Sunday 26th April - what a beautiful day...

In the garden after lunch; 

I'm trying to avoid what I think of as 'work' on Sundays... that's roughly defined as 'anything I don't want to do, that doesn't need to be done today'. It's working well so far. 

After lunch (salmon en papilotte cooked in the air fryer with boiled potatoes tossed in a little butter, and spinach, followed by banana custard, should you be interested) I took my coffee and knitting into the garden and sat on the bench for nearly an hour. The chuntering of the oxygen concentrator was muted to a background rumble so it felt closer to silence than it does indoors. Instead I could hear the little solar fountain, and birdsong, and the clap of pigeon wings as they flopped onto a branch. 

It was almost as if I could hear the whole garden relaxing, expanded, growing. It felt as though if I listened carefully enough I would hear the leaves growing, and the sound of the ants and beetles scurrying across the patio.

Here's another prayer from the Angela Ashwin book of 1000 prayers from our last home-group meeting;

I hope you have a good week.

Saturday 25th April - three events per day

 Aiming to schedule just three events per day is working fairly well. Also, recognising that a day of action may well require an easy following day is helpful. 

So Thursday - having a shower, a chatty social/piano lesson zoom, and home-group zoom were the three events.

Quite a lot of knitting and thinking about the cardigan too; deciding which ball of yarn to use where to spread the colours to best effect, and thinking about how to manage the sleeves and ribbing, as I'm using a thinner yarn so have to calculate how many stitches I'll be needing.

So Friday was meant to be a gentle day, and so it was. Just one event, an afternoon outing; our little home-group zoom, just the five of us, met for a communion service followed by tea and cake in the garden of the of the group.

We sat at a table in a shady corner with a trickling fountain nearby, surrounded by trees, plants, birds. We said the familiar prayers and shared bread and wine. It was such special time; for many reasons this was only the third or fourth time I have been able to receive communion since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. 

We were all given a little sprig of the olive tree to take home as a memento

Now it's Saturday afternoon. I spent the morning going through some of paperwork from last year, shredding, recycling and throwing out things I (hope I) no longer need from dealing with probate and all the other stuff. Don't worry, I kept all the financial files!

This all started because I wanted to try and clear my little work table. BB's been given a Book Nook model to make up, so he needs the space on the dining room table, which meant tidying my side, which meant making space for more files on my bookshelves, which meant I was precipitated into a mega sort out. Long overdue, and well worth doing.

I never did get to sit at my desk today after all that!

Sussex in April, in Spring, is so quintessentially English; so here is Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis 

Wednesday 23rd April - Carrots. Wedding Ring. etc

 

Batch cooking has happened. A crock-pot full of carrot soup made about 6 portions for suppers, and a tray of minced beef, vegetables and beans made another 8 portions for lunches. The freezer is now bulging; we'll have to do a freezer inventory soon.

BB walked into town yesterday to the jewellers, and left his ring with them. They are going to cut a chunk out of it, so hopefully we've played the last game of 'hunt the wedding ring'.

I'm knitting along my experimental cardigan. So far I've finished three of the five strips that will make the back. Hooray, hooray! I ordered another ball of Sirdar Jewelspun chunky in what I hoped would be a toning shade, and a slightly shorter set of 6.5mm needles. The yarn is perfect, and the new needles are So Much Better. 

I'm pulling the yarn from the centre of the current ball, and all was going well until this happened;

Instead of a length of yarn I pulled out a tangled knot! (Looking too much like intestines for my liking) 

I just had to practise patience as I unravelled it. Then, of course I was left with yards of wool... nothing for it but to knit and knit until it was tidied up into several dozen rows of mock rib!

Tuesday 21st April - hunt the...

 This was one of my favourite books;

When I was little, Parties had already begun to change. Girls had party dresses, but I'm not sure the boys wore ties. 

We did play all the party games; oranges and lemons, blind man's buff, and hunt the thimble;

It took me a surprisingly long time to spot the thimble in the picture.

......

So what's this bit of nostalgia all about? Well, it's becoming a bit of a habit; BB unpacks the grocery delivery, comes back into the sitting room and then suddenly stops an announces 'I've lost my wedding ring again'.

After an anxious half hour we found it in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. His ring seems to have developed a bit of an affinity for potatoes. 

.....

And breathe.

Monday 20th April - rush hour(s) at the laptop

 Today everything I read at the beginning of the day was encouraging me to stop procrastinating and get going on my task list; 

'One step at a time'

'Getting it done was a lot easier than not doing it at all'

and so on.

So I powered up my laptop and submitted reprar prescription requests, fired off email left right and centre, printed off and filed documents as well as saving them from email attachments to folders in my computer, making phone calls, leaving messages, placing the grocery order (oh, did I order yeast? I'd better check).

A friend came round unexpectedly; I nade tea, and she carried the tray while I got an oxygen cylinder and we went and sat in the sun under the apple blossom and caught up on all our news...

It felt MAGNIFICENT!!!

After lunch I thought I'd walk round, yes, walk! to the corner shop post office to extract some money and post a letter...

But I fizzled out, did some knitting, read some of my book... 

This piano piece exactly matches the day! You can hear it fizzle out at the end.

.....

Poulenc trois movements perpetuals, no 1, played by Alexandre Tharaud

Sunday 19th April - 'Rainbow Colours of His Peace'

 This is such a lovely book of prayers. 

This is a favourite of mine;

Mikhail Pletnav playing Scriabin Prelude in C major op11 no 1