Monday 9th March - I'm still here!

It's not that I'm fed up with blogging, ot that I'm intentionally taking a blog-break;

It's more that the past 2 weeks have become increasingly admin / computer keyboard tapping heavy as I deal with ALL the paperwork relating to selling my father's flat. My word, it has become so much more complicated since we last bought or sold a house over 45 years ago.

By the time the evening comes I tend to slump on the settee in front of Antiques Roadtrip or Richrad Osman's House of Games, or similar undemanding fare, and blogging just doesn't happen. 

However, today I managed to load the crockery pot with the ingredients for soup;

Chop some carrots and an onion, cook in a little sunflower oil until beginning to look a little golden brown (I bunged them in the airfryer 190C for 10-15 minutes). Tip into crock pot along with a chicken stock, finely chopped celery, water and tomato puree. Cook on high for 3-4 hours. I will say the the cooking time does depend on remembering to switch the crockpot on... blend with stick blender, add more liquid and adjust seasoning. 

How many carrots and onions? How much stock and tomato puree? It depends on the size of your crackpot. It doesn't really matter, it's bound to be good. As long as you did turn the crockpot on...

Lunch was a real cheat; frozen vegetable stir fry mix, cooked chicken slices, 'straight to wok' noodles, with a stir fry sauce concocted from a glug of dry sherry, slurp each of sweet chilli dipping sauce and tomato ketchup and a decent glug or three of soy sauce. Ten minutes from start to finish.

52 tiny changes... set alarms on your phone to remind you to do things, instead of trying to remember them... I already do for one med that is easily missed (I also write the dates on the blister pack by each pill so I can check I've taken it). 

It's a matter of choosing which alarms would be useful, and which would only clutter your life even more!

52 tiny spiritual changes; make a point of praising God every day, maybe for something, or maybe just because he is God and worthy to be praised.

Thursday March 5th - a day of gentle content (on the whole..)

 Enough sun to stir the solar fountain into life! (Taken from inside the house)

Today has mostly been a calm contented, happy cheerful day, unruffled by the cares of life... (except where they snuck in round the edges, to be acknowledged, agreed with, and sent on their way) 

So two lovely moments. The first piece is a favourite of mine, the second popped up like an enthusiastic labrador emerging from a thicket of shrubs...

Coming From the Fountain - Granados - such a contentment in the music... Leonard Kim playing.

Chico Marx back in 1940  - another happy happy tune!

Yesterday I deleted 200 photographs, almost all duplicates, and things that were no longer of interest. Hooray!

Yesterday was lovely and sunny; back to Nymans gardens in the afternoon. I walked twice as far with half the after-aches as last week. If I can keep this up I shall definitely feel the benefits soon. 

Today I bundled a few bits of decent clothing for charity into a bag and left it out for collection- Hooray! If I'm sticking to my resolution of 2 bags of stuff donated per month, I've another 5 to go before the end of March. It's all piled up ready to go, I just need to finish the job.

We would have gone out again today, but the oxygen situation wasn't suitable - somehow I ended up with three cylinders each less than a quarter full, ie 10-15 minutes walking time, plus two full ones. The rest were empties. Bad planning! I've ordered replacements for tomorrow, and just used up the part cylinders in the garden - a bit of tidying, and refilling bird feeders, and just wandering around looking. A couple of tulips are suggesting that they might flower quite soon. Meanwhile the bigger daffodils are flowering, ready to follow on from the smaller tete-a-tete.

   

 

 

Tuesday 3rd March - time to take a breather

 I totally want one of these if I ever need to start using a rollator....

Now, what was I really going to post....

This week's next habit to quiet your mind and live a calmer life is to spend 5 mins clearing your digital clutter.... dealing with old emails that can be deleted, going through photographs and screen shots that you don't need... whatever. Not a bad plan... my Google storage is slightly worryingly full, and 5 - 10 mins just going through and pruning would be a very sensible thing to do. Just a regular chipping away at the clutter is all that's needed.

Here's the next patchwork square, based on a pattern from a Saishiko book.

This is the book;

There are lots of lovely pattern ideas and starting points in it, and I can easily adapt them for other types of stitches.

My patch is the first one in the book; rows of offset running stitches which are interlaced. I used dark blue and variegated green perlé cotton. 

Hobbyart are now offering a £14 refund 'and you can keep the book' for their useless product. I'm staying strong, holding out for the full £18. 

Yesterday my 'three events per day' turned into a seemingly continuous stream of emails, phone calls and zooms... admittedly phoning my brother, and a regular monthly zoom weren't actually work but everything else was. 

So far today has been more measured!

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I love the Grieg piano concerto. I must have listened to my cassette of it hundreds of time when I was in my last couple of years at school. 

Sunday 1st March - Lent 2 - Just Showing Up

St David's Day!

We had a short break in Tewksbury back in 2012 (I think) and this dragon was siting just inside someone's garden, yearning towards Wales, across the River Severn where the curlews call to it.

 .....

The next '52 ways to improve my spiritual life' idea is to Just Show Up. I'm so ready to pick and choose whether I go to things; 'oh I'm feeling a bit tired', 'oh I'm not in the mood', and even 'oh, I don't really like that person's style in leading church'. And so I talk myself, all to easily, into not going. Dare I even say into not bothering?

It's different if I'm taking an active part, or hosting the event, I'll surely be there then, but it's not enough. Communities, be they swimming sessions, choirs, book clubs, church services, home groups, all need people to turn up on days when they are just part of the group.

So, starting from today, this morning in fact, I'm going to push Just Showing Up higher up my list of priorities. 

Obviously if I am actually unwell, or on my knees with exhaustion, or have a really unavoidable conflict in the diary, that's a different matter.

Today I Just Showed Up to zoom church  - well, I was reading the first lesson, so I had to - and I felt all the better for joining the other two dozen regular members of our online community.

I do have a terrible tendency to doodle in the reflection though...

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I'm glad I took a picture of my witch hazel tree in the middle on the month. It has been a bright blaze of yellow to fill the gap between the snowdrops and the daffodils. Here it is on 14th February 

And here's the picture I took yesterday. You can see why I notes that the flowers were like yellow spiders earlier, and have now turned brown.  

You can see some of the daffodils, and if you 'embiggen*' the photograph, you can make out the buds on the hazel. (* embiggen is a word Granny Marigold shared on a recent blogpost - I love it!)

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Here's Benjamin Brittten's arrangement of a traditional Welsh Folk Song, The Ash Grove.

   

Sunday 1st March - Grace before meals

At very very long long last I have gathered up all the comments following my post about saying Grace before meals back on September 7th 2025. If I missed yours, or you have another addition, just let me know in the comments. 

I have put them all on a new page at the side of the blog, like this;

I wrote a blog post on Sunday September 7th^th 2025 about saying ‘Grace’ before meals, and included these;

All good gifts around us are sent from heav’n above;

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all His love.

We often sing this together before a shared Harvest Supper, or any other shared meal at my home church. (We joke that our church does love a shared meal)

Also, in a novel I was reading, someone said a grace before a meal, remembered from their days as an undergraduate at Oxford;

Benedictus benedicat, which means 'may the Blessed One give a blessing'

 

And a little sung grace I learned from the children at a Church of England primary school;

Thank you for the world so sweet, ho hum.

Thank you for the food we eat, yum, yum.

Thank you for the birds that sing-a-ling-a-ling.

Thank you God for everything,

Ho hum, yum yum, sing-a-ling,

Amen!

 

Then the comments started rolling in! So here are all the ‘Graces’ from that post…

 

From Granny Marigold;

 'For what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful'.

My reply; I have a feeling that we used to say 'For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful' which always sounded slightly threatening to me.

From Martha;

'Rub-a-dub, thanks for the grub', from a trainee youth pastor, much to the surprise of the senior pastor.

My reply; I have just remembered 'ta, Pa'; which I think one of our vicar’s children replied when asked to say grace at a Sunday lunch we had been invited to. (It was a very very long time ago so it might have been a different child, and a different occasion!)

 

Three contributions from Skye;

1.      Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Whoever eats the fastest, gets the most

When asked to say grace, the speedy reply is, 'Grace'.

 

2.      Not a grace, but a little something from Jonathan Swift:

On the table spread the cloth,
Let the knives be sharp and clean:
Pickles get and salad both,
Let them each be fresh and green:
With small beer, good ale, and wine,
O ye gods! how I shall dine.

Frugally Challenged wrote one for wedding receptions

St (John's) Church with the sun above
Thank you, God, for the gift of love.
(The Berkeley Hotel) and a great hub-bub
Thank you God for the gift of grub.

 

 And added this (‘Not one of mine but lovely’)

 For food in a world where many walk in hunger.
For faith in a world where many walk in fear.
For friends in a world where many walk alone,
We give you humble thanks, O Lord.

From Ang;

A Breakfast Prayer from my youth "Lord make me not like porridge, slow and hard to stir, but make me like cornflakes, quick and ready to serve"

 

From Sue in Suffolk;

We always said grace when we ate anywhere where Father in Law was present, - Methodist Lay Preacher - and I've just remembered the grace he said - been trying to think of it since your post the other day,
"For this and all thy gifts we thank you Lord".
There was a short children’s one too - I wonder if any of my children can remember it

 

From Chris;

We always say a Grace and hold hands in cafes.. at home I always add a thanks to the cook!

From Beth;

In my former small congregation we often gathered for meals and used the following sung grace, which we knew from More Voices, one of our United Church of Canada hymnaries. It's translated from Spanish and is apparently set to a traditional Argentinian melody.

 See here on YouTube for the Spanish and then the English: https://youtu.be/PiFG07FZ3zI

God bless to us our bread.
Give bread to all those who are hungry,
and hunger for justice to those who are fed.
God bless to us our bread.

Friday 27th February - progress on several fronts...

Cake; I've started a Nigella Bara Brith. Her recipe takes a few days from making the tea to soak the fruit, to making a pot of tea to accompany a slice. Today the fruit, sugar, mixed spice and tea is all soaking. Tomorrow I add the SR flour and egg and cook it, and glaze it with a little runny honey. Then, says Nigella, you should wait two days before you eat it! So that can be a Sunday afternoon treat. 

I think I'll have to make another cake to have a in the meantime. I'm debating between my yoghurt cake recipe, perhaps flavoured with ginger and marmalade.... or a lemon drizzle version.... decisions, decisions...

I've been working on the first patch for my QAYG quilt. Or I could call it a LAIG quilt... for Learn As I Go...

Finished?

Hmm... perhaps a little more...

Finished! This one is almost all running stitch. I don't love it... but it will be one of many so that's fine.

Lunch was another 'Nigella',  a version of her sardine and spaghetti recipe. I added extra veg; chopped red pepper, celery,  sundried tomatoes, and broccoli. With pasta wriggles instead of spaghetti. Pasta wriggles are easier to eat! But spaghetti actually works better.

The afternoon was admin, the sort I detest; s anning in stuff, copying stuff, filing stuff, emailing stuff. Huh. Grump. Whinge. Whine.

BB walked round to the corner shop for something and came back with a little tube of smarties for me!

So I was in a positive and cheerful mood to start teaching an arrangement of Danny Boy to a piano student- it was a good lesson!