Sunday 22nd January - Knitting socks 'in' church

 The sock is increasing. But very slowly.

15th January

21st January (not much happened for a couple of days when other things and also tiredness intervened)

Today

There advantages to not being able to attend church in person, due to being cautious about joining large indoor gatherings. (They do livestream the services, so the ten or so members of church who can't go are still being included). 

Firstly, I can stay at home in the warm, especially as the church boiler is properly broken and sourcing a replacement is not going to be a quick job.

Secondly, we can enjoy a second breakfast and coffee...

Thirdly, I can knit while listening to the songs, sermon, prayers etc.

It is going to feel very strange not having a mug of coffee and my knitting close to hand once I am able to go to church again.

Friday 20th January - small events...small things...small pleasures

 The smallest event of today, or the biggest? was the appearance of a wren in our garden. I just saw a flicker of brown in a dark corner among the dead leaves lying around beside and between the pots near the patio door.

Was it, could it be? I am certain it was. Small rounded body, short pert tail, and busy busy hopping around.

Troglodytes Troglodytes. Fantastic name.

I don't really remember farthings, which were discontinued in 1960. I do admit to having had threepenny bits, ha'pennies and sixpence in my pocket money, florin, half crowns and even a 10-bob note on occasion.

All the small mugs, I mean the really small mugs for morning coffees and after lunch coffees were in the dishwasher. I surveyed what was left in the cupboard; serving an espresso coffee in a standard mug was not to be borne.

There really isn't much liquid in a single espresso; about an eggcup-ful, if you like it black;

However, if you like it with hot milk then an eggcup is not quite large enough for easy consumption. 

I gave given in to myself and bought a mini iron. 'Do I know the name of the manufacturer ' asked the resident technical expert as he eyed it up.

'I doubt it,'. It is called Quilty Bear. Definitely dinky, but does the job. I can use it on my tiny workspace and store it on the bookshelves nearby.

The desktop has a shelf immediately below. I found things tended to disappear if I used it to store things, so bought a couple of wooden trays to make I easier to retrieve books, pencils, pads etc.

Here you can see my desk being a postcard project sewing station. But here's my clever contraption; I  made a tiny paper origami tray, which lives in wooden tray so I can pull it forward, sweep the snips of thread into it and push the whole tray back. I spent most of today sewing as we are into the final days.... Good job we are well under way with plans for the next one.

Tuesday 29th November - Properly Cold out there

 It's that damp, seeping cold today that slides in through gap between your sleeve and your gloves, your socks and your trousers.

I've brought the broad beans out of the cold frame and  planted them in the patio tubs where I am hoping they will over winter - Monty Don - I'm looking at you! There was a tinge of what might have been frost on the grass, so I have brought my cuttings inside to go on spare bedroom windowsills; geraniums (called pelargoniums now) and salvias. There are looking well enough except for the one I dropped...

I think the rose, fuschia and remaining salivas are all in for a shock and night now after such a mild November.

And we had our the first mince pies of the season with our afternoon coffee; well deserved after a trip out to drop five bags of books and a basket of bric-a-brac off at the heart foundation charity shop and pick up petrol.

 

Thursday 30th June - Slugs, snails, exploding milk

It is good to finish a grueling month with some small trivialities...

June has been full of medical matters ranging from the mundane - remembering to order repeat prescriptions - to the more extreme - Himself's cataract operations, and decisions regarding major surgery for my 93-year-old father. That last decision proved to be a complete non-event, in retrospect; it was made crystal clear that no surgery is necessary now, or in the future, and things can carry on as they are without any interventions or concerns. Well, what a relief!

The amount of brain space that has been filled with all these goings-on has been considerable. So here's hoping for a restful July...

Yesterday I went out 'slugging', with a torch, at about 10 pm just as we were finishing up downstairs before going to bed. I have a pair of kitchen tongs I bought especially for the purpose, but haven't tried 'slugging' after dark with a torch before. It took minutes to fill a small container with the brutes, picking them off my potatoes, broad beans, lettuces, brussels sprouts, kale... little beasts.

The next question was what to do with my haul. I could throw them over the back fence (into the waste ground, I hasten to add), but they would only come back. I haven't the heart to drown even these detestable slimy horrors into a bucket of water, salt or otherwise, neither do I like the idea of drowning them in beer traps. A friend of mines takes them over the road from hr garden and deposits them in the nearby cemetery; I bet there are hordes of very fat hedgehogs living there. And I overheard two other gardeners discussing the same problem; 'I feed them to the chickens'. 'What a good idea'. I know tht's all very natural but it did put me slightly off the idea of the eggs.

In the end I threw them into the council garden waste collection, as usual. They keep climbing up to the top of the bin, and I keep knocking them back down. I don't suppose this is any kinder than drowning them in beer, but, 'out of sight, out of mind' wins the day. It occurs to me that if I collect them into a cardboard box or container, I can just dump the whole thing in the bin and close my eyes to the problem.

Exploding milk? Oh, that's what happens when you put your espresso cup with just a little milk into the microwave for a mid morning espresso-with-hot-milk and accidentally press the button above the ten second timer. In other words the one minute button.

Ker-boom!

The cup survived, and I have cleaned the microwave.

Now, shall I do a bit of mindfulness meditation (aka 10 minutes shut-eye) or actually do something on the list?

Meditation is supposed to be Very Good for one... 

Monday 4th June - Jubilee and all that

We walked up the road for coffee with friends yesterday, sitting in their garden and watching sparrows everywhere, fluttering here, no there, from garage to garden ornament to fence to tree and back again, busy, busy, busy. Reminds me of that quotation from 'Three Men in a Boat (not forgetting the dog)' by Jerome K Jerome;

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”

It is all too regrettably true. 

I haven't walked along our road n that direction for some weeks, and was hoping to admire the jubilee decorations, but there were almost none. I think our little patch must be the only ones who have put on a show; here are ours;

Some years ago I found myself in the disgraceful position of not having any patriotic bunting, and none left in any of the local shops. In the end I cut up a couple of yards (metres? who knows, who cares? y'all know roughly what I mean) of union flag printed waterproof tablecloth and stuck the bigger piees to a length of tape with my favourite 'extremely tacky glue'

Many's the time I've become seriously sticky in a craft project with this stuff, and I can promise you that nothing stuck together with this will ever unstick again. 

Several houses to the left and right, on both sides of the road, put up a show of flags which all seem to be surviving the increasingly blowy weather. I shall be interested to see how it all copes with the promised/threatened thunderstorms due tonight or tomorrow morning.

News seems slight and trivial at home, taking in the bigger global picture. 

News, for us, seems to be emptying the compost bin, clearing the dump of empty pots and sacks of potting compost from behind the bigger shed and relocating the bin, and then replacing the contents. This took several sessions over the course of a week, but the job is done now. 

The events of last week (going up to London for my lung function tests, first meal inside a cafe since March 2020) and earlier this week (his pre-cataract appointment, and me buying my first ever coffee in a cafe since March 2020, and driving a fair distance, only the fifth time I had driven anywhere since March 2020) would not have seemed particularly remarkable or strenuous pre-lockdown. But the total effect, including a follow up appointment over zoom with the chest clinic for me, left us both feeling wiped out. So I spent most of Tuesday sitting on the settee, with a rug on my knees like a granny, because the weather had changed and it was cold. 

My google timeline of places visited in May was quite a change from the solitary red dot in the middle map.

I have plans to spend the waiting time while his cataract operations are underway visiting a place with Arts and Crafts associations. The gardens are beautiful, and I'm hoping the roses will be at their best. Also that the weather will oblige. Hence doodling/copying a few William Morris flower designs. 

Doing the daily scribble-sketches is certainly a way of keeping track on what happened each day.

   

   

   

Monday 30th May - a day of firsts

Himself had a three-hour optician appointment... so he drove us both there, and I went on to a nearby National Trust House and Garden to wait.

That makes it four times now that I have driven the car since March 2020!

And today was the first time either of us had visited a National Trust place  since March 2020.

And the first time I had been out and about (apart from meeting up in a garden with a friend for coffee) on my own since March 2020.

And the first time I have been into a cafe and bought a coffee since March 2020.

And, when I drove us both home afterwards, the first time I had driven more than 3 miles since March 2020  - this trip was roughly 20 miles or so each way.

So now I have clocked up five trips, and about thirty miles since March 2020. Before then I used to drive around 200 miles a week, criss-crossing the county from one school to another, loaded up with such a weird variety of instruments - trumpets, clarinets, recorders, keyboards, ukuleles, cellos, violas, samba drums and djembes, ocarinas and a wild and wacky selection of percussion instruments. How things have changed!   

Both of us were feeling fairly wiped out by our experiences today - when we got home we had just tomato soup with toast and marmite for lunch. Come suppertime we put the planned meal into the freezer and and settled for comfort food - scrambled eggs on toast, with fried tomatoes.

Normal life (what IS normal these days?) might be resumed tomorrow - after a zoom routine clinic appointment following on from the lung function tests last Monday!

I have posted the 'Postcard Project' to Ang this afternoon; I was determined to try and get it to her before the end of the month, and I may just have managed it. I won't put up any photographs today, as it would spoil the surprise.

And the next four 'daily drawings' are here;

Wednesday; I have had a set of Derwent colouring pencils for maybe twenty years, and have been trying them out, following some youtube tutorials. I quite like using them, but don't find them 'exciting', like watercolours or lino printing.

Thursday; these poppies are amazing; they were a joy last year and the same this year. They have a white cross in the centre, formed by a pale stripe on each petal.

Friday; Vicky and I are planning a living willow screen to hide an ugly plastic garden storage shed at the bottom of the garden.

Saturday; every so often Himself bakes a batch of gingernuts and a kind of flapjack called 'flakemeal shortbread', recipes that his mother used to make. It's only Monday evening and we have already eaten most of them.  

  

Friday 5th November - Living in 'Interesting' times

 Well, that was a bit of an....experience.... but most things will settle down with a cup of coffee and some cake.

I've been to the opticians today- about two years overdue - and am now slightly reeling from the cost of my glasses, even including the 'two-for-one offer. By the time I have chosen the not-basic frames, and the thinning level2 to make the lenses lighter, and the reactions lenses, and the super coating...

No, not that bad, if you reduce it to 'so much per day'. I put my glasses on first thing in the morning, and take them off last thing at night, so it is worth the cost of lightness and size of lens and add-on-extras. I have chosen a different colour, sort of speckley-blue and tortoise-shell, as a change from the metallic red of the past three of four years, with the second paid being very different (for me); pale greeney-blue.

The 'interesting experience' bit was how something that seemed relatively 'covid-safe' rapidly disintegrated as the time wore on. As part of the general chit chat (I had a very chatty optometrist) she let slip that her partner had tested positive for covid some days ago 'but I've been taking lateral tests every day and I haven't any symptoms so you needn't worry' - it's all in line with the guidance...

I shuffled my chair back and digested this unwelcome bit of information. The reality of how the rest of the world is 'returning back to normal' was landing at my feet, in my face, with a thud.

'I put on my booking form under 'additional information' that I am clinically extremely vulnerable', I said, once I had reduced my concern from a 'rolling boil' to a simmer. She did look stricken, and was at pains to reassure me that she hadn't seen her partner for ten days, that they had separate bathrooms, and she just thrust his food at him through a crack in the door.

We continued amicably enough through the rest of the consultation, while I silently rechecked my personal risk assessment - she was wearing her mask properly - I had a PP2 facemask on, tightly sealed around my nose - we were keeping a distance from each other.

Then, downstairs, I went through the three separate procedures of choosing my glasses, waiting for a technician to fit the new glasses, and then waiting to pay for them. Meanwhile the shop, which had been quiet, suddenly filled up with a dozen or more families and young children, released from school and ready to have eyes tests, have glasses fitted, collect their glasses.

I was not a happy bunny, and very close to just walking out and saying I'll come back and finish this another day.

'Do you find you are losing your confidence at going out and about if you have been shielding for so long?' I was asked at one stage.

'No, I haven't lost my confidence at all at going out. But I have completely lost confidence in the general public to behave appropriately when They are out and about.' Maybe that came out more sharply than was expected.

A little drawing and colouring-in of vases of flowers is called for, once I have finished my coffee and (small) piece of cake. (Lemon drizzle - make a two-egg Victoria sponge, adding the zest of the lemon to the mix. I use the 'all-in-one-method' with softened butter. Sometimes I use a little extra flour in the mix. Other times I don't. In a separate bowl mix the juice of the lemon with a tablespoon of granualated sugar. Bake the cake as usual. When you take it out of the oven, stab the top of the cake all over, and pour or spoon on the lemon juice mixture, leave to cool in the tin). 

Today's Johanna Basford is going to the 'shelves of vases' page in her book, adding flowers and colouring them in. These are 'snipped' from her video for today. I shall go and do mine now.

Bank Holiday Monday 3rd May - The predawn of the new era?

 I had my second covid vaccination last Tuesday - how pleasant it was, standing idly in the car park in the warm sunshine, waving to friends further down the queue... everyone keeping their distance, oh well, a bit of a hard stare at the couple behind me; they had a tendency to shuffle a little closer to the person in front but they sort of 'came to' and realized what they were doing...

'This is going to be fine, like the last one', I thought as later that evening I could barely feel the vaccination spot on my arm. Oh ho ho and no no. Nothing serious, but as the next day wore on I began to wear out - eventually rescheduling the last piano lesson of the evening to Friday. On Thursday morning I cancelled that evening's teaching, and spent another day sitting about, tottering around the garden for fresh air, knitting, listening to old episodes of 'The Kitchen Cabinet' on BBCSounds. On Friday I taught the one rescheduled lesson (she is an exam candidate and I didn't want to leave her for a fortnight) and found myself breaking into a sweat - what!? - and promptly cancelled the three lessons I usually teach on Saturday mornings. 

Now it's Monday, a week later, and I am feeling 'normal' again - what passes for 'normal' these days - for a day or so. Just as well, as I have a chatty social zoom and three challenging piano lessons to teach this afternoon. That's as good a test of the level of my recovery as any I can think of.

Challenging? One is a hard-working advanced student who is learning a Beethoven sonata which I used to be able to play, the other two are younger, and require a different set of skills to make the lesson go well...

Monday morning is the day for recycling the coffee pods.

 It seems like such a small task; but also creates a lot of dirty bowls and mess. Clockwise from left; emptied pods, coffee grounds, the contraption that does the work (plastic thing with green top) and last few pods waiting to be emptied. Back in the days of the cafetiere we just swilled out the dregs (making sure they were at least cool if not cold) into the nearest flowerbed. Pre-cafetiere we just chucked the whole paper filter into the compost. 

Now here's what I do;

I put the pod onto the green thing, press down with the dark grey lid which inverts the pod so the grounds go into the base of the green thing, put the emptied pod into a tray for rinsing, and every dozen pods empty the grounds into another tray. Got that? Then I rinse all the pods and put them in the general recycling, pour the rinse water through a sieve lined with a piece of kitchen paper to collect the grounds and prevent them from blocking our idiosyncratic plumbing arrangements. 

Nearly done now.

Take the grounds and the soggy piece of kitchen paper to the compost bin, and finally wash everything else up.

There. It now takes two paragraphs instead of two sentences to deal with the coffee grounds. 

Have I saved energy? It's hard to know. I can't wait until I can get back to John Lewis and just dump all the used pods into their collection point for Nespresso to deal with.

I have used up some of my energy, though - it is a little bit of a work out, pushing down on the pods to expel the grounds.

(I should add that this is over a week's worth for two people - we try and limit ourselves to three coffees per day, although some days do require a second 'second' cup of coffee late morning, or even a third 'third' cup of coffee after lunch).  

'Pre dawn of the new era' is the title of this post - and in a sense, the coffee palaver, and possible end of it, is part of that sense of expectation. I am being strict with myself about waiting for three weeks before I start going out and about, visiting shops, going to a cafe, walking around a National Trust garden. By my calculations, assuming the covid infection numbers continue to fall, this 'pre-dawn' has only two more weeks to run, and sometime after 18th May I can consider venturing out into the big wide world again.

   

Saturday 17th April - Is it Springtime now?

 Nearly - we have sun, and we have bright days, but we have a rather bracing and brisk wind. Not fierce, but enough to make itself notices

Sitting outside for morning coffee and afternoon tea ha happened a few times;

and at other times I have carried my mug halfway down the garden and then turned round to make a rapid return to the warmth of indoors. 

Can you spot the garden chair at the top of the picture? It gets the morning sun just there, and I can sit and contemplate by vegetable patch; all those lettuces and radishes a-growing, and everything else all sulking. I shall sow more seeds on top and see what happens. 

We are hoping to have a family afternoon tea together in the garden tomorrow. Scones and jam (we haven't got any cream, sadly). Fingers crossed for the weather. The tables and chairs have been arranged in readiness; I didn't get out my dressmaking yardstick - yes, YARD stick, although it does have metres on the other side - to mathematically check the distances between the chairs. That's because Himself is six foot tall (unless he's shrunk) and is therefore a walking 2-yard stick when he holds his arms out.

Meanwhile - I have nearly finished my third Osaka teacosy - it is at the 'darning all the ends in' stage (about three dozen left to go) and the the 'Cutting of the Steek' will occur. I shall pour myself a celebratory glass of port when it is finished.

I am also swatching over and over again as I inch towards the final design for the Fair Isle top I have in mind. 

 I have it in mind to knit the jumper on the cover of this book, without the sleeves, but as I HATE doing ribbing so much (the usual way of doing the edging at the bottom of a jumper) I'm investigating other options. The bit of knitting above starts at the top with an i-cord cast-on in beige, followed by a few rows of stranded colour work in stocking stitch, then some rows of garter stitch to see how that functions as a hem, and a normal cast off using a contrasting colour. I've discovered that garter stitch will 'flare out' compared to stocking stitch; Elizabeth Zimmerman (a knitting guru held in similar esteem to the Dalai Lama when searching for knitting wisdom) suggests increasing the stitches by 10% when going from garter stitch to stocking stitch.

I've just noted all this down in the blog o that I can find the information later. It is quite hard to stick a piece of knitting into a book and make notes, if you then want to be able to close the book afterwards.

Knitting fascinates me - the way a single thread is looped and looped and looped into something two or three dimensional, and the way one shapes the fabric as you create it.

At the moment I'm using up scraps and ends of Shetland wool left over from all these tea cosies. Soon, I will have to take the plunge and order the yarn for the Fair Isle top; about 25 balls if I am making it with sleeves, so - guess, estimate, calculate - how many will I need for just the front and back? And what patterns will I use? The one in this book, or one from Elizabeth Zimmerman, or find some on the internet or in other books...?

The school term started for me today - I have one family who have piano lessons on Saturdays, three children, one after another. So this morning was a substantial change of brain activity after two weeks of settling into a kind of sloth. 'Up and at'em' - and from Monday it will be the normal teaching timetable. What would I be like if I stopped teaching?  

..........

I see I have missed nearly all of the broadcast of the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral; I switched the television on in time for the bugles - Last Post etc and the blessings and the National Anthem. Ah well - I will be able to listen to the Radio broadcast later. I am so glad they had good weather. My heart goes out the to Queen, poor love, and the family.

 

Saturday 21st November - Coffee!

 

I was struggling to stay awake all day today - 'More Coffee! seemed like the right words.

I managed to get through this morning's teaching (three lessons), and compel myself to write up the lesson notes and email them before I stopped for the day, which did please me. Last weekend I left the write-ups until Monday, which was a bit of a disaster as I teach four lessons on Monday which meant I was stacking up the lesson notes at quite a pace.

This evening has been spent watching 'Brokenwood' on tv - a detective series set in New Zealand which I enjoy for the humour and scenery as much as the plot. I usually have some very simple and mindless knitting on the go while I'm watching tv; tonight's effort was finishing off some knitted bunting

using up a ball of pink variegated yarn which I don't want to knit into anything to wear. It was left over from this 'granny squares' blanket  which kept me and my godmother company all last year.

She was fascinated at the way the colours changed, and it provided a topic of conversation when we were visiting her in hospital or at home. I managed to join all the squares over the course of this summer and I'm currently wearing it over my shoulders like Uncle Bulgaria in The Wombles. 

Today has been cold and damp in that English November fashion. We've had the lights on all day; it has felt like twilight since about 3pm.

Tomorrow is 'stir-up' Sunday - the last Sunday before Advent. I made a dozen mince pies because that seemed like a good plan. Eating so many of them over the course of this afternoon and evening doesn't seem like such a good plan now.    

 

 

Saturday 4th July - Discouraging Weather

I'm very glad it is grey and cold and blustery today. That might sound a bit mean, but today is the day that pubs andbars re-open, from 6am (six o'clock in the morning!! although I suspect not many will open their doors at that hour) and the tabloid headlines have be all 'let's go and have a good time at the pub! Although, to be fair, most are also saying (in smaller type) 'don't blow it.

Zoom piano teaching continues; we've upgraded the internet something or other in the dining room, where the piano is, involving miles of purple cable and several torrid hours of crimpimg connections to ends of said cable (and a few choice words). The result is that zooming is much improved - most of the time. I have a couple of students with truly horrible connections, where I'm listening with intense concentration to try and distinguish the actual sounds they are playing from the surrounding 'snap, crackle and pop' noises. I think this extra noise comes mainly from having other children playing and talking and using the computer in the same room, confusing the poor old zoom connection.

I shall still be zooming in September, as far as I can see. I've probably said it before, but zoom lessons are far more intense to teach and administrate than face to face, so I will have to manage my time carefully.

I'm following a number of watercolour sketchers; one, Liz Steel, starts her day by painting a sketch of her coffee. That's a good idea, I thought;

Liz Steel gets to go out for her coffee to a coffee shop whenever she wants... that's because she lives in Australia. Going out for a coffee is one of the things I am sooooo looking forward to.

Perhaps I should start a list of things to do once I feel that the chances of catching covid19 are properly reduced.

Meanwhile, there are books to read, weeds to pull up, and potatoes to harvest. Yes indeedy! I dropped a couple of chunks of potato into a suitable container way back at the beginning of March, and they are ready just in time as we are about to run out before the next delivery in a week's time.   

Saturday 23rd November - Sticks and Stones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week
Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week, from a Carolingian ms. (Clm 14456 fol. 71r) of St. Emmeram Abbey

Well, the last week has been an education.

On arrival at the Care/Nursing Home at the beginning of the week - was that really only on Monday? - my Godmother transformed from 'sweet little old lady' mode to - well, you fill in your own description.

Absolutely NOTHING, NO THING was right - from the quality of the light bulbs onwards.

Occasionally she forgot, and was caught having a good moment, but mostly the four days and five nights were a preview of purgatory, during which time no souls were purged and many a sin may have been committed - I do not exclude myself from this statement.

However, this morning, the minute she was in the car and we had set off down the drive, 'sweet little old lady mode' was instantly re-engaged, and by about halfway home was almost completely in place.

The thing is, when she was venting about the awfulness of the place, and snubbing everything and everyone, she was using words and tone of voice and facial expressions of violence to lash out.

Even minutes before departure, as Himslef was loading everything back into our car;

'I'll shut your door  now, as he'll be opening the front door and letting cold air in so I don't want you to get cold' sez I, still trying.

'Oh it doesn't matter, you do whatever, it doesn't matter anyway' was the stroppy and ungracious reply.

And it's no good saying 'Well I didn't mean it' when I point out that she is being hurtful in the way she speaks, and I am hurt.

Now, I haven't written all this just to make my Godmother out to be stroppy and unreasonable old bag. I fully understand that she is frightened of her illness, and her powerlessness, and her frailty, and all she has left to defend herself with is her voice.

This is really a lesson for when I am old and fragile and fearful; that hitting out at everyone with my tongue is more hurtful and damaging than one might think.

She's back in her own home now. Everything unpacked and put back. She hadn't had breakfast at the Care Home before we left, but I made her cereal and hot milk, and a cup of tea when we arrived, to get something hot inside her while the place was warming up.

'Funny thing, this tea, I haven't been able to drink tea for months, but they gave me some and I love it now'.

Later, when we had our sandwiches, I made her a sort of cheese and potato meal using the rejected mashed potato pots I had filled her fridge with, and some Primula cheese squirted over the top 'Luvverly - I can manage this, I didn't dare try it before.' She's scared to eat, in case she can't swallow and the food gets stuck, poor love. That could prove to be much more of a problem than anything else.

www.peaceandcoffee.co.uk

We're back in our own home too. The heating is on, we've had a coffee and sat down for a bit and it's quiet here.

Sticks and stones. Bones. Words.

www.phrases.org.uk

Thursday 15th November

I'm very disappointed with our government.

I think the cats have got the right idea about this Brexit business;

All the politicians and wunderkinds who promoted Brexit and said how wonderful it would be have all disappeared. Boris and Gove are the worst offenders. They and all the others appear to have taken very little part in working out the terms and conditions for arranging an orderly exit from the EU. All they seem to do is criticise everyone else's efforts without getting stuck in themselves.

'That's not good enough', they cry. 'Make it better'. How? Any suggestions? Answers come there none.

Enough.

Today's music is Mahler's 2nd symphony, 4th movement. Up till now I haven't ever listened to Mahler on purpose. I think of it as heavy, over-crowded, sturm-und-drang stuff. But this, this is ethereal, pellucid, restrained. I listened to several versions - this one gives the English translation of the words of the song. Also, it is played by the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela, a world leader in Youth Orchestras, although it is no longer a Youth Orchestra as the players are older now!  (what is going to happen to them now with their new President?).  Anyway, I really enjoyed this performance, especially the lovely, lyrical violin solo which illustrates the broad leading to God.

Here are the words;
 

O Röschen rot!                            

 Der Mensch liegt in größter Not!

Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein!                       

Je lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein.               

 Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg;

da kam ein Engelein und wollt' mich abweisen.

Ach nein! Ich ließ mich nicht abweisen!

Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott!

Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichten geben,

wird leuchten mir bis an das ewig selig Leben!

Oh Red Rose

Mankind stands in deep distress

Mankind suffers great sorrow

I would dearly love to be in heaven

I came upon a broad path

An angel appeared and tried to turn me aside

Ah no, I would not let myself be turned aside

I come from God and will return to God

My Beloved God will grant me a light

He shall light my way to the life of eternal blessedness

Let's not despair too soon?

The finale is worth a listen too, and it's only a couple of minutes long - a relief as the total length of the symphony is around 90 minutes. 

I'm still not going in to work, although I have been teaching a couple of pupils in the evenings. But I', steadily improving. The weird thing at the moment is that coffee doesn't taste right at all. To bitter. Tea is not much of an improvement. Water it has to be, then.

I'm getting quite a lot of knitting done today; I added a row of hearts to this scarf yesterday evening, and now I am halfway through these birds. I'm having to knit the picture upside down as I am nearing the other end of the scarf. So far I have done their heads and necks. That's those pink bits close to the needles

Last Week - Tuesday 22nd to Friday 25th August

Let's lump all the days together in one post letter;

Tuesday was a long drive through England from Birkenhead to home. The weather improved as we travelled, and by the time we arrived at our front door I had discarded my warm fleece and my socks and we were feeling pretty roasted. I was cold almost the whole time we were away; the fleece that I took "just in case" became pretty much my second skin!

When we got home, it was just unpacking and putting away and sitting about.

Wednesday was more picking up the threads of home-life - collecting the cats and their remarkably smelly bedding from the cattery, laundry (including the cat beds, ugh) and shopping. All the NI clothes could go into the laundry - it was back to Summer T-shirts again for us!

Thursday I didn't bother to get dressed until it was time to take my father to the funeral of one of his friends, that way I didn't have to change! So a slow and sleepy morning, then find some suitable clothes. It is a strange thing to attend the funeral of someone who is almost a complete stranger. The only connection is that the "celebrant" turned out to be the same person who did my mother's funeral. That was disconcerting.

In the evening I got to my regular Thursday get-together with a couple of dear friends. I more or less finished the scarf I had been knitting in N Ireland while we nattered and knitted or did whatever we were doing.

Friday. That was a Royal Brompton Hospital day, up in London. The lung function appointment wasn't until the afternoon, so we went to visit Carlyle's House at 24 Cheyne Row. It is a delightful place, left as far as possible as when the Great Man (and let us not forget his wife, Jane) lived there.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/carlyles-house

They seem to have been visited by Everybody. Including Chopin, who played this actual piano;

and now I have played it too. (It is dreadfully out of tune and clearly needs some work; the guide had given me permission to try it, but very soon said "I think that's enough now").

Himself was very taken by Mr Carlyle's Reading Chair and has spent some time considering the possibility of adding an adjustable reading desk to his own leather chair.

I was very grateful that the outside privy has been brought up-to-date, and is in perfect working order.

(The red notice states "You are welcome to use these facilities". So I did.)

We spent some time mooching along the Kings Road and then back along the Fulham Road to the hospital. Lung function tests are just a matter of breathing in and out of a mouthpiece on a complicated bit of equipment. But it is all in how deeply, or how quickly you breathe, whether you switch from "in" to "out" all of a sudden or hold your breath in between... so it takes quite a few goes to get the "technique" right, and then you have to be able to replicate the results. Once that was all over, and I had a mega plaster stuck on one ear where they had taken a blood sample ("sharp stab" - they weren't exaggerating) we repaired to Daunts Books (my favourite bookshops) on the Fulham Road and then to a coffee shop to recover. I bought Stephen King "On Writing" which has been on my list for a very long time.

http://londonbookshops.org/shops/daunt-books-chelsea.html

Home. Please. Thank you!

Saturday 28th June - Tea and - cake?

After we had finished watching air displays - formation flying from the Red Arrows and a couple of crows, and acrobatics from a skylark, and flying round and round in circles by the Vulcan, we eyed up the gathering clouds, getting blacker as we watched, and decided to leave.

We drove through a series of heavy rain showers to the Cowdray Farm Cafe, an old favourite stopping point  for me from the years when I used to teach at a school in a small village beyond Midhurst.

Teatime - a bit early, maybe, but that was what we wanted.

Tea? My son chose a cream tea,

I had a flat white coffee and shared a sticky toffee pudding and cream with my daughter, who also had a hot chocolate.

Sorry, it's another "empty plate" picture - once we had tasted the first spoonful, nothing was going to interrupt the next ones until it was  a-l-l  g-o-n-e.

And as for himself - it seemed a hot chocolate, and a serving of chips was just what he wanted.

Each to their own, I say.

We called in on my parents once we were back home to drop in birthday cards. It was my father's birthday, and my brother and his son (are you keeping up with all this?) had been round for the day, bearing birthday gifts - joint present, from him and me. Books and a bottle of port to accompany them. It looks as though my father had done well - the carers who come four times a day to help my mother had brought a large creme caramel, someone else had given them a cake, and there were plenty of cards as well. They had all gone out for lunch together in my father's new wheelchair accessible car, a shiny silver Fiat.

So - in one way another, every Father got their day?
   

Wednesday 28th May - Action needed

There's mess and there's clutter and then there's something that defies description.

It's not just the dining room table that has got out of control - the mess has spread to three of the chairs (I'm sitting on the fourth, but I'm quite tidy at the moment).

Somewhere among the heaps is my to-do-list - under the neon pink high-lighter? - which has 24 items on it for this half term, and only three completed. Number 18 is "tidy the dining room table".

I think I'll just go and make a coffee. And perhaps finish my book. Or bake that cake (item 25?).

Procrastination is a great way of getting lots of other things done.