Wednesday 18th March - Posting in haste

Book club starts i a minute or so; Last month's book was 'The Frozen River' by Ariel Lawhorn -  maybe tooo much information on childbirth and sexual assault in the Northern America in the Winter of 1789 for comfortable reading, but a gripping story, well told for all that. I really enjoyed it.

This month we meet to discuss The Frozen River and choose the next book from

Patrick Bringley's memoir 'All the Beauty in the World', which I strongly recommend and am more than happy to re-read 

Alan Bennett's diaries 'Keeping on keeping on' - I love reading diaries

Evie Woods - 'The Violin Maker's Secret' which I think I will read regardless as it looks good

M L Stteadman - -A Far Flung Life' - family saga, which doesn't really appeal.

I'll let you know!

I ave now got 6 Amaryliis bulbs on the go! Two have finished flowering and are growing ENORMOUS leaves.

The have been moved to an upstairs windowsill o make room for these;

No 1 was packaged in the same sort of box as the earlier ones, left over in the shop from Christmas, no doubt, It was growing out of its box when I planted it.

The others are left over from last year.

No 3 suddenly came to life of its own accord. I hurridly watered it and brought it downstairs. No 4 likewise, and then I thought I might as well water no 2 and see what happens.

Right. I attend the book club via zoom, and it's past time to join. Toodle-oo   

    

Tuesday 17th March - are we nearly there yet?

 Yes! Checking the weather app on my phone this morning, I saw that the days are now only a few minutes less than 12 hours, that is from sunrise to sunset. The spring equinox is less than a week away, oh joy, oh joy, oh joy.

Have all winters felt as long and grey and cold as this one? Probably not. But sometimes they do seem to go on forever. 

However we have tulips and primulas and forget-me-nots flowering in the garden, trees beginning to have the greenish haze of new leaves on the top-most branches, and real leaves on clematis vines and the lilac.

I spent months learning this, a few bars at a time, whenever I visited my aunt's house. Her copy of the music was very fragile and she didn't want to lend it to me, so I memorised the next couple of bars every week.

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.