bin. I'm not sure why, (don't ask, don't tell, remember?) but it seemed a good idea at the time.

Since then I have read up on beer traps, how often you replenish them, what to do with the horrible contents, and, finally, why they are such a bad idea according to one website... 

this is because they attract slugs from all over the garden, and many just take one or two sips and then start on the flowers and veg! NOoooooooooo!

Tonight's slugging, and tomorrow's inspection will be nail-biting times.

In other news, I have barely used the oxygen machine at all today; while I was out walking this morning, and now, after that relatively strenuous hour in the garden, and I shall stop the machine very soon.

Friday 1st September - best laid plans

No 1 plan, to send my August Cross Country Collaboration off to Ang hasn't worked out. It's partly because having hummed and hah-ed I have decided that I DO want to fill in the white space between the motifs - and having missed the post today there's no chance of Ang getting it before Monday. Ho hum.

One serendipitous discovery is that having started filling in the white space (Yes, it was the correct decision) is that there was one line that needed a border stitched, but this would have impinged on Ang's 'Bless this Home'  piece. But, hurrah, close inspection and careful counting revealed that her picture is off-centre by a whole row!  

The picture above doesn't show the full space, but to the left of the border there are 5 squares, and to the right of the border there are 6 squares. So I have encroached by one square, making Ang' piece exactly central.

Filling in the white space is going quite quickly, I'm glad to say, just using one colour (well, two thread from different skeins) so I can track up and down the rows doing all crisses and then all crosses. No thinking required. Or not much.

So, Ang, if you are thinking about September already, firstly my apologies for delaying your start, and secondly, at least you know that I am filling the bottom right corner!

Secondly, I was going to post a photograph of Ang's lovely piece of stitching for August here. She must be a real high-speed stitcher because she appears to have all the stitching over the weekend! I'm happy to manage 50-70 stitches per hour if I am reading a chart, and can reach 100 per hour if I'm just doing large blocks of colour.  

I still haven't got me, my phone and the sewing all together, so I am 'borrowing' Ang's photo from her post; (hope you don't mind) and I really recommend you follow the link as she has written in detail all about the inspiration(s) and why she chose shades of purple.

the writing is 'tenui filo magnum texitur opus', the original motto of the company which is now DMC threads and means 'from a single thread comes great work'.

Yes indeed.

Other news - I don't know. Is slugging news? We went out again, and I took a bigger pot, and we collected at least another 20 slugs and snails. 

I'm hankering to get back to the pen and ink stuff I was doing - I've tried an idea or two but not started the next topics in the work book yet.

Books; Oh how I have been reading books this past week!

I finished

'How to run your home without help' by Kay Shrubsall, a Persephone book I have read before. This time I read it with increasing horror; daily dusting, sweeping, brushing and vacuuming carpets, washing and polishing floors, the labour of laundry ('first assemble everything you will need; soap, jelly soap, soda, buckets, brushes, bowls, make sure you have arranged plenty of hot water and set the boiler to heat, fetch in the mangle'). She fills every moment of the day with unrelenting cooking, cleaning, shopping and house work, and the evening with knitting, sewing, ironing and mending. 

and

'Cotillion' by Georgette Heyer - I snapped it up for 99p on kindle as my own copy is a well-thumbed paperback from my teenage days. I had completely forgotten the plot, which is oneof her more complicated ones. But the right people paired off in the end (as if it were ever in doubt...)

I'm still moseying through Isabella Bird's 'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains'; an account of this intrepid lady's travels in the 1870s. Fantastic adventures and descriptive writing, but not light-weight.

and 'Coot Club' by Arthur Ransome. Rattling good yarns, which I have been reading every few decades all my life.