Wednesday 11th January - the day after the day before

 Oh bliss...

A day of normality.

No-one came to the door, there were no deliveries, just one phone call, a couple of emails...

I didn't do much, except for teaching three most enjoyable piano lessons:

1. Starting someone off on a new piece, and they managed all the intricacies almost effortlessly. At least is was effortless as far as I could tell; in the zoom call she could hear me and my piano, but I could only hear her voice. The piano came across as random tones and notes, so I was going by the smiles on her face as much as anything.

2. Helping another student find a way to play the Chopin nocturne no1 in Bflat minor with rubato and expression. If you watch Lang Lang play (I can't, I can only listen to him!) you can SEE all the expression in his face and body.  The trick is to covey all that depth of feeling without actually swooning over the keys... we were getting there...

Lang Lang playing Liszt Liebestraum

3. Finally, this student has been making slow progress for ages, but today she said

'I've practised the pieces for half an hour every day this week.' 

Wowsers! That IS a first, thinks I, while congratulating her on managing this feat.

'Actually, I'm rather cross with myself for not having done this before', she added.

I could have hugged her. It's something we all have to learn, especially when we get beyond the age of 'my mum makes me practice every day.' Her progress in just the one week was exhilarating and I hope she can carry on like this.

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... 

Friday 13th December - Peace? Maybe....

It is only quarter to three in the afternoon, so it is a bit too soon to get into a totally relaxed state after the turbulence of the last couple of months.

I refuse to even consider what the election results will mean. Sufficient unto the day is the sorrow therein. I reckon it is a just retribution for all the mockery we heaped upon our neighbours over the pond after their election results a few years back. We should have held our tongues - look who's laughing now. (Not I)

I've also stayed off twitter and facebook, and kept the TV switched off. I'm wounded already, no need to add salt.

So now for something completely different;

 There now. Isn't that pretty? It is this year's Jacquie Lawson calendar, and I have made snowflakes and decorated wreaths and iced biscuits and and made jigsaw puzzles and completed word searches and played 'hunt the sheep'. How lovely. All to the accompaniment of gentle happy Christmas music.

And breathe.

Only eight more lessons left to teach, tomorrow morning, and one drumming worksjop to lead, this evening.

Last night I prepared a batch of Delia Smith's mincemeat. It is an excellent recipe; you mix everything up, and then, the next day (as in this morning) cook it very gently for three hours, so that all the fat melts. Now I have to remember to stir it every so often as it cools, so that every ingredient gets coated evenly in the suet (proper beef suet in this household), before packing it into jars. It seems to keep from one year to the next, and beyond, without spoiling or drying out. 

Sunday 24th November 2019 - When did we last have a day like today?

It's only quarter past three in the afternoon, and already today seems to have lasted a long, long, time - in a good way.

It started too early, I have to confess; I did breakfast-in-bed at about 6 am as we both woke rather early. But then, I stayed in bed, and had a second breakfast some hours later;

and even more hours later, as I came downstairs, I took pictures of the Christmas cacti and the yellow orchids on the landing windowsills.

I've wondered about bringing them into the sitting room, but they are doing so well I have left them alone. It is a lovely way to start the day, seeing how many flowers are out.

The weather is a bit manky and grey, but we decided that Fresh Air and A Bit Of A Walk would be a plan. Before we could change our minds and subsided into armchairs we got into the car, and went off to a local National Trust Garden. We had our first Christmas Dinner of the season, for which we were truly thankful (a bit early but we don't care).

Then a short stroll around the arboretum, and up the slop to the fuschia and salvia beds (many still in flower), browse the second hand books, garden plants-for-sale and shop, and emerge without buying anything, but plenty of ideas.

We stopped off in town to buy ordinary things like socks and so forth, and here we are, it's not yet four o'clock and we have peace and quiet and pot-of-tea...   

I have a dim memory that weekends are supposed to be a bit like this?

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

Sunday 26th - and breathe...

We're sitting down, each with a coffee to hand. The cats have stopped paddling around and chosen their preferred resting places.

No television, no sound except the rattle of the computer keys and the ticking of the clock. The garden is watering itself from time to time (ie it is drizzling outside).

We've come back from visiting my Godmother; she is getting stir crazy. They let her have a zimmer frame for a toilet trip and she was off like a ferret down a rabbit hole, the nurse having to move smartly to keep up. 'Oh my, we aren't used to them going that fast,' cried the nurse as she set off in pursuit. She still tires quickly; it's going to be a while yet before she gets her discharge papers and goes home.

Anyway, here are some random thoughts


Inside this unlikely-looking package  are four Jacob's crackers, four squares of cheddar, a dollop of Branston pickle and a small plastic spreader. When you have spent a day in and out of a hospital visiting an elderly relative, have had too many lukewarm mediocre coffees and are facing a 90 minute drive home, one of these packets shared between us is a surprisingly excellent thing.

As are these Itsu chocolate rice cakes, shared between us as we drive home, or these mini pretzels

                

In future we are going to keep small containers of pretzels and similar delicacies in the car. Not the cheese thingies though. I don't think they have that kind of shelf life, and spreading Branston pickle onto crackers and handing them to the driver is probably A Bad Idea.

We have found a Waitrose halfway along one of the routes home, relatively easy to get to with a reasonable car park (especially with the Panda which turns on a sixpence and slips into awkward spaces with ease). As well as selling food, it has Important facilities like loos, and a cafe which sells macaroni cheese with cauliflower and bacon - the ultimate comfort food.

Food and evening meals have been a bit of an issue recently. We are getting more canny, buying things that can go into the freezer if we don't eat them in time, and can also be cooked from frozen.

Random Fact
We've been keeping a record of the differences in the cost of running the Alfas and the Panda. The savings we have made are on track for the Panda to have paid for itself by the end of June.

The accounting is a little tricksy to substantiate; one of the reasons we will reach break even so soon (we had figured on it being October) is because of the savings we make in the difference in cost each time we fill the car with petrol. Because the number of long distance trips we have been doing, we are obviously filling the tank more often, and therefore saving money more frequently... I did wonder if we should buy another Panda in order to make even more savings, but I am assured that that's not quite how it works.

Sunday 27th August - Now, what has been happening?

Let's see - last post was 10th August. I've enough for a score of posts since then - every day, it seems, except today, has been packed full.

So, I'll start with today and work backwards.

Nothing - well, almost nothing has happened. I guess the main event has been high-speed croissants for breakfast - but more of that in yesterday's post which will be coming up next.

I have learned how to crotchet - well, that started last night, after I ripped back the scarf I had been knitting while in Northern Ireland. The scarf was a failure - I was going round and round on circular needles, and when I cast off it rolled itself up into a nasty narrow snake.

I'd always thought of crochet as a Dark Art, and apart from a roundish coaster which I made in the August-of-making-something-every-day a few years back, hadn't really done anything. (I'm not counting the Tunisian Crotchet Blanket Project, which has stalled at the sewing-together phase).

And perhaps late at night, after a glass of wine, and in poor light, was a bad time to start. But, it seems to be going ok for now.

 
The peace and quiet of today has been blissful. I haven't had to talk to anyone (except BB) all day. He's had to sort out next-door's computer, (which was just checking that the neighbour next-door had got the order right for his new machine. He's finally moving off XP, which I gather is Significant.)

But apart from a few pleasantries with the other neighbour on the other side, I've had a day off "peopling". I'm beginning to feel human-ish.

Right. It will have to be new posts for the other days - too, too much for just a single news bulletin.

Monday December 28th - 2nd and 3rd days of Feasting



Yesterday we went to visit friends for the evening. So, the feast was provided by them - a meal, with cheesecake or Christmas pudding or a variety of other things for pudding. Before and after the meal we ate sweets and chocolates and biscuits.... oh yeah, that was a feast....

Thorntons depends on special occasions such as Christmas and Easter for sales [GETTY]
http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/445926/Why-success-is-in-store-for-Thorntons

Today's "feasting" wasn't just a food kind of feast - although we did have home-made drop scones followed by banoffi pie for lunch, and for supper, baked potatoes with the last of the turkey stirred into a tomato and chorizo sauce (who says you should only put pasta sauce on pasta?) and more Christmas pudding for those who like it...    and the offspring are off out feasting with friends elsewhere...

No, I "feasted" on getting the Big, Hanging-Over-My-Head Tasks done. Like my Tax Return, which I've been meaning to do since May. Done. Off the to-do list.



http://www.fastcompany.com/3021379/work-smart/the-amazing-history-of-the-to-do-list-and-how-to-make-one-that-actually-works

 Every good deed deserves a reward and a mini-box of GuyLian Seashells was one of my Christmas presents.

http://www.guylian.com/en/discover-guylian/gift-chocolates/

And making a start on all the planning that needs to be in place ready for next Monday. That's right. Just a week left before I leap back on the roundabout.

And the final "feast" of the day is - doing nothing. Which happened after lunch, and will happen again just as soon as I press "Publish" on this post.

Saturday 17th May - Tea - photographs

It's a bit of a standing joke with us - me, BestBeloved, Son and Daughter, that we hadn't managed to all have tea in this particular tea shop together. Various combinations of us have indulged, but not all four at the same time.

Well, with one thing and another it's been a bruising couple of weeks - I'm not going into details - but the immediate crisis with BB's side of the family has been resolved for the time being, and BB and I had a Day of Rest today.

For me, that meant going back to bed with a book to snooze and read and doze for the morning, and for him it meant gently surfing the internet. Then we went into the town for lunch (at Wagamama - yum yum), browsed round the shops, splurged on a couple of magazines, and finally tea and cake at the favourite tea shop.

As usual, all you can see of my cake (strawberry frangipani tart) is a few crumbs. He had a raspberry pavlova which he said was excellent.

Then round and round and round waitrose, and home again. We can't do this toooo often, but it was a wonderfully restorative day.

Saturday 22nd February - A Proper Start to the day

It's been half term all the past week.

On Monday I caught the the 7.30 am train to London (and as I stood swaying in the carriage, propped upright by the other passengers, I remembered why I usually caught the 7 am train)

On Tuesday I had a routine blood test at 8am. This is a good time to go; the car park is empty, you are at the front of the queue, and there's plenty of time to get to work afterwards. Oh, but it's half term. I'm on holiday.

On Wednesday I had to be up and dressed ready for a home delivery, due sometime between 8 am and 12 am. It arrived at 11:45.

On Thursday I didn't have anything fixed for first thing - but still got up anyway to make my husband's packed lunch. It seems only fair, when he is working and I am not.

On Friday I was teaching at 9 am, so had to be up and dressed and looking tidy.

Everyday there was an impediment to having a decently lazy start to the day.

Today. Ah, today. The first event is scheduled for 10:15, and in a minute I will have to go upstairs and get dressed and ready. Until then, I have been sitting in peace and quiet; no television, no radio. Just me, my husband nearby, breakfast, "real" coffee, a National Trust magazine to browse...
the warmth of the sun on the back of my head, last weekend's flowers from a friend and my husband casting interesting shadows....
the gentle ticking of the clock....

It won't last. The rest of the day involves visiting my parents, going to a local wedding, probably doing the weekly shopping, preparing for Sunday School tomorrow, and thinking about the week ahead.
  

Saturday 1st February - For the first time since...

For the first time since I cannot remember when, we have a Saturday, and maybe even a Sunday as well, of doing absolutely nothing beyond the bare minimum required for health and hygiene. I think it was probably back in October, or maybe even August, that we last had time like this.

We are not going anywhere, doing anything, arranging anything, planning anything. We are not scheduling, clock-watching, list-making, checking, measuring, mending, fetching or carrying.

We have both had ferocious and horrible head colds all week, spending the nights waking each other up by turns with coughing and snoring and snorting. And neither of us took much in the way of time off - I did cancel one school on Wednesday morning, as running a samba lesson for forty-three children, on my own, with no speaking voice, was beyond me. So, after five days of relentless willpower, we have zonked out. We have spent the day so far in reading, messing about on the computer or phones, watching daytime tv, listening to the radio. We have hardly spoken to each other - anyway, he has a sore throat, so it would be cruel to try converse.

I'm feeling a lot better. He's improving.

There is food in the freezer. I'll do an on-line grocery shop later to set us up for next week.

Tomorrow I'll be better enough to go in and play the organ for the 9am church service, and that's all I'm thinking of doing.

Meanwhile, it's the first day of Spring. We have had sunshine and rainbows as well as rain. Next door's garden is full of crocusesses.

 

There is the promise of an anemone in one of the pots by the front door.

 

 

We are having a blissfully peaceful day. It feels almost like a holiday.



Monday 30th December 2013 - Penultimate Day of 2013

I feel as though I have been hibernating since Christmas. I have left the house three times;

on Saturday to go foraging for more food (not rummaging along the hedgerows behind our house, but at Waitrose),

on Sunday to go to church (and it was perishing cold, -3C, and that's when we discovered that my car battery had died, and luckily he'd tried and failed to start my car before beginning to scrape the ice for me, because it took 15 mins to scrape the ice off his car, and I had, for once, left plenty of time, because it would have been awkward if I had been late as I was the organist!)

today, for a routine blood test this morning (and foul weather it is today - it may be a "warm" 10C but I did not appreciate getting a large cold dollop of rain in my ear between leaving the house and scrambling into the car).

I don't "do" cold; if I get "chilled to the marrow", like yesterday in church, it makes me feel seedy and grumpy and unhappy. They only way for me to get properly warm again is to have a hot bath or go to bed. So yesterday I had a "duvet half-day" and felt much better.

Part of me feels as though I am wasting the holiday period; that I should be out visiting my parents and catching up with friends and going for brisk and bracing walks through the beautiful countryside. (It did LOOK lovely yesterday, but it was PERISHINGLY BITTER once you got outside.) The rest of me feels as though I am slowly surfacing from a pit of tiredness that I slipped into so gradually, so imperceptibly, over the last six months, that I was well down before I even realised it was happening.

Hibernating, I have come to the conclusion, is the right thing to be doing. A bit of reading, a bit of sewing, a bit of television, some radio...

BBeloved is doing the same kind of thing, in his own way. He is catching up on all the kits he has been given this Christmas and previous Christmases, which have stayed in their boxes, teasing and tantalising because he has had neither time nor energy to make them up.

He now has a Twin-Lens Reflex camera again, made up from a kit he was given this year, (he sold his last one to buy me my engagement ring).

 and a trebuchet is taking shape, rather ominously, at the other end of the dining room table as I type. The instructions and bits-and-pieces for a Stirling Engine are close to hand, as is a small model plane.

Time for me to move, as the trebuchet has been armed with a small paper ball. Oho - luckily for me, the first firing only went a yard; the contraption needs to be loaded up serious weights - rocks and gravel - rather than just all the loose change we can find in the house.. That will have to wait - we are NOT going to look for rocks in this weather. He's now starting on the catapult.

Christmas Eve 2013 - Last few hours before Christmas Day

I can't believe we've made it. Neither can the Downstairs Cat, from the look of her.

In an hour's time I will set off through the rain to the Midnight Communion Service, and Christmas will begin.

Everything that needed to be done has been done. Those things left undone can wait until later.

It's now a good time to enjoy some peace and quiet, watch the Advent candle burn, eat the last Advent chocolate (although His calendar, unlike mine, goes up to the 25th).

Now that I have a detailed plan of campaign in place for the Great Cooking of the Christmas Meal, and copies have been distributed on a need-to-know basis, I feel more relaxed. Provided the cooker doesn't implode, or explode, with or without bang, we should be sitting down to eat at 1pm.




Every year, something strange seems to happen to the way that time flows; suddenly, in the last few days before Christmas, time speeds up, and the hours are filled with a relentless rush to buy and make and store and search and tidy and clear and clean until there is no joy left, just hurry, hurry, hurry.

And then, every year, there comes a moment when it is ok. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. Again. Once more. We will reach the journey's end, there will be somewhere to stay, and everything will be just fine.

So, Happy Christmas, everybody.

Sunday 6th October - Blissfully Silent Day

I have barely spoken a word out loud all day.

In fact, if a neighbour hadn't come round to check "is everything ok?" - he'd seen my light on at 3am when he came home from work - I wouldn't have talked to anyone at all.

Perfect!

I haven't been lonely or distressed; after all I have emailed, tweeted, and now I am blogging. It's just that I haven't had to CONVERSE with anyone in real time, (apart from the neighbour) all day, which has been so peaceful. I am so enjoying myself.

I've had one phone call - cold calling - and dealt with that in 10 seconds flat.

It feels like a kind of silent retreat.

I have been busy, though; housework, crock-pot-cookery, and quiltmaking.

This evening I have Great British Railways, Great British Bake-Off, and Strictly Come Dancing to enjoy on TV. "Easy watching" for a Sunday evening.

Oh, and everything was fine at 3am. I was just reading for a bit. It was probably his van that woke me!