Monday 21st August - A new week begins

 One short comment on the news, the dreadful, dreadful news about that nurse and the poor babies and families, the missed opportunities to prevent further deaths, and the awful possibility that she could have harmed other babies.

 Most of us manage to trundle through our days without coming into direct contact with such unimaginable evil; my prayers are for everyone directly or indirectly affected by these tragic events. 

So while I am burbling on about my own relatively happy life I have not forgotten that many people here, and also in distant lands, have to endure very different circumstances.

............ ............ ............ ........... ............ .......... ........... ......... ............. ............ ............. ............. ...........

Last Monday I was feeling a bit low; leaving the hospital after a blood test I struggled with breathless walking up the gentle slope through the dark park. I probably had to pause for a moment about 3 or 4 tomes. Today, after I had the repeat test, I strolled through the car park with no bother at all. What was that all about? Maybe I had a bit of a lurgy? 

Anyway, today started well for me and continued in the same mode. Like receiving a text from the credit card company; 'thank you for your payment, and you can avoid interest charges by making a further payment of 11p by 23:59 tonight'. I always pay off the complete balance every month, but this time I must have somehow underpaid. Last time did - maybe 20 years ago - I was hugely irritated to get caught for the full charge. Sending a warning text seems remarkably civilised behaviour.

There was one glitch in my happy day, one fly in the ointment, as it were.  Or rather slugs and snails in among the pak choi plants. Overnight half my brave little plants had been ruthlessly devoured. It would make a Saint use deeply unspiritual language. After contemplating the scene for some time, I tenderly surrounded the survivors with sluggone wool pellets. 

Tonight Himself and Myself will be out after dark with a torch and the slugging tongs to see what we can see and catch anything that can't run away (that should be the easy bit).

We might be able to see the moon, which rose at half past eleven this morning, but doesn't set until nearly ten tonight. It is a waxing crescent moon.

 Meanwhile today continues well. I have already hit my step target of 3000, by attempting to average 300 steps an hour through the day, Only Connect and University Challenge are on BBC tonight, and there were a couple of chocolate truffles left for chocolate o'clock.

Saturday 10th June - be careful what you wish for!

No news yesterday,  and today the political news today has been astonishing, one thing after another!

I gather Boris Johnson and Nadine Dorries resigned last night, and then a couple more resignations today. Whatever one's political affiliations are, it is all a bit startling. 

(Please remember that this is not a space for political discussions!  As with Brexit, opinion is divided in my wider family and calm discussions are best achieved by acknowledging our differences and then just Not speaking about it. There is plenty of 'sturm and drang'* on twitter if you want to join in over there)

I much prefer talking about the weather... Summer has arrived with hardly any Spring, as in warm balmy days. We woke up this morning thinking we should have had all the windows and the door open, as in the hot months last year. And have we switched to the summer duvet? I can't remember. And tonight I shall look out my summer nightdresses (short sleeves).

Friends came round for a cup of tea at about half past 4. We sat in the shade of the apple tree, relishing the breeze, serenaded by an enthusiastic blackbird, eating the shortbread that she brought back as a present from a recent trip to Scotland (delicious, made by someone called Chrystal, if you see it, try some!). This time she brought a punnet of huge ripe strawberries from the local co-op. Strawberries and shortbread, what a heavenly combination.  

Now that's the kind of news I like...

*Sturm und Drang comes from German, where it literally means "storm and stress." Although it’s now a generic synonym of "turmoil," the term was originally used in English to identify a late 18th-century German literary movement whose works were filled with rousing action and high emotionalism

From the Merriman online dictionary 

Friday 9th June - wot, no news?

 No, not much news, not really. I mean, stuff has been happening,  but although at times it has raised me to boiling point with something like rage, it has not been stuff that I would want to post about to the wide wide world. In these situations 'least said, soonest mended' has to be the starting point... 

So, having managed to say little, that has left me with less to post about.

Like, we've had pizza and wine and cheese and Scottish shortbread not all at once for supper (I've finished the antibiotics and we've done all we're going to do today). Is that news? Not by the current click-bait news we see on TV, Internet, and everywhere.

'Woman keeps temper and doesn't go off the deep end' doesn't have that sensational sort of ring.

Instead, I've raised a glass and blessed good friends, near and far, and especially Best Beloved who does a wonderful job of looking after me and my family. Bless you all.

Tomorrow will be a brand new day..,

Tuesday 17th August - One day follows another

I could share my news with you - if there was any news...

I guess the news on TV, especially re Afghanistan, is enough for now. There are various aid agencies trying to get some kind of help in - Oxfam, 

Here are a couple of suggestions lifted from Twitter;

  

Also how to pray for the situation? What to pray for? I found this a good read; I follow the www.ibenedictines.org blog, and here is today's post;

https://www.ibenedictines.org/2021/08/16/how-do-we-pray-about-afghanistan/

Dame Catherine writes a good deal of sense.

So that's that part of today's blog...

Otherwise my days follow themselves one after another. This is the week I am starting to get my act together regarding preparing for the term ahead - I know it is still August, but early in September I will start teaching those Grade 8 students and I ought to be able to play the scales even if I can't manage all of the pieces! Today I made a start on re-learning the Debussy Arabesque no 1 which I used to be able to play, and hopefully will soon be able to again.

I'm still knitting;

 wristlets this time. These come from a book called 'weekend knitting', and indeed I knitted two pairs over the weekend. I started because Best Beloved commented on how cold my hands were - in August!

In the process I have learned to do 'wrap and turn short rows'  to create the shaping. If you look carefully across the palm, you will spot two places where a ridge of knitting branches into two ridges halfway along, to give the extra width for the hand. There's clever, boyo. When it came to finishing, you pickup stitches along the first row onto a spare needle, and then knit them together in pairs with the ending, so you have to wrangle three needles at the same time. A bit fiddly, but then it means that you have knitted the edges together so that you don't have to sew them together. 

Why two pairs? The first pair were an exact fit, so I made another pair on slightly larger needles. Perfect.

I almost can't wait for Autumn because I am so pleased with them, and judging by the weather at the moment I won't have long to wait.

I'm going back through the 'Learn to Draw in 30 Days' book. It is pleasing to compare the first time and the second time I do each lesson.

I could see the point of the skills in this lesson, first time around, but thought that the picture of a rose, which is a decent version of what the book shows you to do, was horrible, so false, so stiff. 

This time around, I had a brain wave, and starting with the stiff, artificial spiral drawn very faintly, I loosened up all the lines and was rather pleased with the result. 

Thursday 5th August - Oh, just this and that...

 I've been meaning to write a blog post for a few days, and then I just... oh, something distracts me on the way to the computer, or once I have arrived at the computer - you know how it goes.

I admire people who post every day. But then, when they don't post for a day or two, I worry about them, especially older one lady who has been feeling under the weather. I have a couple of months - like November - when I do a 'post every day for a month' challenge. 

This isn't one of those months!

So, anyway, here's a selection of snippets... 

Number 1 Son did a rare blog post recently entitled 'Computer Specs'. I read on, to see if he had gone to the opticians (I need to go) and come back with glasses for working on the computer - it seemed a possibility in his line of work. But n, it was all full of letters and numbers relating to the thingy whatsits that we was replacing in his current home computer. I read through in vain to find a complete sentence that made any kind of sense to me - the gist is, he is happy rebuilding his computer. Good.

I ordered a new sketchbook for August - it was a bit disappointing that delivery wouldn't be until 2nd August, but never mind - what's a day or two? It was even more disappointing that I had clearly gone into one of my 'for heaven's sake just pick one' moods after going round in circles examining all the options and sizes available, and  ended up with something that is considerably smaller than I had planned.

Lovely quality paper; it is perfect in every other respect! It is made by Stillman and Birn, their zeta series. Once I had recalibrated my expectations, I made a start; doing two days at a time in order to catch up. An imaginary picture of 'Black Rabbit Hall' using 1-point perspective as explained in the 'Learn to draw in 30 days' book by Mark Kistler  

 

and tracings of 'The Virgin of the Rocks' by Leonardo Da Vinci', for 2nd August. This is an exercise from the same book, for learning to draw faces.

I have been immensely impressed with this 'How to Draw' book - suddenly I find myself drawing in a way I never managed before. I finished the book today, and sent off for the next one in the series called something like 'Draw this in 30 minutes'.

The advantage of such a small sketchbook is that it is very easy to fill a page...

Now I have to deal with the 3rd and 4th of August, and then tomorrow the 5th and 6th? I wonder how long it will take me to catch up with myself...

The book club managed an outdoor meet up, for a cream tea, in someone's garden, on Tuesday. About 6 of us, no, exactly 6 or us - we were all complete with no bits or pieces left at home.

quotation alert

“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least — at least I mean what I say — that's the same thing, you know.” “Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter.

BB and I watched a programme about the V and A - how I look forward to going back there - with a segment on the current Alice in Wonderland exhibition, particularly the famous tea-party.

Although our tea party didn't reach the heights of chaos as this one. They showed - that is, on the V and A programme, are you still following me? - a clip from the Jonathon Miller film which I had never come across. Now I NEEEED to try and find a recording to watch! They used to show us the Disney 'Alice' as a 'treat' at prep school on Mother Superior's Feast Day; it terrified me every time, but there was no escaping the 'treat'. Alice or Bambi. Ugh. 

Oh yes, the book club. Well, the last book was Sara Dinsmore's 'Darkness in Zennor', set in the time of World War 1 when DH Lawrence and his German wife were living in Zennor. Good, but not 'happy'. This month's book is 'Precious Bane' by Mary Webb, which I got hopelessly mixed up in my mind with Thomas Hardy's novels (none of which I've read. It just sounds like a Thomas Hardy book, I suppose).

The only other thing of note is that I drove to the meeting. By myself. In the car. There and back, without mishap or alarm. That's the first time I have driven the car since May 2020 - there has been no need drive anywhere before as BB did all the driving. 

 

  
 

 

Friday 12th March - Tulips

  A couple of days ago a box of tulips and a mother's day card were delivered

This evening most of the buds have opened and they are looking lovely. Thank you very much indeedy - you know who you are! I shall be enjoying them for a while yet.

The white vase was given to me, along with a dozen yellow and red roses, by Himself way back in 1978 to encourage me while I was studying for finals at university. We both knew that maths at university level was a bridge too far for me - I scraped through by memorising the theorems so that I could write them out for the first part of the question, and then I would make an effort to apply said theorem to solve some problem or other - inserting likely looking figures into the equations and doing things to them before moving on to the next question... I got a 2i or 2ii - can't remember which now - only because it was a joint subject degree with music. The flowers undoubtedly helped. Anyway, I always remember the pleasure I felt at seeing the vase and flowers all those years ago when I get it out.

Here's the rug I was talking about a couple of posts ago;

The plan is to cut and stick a number of these rugs together to form a floor covering of sorts for the bedroom. It has a much more luxurious pile than we were expecting, but we're not complaining!

'Visible Mending' has become 'A Thing'; there are loads of posts and tutorials and articles all over the internet. I thought I'd give it a try... here's a repaired tea-towel. I rather like the effect, and it is a lot easier than trying to do invisible mending.

I've been shredding bank statements and credit card bills. It took four sessions over two days, (to give the shredder a chance to cool down!) to get rid of 2010 - 2015. I have a horrible feeling that somewhere upstairs, at the back of a cupboard, I will find the previous twenty years. I store things in boxes like these, usefully and truthfully labelled. Someone out there knows me too well.  

I have five boxes like these - I can't remember what the pink ones are labelled, nor hat it is them. It will be a surprise for me next time I go looking.

I was a little sad that the flowerbeds are so bare. We did try and plant tulips back in the autumn, but the beds were so full of flowers that it was a job to find any space to plant them. Now, of course, when the plants have all been cut back and all is bare, not the time for planting bulbs. Then I had a brainwave; Sainsbury's sell pots of tete-a-tete narcissi (narcissuses?) so I asked a friend to buy me 8 pots. I am hardening them off, and will plant them next week in the garden.

We've also bought a rosemary herb plant; meant to go on the windowsill and be used for cooking, but I've put it in a bigger pot and that too will go in the garden next week.  

I have a feeling they are all still outside... but it is 9pm and raining and I'm not going out now. So hopefully they will cope tonight...

Were you hoping for real news? There isn't much, these days! We chug along from day to day, watching the world go by....

Tuesday 6th January - Alphabet (E), and burble burble

 Let's do the alphabet first - I promise it wasn't a 'fix, but I was very pleased that the letter E conincided with EPIPHANY!

So I went out this morning and 'chalked the door'

I only came across this custom a few years go, and this is the first year I have had any chalk (about 30 sticks - I ordered three packets by mistake)

20 + C + M + B + 21

the 20 and 21 make up 2021, and in between are C M B; this could be Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the traditional names for the three wise men, or it could be for Christus mansionem benedicat, meaning Christ bless our home.

You can google and find complete litanies and make a ceremony, or, as I did, just stand there in front of the door for a second and say 'Lord have mercy' which is about all I can manage at the moment.

The letters will be gone tomorrow - it has been raining of and on most of the day.

No proper walk today - I did have a quick look around the garden this morning but it was so cold and raw outside that I didn't stay long. Just long enough to see that this year's sweet peas which came back to life after I cut them down and put them in the 'waiting to go into the compost bin' have all sprouted again and survived the frost, and to notice the shoots for bulbs poking up through the ground here and there.

I had some good news this morning - I've been using a new exam board for students wanting to take piano exams. Last term two young lads took their 'Prep' test and both passed. This is a slightly more nail-biting exam than the old Associated Board version which didn't have pass/fail - just an encouraging report. Today I leaned that the girl doing her Grade 2 a week before Christmas passed, in spite of being quite distracted by everything Christmassy in her life. I had my fingers crossed for her, and my toes, but all's well that ends well. Phew.

Today has been remarkably free of chocolate and so on - I expect we will hit the biscuits quite soon. We did have Christmas pudding after lunch - Green Thai Curry (Waitrose cook from scratch meal) followed by a Heston Bluhmental pudding and clotted cream> Perhaps a tad more international than normal but these are Strange Times.

Here's a poem to finish with, by Edwin Morgan;

Another view of things…

What I love about music is its scale  
what I hate about muesli is its adherence  
what I love about meaning is its itinerary 
what I hate about the printer is its reproduction 
what I love about the sky is its aspiration 
what I hate about the world is its weight 
what I love about saltires is their ire and their salt 
what I hate about Kings Cross is its intersections 
what I love about chickens is their coronation  
what I hate about morning is repetition 
what I love about Veronica is her proliferation  
what I hate about Janus is his duplicity 
what I love about the sprite is its effervescence  
what I hate about tower blocks is their eyelid-batting 
what I love about nostrils is their déjà vu 
what I hate about candour is its putridness 
what I love about closets are their ecosystems 
what I hate about springs is their optimism 
what I love about deviance is its recreation 
what I hate about absence is its omnipresence 
what I love about discretion is its sensibilities 
what I hate about poetry is its abandon 
what I love about headlines is their brevities  
what I hate about the universe is its expansiveness 
what I love about love is its inheritance

I found this poem here when I was looking for his first version of the poem, written much earlier, called

'A View of Things'. I like this one better. 

      

Friday 9th October - where did the time go?

 I was looking at the last post and saw it was dated 30th September - I hadn't realised nine days had gone by.

October now. There has been a Harvest Moon (missed it - oh well) and INKTOBER is well under way - an internet challenge to post a picture created using inkpen every day. The official site has a list of daily prompts, and so far I am only one day behind.

Here they are

1 Fish

2 Wisp

3 Bulky

4.Radio

5 Blade

6 Rodent

7 Fancy

8 Teeth

I didn't like what I did for this one yesterday, so will be re-drawing it.

9 Throw

Haven't done this yet

But this leads me on to the cabled blanket that I was painstakingly trying to rescue in the last post. I tinked all the way back and then started knitting again, only to discover so many problems along the way that I decided 'enough is enough' and frogged it back to nothing.

I'm much happier with this; 

I've decided to use up all the wool (two balls) to make one giant granny square. It is already the size of a cushion, and I can just go round and round and round and round while listen to audio books and podcasts or watching television, using hardly any brain at all.

What else is new? I don't know. I feel as though I'm living inside a Barbara Pym novel, 200 or more pages of trivialities, none of which amount to much but taken as a whole, and written up in her style, magically become some kind of story. Only, as I am inside the story, I can't see the overall plot. 

I suppose there may be a story plot in this feeling of not having a plot - all a bit Alice in Wonderland.

Ah, yes, here's something to look in to - I've discovered that in the BBC sounds app you can find talking books to listen to. Alice in Wonderland is one of them. I shall make a cup of tea, or coffee, and have a listen.