Sunday 31st May - T-shirt weather

 It is hard to think back as far as January, the unrelenting grip of cold dreich weather, the greyness, 

how I was hunched against the unforgiving wind when we ventured out,

the way I reached for an extra fleece beneath my coat, and my scarf, and gloves,

wore padded winter trousers, thick socks, layered on a poncho, wrapped myself up in a blanket in the evenings,

added an extra quilt to the bed at night...

It's not like that now!

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3;

1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

Things change; and not only the weather or the time of day or the seasons.

One of the most helpful pieces of advice I received was from a much, much older lady when we were side by side in the recovery ward in hospital after our minor ops. I'd had a very, very minor repair to my nether regions under local anaesthetic after the birth of my first baby a few days previously, and was feeling tender and tearful and very, very tired. She was sweet, encouraging, congratulating me on being a new mother, and very understanding.

'You know,' she said. 'You might get to the point where it is all to much and you can't bear it for another day, but it will change. Maybe not exactly for the better, but it will be different, and that will be enough.'

That advice carried through many a gritty time - teething and potty training come to mind, but not just the trials of motherhood, but also grim days of teaching recalcitrant school children, and difficult times when I hated my job so much I  would sit on the stairs and cry on Sunday nights, and days when I was unwell...

To everything there is a season. I've learned to hang in there... it was too cold in January, and it's too hot at the moment, but things are already changing; who knows but it might even rain soon?!

Here's Joshua Bell playing 'Winter' from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi     

Saturday 30th May - and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as well

there's someone on Substack who posts things like this...  

I wrote Wednesday's post on Tuesday evening, scheduling it for Wednesday as I knew I wouldn't get around to writing anything that day.

We had friends round for lunch - they live miles and miles and miles away in the West Country, but came up to their old haunts to cat-sit for their daughter and son-in-law. She and I were at school together, and then I went North and she stayed in the South, but eventually, ten years later we came South and resumed our friendship. Luckily our husbands also get on well...

I used to ring her up and ask if I could come over - a long hour's drive - because of that thing when you are being driven to your wit's end by your two tiny children and if you don't have some adult company soon, like now, well, there's no knowing.... 

So she and I and my two and her two or three plus any child-minded babies and toddlers and the friend she co-child-minded with would entirely fill her compact house, and we would move cautiously across the floor without ever lifting our feet from the carpet to avoid sticklebricks and duplo bricks and tiny fingers and toes, and in spite of the chaos it was all so much more bearable with three adults looking out for a zillion small children than one adult and two small children...

Then our children grew up, and they moved to the West Country, so our rare meet-ups are very special. 

Lunch? Oh, it was so hot. So, so hot. We sat in the shade under the apple tree, and I served various Marks and Spencers cold meats, and various Marks and Spencers fancy mixed salads, and boiled a bag of Marks and Spencers miniature potatoes and tossed them in a little butter...      

I did cut up a fruit salad; strawberries, grapes, some tinned peaches, (top tip; my mother told me to always include some tinned fruit because of the juice) and served that with Greek Yoghurt.  

BB and I ate left overs for three meals straight. The remnants of the mixed salads and the meats in soft rolls for supper, and even more salad and the potatoes for the following day's lunch. 

Then came Thursday. Rain was promised, and so it came - lasted five minutes. 

Yesterday was Friday, in spite of me being certain-sure all day that it was Saturday. The bins standing in sentinel rows lining the streets like a strange guard of honour should have been a clue... and the milk delivery... 

We still have a milkman, I know it's more expensive, but I think it is important to support hi if you can, for the sake of his job, and for the sake of all the much, much older people in our road who could be relying on him for their eggs, bacon, and everything else the dairy supplies as well. I read in one of the 'Number One Detective Agency' books by Alexander McCall small something that Ma Ramotse said, about it being your duty to employ a maid if you could, as it provided work and money to someone who needed it. That has stuck with me... 

Sudden flashback memory triggered by the silent rows of bins; Do you remember how the people in  Wootton Bassett, now Royal Wootton Bassett, used to line the pavements to honour fallen soldiers from the war in Afghanistan as they were conveyed through the town on their journey from RAF Lyneham to Oxford Infirmary?

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/contemporary-conflict/afghanistan/honouring-the-fallen

Back to the present... it's Saturday. I start my mornings with breakfast (muesli), a drink of water and the last of the morning meds which has to be taken with food or else there are consequences, and a time catching up on emails and blogs.

Today 'Rustic Pumpkin' posted for the first time in a few days. Her 'walking to raise money for Parkinsons UK' had to be constrained because of the high temperatures, but she's still going strong, sticking at it. And she's close, so close to her revised target... if you wanted to sponsor her, here's the link.

I have been inspired by her to up my daily step count - my original plan was to walk to the post box and send a postcard every day, but I was scuppered first by cold weather and then by hot weather. So I focused on daily step count instead. At the beginning of the month I was pleased with a total of 2000 steps; now I am vaguely dissatisfied with anything less than 3000, and my daily average is hovering around 3500. Yesterday I got to 4600, thanks to Antiques Road Trip, Masterchef and Have I got news for You on television. Here are some earlier figures for May;

I'm reaping the benefit too; my recovery time after a low oxygen saturation incident, when that drops briefly to below 83% for all sorts or reasons, is massively reduced. My levels have always been quick to plunge, but also relatively quick recovery which is why this isn't not too concerning in the eyes of the specialists (although they do rather freak out the respiratory nurses), but recovery from 80% to 90% is now only a couple of minutes. So thank you, 'Rustic Pumpkin'. I hope I can keep these new step counts going!  

Right. I'm off on a little outing to visit a favourite art and stationery shop. I've a few things in mind that I'd like to look at... it should help my step count going up and down every single aisle... 

Wednesday 27th May - Roses etc

 I promised you roses;

at the front of our house - this rose will carry on flowering until at least October, sometimes even December 

These are the yellow ones I was keeping an eye on, until I forgot. It's a David Austin rose belonging to our neighbour, but we are lucky enough to share it. The white flowers are mock orange.

This rose is just outside the patio door, and is doing well.

These are our other neighbour's 'Frankenroses', he has grafted several different varieties onto just two or three original shrubs, so the dark red, pink and white ones are all growing from plant! 

....

The geese at the duck pond a few streets away from us have built their nest in the silliest place, on the grass at the edge of the pond closest to the bench and the bus stop and the road, and in the full glare of the sun. Some kind person has stuck a garden parasol into the ground by the nest to provide a little patch of shade. How they managed to achieve this without being marmelised by the swans is a mystery! I would have like a photograph, but couldn't manage it this time. Maybe next time we go past.

....

For a couple of days now the coloured glass globes of the Galileo thermometer have been fighting for space at the bottom of the column... the temperature must be well over 26C then (!)

Tuesday 26th May - Breaking News...

 And we're off, on a new collaboration!

This feels the least pre-planned and and pre-organised one yet.

When do we swap? I'm not exactly sure...

How many are we swapping? That's not clear in my mind...

What is this collaboration called? I think it's 'Double Knitting', so presumably 'DK' for short...

The details I am clear about are...

4mm knitting needles, and dk from stash, and 6" squares.

We've each got a copy of this book

and are knitting squares in pairs (now that could be a collaboration title too!), one to keep and one to send. Each square is over about 33 stitches so they don't take very long, and with short knitting needles it makes a very portable project.

Izzy whizzy let's get busy! I was surprised at how much I was missing the collaborations when we took a short break.

Monday 25th May - Hot!

The roses have all come out when I was looking the other way! It was too hot to take photographs earlier, and I'm too hot to go out now. Maybe tomorrow. Meanwhile,  here's my May subscription posy;

.......

 Mouse update... it won't be around any more. Nuff said...

I struggle to reconcile the Brambly Hedge mice

 and Johnny Townmouse the with the reality. Their mice appear to be house trained, and beautifully dressed. The real ones leave a trail of poo pellets and urine behind them.

Ah well. That's what fiction is all about. After all. I've never heard of real wolf saying 'I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down!'.

Sunday 24th May - Pentecost

 

A favourite hymn; we sang it at my Confirmation over 50 years ago. It was also sung at the Coronations of Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III.

Saturday 23rd May - MOUSE!

 In capital letters! BB saw it zoom across the dining room yesterday afternoon and excavated behind the curtains to no avail.

At breakfast time today he saw it whoosh across the dining room again...

This morning he walked into town and came back (look away now if you are a sensitive soul) catching contraptions, all right, traps and also a sonic device which is supposed to prevent it from going into the hall and upstairs.  

This afternoon I have just, now, seen it, from the corner of my eye, whizz across the dining room and into the kitchen... did it go left or right? Into the kitchen or turn into the hall? It went so fast, as though it was attached to some stretched elastic and someone had just let go!

OH, how we wish we still had cats... although they would have probably brought it in themselves. This one must be an intrepip adventurer. BB has set one contraption under the dining room table, and tonight I expect there will be more in the hall and the kitchen.  

.....

I really don't care for the phrase 'Mother Nature'. I see precious little of the 'Mother Love' side of Nature in the raw, more like 'Tough Love'. Some animal parents do spend time and energy in gentle and diligent nurturing, to be sure, but there are plenty of the darker sides too. It's why I won't watch wildlife programmes, not even our wonderful David Attenborough. Sooner or later something will attack and eat something else and I have to leave the room.

I have at last cleared my work table (at the expense of the dining room table - not so good) so this morning I was able to sit by the open patio door and look out over the garden as I wrote up my daily page-a-day review of the day before. You can see this beautiful postcard of a watercolour picture of wild flowers that I received yesterday. I'm keeping it handy as I thought I would try and copy it, to see how the artist, Honor Budden, created it.

I hope she wouldn't mind me putting it up; but as there are a lot of her pictures on instagram, which I don't use (nor facebook...) she obviously made her work public. Thank you, Elisabethd for sending it to me.

Do any of you use an app to identify plants on your phones? If so, which one? I recognise many of the plants in the postcard, but not all.

.....

It's SO HOT! Here's some suitably languorous music; Joshua Bell, soloist and conductor with the Academy of St Martin's in the Fields playing the slow movement from Spring; Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Thursday 21st May - at last!

 The wind has moved from the northerly chills to softer, kinder, and more importantly as far as I am concerned, a warmer direction. 

Somewhere I saw a cartoon of a woman, announcing that she was solar-powered. I get that, and I'd add temperature sensitive. Like the flying ants that suddenly appear after a couple of warm days in the summer, I tend to prefer lying low until sun, wind and temperature all combine to the right kind of weather. 

It's ages since I reached for my pen and paints, but I saw a demo on the Internet a while back and thought it looked pretty straightforward...

I can always see what I could have done differently, but I'm still pleased with this very quick effort. 

We were out on Tuesday taking a bundle of books to sell back to World of Books. It was a bit of a mission trying to find the tiny and well-disguised Morrisons Daily shop where the parcel had to be dropped off. 

It was in a nearby overgrown village with the most labyrinthine mess and muddle of interlocking car parks and one-way systems that could possibly have been crammed into such a small space. After many dead ends, much reversing, and literally going round in circles we found it - job done.

I'm so behind on my New Year Resolution of '2 bags of stuff out of the house every month'. Two bags of shredding, three bags waiting for a charity shop run, and these books brings the total to six. For the year. So four more to go then to catch up!

(Don't tell BB but I'll only get the princely sum of £5.37 back, minus 90p for the parking, and fuel to drive there... next time I might just as well give the books to charity!)

However the ox-eye daisies were everywhere, brightening up what was otherwise a dull and damp afternoon,  which reminded me to the daisy tutorial. 

Tuesday 19th May - time flies...

 Time flies at different speeds...

I'm sure that when I woke up there was almost no yellow to be seen in these rose buds, and I know they were still green yesterday.

But just look at them after this morning's rain followed by a little sunshine! They will be flowering tomorrow for sure.

.....

But where has the last half century gone?

My son went to a Steeleye Span concert recently...

I remember going see them back in about 1976, around fifty years ago when Iwas a student. Their song 'All around my hat' burst onto the music scene like a shooting star, an unmistakable and entirely different sound to everything else on the radio at the time. Even us classical music students sat up and took notice. 

I wonder how it sounds fifty years later. my son said they did play it, 'but only if you all sing too', and everyone joined in with great enthusiasm. 

.....

Music buffs will know of J S Bach's groundbreaking work, 'The Well-tempered Keyboard'. At the time there was no fixed system for tuning your harpsichord that would make it sound acceptable in every key. He wrote this set of Preludes and fugues in every major and minor key to popularise a system of tuning the instruments which has now been the standard for around 300 years. Back then, the word 'temper' meant 'tuning' in this context.

A Prelude can have any sort of structure, but composing a Fugue is trickier to manage, as it involves having a little melody that pops up at a higher or lower pitch throughout the piece. 

Here's a spoof Prelude and Fugue by PDQBach (a pseudonym) called 'The Bad-tempered Prelude and Fugue)

Sunday 17th May - did you watch...

 the Eurovision Song Contest last night? We didn't... too loud, too flashy, too much! So we watched Britain's Got Talent instead... which was also frequently loud, frequently flashy, frequently  OTT.

But, to my astonishment, an1 excellent and spectacular dance group performed to... the Lachrimosa from Mozart's beautiful Requiem Mass. Complete with terrifying stunt moves and acrobatics.   That was unexpected. 

One doesn't often hear religious classical music on Britain's Got Talent. 

But then, Sonny Green performed his poem 'A letter from your Dad'.

Like a still, small voice (where have we heard that phrase before?) this young man wearing a simple jacket and jeans held the entire auditorium in silence, as he delivered his words of love to his children with the refrain 'you're never too old to have a cuddle from your Dad'.

Buried in the lines was a statement of his own Christian faith,

'The Lord is my refuge and my strength', a verse from Psalm 46, which continues 'a very present help in time of trouble'

Here's the complete poem;

All four judges were visibly moved, and Sonny Green was given 'the golden buzzer', over many more likely acts.

Well. You hear God's words in all kinds of unexpected situations. 

Oh wait! That wasn't the end of the shocks... the entertainment while we waited for the result of the public's votes to come through we were treated to a powerful performance by Sam Ryder, singing 'Gethsemene' from the upcoming West End revival of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'.

As Sonny said 'a little can go a long long way'...

Friday 15th May - stamps, microwave eggs, Lord of the Rings

 This is my new toy vital craft tool; I used it to create this little line of mini-pictures, cut from a Wentworth jigsaw catalogue and stuck into my diary. 

A punch that cuts out old-fashioned postage stamp shapes. Like this;

.....

I'm sure I've shared this Internet recipe for scrambled eggs;

Beat together one egg and one small teaspoon of mayonnaise in a microwave proof mug or dish, using a fork or little whisk, until thoroughly mixed.

Microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring well each time, until done to your liking. It's the best method I've found yet. It will double; one teaspoon mayonnaise and two eggs works well. I haven't tried three eggs.

I've been making the simplest of dips with a tablespoon spoon of mayonnaise and a teaspoon of French dressing to dip my salad i ; carrot sticks, little gem lettuce leaves etc which I had to accompany my sandwich at supper. 

.....

I've been immersed in The Lord of the Rings most of today;

I remembered this illustration and the riddle for gaining entry into the Mountain 'Speak, friend, and enter'

and some of the many poems scattered throughout the story, like this 

I sit beside the fire and think

of all that I have seen

of meadow-flowers and butterflies

in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer

in autumns that there were,

with morning mist and silver sun

and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think

of how the world will be

when winter comes without a spring

that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things

that I have never seen:

in every wood in every spring

there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think

of people long ago

and people who will see a world

that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think

of times there were before,

I listen for returning feet

and voices at the door.

It suited my mood today.

Thursday 14th May - more weather, less walking

Today was similar to yesterday, weather wise, cold, showers, raining, grey, sunny by turns.

So no walking. I'll walk an extra 'distance' by walking on the spot to make up. 

Vicky came and did some work in the garden; she comes fortnightly which is only just often enough at this time of year. The goose-grass is on a mission to take over, and I'm on a mission  (via Vicky) to prevent it. It's a hopeless task to root it out, so I work on a policy of 'discouragement', where everything shoot gets pulled out preferably to ground level before it can drop its bobbly little seeds everywhere. This seems to work; over the years it is much reduced. She managed to pick two hours between rain showers, packing up just as the first drops fell.

Sencoesue said in the comments that she uses a stand for her tablet - of course! BB doesn't use the one I gave him, so I retrieved it and set it up;

I've been using the stand off and on since yesterday with caution, and so far I've had no ill effects with my neck. 

My neck isn't fully better, but it is steadily improving. I just have to be careful. And patient...

Here's the stand in use again;

This is our book club choice for this month. 

How could your name affect the trajectory of your life? The author has imagined three different ways the boy could grow, depending on whether he takes his horrible father's name, Gordon, or the the name his sister his suggests, Bear, or the name his mother chooses, Julian.

While I find the courage to dive in (Gordon sounds a nasty piece of work, will his son be like him?) I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings.

That's a blast from the past; it must be 30 or 40 years since I last read it, although I've listened to the dramatisation... on cassettes, so that wasn't much more recent either!

Wednesday 13th April - A proper English Spring

 Springtime in Sussex is deceptive, tricksy. I wake up and look out of the window,  which faces south-east and so catches the light and warmth of the morning sun.

Then I wander down to the kitchen which faces north-west, and search out a cardigan. Not so warm after all! If I open the back door for some fresh air I'll revise my opinion some more and do up the buttons on my cardigan, right up to the neck. 

Cold wind not withstanding, we decide to go out; the sky clouds over in a instant and great cold drops of rain come pelting out of the sky... we go back inside, and the clouds disappear and the sun comes out... This pattern was repeated all through the day...

I did sneak out in the afternoon. BB had already set off into town to collect his wedding ring, now made smaller, and some prescriptions from the pharmacy. I just walked a short way up the road - there was plenty to see.

This rock rose is in our front garden. I love seeing how the sun shines through the petals

I noticed the contrast between the old and new growth on this tree;

BB and I got home at about the same time, just before it started raining again. Perfect. 

So, a short walk, but at least it was a walk. My step count will be well over 2000 by bedtime, maybe even heading for 3000.

Tuesday 12th May - a day off?

Yesterday I proved conclusively that it's the way I use my tablet that provokes my neck. I only used it for about 15 minutes and I was paying for it all night and all today, and felt proper sorry for myself.

I was so tired and droopy all day that I took things very, very easy and didn't brave the cold gloomy weather.

I did do a little drawing though; sitting at the dining room table to write or draw seems to be okay for short periods of time. 

My usual sunny good temper (?) was severely tested throughout the day; every sentence I began to write (including this one!) seemed to be subjected to a series of interruptions; a phone call from the architect, the arrival of the man to service the stairlift, a delivery, a pressing need to go to the loo, a question about this, or that... at one point I came back to a sentence in my 'notebook swap' after several hours to find to find the word 'Also', but what had I been going to write four hours previously?

I do know I was writing about Johanna Basford's Inky Wonderland colouring books. She wrote a book on how to create the pictures she makes. I lent my to a neighbour yesterday; now that she's on her own (her husband died about a year ago) she finds the evenings very long sometimes,  but said she enjoyed doing colouring books. I thought she might like to create her own pictures. 

That put me in mind of the series of YouTube tutorials JB released, 

so I found one and followed the step by step instructions. I've drawn these in the current notebook swap that I was having so much difficulty writing complete sentences in!

This last one is still in the early stages at the moment.

Johanna Basford makes it all so easy!

Normal walking will resume tomorrow!

Monday 11th May - plans, plans,

 

Here it is!

This is what we are hoping to achieve; an extension right across the back of our house, creating a new kitchen and a small living space where we can sit to eat at a small table, or relax in comfortable chairs looking out at the garden.

I've coloured the new part a pinky beige so you can see it. Nothing is to scale, but the extension goes out about 10 feet.

The old kitchen, which I've coloured blue, will have a generous section partitioned off, with a sliding door to save space. This is to become a level access walk-in shower, with grab rails and a folding seat, and also a loo and a hand basin. The boiler, with the washing machine underneath can stay where they are, outside the new shower room. The other side of the room can be shelves, cupboards,  drawers, whatever.

We want to have level access through the existing house, into the extension and on through to the new patio, and a ramp down to the left into the garden, for when mobility becomes more of an issue for me.

In other words, we want to 'future proof' our house. We've seen several families suddenly find themselves in the position where illness, disability, mobility has over-taken them, and their adaptations couldn't keep pace with the progression of the illness. And we've seen other families, where one partner gas been diagnosed with a progressive disease, whose early planning and home alterations made all the difference to how they could continue to live happily in their home.

We both felt that this was our chance to adapt our house to make my life, and therefore our lives, more comfortable for longer. Eventually, if necessary, the 'old' dining room could become a downstairs bedroom if I can no longer manage the stairs! 

I'm so excited, especially about a new kitchen!

I've never chosen a kitchen before; this one was here when we moved in nearly 45 years ago, and I doubt it was new then. We've been able to think about howe we cook, and how we use the space, and plan accordingly. The best thing about this is that the new kitchen will be installed before the old one is ripped out, so won't have weeks, or even months, of total chaos in that department.

Now we wait, for the drawings to be given the go-ahead, the drains to be surveyed, and a zillion other details to be slotted into their place in the plan.

....

Walking; the forecast promised rain. Oh. So we drove to a huge undercover garden centre we've visited before, and I used a whole oxygen bottle up walking round, eying up the plants, closely examining a large patio shelter/shade, and giving our full attention to the delights on offer in the food market. We chose exotic snacks (no, not chocolate ants, nothing quite that bizarre, but Thai Tom Yum flavoured bites - definitely yum) and speciality biscuits and some tempting sausage rolls for supper - also good.

So I reckon I dd do a walk today, just not to the post box and back.

Sunday 10th May - Christian Aid Week

Our zoom service today was taken from the materials supplied by Christian Aid. 

There were a few things that caught my attention 

My part in the service was to read 'Fridah's story'. She sold food in the market that she bought wholesale to make a precarious living to support her children and grandson. If she didn't sell enough, she couldn't eat.

I don't think I've ever had to go without food so that my children could eat.

That was something to think about. 

Christian Aid has helped her by teaching her how to grow vegetables in a small space in cones; they create a tower of layers of terraces to make a water-saving way to grow a lot of veg in a small space

 Once I restart my veg patch, I'll give some thought as to how I might be able to use this method. It's like a larger, rougher version of a strawberry tower.

....

Thirdly, one of the readings included this verse, Acts 17; v28

'for in Him we live and move and have our being'

I often think of the Holy Spirit being like pure air, in which we live and move and have our being. Rather like water for fish... without the water the fish cannot live, without air, we cannot live.

....

I persuaded myself to go for a walk; I'd had a restless night last night so was tired and grumpy, and outside it was cold and grey and, horrors, beginning to rain.

'Go on!' I said to myself. 'Give it a go; if you can't get all the way round at least you've tried.'

(I'm constantly talking to myself...)

Stepping out, I was actually surprised to find myself energised by the fresh air after being indoors all day, and surprised myself by feeling energised, and without too much grit or determination did the whole circuit.

The verse came back to mind... in Him.... this Hy Spirit, this Breath of God, we live and move and have our being.

 

Saturday 9th May - election results, anti-doom scrolling book, walk

I just want to write a couple of words about the council election results.

Not one single news item has discussed tactical voting.

We've elected a Lib-Dem candidate, with 2020ish votes. The second highest candidate was Reform, with 800ish votes. The other candidates had about 950 votes between them.

I know that many people, us included, voted L-D  simply to make sure the Reform candidate did not win. I'm sure our area won't be the only one where this happened...  but do we hear this on the news reports? 

Moving on. I try not to let politics seep into this blog!

...

On substack someone, I forgot who, is starting a club where you will receive every month a new, nicely presented laminated card, (or maybe a few cards, I wasn't to sure) with a short poem to memorise, interesting philosophical or 'life' question, a quotation or two, a riddle, naye a conundrum. 

The idea is that instead of reaching for your phone when you are waiting or bored or whatever, you take out the card and think about something on it.

I thought that was an interesting idea! So I've taken a spare small notebook

 and copied out some short poems and haikus, and a couple of quotes and questions;

There are a couple or more pages, but that's all. The notebook can live in my handbag, and I can add some more next month. I could also jot stuff down on the back pages as well if I wanted.

......

Walking seems to take more effort each day, but I think that's because I'm doing better each day... getting a little bit further before I have to stop, for example. Maybe I now need to go slower, take time to enjoy the walk, and the sights along the way like this beautiful tree

rather than using all my grit and determination to make it to the post box and home again! More of an amble, less of a yomp!

Friday 8th May - cow pats from male cows and AI... chickens and a good read.

 Don't be put off because this article by the renowned knitting designer Kate Davies is, at first sight, about knitting. It actually has a lot of important things to to say about AI in general (plus some extraordinary and rather disconcerting AI generated images for the prompt 'lovely knitting').

Actually, the article is well worth a click just for the images; they are enough to raise the alarm bells on this whole ghastly side of AI.

There's a clue to the title of the article in the title of this post.

I read as a therapy after trying again to do cables in knitting. Perhaps different needles would help, that wouldn't split the yarn so easily? Or maybe a different yarn with a tighter twist? Maybe the needles were too slippery to be able to control the yarn? Or a different cable needle? 

Or perhaps just rip it all out, cut off the tangled bit and go and have a coffee. Perhaps cables shouldn't be attempted on days with a 'y' in the spelling.

.....

I'm playing 'yarn chicken' with one project; the solution was to start the next ball of yarn, searching for a section which had an approximate colour match. Now I can relax.

.....

BB and I are both playing 'oxygen cylinder chicken' with the daily walks. This morning I did a stock check;

2 full and 2 quarter-full cylinders in the hall

1 three-quarter full cylinder in the dining room for use in zooms

2 full and one empty in the shed

 I need to reserve three for meeting up with a friend for the day on Monday - I'll probably only use 2, but it's always better to have some contingency.

So today I carried a quarter full one and BB a full one; by the time we got home mine was empty and his was just over half full.

Tomorrow I'll carry the other quarter cylinder and he'll carry the one he had today - there should be about a quarter left.

On Sunday I'll carry that one, and he'll take the three-quarter cylinder from the dining room; if it looks like we're going to run out, he can stride home, fetch one of 'Monday's cylinders' and rescue me. I wouldn't have far to go; if I just sit on someone's garden wall, turn the flow rate down and wait I'll be fine. That's how you play oxygen cylinder chicken; just as in knitting, going faster doesn't make the yarn or the oxygen last longer!

The big mistake today, I think, was going for the walk too soon after lunch. I'll leave it a bit longer tomorrow! Also, I had a shower this morning, and that's always a bit of an energy-sapper. 

.....

I've just finished reading Barbara O'Neal's books, 'The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth'

It's a good one; food, world travel, mysterious back stories revealed as an initially mismatched trio journey together, two with their own personal tragedies to overcome so that they can begin to live their lives again. Plus ghosts...

    

Thursday 7th May - walking

 I've been keeping up with the walks; yesterday I rocked up to the post box and then discovered I hadn't addressed the card... I nipped into the post office-cum-corner shop and asked if I could borrow a pen and added the address there and then. I'll leave the recipient to guess if they were the one!

I was doing a solo hike this time (all of 0.6 miles!)  BB was back home 'guarding' the dishwasher. WE don't like leaving the dishwasher or washing machine running unattended. This could be because of the time BB and the children came back from the fireworks one very cold dark November night, rounded the corner towards the house to find a fire engine in all its glory and flashing lights outside our front door. I'd stayed at home to cook supper as I wasn't bothered about fireworks and I am bothered about getting cold. While I was pottering in the kitchen I noticed that there was a smell of burning and the washing machine drum had filled up with smoke.

I switched it off, and then proved to my disgust exactly how useless I was in a crisis;

me - dial 999

voice - fire, police or ambulance?

me - fire! My washing machine is full of smoke, I'm standing outside, could a fire engine come? they are only just down the road

voice - what's your address madam?

me - I think I need some help with the washing machine, it's too heavy for me to get it out of the house

voice patiently extracts details of my name and address and slowly I calm down and realise how unhelpful I was...

Learning Point; rehearse exactly what you need to say to the voice on the phone in an emergency...

Anyway, to get back to the here and now, or here and yesterday, there was plenty of oxygen left in the cylinder, so I extended my walk to visit the duck pond, just across the little common outside the corner shop.

There are ducks and geese, ducklings and goslings, or there will be soon. I only saw the ducks across the far side (not in the photograph, and the geese. One was in the water, the other standing guard in a slightly threatening manner;

     I gave him a wide berth, staying on the path.

Today BB came too. We took a slightly different route, involving a couple of slightly greater upward slopes  and I was glad he was carrying the cylinder. I didn't make it all the way to the post box; I rested on a bench nearby while BB walked to the post box with a card, and bought himself a pizza for supper. The weather was colder, and grinding up the slopes had sapped my energy. Still, after my rest we made it all the way back again, downhill all the way, and I reckon I walked a similar distance.

It's astonishing what a difference the slightest gradient can make for me.

.......

Indiana Jones; just a short extract. The Vienna Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. So many opportunities for people-watching! 

 

Thursday 7th May - elections

 I'm sharing this post from Ang at Tracing Rainbows because voting is so important. 

Here's Dave Walker's excellent cartoon;

In my area it's likely that people will be voting tactically.

Here is the Marsh family... they've nailed their colours to the mast! (Also from Ang's post)

Wednesday 6th May - serves me right...

 Don't waste any sympathy on me when I whinge about getting a stiff neck again. I knew this would happen when I spent too long on my tablet at the weekend, on Monday, yesterday. 'You'll be sorry,' I warned myself, but I didn't listen.

So, two paracetamol and my rechargeable heated neck wrap are doing their work and I'm slowly feeling less fragile.

I've put my tablet out of reach and am monitoring phone use. A few days of 'adulting' and I shall be fine.

I stood outside in the only sunny patch I can get to near the back door, which happens to be where the neighbours haven't yet replaced their fence. They took a few panels down, having checked with us beforehand, when they were having their extension done last summer.  It made access much easier for the builders, especially when demolishing the old garage. Being able to seeing what was going on suited us very nicely as we thought and plotted and planned ours, hopefully (when's the next blue moon?) starting in the next month or so. 

I was waiting for the sun to reach the hazel tree I am following this year - the past few days have been quite clouded over whenever I've thought of taking a picture. The sun creeps along the garden up towards the house. By midsummer the back of our house (and therefore our proposed extension) will be in the sun from about 11am, but there are a few weeks to go yet.

Anyway, the sun reached the tree just before 10, and BB took a picture on my phone for me;

I noticed its leaves were drooping over the weekend, but a couple of buckets of water seem to have perked it up. I suppose it just gets leafier and leafier, and the pale green-ness becomes darker and darker as the year goes on now. To think it was just a few thin little twiggy bits in a pot last Summer when we got it...

....

   I follow the blog of an author called Kathleen Jowitt, and she posted about a great-great-great-relative of hers a composer and conductor called Sir Julius Benedict, who seems to be largely forgotten today although very well known in his own life. He was born in 1804, and conducted the Norfolk Music Festival for over 30 years. The Burnham Music Festival in Norfolk is celebrating his work this year.

At Kathleen Jowitt's recommendation I've just listened to his C minor piano concerto - one single continuous piece, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Think Mendlessohn, ebullience, energy, spectacle...

     

   

Tuesday 5th May - unexpected item in bread machine

 Namely, this;

I don't  know how that happened! That sad mixture of bread flour, yeast (new packet, reliable brand) salt, sugar, butter and water, all measured and added in the right order  produced that. It really was inedible, amd is now in the compost bin where the worms will eventually conceal the evidence. 

BB cleaned the bread machine and made another loaf, meticulously weighing and measuring everything.

It tastes excellent too; we've just had bacon sandwiches for supper.

(Lunch, if you are interested, was Nigella Lawson's spaghetti with tinned sardines, much nicer than it sounds!)

.....

BB went out to try and book a haircut. The usual place, by our corner shop, has disappeared so he went to a place ge had been to before. Lo and behold, they could do him straight away, and I hardly recognised him. The haircut was very overdue, and he looks so much smarter!

.....

When he got back, we went straight out to post today's postcard. I managed to push past my natural inclination to have a day off, and once I found my (rather slow!) stride, I discovered that we'd got home much sooner, stopped less frequently and I'd only used half a cylinder! This improvement is a great encouragement. Thank you, Rustic Pumpkin, for inspiring me to get walking again! She's walking to raise money for Parkinsons UK, so do visit if you'd like to donate.

.....

Here's some unexpected Star Wars....

Monday 4th May - stickability

is not my strong point, but i have managed two trips to the post box in a row.

This was the first cross-stitch picture I ever completed, the first one in the Cross Stitch Collaboration project with Ang. We both seem to have double-joined arms...

We've completed four collaborations so far, the first, stating in 2022 was an embroidery 'postcard', the second was cross stitch. The third was a book cover, the fourth a patchwork project bag. We're taking a break this year, but I hope we come up with a new idea for next year!

What else today? Well, these all count as 'events' for me;

a shower

the walk to the post office; much easier today as although we walked the exact same route, BB joined me and carried the 3.8kg oxygen cylinder. What a difference that makes! I was walking twice as far before stopping for a breather! However we have a slight problem; I'm only using three-quarters of a cylinder, and I will soon me amassing a rather useless row of quarter-full cylinders... the solution us to walk a little bit further, of course, but close to home so if I'm getting too close to empty I won't have far to go.

sending in my order for our weekly grocery delivery

and, after lunch (sausages from earlier in the week reheated in a batch of freshly made tomato and veg sauce, with potatoes cut very small and roasted in the air fryer)

helping BB to change the sheets - clean sheets tonight! I do love a freshly-made bed! We've also swapped to the summer duvet, I've been getting too hot these past nights.

Now after supper (home-made carrot soup, toast and marmite, followed by toast and marmalade) we're settling down for the final part of the snooker final...

Oh, and here's a picture of Yoda, because... it's May the Fourth...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda

I'm not sure I agree with his famous quote "Do or do not. There is no try." 

John Williams and The Vienna Philharmonic; the main title theme from Star Wars, called 'A New Hope'.

Sunday 3rd May - Community support and encouragement

In the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 24-25, St Paul says;

And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another... 

This is one of the very few Bible verses that I can sort of quote with Chapter and verse, because our mothers and toddlers group at church that I used to go to way back when my children were toddlers was called, confusingly to newcomers, '10:25' after this verse. I say confusingly, because we actually met at 10, but once you knew the reason why it all made perfect sense.

I suppose we tried to do a bit of Bible study in alternate weeks, and did something else on the other weeks, but the Bible study bit was always being derailed; no-one could remember who had The Book, or the person who was meant to be leading had forgotton The Book or was away, or someone started sharing a great recipe for carrot cake or asked urgent questions as to where someone had bought that dress/cardigan/shirt. 

The main thing, most important thing, I would say, about our group was that we all propped each other up as we lurched from catastrophe, to crisis, to total overload and exhaustion, as mothers of toddlers.

My current home group, over thirty years later, does the same. We pool our knowledge, offer practical assistance and promise to pray for each other.

And I reckon the blogging community that I have found myself in does the same; we might not ever meet each other in person, but I think we do a decent job of spurring each other on towards love and good deeds... and encourage each other as we navigate our very different lives and challenges.

And in that spirit, I hope Rustic Pumpkin won't mind me encouraging you to visit her site  and read her post for the 26th April, about taking on a challenge to walk every day in May to raise money for Parkinsons UK. The link to her gofundme page is there, and you can follow her progress.

She has inspired me to do more walking (I could hardly be doing less than I am at the moment 😒) and today I made it round to the post box to post a card to a friend. A there and back walk of just over half a mile, pretty good going for me. 

I'm not asking for personal sponsorship or anything, as I'm not committing myself any more than walking nearly every day, well, maybe several times a week is more realistic! But if you would like a post card, put your address in the comments and I'll send you one (but I won't publish your address) 

It will give me a reason for the walk. If I've already got your address, then a postcard will wing its way to you eventually... 

.....

I never thought I'd choose this piece to share - the famous (infamous?) Bach Prelude in C major from The Well Tempered Klavier, book 1, but it had a lovely video. There's no indication of who is playing the piano.

Sunday 3rd May - My Oxygenated Life - I've been in a strop!

 I haven't posted anything on my blog for a few days, because it's been  busy week and I found that was I tired in the evenings. 

And also, I've been Thinking, which can also be Very Tiring! There have been a number of 'incidents', shall we call them, with my oxygen support, all self-inflicted.  

Things like

forgetting to turn up the flow rate when I take the stair lift up to go to the loo

forgetting to turn up the flow rate when I go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea or start cooking a meal

not paying attention to how much oxygen I have left in a cylinder, so part way through a zoom call I start wondering why I am suddenly feeling so desperately in need of a nap

hanging the end of the oxygen canula off the back of a patio chair so I can risk taking several steps to the compost bin to empty the kitchen scraps bin, because the canula doesn't quite reach that far  

nipping over from the table to the the settee to fetch my cardigan and putting it on as I sit don to finish what I am doing, without adjusting the flow rate up, and then back down again  

forgetting to turn the flow rate down after I have made my porridge and before I sit at the table to eat it!

I am driving myself crazy!

What is going on?

Bear in mind that, at rest and at night I need an oxygen flow rate of 1 litre per minute, for mild physical activity such a getting dressed, having a bath or shower, making a cup of tea or gently cooking a meal, I need around 5-6 litres per minute, and for walking 7 or 9 litres per minute depending on terrain. When walking outdoors I also need to pause and catch my breath every 100-150 steps or so, depending on the uphill or downhill slope! 

I think it's a form of rebellion against the whole (adjective removed) business of being dependent on oxygen support, and also a kind of frustration at how quickly my oxygen levels plummet upon any kind of exertion. It's very trying that bending down to adjust the flow rate on the oxygen concentrator uses even more oxygen! The good thing is that I recover very quickly; usually within a couple of minutes or less once I stop moving.

'Just pace yourself', they told me at the clinic. Well, yes, jolly good advice. 'You try it,' I snarled back, but luckily in my 'inside' voice, while maintaining an intelligent and receptive (I hope) look on my face.

This happens to me every so often; I maintain an attitude of acceptance, and gratitude for the life changing, life enhancing effect of having oxygen support - you should have seen me two years ago almost weeping from exhaustion at the end of the day from just the effort of breathing to keep my oxygen SATs somewhere around 87%, and going to bed early just so I could hook up to the overnight oxygen I was allowed to have.

So I have to stop, and reflect, and notice that I am being rebellious and stroppy and - let's face it - rather silly and irresponsible, even if subconsciously, and start behaving better! I've had a word with myself, as they say, and going to pay more attention to what I do and how.

It's not just me that is being hurt by my behaviour, but also BB, who has to continually rescue me from my escapades, and what while I sit there gasped like a landed fish while my oxygen levels come back up to what they should be. It's just not fair on him - am I listening? Yes..... until next time....

Cheerfulness, gladness, gratitude and a more mature frame of mind have been resumed.   

 

    

Saturday 2nd May - I don't even like snooker...

 But the past couple of days I've been fairly glued to it...

The semifinal between Mark Allan and Wu Yize has been riveting.  It's still going, and they've started another frame so this is all I'm posting today...