Saturday 23rd October - sequencing errors are creeping into everything

 I tried to make myself a cup of tea the other day - assembled a tray with cup and saucer, milk in the cup ready, boiled the kettle, filled the teapot. When poured the tea I discovered I had forgotten the tea leaves. 

So, I started again; tipped out the watery milk, boiled some more water, ADDED THE LEAVES TO THE TEA POT and carried it through the to sitting room. Fail. I had used the filtered water jug instead of the milk bottle to prepare the cup. At least all I had to do was take the cup back to the kitchen, chuck the water and replenish with milk.

Today, with great determination, I managed to get it right first time, but only by actually verbalizing every instruction to myself, rather like when I am teaching or learning something really tricky - a bit of Chopin, the top of the second page of every Bach fugue I have ever studied.

Kettle. Tea in pot. Cup. Saucer. Milk in Cup. Boiling water into tea pot. Oh, the sense of triumph!

I have been dealing with admin today - writing up lessons from last week and sending out the emails, checking to see which parents have paid me for last week's lessons (none of the ones who are doing 'pay as you go' as opposed to 'half-termly in advance! - I shall remind them when I send out the next half term's emails of dates and information!) 

Half term got off to a good start this morning; Radio 3 (Mendelssohn's Octet on Record Review), breakfast in bed, tie to sketch out some ideas for the Advent project and some company.  

I've been fiddling around with some sketches in the mornings over the past few days before I get up; I'm not sure yet what I am planning to do. Lino prints? One for each day? Or make up a commonplace book using the sketches? Something will occur to me.

Yesterday I forced myself to go for a walk after a couple of lazy days. The sun came out part way round, and I starting picking up Autumn leaves and putting them in my pocket. I realized that I was encouraging myself along rather in the way that you would find interesting things for a grumpy toddler to try and persuade them to cheer up. It worked! Have I discovered my true level of maturity? And does this mean I am wise, or childish? 

It doesn't take much effort to press the leaves flat on a piece of kitchen paper and take a rather fuzzy picture of them. They are so pretty by themselves that one doesn't even need to be artistic.

I was also delighted to spot this!  

It is owned by someone living further down our road. He had to stop 'because the fuel pump is giving a bit of trouble'. It didn't seem to take long to fix it - he opened the funny little side access to the bonnet, tweaked the something or other and was going again in seconds.

We reaped the reward of my efforts earlier in the week. Those round red silicone baking dishes fit nicely into the Air Fryer, and I filled the four of them plus the metal cooking pan with macaroni cheese, with added kale, onion, and bacon bits, all topped with breadcrumbs and grated cheese. 

We had the contents of metal dish for supper - it makes quite a light meal for 2 - and the rest went into the freezer. So, one supper meal for each week is sorted. (We eat our main meal at lunchtime these days)

I had tried other containers for freezing the extra portions but they weren't satisfactory, or at least not for reheating in the Air Fryer.

I don't know why it is called an Air Fryer - it is more of a very small, very efficient electric fan oven, coming to temperature in minutes and perfect for two or three people. 

Today is Day 50 of the 'wear the Rowena Swing Dress for 100 days in a row' challenge. I had to wash the front of it on Thursday morning when I discovered some splatters of minestrone soup. Maybe washing the in the hand basin while I was wearing it wasn't efficient or practical or sensible, but I managed, also pressing the wet portion dry between two towels. The fabric dried remarkably quickly, but is a reminder to get on with sorting out an apron.

 

 

Saturday 15th November - no title yet

I can't think of a title - sometimes doing a daily blog seems a bit of a waste of - not ink, because it is typed.

Skin cells? Rattling from my fingers onto the keys? No, that is a bit of a revolting thought. Scrap that.

How about a poem?

No.

So I went scrolling back through the photographs - these two are from Thursday 19th December 2013;

Nine years later they are still true...

This is December 2010 - we went to Copenhagen for a long weekend. I was not very well, but supermax aspro kept me upright enough to enjoy the trip. That was a tough winter all in all - there was a lot going on. As I recall Himself managed to keep going through some pretty awesome logistical nightmares, driving hither and thither while feeling less and less well, until Christmas Day, which he spent in bed.

Moving forward; this was Thursday 6th October 2011, on a visit to our Canadian friends. The 'Fall Colour' didn't really start to happen until we were on our way back to the airport, but we found one tree doing it's stuff;

That was a glorious day... I remember it... we had wonderful weather for the second part of our stay. The first few days, when their daughter was getting married, were shiver-my-timbers-cold, and then it became like midsummer. Bar-b-ques on the deck and all that. 

Ah well.

Oh, now here's a good poem. You can have one after all.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42889/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-314

Tuesday 12th November - Before it all starts

It seems quite a good idea to blog first thing in the morning before anything happens - I'm in an optimistic frame of mind, and still have unused brain cells available for typing.

Weather - lovely again. Just as well, as there are things to do, people to see, places to go off and on through the day, and it is pleasanter being out and about, in and out, when it isn't raining.

I've had a go at capturing the idea of autumn colour in my much neglected diary - things change so often, so quickly, that they are over and done before they've been written in. If I do write them down, they will only get cancelled half an hour later.

I've just splodged the colours on - careful examination of the tree as as we rush past in the car looks as though the remaining leaves are just splodged on, floating down to the grass any old how.

I called in to the garden centre to buy an orchid for my godmother's specialist nurse at the hospital; they were ferociously expensive so I will go back to M and S where I bought them previously. But I did find a load of exploding amarylisses (amarylissi?) which had burst through their cardboard packaging while they were supposed to be dormant.

I have bought three, unpacked them, and given them some water. We shall see. 

Time's up. The day begins in earnest.

Saturday 9th November - Catching up

Catching up on what?

Teaching - 8 piano pupils this morning - because of car malfunction and then half term I haven't seen most of them for a whole 28 days - I counted up the days because one lad had practised the piano every day, scout's honour, which means 7 stickers on my tally chart to add to the previous 5. Since the incentive scheme I run means they get a prize for 10 stickers, he will get first pick of the IKEA finger puppets, the current reward;

It is quite a challenge to find prizes that are cheap enough that I don't mind buying them while exciting enough to be considered acceptable by discerning children.

I feel a bit guilty that one family of three siblings have no idea that I am running this scheme; their mother insists on them all practising every day (which is why the 5-year-old is taking Grade 1 next week, the 8-year-old passed Grade 2 last term and the 10-year-old is already working towards her Grade 4 next term) so they would be hoovering up prizes every couple of weeks. Luckily they will work for stickers - not fussy what sort so long as there are stickers.

I came home from teaching through the kind of autumnal rain which is direct, cold, and uncompromising. The autumn colours are still glorious - beech trees are the stars at the moment. The sycamores lost nearly all their leaves when there were a couple of stormy days last week. Once back, we stayed in for the rest of the day.

I've now got to catch up on paperwork, and also send the next set of emails-to-parents cancelling a day's teaching, as, on balance, we need to visit my godmother again in the next few days. Just to keep things going. The next few months are looking to be the most disorganised ever. Which is saying something.

Oh, and the other thing that is catching up with me as opposed to me catching up with it is the definite beginnings of a sore throat and cold. Which I intend to treat by staying in bed tomorrow; I was supposed to be 'sidesperson' at church (handing out hymnbooks and directing the traffic when it is time to receive Communion) but have managed to get someone else to do it for me. And that will be a time for me to catch up on my sleep too.

Wednesday 6th November - everyone stand down...

I'm home again after a trip to see my Godmother.

We were lucky with the travelling - a misty Autumn day, full of colour, and the sun burning through quite soon.

Everything looks much better in the sunshine.

She's much better - although she didn't sleep much last night (neither did I). Something had upset her yesterday, and that was what had made her feel so unwell. We spent the morning there, sorting out various niggles, replenishing her fridge, chatting and so on. Some of the time was spent gently skirting round the future -  what if she doesn't want to be on her own any more? It was a bit like my dentist, who could do fillings without giving me an injection first; he would drill carefully around the sensitive spot, shifting the drill away before I had got as far as squeaking.

We have managed to bring forward her next clinic visit - the Nurse Specialist who looks after her is so lovely, so kind, so understanding. In the meantime we've got plenty to think about, and certain lines of thought have been opened, certain directions closed off, preferences expressed - you know the sort of thing.

***********************************************

I can crochet in the car (only when I am a passenger, obviously) and the length of the journey there and back means I can get quite a lot done. This is the current square. I started at the blue and white stripy bits on the right so that means I did nearly three and a half circuits. I just have to get from the bottom left corner to the top left corner and that means another square completed.

********************************************************

Didn't I promise you some more saints?

• 6 Leonard, Hermit, 6th century
• 6 William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher of the Faith, 1944

Leonard is the patron saint of prisoners. This is a succinct account of his life story, 'concocted in the 11th Century'.

William Temple isn't a saint; 'merely' an influential Archbishop of Canterbury, known for his work against the persecution of Jews, his theological contributions, and his ability to settle disputes among other talents. He is honoured on 6th November in the Anglican Communion.

There you go.

It's four o'clock. Tea. Biscuits. Relax. And Breathe...

https://www.facebook.com/MINDFULCHRISTIANITYTODAY/posts/2452747105007463

 

Saturday 3rd November - For Now I Am Winter

That's the name of today's music by Olafur Arnalds, a young Icelandic composer. It is odd. And haunting. And wintery.

It was a cold day today - The final morning of music teaching happened, and went well. The offsprings are here for the weekend, for various social gatherings and car-related activities.

The collection of them was rather less simple than usual - in the course of which we criss-crossed the Autumn countryside. I was very happy to enjoy the views of fields and trees in glorious colour. I was more than ready for 'lunch' when we finally arrived at Nymans' Gardens at 3pm - the last coffe (and loo-stop, come to think of it) had been a long time before.

We all four had large home-made sausage rolls, which had chunks of dried apricot and apple incorporated into the sausagemeat. That is an excellent idea, and one I shall copy.

The offsprings had a quick walk around the gardens in the gathering gloaming, we investigated the shop.

Now we are all back home. They are providing supper, and we are sitting back and letting them get on with it.

Excellent.

I should be practising the hymns for tomorrow. The organist that I share the Sunday with is more than happy to play 'Fight The Good Fight', and top and tail the service with organ voluntaries. (Although our organ only has two manual, thank heavens...) That leaves me with the singy-songy ones which I know have played in the past, but I'm not too certain if they are still in my fingers. Practice would be a good idea.

Tuesday 7th November - this'n'that

I promised you a photograph of the triffids;

These are the baby Christmas cacti. I shall have to pot them up once they have finished flowering as there isn't a lot of soil in the pots at the moment.

One day follows another through Autumn. Today was dreich; cold, cloudy, damp, and rainy. Teaching was warm work though. I took one child out into the playground to see if moving up and down the lines and spaces on the paving slabs would do something about her lack of ability to read the music. It did seem to help, and jumping from line to line, or across several spaces, following the score of "Jingle Bells" was fairly energetic stuff.

Home, through lanes lined with fallen leaves in glorious colours. It was definitely twilight by the time I pulled into the drive. Memo to self; time to double check that I leave the car in gear with the handbrake off. There have been a couple of frosts, not quite enough to freeze the handbrake cable but it is as well to get into Winter Ways before that does happen.

We had ice cream tonight. I wish it wasn't so cold. Could warm ice cream be a thing?

Sunday 14th November - Random Thoughts

When I got up this morning, I noticed that the oak trees behind our house still have a lot of green leaves left on them, along with the brown and gold.
Seen through patterned glass in the bathroom window, it looked like some kind of abstract impressionist, abstract painting. Later, once the sun was higher in the sky, the illusion vanished.

A bright sunny day in Autumn is one of my favourite kinds of day. Like today.

This year we didn't go to any Remembrance Parades, Church Services or anything like that. Which is not to say that I didn't do any remembering.

Wednesday 2nd November - Autumn

Unfortunately I didn't have time to stop and take any pictures today...

But it has been a joy to drive along the lanes in the sunshine through drifts of fallen beech leaves.

We were lucky enough to catch the end of the "Fall Colour" in Canada:

This photograph was taken just outside the town of Niagara, where the river is becoming calmer after the whirlpool just upstream. We had spent the day doing... err, I'd have to go back to my diary. I think it was the day when we went to the Ravine Winery for lunch (excellent) and wine-tasting and views,

    

and then dropped in to Niagara-on-the-Lake for a look around the town and to buy cheese and fudge, and finally home via Niagara, following the course of the river until we turned off to go back home. That was a memorable day.

September?? Today is October 16th

I've just opened this blog for the first time in ages....

where did September go?

The shed looks like this now:

Two coats of wood treatment, applied in the blazing sun have transformed it. The snails haven't found the lettuces in the window box yet.

the agapanthus are dying back;

from how they were back in the Summer

Autumn is properly here.

Although no-one seems to have told the Love-in-a-mist,

or the Nemesia that escaped from a patio tub last Summer and seeded itself in a crack by the front door.

September disappeared in a flurry of activity; the start of term is always hectic, and it took me about three weeks to get the various schedules sorted out for school classes, school piano teaching and my own piano teaching at home. That used up a huge amount of patience and mental gear changing, and I still haven't dared write it in my diary in ink.

Another great project was getting the house and garden respectable for visiting relations. Little things, like at last fitting locks to the bathroom and loo door. We took them off 28 years ago when the children were toddlers, but now they are properly grown up it's probably okay to reinstate the locks. The only problem is that I am totally out of the habit of using them... luckily there were no "incidents" while our visitors were with us!

We had a terrific week while out cousins were here. It was term-time, so I was working, but managed to join in several trips at the weekend. During the week, BB took them round various local sights and wonders, and in the evening we caught up on all the news.

Now it's mid-October. Just ten weeks until the end of term, eleven weeks until Christmas, twelve weeks until 2017. Now that's something to think about.

Wednesday 19th November 2014 - Whacky Wednesday

So, what shall I post today?

Shall I wax all rhapsodical about driving along country roads through showers of autumnal leaves fluttering down from the sky like giant moths, landing wetly on my windscreen before slipstreaming to the side of the road? This is one of my favouurite times of year for driving from school to school. When it isn't raining, of course.

Or comment on how the leaves have all finally come off a great oak tree, revealing the deserted nests of the rookery that last spring were each home to a rook, all bobbing up and down, incubating eggs and feeding nestlings?

Or whinge about singing "Jingle Bells" about thirty times this afternoon at the top of my voice while teaching three back-to-back classes of ukuleles to switch between C, G and F chords?

Oh, here, why don't you have a go? The chords are
CCCC CCC;
FFCC GGG; (hey!)
CCCC CCC;
FFCC GGC: (hey!)

Tuesday 11th November - Spring?

I was walking back home  from a local school this afternoon after a tough afternoon's teaching.

Progress along the road was slow; I was weighed down by paperwork, work books, teaching files, ukulele, and all the clutter and impedimenta that a teacher lugs around. samba whistle, three identity badges, diary, phone, notebook, water bottle, pens, blu-tac, memory stick, head phones. The only bit of weight saved was my mp3 player - where did I leave that, I wonder?

Anyway, this slow progress was why I noticed the beech hedge beside part of the footway;

this picture is a bit fuzzy, but among the golden brown autumnal leaves were all these tiny pale green new, spring leaves. I've never seen that before.

Wednesday 13th November - It's that time of year

when I drive along roads bordered with glorious Autumn colours. I did stop for a few pictures, but not where I really wanted to, as that would have been problematic for other road-users.

 

On Wednesdays I drive along roads through St Leonard's Forest - after a couple of light early-morning frosts the leaves on the beech trees have finally started to turn. It's when the trees on both sides of the road meet in the middle, and the sun is shining, and the light streams through the golden-green-tawny archways that my heart sings.

Oh, to be in England when the leaves are on the turn...

Sunday 3rd November - And that was Half Term

That was the week that was - it arrived after a

week of chaos, and was spent in chaos.

 

I got through 29 of the 32 items on the to-to list, not counting the half-dozen or more items that got done but never made it onto the list.

Number One Son came to stay for a few days.





We went out to Arundel for a day as a whole family - and I was much better walking up and down the hills than I had been walking around on the flat the previous weekend. We bought Roly's fudge - EXCELLENT. Unfortunately I have now finished all my fudge.

I went for a lovely day out at Pulborough Brooks with Number One Son - that was a really good day out.

I cleaned, hovered, sorted, tidied. (Number One Son helped - bless you)

I went to London twice for hospital appointments. (Lung Function tests showed that the cyclophosphamide has been effective, and my lung function has improved. So I shall hopefully be able to continue with a similar immune suppressant medication - that's a "hooray"!)

While I was there I visited the Saatchi Gallery twice, the huge Peter Jones in Sloane Square to gawp at rare and expensive knitting yarns, and lighting displays (we plan to replace our sitting room light sometime), and Harrods gawp like a tourist at the décor, and Patisserie Valerie indulge myself with Nata tarts and mignon pastries. (I've just finished re-reading "Moon over Soho" and the jazz-vampire was always eating cream cakes in Patisserie Valerie, which was what made me want to go there again)

My piano teacher, who I "re-discovered" on the internet a few years ago having not been in contact since about 1974, has come to stay for a week (hence the housework!). I've had a couple of piano lessons, and in return she has been having lessons on how to operate her new tablet.




Today My Best Husband and I went for a stroll around some little fishing lakes and woodlands nearby at Sumners Lakes. I noticed that I had noticeably more stamina, at one point managing to get up a steep and slippery slope in one go without having to pause and catch my breath.





It has been a hard-working half-term "holiday", and there is a significant amount of work to do before I will be ready for the rest of term, but, even so, I reckon I am embarking upon the next seven weeks in better shape than when I started at the beginning of this term! 

Saturday 19th October - Escape to another place

Having synchronised our diaries last night, we discovered that neither of us had anything scheduled for today.

That is, assuming we paid no notice to the laundry, the shopping list, the state of the floors in this house, the piles of filing, the dining room table, the emptiness of the bread bin and cake tin blah blah blah.

So, after a breakfast of real coffee and real toast with some of the marmalade we brought back from our stay in Dover Castle back in May, we legged it...

...as far as the front doorstep.....where we were delayed by sight of a vicious attack on my defenceless violas....

...having stopped and counter-attacked with extreme prejudice, we legged it again, as far as the car, whereupon we got in and drove and drove and drove until we got to Chichester.

I have been wanting to visit Pallant House Gallery since - since - since a long time ago, when we went round the gallery on a wet and grey day like today - just the two of us - and it was when they were planning and raising money to build the extension. I vividly remember the little model of a gallery of modern art, with miniature works by Real Artists like Patrick Caulfield and Andrew Gormley and others (this pictute below is possibly life size!)



pipe on a table
Patrick Caulfield
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/pipe-on-a-table-70677

So we went in, and saw;
a strange and intriguing exhibition of pictures and poems called knitting-time by Colin Hambrook (www.knitting-time.com), you can see his pictures at the gallery on his site, and there are some poems here and there.

and an exhibition of prints by Erik Ravilious. The more I see of his work, the more I like it - atmospheric war pictures, and flowing wood cuts full of character and a strange dreaminess.

this print, the front cover of a book of his prints, was in the exhibition 

another front cover of a book with lots of his little black-and-white woodcuts

followed by a jolly good lunch at the restaurant, called Field and Fork.



ultra cool décor... beats the old bendy gerbera stuck into a vase.

The bad news is that it is moving to the Chichester Theatre next week so we were lucky we went today. He had Venison Pudding with red cabbage and carrot and jus and little round potatoes, and I had a whole roast plaice with lobster butter and saffron potatoes and spinach, and then He had chocolate and pistachio strudel with honey something and I had a trio of desserts which turned out to be a lime and basil pannacotta with passion fruit, a mango and pistachio tart, and a white chocolate mousse with raspberries and a short bread biscuit. I mention the food, because next week it will be someone else serving baked potatoes and sandwiches. You have been warned.

The museum is now in two halves, with no real, or false, attempt to amalgamate them. In the old house, built early in 1700 and something, is the most beautiful antique furniture and a selection of 20th century art - a couple of John Nash pictures, and a "typical" Lowry were two of my highlights, also Plums on a Dish by Henry Lamb

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/plums-on-a-dish-70493

the way he caught the bloom on the plums was amazing. There was also an exhibition of painting y the Nicholson family - more a dynasty. John Craxton was not a name I knew before, but I do now. Lovely. lovely.

In the modern half of the gallery we found the little model gallery, as I remembered it, and also a lot of maquettes for the giant sculptures in the Cass Foundation sculpture park. And other paintings, large and small. Mostly Large.

We were pretty much "looked" out by now - so we ambled back through the streets - it had stopped raining, the sun had come out, and it was getting warm and brightly Autumnal - and made our way back home.

It's dark now. Suppertime. I'm still full of plaice and lobster and the rest. A Light Meal, I think.

Sunday 24th March - Be sure your sins will find you out!

I think I did mention in a recent post - no idea when - that I had copied an idea I first saw on the television sit com called "No honestly", featuring John Alderton and Pauline Collins (are actually married) as the couple Charles and Clara Danby.

I hadn't remembered that last bit - I mean I knew it was John Alderton and Pauline Collins - but the rest of it I got from that invaluable source, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No,_Honestly

Anyway, the point, when I get to it, is that in one episode Clara is decorating the sitting room by pasting wallpaper around the furniture. This struck me as a very sensible concept, so one weekend, while my husband was away, I used the same principle for repainting our bedroom. I'm tying to think how old the children were; I suspect my son must have been about two, because I remember that he was happily engrossed in playing all his cassettes on my cassette player while I balanced on the step ladder with paint pot and brush. He was very precocious with technology, and my cassette player more or less survived the experience. At least, it still played cassettes, which was all that mattered. My daughter must have been a baby of 6 months, and therefore asleep for a lot of the time. She was far more sociable and I wouldn't have been able to fob her off with a machine while she was awake.

Have I reached the point yet? Well the reason that I painted over the wallpaper was that when we moved in, one wall was patterned with hideous chrysanthemums and daisies in depressing shades of brown, and the other walls were dingy stripes of brown, beige and ready-faded green.

 Like this: 










and this:













Oh, the point. Well, the point is that we moved some furniture today as part of the great grand tidy-up and sort-out of the bedroom that took up all of today.


All has now been revealed!