Monday 16th March - Lent 4 was yesterday

 Tiny changes; 

spiritual; get outside, or at least as far as the back door step. That's going to be so much easier now that Spring is arriving. 

What must it be like for people without access to a view of greenery - our first house was in an area criss-crossed by streets full of near-identical terraced houses opening straight onto the pavement. We had a small backyard, only accessible by going through the house - pause to contemplate wrangling our bicycles and dustbin through the kitchen and living room, tracking in dirt and worse - and with no trees, shrubs, flowers or even grass visible from the windows. This could be our street

Even houseplants couldn't grow in our northfacing front room. I was so glad to move out of the town centre to somewhere more in the country.

So yes, I intend to get out, at least as far as the door step every day.

Tiny change towards a calmer life - leave 10 minutes early. Then you can arrive in time -and breathe! I was in two minds whether to write this down; BB is a great one for leaving early, and I am more resistant. I think this is due to my dislike of having to get up so early for work. I'm not a natural early riser, and he is. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Can a leopard change its spots? Well, I'm not a dog, I don't do tricks and I'm not a leopard. So, maybe I can change. Would leaving five minutes earlier because step in the right direction?

Madness, 'Our house, in the middle of the street'

This could be our first house together, even to the colour of rhe paper before we painted it.

Saturday 14th March - pi day?

 Do skip the next paragraphs if you're not interested...

It's really only pi day,  03.14 if you write your dates USA style. I cannot get used to writing dates as Month then Day then Year, except...

It's a really good idea, when saving files on your computer to prefix them with the date as mmddyyyy, American style. Then, almost regardless of the text name, the files will show up in date order.

So, maybe in a folder labelled

 2026 Dental

I will have entries like

2026021 estimate for crown ref 112233

20260309 invoice for crown ref 112233

20260312 receipt for crown ref 112233

My father gave up making sure documents were in the right folders because he discovered the 'search' function. Like all his dodgy wheezes, it worked only nearly perfectly. He would just set the search to look through his entire computer, say for a copy of some information from a 'Mr Entwistle', say, and sooner or later the right file would appear. But if he wanted to find a file concerning a 'Mr Smith' .... or 'a house in Somerset ' then he was doomed.

                                ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo 

Enough. I'm actually not keen on computerey stuff. It's fine while I can blunder around doing the few things I'm comfortable with, but I very soon run out of knowledge, patience and confidence. I guess I'm still a rookie; I've only been using them for 50 years.... I'm lucky to have expert techies on hand in husband and son. Daughter's pretty fluent in computerese too.

We were out in the country this morning. It's been a beautiful day, and we met up with Son and daughter at a new venue; a village farm shop and café which we have bever been to, in a fold of the South Downs. It was quietly busy; popular with locals, especially dogwalkers stopping for coffee and a cake or a cooked breakfast, and a stream of cyclists with sturdy bicycles aso glad of a break. We'll be going back there again.

I was given Mothering Sunday flowers, a little bouquet of beautiful crochet flowers. Aren't they lovely!

'Magic moments', sung by Perry Como.... because today has been magic!

Friday 13th March - another dragon slayed

 I've finally got the receipts and invoices and account statements from the dentist for this year beaten into a form ready to submit to the dental insurance company. BB has endured a massive amount of dental work since last August (our insurance year runs from August every year) so in the end I was only able to claim for hygienist and checkup appointments - it won't be much, but it will be something! I'm so happy to shove the papers into the file marked TEETH and jam it back on the shelf.

Each task dispatched and filed away feels like another weight off my mind... the next ones are queuing up behind, though, jostling for attention. I've to do powers of attorney for us next. I did them for my father a couple of years ago and it wasn't too bad. I just need to step up, bite the bullet, grasp the nettle, etc, etc, etc...

Meanwhile I've b/rainspace for sewing again;

The next Quilt as you go square, ready for the backing to be sewn down. I'll need to unpin it, unfold the hems, trim the corners using the creases in the fabric as a guide, refold creating mitre corners, pin and stitch. That looks like a lot but isn't really. 

I've been spending too much time avoiding what I should be doing by reading  Shetland murder mysteries by Marsali Taylor; Buried in a Shetland Tomb, An Imposter in Shetland. I'm rereading the first in the series next, something to do with a Longship in the Shetlands. 

I'm going to try and back to regular blogging; it seems a little unfair not to make the effort, to 'show up' when I enjoy reading the blogs of those who do, like Ang. Time to emerge from my treacle well like the Dormouse in Alice in Wonderland. I've got that wrong, actually... I've just checked. He tells a story of three sisters whole live at the bottom of a treacle well and draw pictures of things beginning with the letter M, 'such as mousetraps, memory and muchness....' before the Hare and the Hatter stuff him into the teapot... I do hope the tea was only warm, not hot.

https://hornbakelibrary.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/spotlight-on-wonderland-the-dormouse/

I haven't listened to this in ages;

Thibaut Garcia describes Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez as "a superb example of Rodrigo’s musical language, which is unique and instantly recognizable." Discover his album centered around this magnificent work, with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and Ben Glassberg:

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!

....

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.