The Swingle Singers having fun the 'Pastime with Good Company'
I've only ever heard them scat-singing Bach, on LP vinyl records back in the 1960s; I think this must be one of their most famous track, Bach prelude in F minor.
Where was I? I wanted the song 'Pastime with Good Company' because that's how we spent yesterday. Last month we went to Dorset in order to be able to meet up with friends who had lived just an hour away but moved to Devon mumble mumble years ago. We hadn't seen each other for all that time, so it was wonderful to get together on a cold but sunny day and discover it was as though only weeks, rather than decades had passed.
Well, wouldn't you just know it, but they were cat-sitting for family quite near us last week, so we were able to have lunch together again! The weather obliged with sun and a warm breeze and I had a lovely lovely day.
While we were waiting I did a couple of very small rapid sketches of people;
The little notebook is half the size of my phone. It's long past time I stopped reading up on how to draw people and just got on with it. At the moment the are more of an aide-memoire than a likeness. Practise, practise, practise...
Out table was by the play area... one moment there was cheerful chatter, next raucous shouting, and a brief interlude of serious wailing- something to do with a toddler and an ice lolly... and then, peace, as they all disappeared for lunch.
I was going to post 'Tuileries' from 'Pictures at and Exhibition' for the playground, and then I remembered 'The Aviary' from 'Carnival of the Animals' and chose that instead.
Yesterday Ang let me know that she had received the Cover Story stitching I sent her.
... Perhaps I should explain; this is the third stitching collaboration the Ang and I have done together. We started several years ago after she blogged about an sewing exhibition she went to in Norwich Castle, I think, which featured a 2020 Lockdown collaboration between two sisters. They took turns to embroider a motif of a piece of cloth that they posted to each other. I said I'd love to do one but would want to keep the cloth! To cut a long story short, Ang and I, strangers at the time, started 'The Postcard Project', followed it by 'Cross Country Collaboration' all in cross stitch, and are now most of the way through 'Cover Story' - a book cover each.
And we've become friends, keeping in touch through emails and WhatsApp, very occasional phone calls, the booklet and postcard we include with the project and once, memorably, meeting up ...
So, on with this month's progress;
Here's what Ang did on the vertical seams on the piece which will ultimately become hers;
If you zoom in you will see all the lovely stitching she has done. We are taking our inspiration from Victorian crazy quilts, where the joins between patches were embellished with decorative stitches.
Here is mine;
We've both used perle cotton which gives a great texture, and simple stitches such as chain, blanket, stem, and. French knots. Ang used fly stitch, and I used chevrons and coral stitch. These stitches are transformed by lacing and weaving threads through them so they can look far more complicated than they really are.
We also include 'flat gifts' that fit in the packages; I sent Ang a pair of sporks to take on picnics.
I feel quite spoiled by Ang's flat gifts;
a sashiko kit, sunflower seeds in a card, and little booklet about hedgerows AND a lovely felt brooch! My birthday isn't for months!
This month we are doing the horizontal seams on each other's Cover Story cloths.
It is such fun receiving the parcel each month, seeing what Ang has added and reading the story of how and why she created it in the accompanying notebook.
Thank you Ang - I'm so glad we have begun to plan the next one!
Music
I heard a snatch of this on a TV program (all right, I confess, we like Antiques Road trip as background TV, in spite of the vastly irritating commentary)
Fingal's Cave - Mendelssohn
When I was about 17 or 18 I was on a sailing trip on the West Coast of Scotland. My father, and the son of an Austrian friend of his were the most experienced sailors; another adult, Ian was cook and slightly experienced and a schoolfriend of mine and I were enthusiastic but fairly ignorant crew members. Any trip anywhere with my father tended to be a series of 'exciting adventures' aka narrowly avoided disasters... this was no exception.
But we successfully circumnavigated the Isle of Mull (a few tense minutes when we dragged our anchor one night) and travelled along the Crinan Canal. At one point we sailed past Fingals Cave; I was asleep as my father had decided the us two younger ones should take sea-sickness pills as the wind and waves were getting stronger and larger...
I was planning to call this post 'random stuff' because I couldn't really think if I had anything to write about.
I started off dealing with a random selection if emails on disparate subjects, all creeping up towards needing urgent action after days of procrastinating.
The day became increasingly random as the afternoon wore on. That's because we met my brother at my father’s flat, as he was bent on getting some clearing done and had decided 'today's the day for action'!
Before he arrived I just wandered around, picking things up and rather helplessly putting them down again, until I formed a plan.
I now have a bag with expired hearing aid batteries and random bits of hearing aids. I found some sellotape and lined up all the fiddly little batteries, and stuck a length of tape over them all.
I think I'll be able to take them to the local hospital for disposal, or they may tell us to take them to the tip. The tape is to stop them all short circuiting and overheating. I don't know if that's actually a problem with these little batteries but I'd rather not find out the hard way.
That felt like an achievement... and once I'd started it was easier to keep going.
Next on the list was gathering up expired medicines. I'm staring at a bin-bag full! I'd already done a medicines sweep on a previous visit and had filled a smaller bag... I think we're going to have to ring round to find a pharmacy prepared to help us. Or maybe the hospital again.
I've also come home (with my brother's blessing - I don't want to be greedy and just help myself) with a box of random 'treasures';
3 glasses which match the ones we've already got
a couple of small ornaments
2 silver napkin rings - the one I used as a child and another rather pretty old one. There were others in the box which had been used by the rest of the family
a couple of books
Finally I've filled a bag with assorted papers, to be filed, shredded or simply thrown away (tide tables for 2017 anyone? No? I thought not!)
We are both of us pretending not to notice boxes and boxes of papers relating to family history and domestic papers going back mumble mumble years... we'll get around to them someday.
Let's continue the 'random' theme with a trumpet fanfare;
It's just as well I picked up the glasses from the flat; BB was so tired this evening after battling the washing machine and helping my brother pack a gateleg table and two small chairs into the back of his estate car that he knocked one of our own glasses over. It was a stupid shaped glass; a very elegant curved shape, but narrower at the base than at the middle. I'm hoping it was the last of that set.
This ginger cake turned out pretty well. It's a 'yoghurt pot' recipe; you use a yoghurt pot to measure everything including a pot of yoghurt.
I copied out the recipe (from where?) back when I was newly married, so that must have been around 1978.
I used my old geography book; for some reason we were issued with rather superior red hardback exercise books, and I had plenty of spare pages. So the first dozen pages are notes and diagrams on coastal erosion before it turns into cakes and casseroles.
Anyway, back to the cake. I used plain yoghurt, soft brown sugar, plenty of ground ginger and a generous amount of chopped up crystallised ginger. I baked it in the air fryer (don't tell Paul Hollywood) for 35-40 minutes at 165°C.
It's a good basic mix for all kinds of variations like coffee, lemon, chocolate, fruit...
The second recipe, 'chicken casserole' was the height of sophistication in our student days. Once I was married, during my last year at university, I used to make it for lunch at weekends. Not any more; our tastes have changed!
We had spaghetti at lunch time; I used this gauge
I rediscovered it recently. I measured a woman's and a man's portion, and it was very generous. I should probably do two women's next time... although BB manfully worked his way through the most enormous helping.
A few days ago I finished my Conquerer Event virtual trail and sent off for my medal. It arrived today.
The Jurassic Coast path is about 100 miles long, so it took me about 90 days, adding 2000+ steps most days. It's the only way I have found the motivates me to add steps to my step counter every day, mostly by walking on the spot while watching television, although when we go out I often exceed my target. Chopping veg and playing the piano grts recorded as steps. I used to think this was cheating but now I regard it as 'being active' and therefore allowable. Although the 'steps' I get from winding wool are another matter!
I am now two and a half miles along the Cotswold Way... that will keep me motivated for another couple of months.
Post
BB (Best Beloved, or in other words my husband) walked round to the post office with three packages for me; the cover story is on its way to Ang, a book to a friend, and a card to another friend who has come down with covid. It's clearly still out there, she's the third of my friends to have caught it this spring. Take care, all you lovely people, and stay away from people with coughs and sniffles if you can!
Book
I've been looking through this... I find people very hard to draw. Although the title made me smile; I imagined it being full of instructions on how to cover people with paint really quickly, presumably before they had a chance to run away?
Blog Admin
I remembered to check the comments awaiting moderation for the first time in months, so apologies if yours was one that got missed.
Music
This is a jolly little jig, the first movement from the St Paul's Suite by Gustav Holst. He composed it for St Paul's School for Girls in 1913 when he was teaching there.
This isn't the version I was thinking of but I rather like it
But
in the end we didn't go and visit the open garden that I wanted to, because the skies and the forecast threatened rain, and the wind was cold. And of course it didn't rain and the wind eased... that's life.
Garden
But we got a few things done outside. There was a brief sunny half hour during which we tidied up a few bits and pieces and I had a go at drawing my peas and broad beans and my one solitary French bean. 'Where are the other nine?' I mused, quoting the Bible well out of context. Still, if one bean has appeared, I'll wait a bit longer and see if any more are on their way before sowing some more.
Look what was concealed under the cardoon leaves
I had no idea it was there; I thought it had died. We've cleared away the lower leaves of the cardoon so we can enjoyit, such a lovely blush pink.
Fresh air and a bit activity and some drawing appears to have re-enerbised me; thank goodness for that!
Music
Isn't bit of street music this fun! From the comments I learned that this is a New Orleans band, 'skinny Tuba'. Great name!
I watched and listened twice through; it's not very long.
Did you spot that couple in the background dancing all the way down the street?
I think the cure for my current fit of the doldrums is nearly complete;
one last Trisha Ashley Christmas rom-com - 'will she get her happy ever after?' it says on the title page under the name of the book. Silly question, of course she will; after several misunderstandings and quarrels they will make it up, realise they love each other and have a lovely wedding in the little village church... and then I will want to read something with more substance, less 'candy-floss' like,
and I've eaten enough salt-and-pepper-combo potato snacks that the remainder of the packet no longer holds any appeal.
Church
'If you love me, you will follow my commandments' was the first reading, and really I sort of stopped there... that seemed to be the important nessage. To love God with all my heart, and to love my neighbour as myself. (Plenty of room for improvement on both counts!)
Music
I heard this on Radio3 this morning, sandwiched between recordings of the sound of the turtle dove. It's Vivaldi's 'la tortora', an air for chalimeau which is an early form of the clarinet.
I love the way that the chalimeau has a gentle conversation with the cello.
I try and avoid all admin-style stuff at the weekend. And house work. Unless I'm in the mood for it; as a retired teacher, for years my weekends were blighted by lesson planning and updating my registers. No more! Retirement has meant a release from the tyranny of timetables and micro-management and school term dates!
So today, apart from meals, I have almost done nothing except read my book or listen to an audiobook when I was cooking.
The book? Two, because I finished one, 'Christmas Crackers', and started another, 'The Magic of Christmas', both extremely light-weight rom-coms by Trisha Ashley. Not literature by any means! But I know all the Miss Read books by heart, and they were previous binge-read escapist zone-out series for when I had had enough of 'real life' , and the Trisha Ashley's perform the same function. I over-indulge until I've suddenly had enough, like eating chocolate digestive biscuits, and once I reach that stage I'm 'cured' of the desire to escape!
Almost nothing?
I've loaded the crockpot. It's hardly cooking; chopping up carrots, celery and onion and chicken pieces and chucking it all into the crock pot with stock and seasoning, and abandoning it for four or five hours...
Prep time, including assembling the ingredients and clearing up, a scant 15 minutes.
Four hours on high later, and I've got four portions of chicken casserole, or two meals. I call that easy cooking.
If there's too much liquid I'll have soup as well!
Music
Riguadon by Greig from the Holberg Suite. This exists in piano and orchestral versions.
I did learn this on the piano, but at a more stately speed!
BB went off to the dentist in the afternoon (we can skip over the morning because apart from breakfast and lunch NOTHING happened) and then...
well that was the day.
If you are enjoying the sun, you can thank me, if you like. The morning was grey and chilly so I went and put on a thick jumper. By the time I had come back down the sun was shining... some perverse magic? I kept the jumper on, which must be why the sun stayed out.
Yesterday, however, was Full-On!
Blog readers will know my father died at the beginning of January this year. We had the funeral on one very cold day in February, for close family only so I could attend. However he was involved in a number of local organisations and clubs, as well has having a huge friendship/family network through his family history researches, reaching through his own name, his mother's family, grandparent's (on both sides) families... when he started back in the 1960s his first step was to send a postcard to everyone with his surname in all the telephone directories (it's a good job his surname wasn't Smith or Jones!)
Anyway, back to yesterday; we must have sent out 160 invitations, mostly by email. We didn't expect the family and friends in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Bolivia, France etc to come, and many people were too elderly or frail to travel. Even so, 60 came to tea at Nymans Gardens, and enjoyed meeting and talking and consuming an excellent tea catered by the Nymans team.
There were speeches (4, all brief, amusing and illuminating different aspects of his life) and it was lovely to hear how much he was appreciated. The speeches were followed by toasts, browsing through the memorabilia people brought, and eventually a gentle drifting away to enjoy the gardens after hours in the evening sunshine.
We were lucky with the weather; although it was cloudy for most of the afternoon it didn't rain, so we could be in the courtyard as well as indoors.
BB and I were so tired when we got home at about 7, that I went upstairs to change into pyjamas and we didn't bother with supper. Instead we had a coffee and ate chocolate biscuits and an early night!
Which all explains why very little was accomplished today.
Music
No teddy bears were involved yesterday, and the tea was laid out as a help yourself buffet, but I chose this little ditty anyway. Fontanella is a professional recorder group, and I remember this video from Spring 2020. One of the group is a member of my church, and is a talented performer and teacher.
Do you remember that put teddy bears in their downstairs windows to amuse passers-by in lockdown, when people had to stay home apart from taking a short walk for exercise? My friend used create a little tableau, one week a picnic, another week a little school...
I'm not ill or anything, but very tired, and warming up from a chilly afternoon.
We were at Nymans Gardens today; my brother and I have been organising a Celebration of Life event this afternoon (hence 10 bottles of Prosecco, 4 bottles Nonsecco, 5 cartons orange juice, 5 cartons apple juice inflating my grocery order yesterday - see my comment to SencoSue in yesterday's post!)
On the day there were 60 guests, some of them contemporaries of my father (who would have been 96 next month). He was involved in a number of local organisations and also had a massive interest in family history so we were an eclectic bunch of people.
It's 8pm, we've finally sat down, and ground to a halt. My brain has already popped up the low-battery warning and is seconds away from auto-shut-down.
Wednesday morning is grocery delivery morning, all the on-line shopping I ordered the day before. One of these days I'll sort out my standard list; bread, eggs, extra milk, etc. Until then, well, Wednesday mornings are always full of surprises.
This week I've ordered courgettes twice so I've a glut to deal with. Too many potatoes. The wrong kind of rice. An extra box of eggs. The wrong shaped bread for the toaster. No cold meat.
None of these are 'real' problems. I like eggs.1 I can always make Delia Smith's vegetable rice for lunch. There's always the corner shop, which is - just round the corner, as it happens!
I have to cut the slices of bread in half to make them fit in the toaster, and then catch them with the plastic tongs when they pop, before they disappear back inside - it's quite a fun challenge.
One day, I will surprise myself and my husband by getting a whole week's order just right - this year, next year, some time, or, more likely never!
Music
I've watched this video clip a number of times; I have no idea who these two zephyr are, or how they fit into the opera; it's the curious and slightly weird manner of their entrance, and the way chorus all seem to take a step back and away, as if horrified at their appearance, and then their sudden break out into dance... I'm not sure I've ever listened properly to the music as I'm far too engrossed in the staging!
It feels as though I haven't drawn anything for ages; This sketch of the sage in flower was drawn using a relatively primitive free drawing app called Bamboo which I have on my phone and my tablet. I've been using it more than real pens and paint recently because it's handy for when I'm sitting in front of the television in the evenings.
I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that the way I hold my tablet to play sudoku and free cell and read kindle books is not helping by elbow at all... so I'm being physically forced to do what I mentally couldn't manage - control my sudoku/freecell habit! It will be good for me in the long run.
Meanwhile I'm tapping this out on my phone...
Books
I finished both 'The Clues in the Fjord' by Satu Rämö and 'The Land of Spices' by Kate O'Brien yesterday. You couldn't get two more different books! Just as well, as I have a habit of reading several books at the same time.
The Clues in the Fjord is contemporary crime fiction set in Iceland, such a different place to England. Such a small population for one thing, not quite 400,000. Brighton has a population of just under 300,000. And the cold! The whodunit itself was engrossing, the main characters interesting and likeable, but what really fascinated me was the lifestyle in Iceland. I look forward to reading the next in the series.
The Land of Spices was entirely different. At the centre was the Reverend Mother of a convent in Ireland early in the 20th century, and a girl who joined the other boarders, for it was a girl's boarding school, at a young age. Over the ten or so years we slowly learned of the Reverend Mother's upbringing, and why she became a nun, and watched Anna, the child as she grew up. The narration is very detailed and reflective. It reminded me of Barabara Pym perhaps, thinking of Excellent Women, or Quartet in Autumn. I'm glad I read it; one to revisit in time.
Music
More Cellos!
You may have noticed I'm keen on cellos, possibly because I started learning when I was nearly 11 years old, and kept going all the way through university. Then... it's hard to keep going without other people - an orchestra, or fellow string players.
I did start playing in church for a while, until a professional violinist and two - TWO - professional cellists joined! I felt rather outclassed and stuck to piano and foot-less organ (I never learned to get my feet coordinated with my hands).
Zoom in! Suddenly it becomes clear that the apple tree, just bare sticks in March, is now, just three months later, laden with little apples. How miraculous is that?
Here are the first fruits of my veg patch. I am congratulating myself for not pulling them up before today, and there are still plenty left still growing in the pot. 'Bless these radishes to my use and myself to thy service', the grace at school sort of went. I pondered about lighting a fire and offering them up as a sacrifice, but then, what if the smoke went down instead of up? So I ate some instead and put the rest in the fridge for later. Besides, these days, we are told not to waste food.
I didn't post yesterday because... all sorts of reasons, but the main one was I was sitting comfortably...
Watching 'Antiques Roadshow' on television. Besides, I hadn't found any music yet and I still hadn't worked out what I wanted to write.
Warning; I'm about to get spiritual and philosophical, all from my personal and rigorously un-academic point of view. Skip on to Music if you can't bear the idea...
'Centuries of war and discord, and all our prayers seem to go unanswered'
I reckon God is in the middle of it all; experiencing it all alongside us. I think he really is all-out for peace, and every so often, for some years, decades, maybe even centuries, peace does break out - just until the next megalomaniac, greedy, power-hungry, big-time bully, somehow lines up enough fellow-thinkers with enough vested interests, gullibility, cold calculating greed, total immorality, capacity for self-deception and complete indifference to the feelings and needs and humanity of their fellows on this planet.
I can't believe their actions are guided by the God of truth and love and shalom. Maybe they are following a different understanding of god.
I suppose hey may be driven by all kinds of ideologies, including creating the ideal and racially pure nation or espousing their understanding of the one true religion or some political idea. Whatever, they have chosen a path of violence, of the equivalent of the playground excuse
'but I was right',
'I wanted it and they wouldn't let me have it',
'I was here first',
'they hit me first', or even,
'I hit them back first'.
I've heard all of those when I was on playground duty or working in a playgroup.
And such people choose the path of violence, destruction and war, and try and clothe it in some kind of justification which does not take much examination to show it up for the evil it really is.
Well, I'm the first to agree that this is a pretty simplistic view. But if we have God in our lives, we can call upon him, ask him to direct our efforts into doing what we can to overcome this. We can talk about our views, rather than being shy, so that we become more visible. We can donate time, money, prayer, and effort to worthy causes which work towards the well-being of our fellow humanity.
I've found that for me, prayer is a massive help in working through my thoughts, and finding hope in despair, and giving me ideas on how I can do something slightly useful from my comfortable home in a relatively peaceful and stable country. I do believe, as I said, God is active in the middle of this chaos, encouraging people in the direction of peace and reconciliation.
We can do what we can.
Music
I have at last worked out that the modern composer John Tavener doesn't have an 'r' in middle of his name, and the early composer John Taverner does have an 'r'.
This is The Lamb by William Blake, music by John Tavener, sung by Voces8
Words below
William Blake
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by His name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Yesterday in the National Trust gift shop I saw these 'charming little plant-pot-toppers, destined to become your little friends in the garden'.
Today I wandered into my veg patch and saw what had happened to my peas...
They have been eaten and slimed! I have laid a carpet of slug wool pellets (not poison pellets which are now illegal) over the whole pot, and we shall have to go slugging this evening. I read that you can put down slices of cucumber to lure the slugs and snails away from your plants. I might try this, and then we can hurl them, cucumber and all, over the back fence into the rough ground. The article said you should take them at least 50 feet away, so maybe we'll carry them down to the stream.
And I don't think I'm in the market for welcoming any snails, resin or real, in my garden!
Although... this odd little singing game was a huge favourite in the infant classes when I was still teaching; there's something entirely magical how halfway through when you are all in a big circle you are all facing outwards... and you repeat the game and end up facing inwards again. Most mysterious.
Having done something about my peas in the morning, I was slumped on the settee. After a wasted hour doing zip, zilch and absolutely nothing at all, I had a sharp word to say to say to myself. Did I really want to go to bed having done none of the petty little things that were hanging over me? Or how about stirring myself and dealing with them NOW?
That seemed to work, and I wrote the get well card, answered some emails, checked my bank account and packed up some trousers to go back to the shop...
...Oh yes, now, about those trousers, well, how the mighty are toppled from their gloating. My current trousers are definitely too loose now (hurrah!) so I ordered a couple of pairs in lovely colours from my trusty favourite shop. Alas and alack... I'm definitely between sizes, not a whole size smaller as I'd thought.
BB has walked the card and the parcel round to the post office and I've made biscuits to cheer myself up.
Taking time to admire the view; I realised it had been such a long time since I last stopped and looked out upon a distant scene. I've spent so long indoors or in our garden over the past couple of months.
Ah, but then... we were at the bottom of the garden, and the way out was at the top! We carry two oxygen cylinders when we go out. One lasts me just about and hour at a flow rate of 7 l/m. I can feel the oxygen whooshing up my nose as a strong cold draught, which is one of the reasons I'm not keen on walking any distance in cold weather! But to get up the hill, I need a flow rate of 9 l/m, and plenty of stops along the way!
Muttering 'I think I can, I think I can'
I made it all the way up to the top! Ta-dah!
If you zoom into the picture you will just be able to make out a group of people, only their heads showing, on the lower path.
We passed two women and a man having their way down the path. The man (no lightweight, I should add!) was in the wheelchair, and the women were desperately hanging onto the handles to prevent the wheelchair careering down to the bottom. The moral of the story is choose a wheelchair with brake on the handles, not just the wheels... they were more or less past the steepest bit of the path, and the rest of the garden would be much easier for them.
This was my first long walk this year, and I was delighted to find that I had reached my daily target of 2000+ steps in the two hours we were at Nymans. Normally I call it an 'activity counter' rather than a step counter, as chopping vegetables, winding wool and playing the piano can all add several hundred steps without me moving my feet!
Poor BB struggles to stay with me; I go so slowly that I'm nearly in danger of falling over; it's twice as hard for him with his long legs.
Peace
I was thinking about this morning, how beautiful it was there, while watching the news with pictures of somewhere in Gaza. Everything had been destroyed in the latest attack; the reporter commentedthat it was difficult to even see which part of the city had been hit. Like pictures of parts of the Ukraine, Lebanon, Syria, and going back through the decades to Southampton, Coventry, Dresden, the battlefields in Belgium and France in the First World War. 'We pray, but our prayers don't seem to be answered' was a comment yesterday.
I'm still working out what I think... I don't want to twist my beliefs into a pretzel to make them fit a simple answer, but I suspect that the 'answer' is both simple and complex at the same time. In fact I don't think my thoughts constitute 'an answer' so much as a response to a centuries old c9nundrum.
I'm grateful for the comment to make me think...
Music
Still thinking about peace, if music can be a prayer, then this is my prayer.
(It's 'le Jardin Faerique' from the Mother Goose suite by Ravel. Please don't imagine I would like to suggest that God is some magical, fantastical creation. It's the music, not the title, that carries my prayer. Indeed, I have no idea of how I would begin to cope with this illness, and everything else, without faith in God to carry me through. )
I find having a bath quite tiring these days, and I think the days of relaxing wallows in a tub of hot water maybe nearing their end. Now I keep thinking about all the walk-in showers and wet rooms I have used in hotels and holiday houses... but I'd miss the bath...
Then BB cut my hair! The first time we did this (it feels like a joint effort!) we were both rather nervous, but it was okay. Fine, even. This must be the third or fourth time now. We get my wet hair combed smoothly back from my face and he cuts a straight line (he's got a good eye) across between my shoulder blades.
I appear to have drawn the 'slim version' of me... positive thinking...
My hair is not exactly 'styled', but I'm very happy with the results. My mother, who was very fussy about her appearance and extremely fussy about haircuts, would be horrified!
Anyway, that, and a long friendly chatty zoom piano lesson took up the whole morning.
Music
Praying for peace has been on my mind today, so this choice was inevitable.
Priez pour paix
The music is by Poulenc, the words by Charles, duc d'Orsay, written around 1407.
The singers are Cantabile, otherwise known as The London Quartet. I was given their CD 'Lullabies and Goodnights' about 15 years ago by a 'piano family'; I accompanied the girls through their violin and cello exams, and coached them through their aural tests. That CD has helped me through many an anxious night since then.
I have since bought two more of their CDs, one of Christmas carols and this one, Songs of Love and War, which is where this beautiful prayer for peace comes from.
And now here's the spoiler that I alerted you about
I'm about to share a short vdeo I tripped across when looking for something else (as you do...)
And it is about a simple embroidery stitch which I'm definitely going to use!
The thing is, I'm left-handed, and when I watch a video tutorial I don't always manage to reverse the instructions successfully in my head, with all the consequences that ensue. But I wanted to share my sudden brainwave; just turn the phone upside-down! So if I sew from bottom to top instead of top to bottom... seemples!
The video is only 6 seconds long, blink and you'll miss is;
That was unexpected. At least the storm announced itself with a couple of loud thunder rolls before the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down. I stood by the open door to listen to the gutters overflowing and the water chuckling along the soakaway.
And the it was over, as suddenly as it began.
I've been moving my plants down drom the bedroom windmills where they've been all winter, and they all looked rather taken aback
The bench is too weak to sit on now; it's one of the pair we had under the apple tree for several years. I've bought new benches and the old ones have become useful plant stands. This one does a good job of 'beautifying' the side of the shed.
BB distracted himself from his tooth extraction yesterday by getting my little solar fountain going - actually this is a replacement, the old one having given up.
The sun came out after the storm, and it's working well. BB cleaned out the basin too
The daisies are doing extravagantly well this year. I always think of them as Cornish daisies' because of the way they grow everywhere down there.
Music
Doing 'a storm' was one of my favourite lessons with the younger children. It was the culmination of several weeks working on loud, soft, gradually changing from one to the other (piano crescendo forte diminiendo piano) and following a conductor, until we made our very own rain storm!
With older children I do more or less the same lesson but adding in instruments as well.
Sometimes, rarely, the lesson might coincide with a Real Storm outside, which had the children awestruck at the power of music...
That's all he wants for his supper tonight, on account of coming home from the dentist minus a tooth. This wasn't a surprise; it's another step along his dental journey towards having tooth implants. All has gone smoothly so far.
Meanwhile he's taking it easy for a couple of days.
It's just as well we got a lot of heavy work done in the garden yesterday. Our neighbours are having their garage taken down in the next couple of months. As our two sentry box tool sheds were leaning against their garage wall for support we knew we would have to relocate them, at which point it all became a bit of a sliding block puzzle.
We've solved the puzzle and are pleased with the results. I've more room in my veg patch, and the blue shed, used for storing oxygen cylinders, is in a better situation regarding sunlight and also for deliveries.
While BB was at the dentist I did a little more tidying outside, and looked at how the garden is getting on.
The first 'hot lips' salvia flowers are out! Surely mid - May is a bit early?
The flowers are very small; one could easily miss them among the leaves.
Music
How do they do it? Murray Perahia playing Chopin Etude op 10 no 4 'The torrent'.
I've just watched it without the sound (Paul Murton is extolling the beauties of the River Esk on television) and you would think the film had been speeded up.
Christian Aid week begins tomorrow - their big annual fundraising time. For years I bwas one of those annoying people who pushed envelopes through people's front doors, and then came back to collect them.
It was a task I hated! I personally disliked receiving those envelopes, and then scratching around to find where I'd put it, and hunting for change to stuff into it when someone turned up to collect it! So I felt very awkward when it was my turn to perpetrate this annoyance upon my neighbours. No-one was actually rude to me, I'm glad to say.
I don't think we take part in this house to house collection at our church any more. We tend to go for fundraising events and plant sales, which is what is happening next week.
We heard about Aurelia, from a small village in Guatemala. She's mother of eight children, and a grandmother too, and spends four hours every day collecting water.
Here she setting off; her 78 year old father is behind her.
Stop there! How many grandmothers do I know who have the health and strength to do this? I certainly couldn't. She says she worries that it is getting too much for her.
Christian Aid writes
Christan Aid's local partners, Congcoop, works with the women to teach them innovative and sustainable farming techniques to help adapt to the consequences of climate change. The rivers are shrinking, becoming narrower and shallower, and no longer providing fish for food and farming practices have cope with the drier weather and even drought.
Here's Aurelia again;
You can read more about this, and other projects on their main website.
I do urge you to support Christian Aid in the work they do all over the world, and if one of those little collection envelopes drops through your door, stuff some money in and put it somewhere handy!
Thank you for reading.
Music
It's years since I heard a cuckoo, or watched Roger Moore, for that matter!
Today began too early... I don't mind waking early but 4am? I should have listened to an audiobook or something and I would have gone back to sleep. But that would have meant waking up enough to get the book started! So I dozed instead.
I've done some cover story collaboration stitching, and added to my sock, and that's about that.
Music
Who remembers watching this programme on television? If they repeated it I would happily watch it all over again.
'Cast not a clout 'till May is out'. Does that mean wait until the end of May, or wait until the hawthorn (May-tree) is in flower? Answers on a postcard, as they always used to say before texts were invented.
Well, I did, a week or so ago, changing from Winter duvet and Winter pjs to Summer duvet and Summer pjs. But the I've shivered the past few nights (my friend said she'd taken a hot water bottle to bed!) and so I this morning I put out Winter pjs for tonight.
Today has, of course, been lovely and warm, so now I'm in a bit of a quandry...
Gardening
Lots of useful work was done; BB scrabbled around under the hedge at the bottom of the garden pulling up goose-grass, or sticky-grass, or cleavers, or robin-run-the-hedge, call it what you will. It is just beginning to flower, the perfect time to catch it. Once it has formed seeds you are doomed... pull it up too late and a millions little round seeds will fall rattling onto the ground, ready to cause ten times as much trouble next year!
So, I'm sorry, caterpillars, I'm not providing a breeding ground for you inside my garden. You'll just have to try your luck on the other side of the hedge. I'm sure there will be plenty out there.
I've also made progress in tidying my 'potting' area by the veg patch, organising space for a chair and table ready for morning coffee among the broad beans in days to come.
Music
This Ravel Prelude is one of the most transparent sounding pieces I know.
Today I noticed the clematis with little white flowers has come out. The rambunctious rose is covered in little buds; any day now, any day... some aliums have flowered and there's a bud on one of the peonies, giving a sneak preview of the red flower to come.
Some more potatoes are shoving their way through the earth, radishes and spinach, broad beans and peas looking like what they will become.
No 'proper' rain yet, BB was out with the hose earlier.
Reading
I thought I was being clever with my guesses as to 'whodunnit' in 'The Lake House' by Kate Morton. But know, more twists and turns yet, and a hint of romance too. It's a good read.
Music
Ah yes, Lully. He hurt his foot when he was conducting the orchestra in one of his operas. Unfortunately, it being the early 1700s, when the wound became infected there wasn't much that could be done for him, and he died. A reminder of how grateful we are for 20th/21st century medicine and antibiotics, and a warning to treat them with respect!
For years I couldn't fathom out how he hurt his foot with his baton... this video explains all.
I love the verve and vitality of the band, the extraordinarily 'period' hairstyle and demeanour of the conductor, and also watching the faces of the audience.
The end of the admin for my father’s estate continues, but the end is in sight...
I'm fortunate that all of us are helping out, pulling together. Currently my next immediate 'project' is the forthcoming celebration tea party for all his friends, later this month. I'm organising the venue and caterers, my brother's looking after sending out invitations and working out the likely approximate estimated number of guests. Then it will be time to get hold of glasses and suitable fizz for toasts... 'keep calm and carry on'...
Grocery shopping
Having taken over doing the online shopping order, and doing the meal planning from BB, I'm still trying to get a system going. When my father was alive, BB used to do his shopping on Thursday and this was a golden opportunity to buy anything that had been forgotten from our main shopping. Now, of course, that doesn't happen!
This week I've omitted crisps (we sometimes have a small portion with our supper), some cold meat, a second loaf of bread, a jar of pickled herrings and some baking potatoes. I haven't decided whether to improvise with what we've got, or make a special trip.
We had some for lunch with baked potatoes and spinach, and I have four more meals in the freezer. 10 individual portions! I thought that was pretty good going!
I've a chicken, which will provide a Sunday (or Saturday!) roast, along with further meals, and some sausages for a couple more lunches. We'll be filling the freezer or ourselves over the next week!
Music
I came across this in the school holidays when I was in the sixth form. I bought a cassette recording and listened to it over and over again.
My current ook needs concentration to remember which century I'm in, who the characters are, and keep hold of the two mysterious back stories... I can't remember which blogger recommended Kate Morton, but thank you, who ever you are! I've downloaded The Lake House, which I'm reading now, and Homecoming, the next in the series.
A welcome change from 'Wifedom' by Anna Funder, which was a biography (with fictionalised episodes fleshing out details from her notebooks and other people's memories) of George Orwell's wife, Eileen Shaughnessy. It's also a fierce diatribe against 'the patriarchy'; George Orwell doesn't come out too well...
Sewing
I'm currently obsessed with the Collaboration Cover Story for this month! There are 10 edges to be decorated, and I've done 6 so far. I'll slow down soon I'm sure; I'm not one to stick at anything for long these days.
Gardening
Not so much planting, but assembling. We had two cheap, and now elderly benches 7nder the apple tree. One would definitely have collapsed if sat upon, and the other might well have done. I ordered two more which were delivered today. BB has assembled one already.
The old benches will have a bit of repair work done and then become raised pot stands along the side of the house. They'll last another year, but I'll make no-one is able to sit on them!
I bought a bunch of mint, mainly to add to bulgar wheat salad. It's been sitting in a jar of water, and I noticed quite a few of the stalks were growing roots, so I've stuck them in a pot and see what happens.
Music
It takes a lot of concentration to play Steve Reich's 'Music for Wooden Instruments'. I'm astonished this ensemble can play it from memory.
The score looks unbelievably complicated, but it us based on repeating patterns. I guess the trick is to learn the patterns, and then... go for it!
I suppose it's similar to the drumming and samba rhythms I used to teach. But several degrees more complicated!
I realise that not everyone will want to listen to it. Personally I rather enjoy listening to the way the rhythms weave together.
Here it is again, the same piece, but with a graphic score to watch;
Great celebrations everywhere, but not in our street. I confess, I even forgot to put our flags out... and by the look of things, so did all our neighbours.
We watched snips and snaps of it on television... but for us VE day might have stood for Very Easy Day.
Real Fast Food
Nigel Slaters 'Real Fast Food' is on offer on kindle for 99p... so I downloaded it and had a browse before going to make lunch. This was a 'fast food meal, but don't let Nigel know how I put it together;
Some frozen diced onions fied with some frozen grilled Mediterranean vegetable mixture, to which I added a pouch of Rana Sicilian-style pasta sauce and some cooked chicken picked from a roast. Meanwhile I zapped a pouch of Tilda rice.
Ta-da! A fast lunch. Reasonably 'real' as well; the sauce and rice didn't have any ingredients that I couldn't have found in my cupboard.
After lunch I attempted to deal with some outstanding admin. I think I need to try again tomorrow when I'm a bit more 'with-it'.
Gardening
What happened to last week's weather? It was cold and sunny, or cold and cloudy, and even, very briefly, cold and wet. Not enough rain to save us from watering the garden tomorrow, unless it rains properly during the night.
I nipped out and sowed spring onions at least, so I can put that packet away.
Music
Ronald Binge composed a massive amount of light music. I suppose 'Sailing By', played before the Shipping Forecast, might be one of the most well known.
It's Star Wars Day... 'May the Force be with you...'
Apparently the All Age Family Service at my home church was themed around Star Wars. I have joined a zoom congregation started by several Anglican churches in Leicestershire which started in 2020 and kept going ever since. No Star Wars theme for us, which suits me nicely!
My lightsaber wielding days are long gone; although I have been known to flap a flyswat around from time to time.
Sewing
I was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from not doing any sewing for several days. With care and consideration in my movements I was able to complete another seam without any many twinges. If I continue to be careful with everything I do I'm sure I'll be back to what passes for normal in a few days. It probably helped that I did no gardening at all - too cold!
Sausages cooked in the oven for 4
Now these were pretty good... 6 sausages, 450g (2 large) large potatoes and 2 medium onions. Some oil for roasting.
Preheat oven to 180°C fan
Slice onions into rings, and potatoes into rounds (not too thin, not too thick). Tip into a roasting pan, toss in 2 tablespoons oil (I used olive), season and roast for 20 mins.
Cut the sausages into thirds and add to pan, stir everything up to coat the sausages, and put it back in the oven for another 20-30 minutes, until the sausages are cooked through and everything is nicely brown.
And serve!
The recipe comes from the Lavender and Lovage site. It popped up when I searched for 'sausages potatoes onions bake'.
I made half quantities and cooked them in the airfryer in a metal pan which fits inside the basket. I reduced the temperature to 170°C as the onions were heading to Well Done.
Using the airfryer is easier for me as I don't have to stoop to get things in and out of the oven.
Music
here's a bit of frivolity... 'Popular Song', no 5 from William Walton's suite 'Facade'
Is it chilly today? Is it hot? It all depends when you were asking. It seemed to change from one to the other in a blink of an eye. We watered the garden in the morning anyway, as there's no rain forecast for a few days yet.
Gardening
I cleared and sorted another two tubs, and planted beans; borlotti and dwarf French. Now I'm all out of compost so I will have to rest from my labour's until some more is delivered. That's probably a good thing for my elbow, which is slowly improving. I've also evicted load of snails which were hibernating in all sorts of hidden nooks and crannies. The first skirmish in the long battle to come...
One of the pots had a few puny leeks in it; we had these with our sea bass at lunchtime. BB did all the lifting of the tray in and out of the oven today, so the cooking proceeded smoothly without any risk of dropping it!
I shan't bother to grow leeks again; they clutter up a pot for too long.
Music
Something languid for when the sun was out; The Old Castle from 'Pictures at an Exhibition' composed for piano by Mussorgsky and orchestrated by Ravel.
