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.

Saturday 14th January - The rain it raineth every day

There has been so much rain that I was regretting that we hadn't installed a water butt. Though that's probably just as well as it would have been filled ten times over this past week. We have a problem in that the only down pipe for our house is at the side, in the extremely narrow driveway. Now that we have given up all idea of parking a car alongside the house, on account of the difficulty of exiting the vehicle through the doors, we might look into getting a 'space saving'  water button. I'm sure I've seen a thinner alternative to the traditional barrel shaped ones.

Ang mentioned how much she enjoys Nigel Slater's cook books, so I have sent off for a second hand copy of one;

I like the way I can look inside a book on Amazon, or even download a sample before I decide to buy. I've chosen this more or less at random but January's recipes looked very promising.

Postcard Project; I've finished my embroidered picture but we've agreed to add some words - start and finish dates, and sign our names. Barring spelling mistakes (only one so far) and sewing mistakes (needed to pause for deep breaths before reaching for the scissors when I discovered I had sewn a corner of the fabric into the embroidery) I feel as though the end is within reach.

After spending a Whole Year knitting a pair of socks, I have bought a set of teeny 2.5mm flexible double pointed needles and cast on for the next pair. This time I am starting at the toe!

The needles are not quite what I was expecting; they have longer straight pieces - but then it clearly says LONG on the packet - and a curiously flattened knobbly texture - ah yes, now I look at the packet the picture is clear as well... my fault for not looking properly!

Monday Afternoon, 21st November - Update to Positive Procrastination

 Sort of Success...

The challenge was to complete a subset of the 'Plan of Attack' by lunchtime which was going to be at 12 noon today.

I have sort of succeeded; it is a quarter past one and lunch is being prepared as I type (it will now be served nearer 2pm!)

So what happened? Three things in swift succession...

I noticed that the lights were flashing on the cat flap, so new batteries were required (Himself fixed that - he does the electrical stuff around here) but that entailed seizing hold of the unsuspecting sleeping cat and thrusting her through the cat flap (two-person job) to ensure it still worked.

We discovered a strange puddle of water under the kettle - investigation proved it was leaking. Himself got into the car, drove to John Lewis/Waitrose in town, masked up, and went to buy a replacement. Ah, none in stock, but one will be delivered tomorrow.

The friend who was coming round after lunch (that's why we were having it early) came at the time she said; I swapped ginger biscuits made yesterday (by Himself) for her excess Nespresso pods, and also handed over three sets of Advent Tea Lights for her to pass on to the clergy.

Now I have moved my laptop to the kitchen worktop so that I can type as my 'sit-upon' - the base of my spine - is making it abundantly clear that I need a Much Softer Cushion on my typing chair!

This is little more than a seat pad;

Ah, a cushion! (The little blanket is for my knees.)

  

Monday 7th November - Tigger, Eeeyore, and bounciness

 “How did you fall in, Eeyore?" asked Rabbit, as he dried him with Piglet's handkerchief.

"I didn't," said Eeyore.
"But how--"
"I was BOUNCED," said Eeyore.

I have been putting off making a dental appointment for several weeks - Summer was cataract operations for BB, and then we waiting for the Covid boosters, and then for the flu vaccinations, and all the time my teeth felt reasonably fine so I wasn't worrying. 

However, these past few days the twinging molar has become - more twinging, shall we say, so I phoned the dentists. Our beloved dentist (yes, I can call him that; he had the gentlest touch and was almost the only one to do any work on my teeth for the last 36 years apart from his daughter who had the same light touch, and once or twice when there was a locum who was equally good) he retired. I suppose if he is about the same age as us that is not too surprising.

Our children have given positive feedback about the new dentist, so I phoned expecting to make an appointment for a couple of week's time.

'Yes, that's fine, we can fit you in tomorrow afternoon'.

I know just how Eeyore felt.    

Thursday 3th November - 'Unexpected item in the water bowl'

This happened on Tuesday morning, but I had forgotten until now...

After the storm on Monday night, when we were walking around outside to look and see which garden items had been randomly redistributed, I checked the two Emma Bridgewater pasta bowls in the garden that the cat likes to drink out of. They were both nicely filled up with rainwater (saving a job, and rainwater is what the cat prefers to drink anyway). But in the bowl by the back door was a small toad, unable to get a grip on the shiny china rim in order to get out.

Where had he been living? Among the pots of herbs on the back door step? It was the work of a moment to relocate the toad, water and all, into a nearby flowerbed. I suppose I should really add little ramps to the bowls. 

'Emma Bridgewater pasta bowls for the cat to drink from? Whatever next?' I hear you cry. Ah, yes, but the glaze has completely crazed all around and around, and there are hairline cracks developing. I thought it was better to banish the bowls to the garden BEFORE they suddenly unloaded hot soup or pasta all over everywhere. Like what the others a few months ago.

I had a bit of the 'thing' for buying Emma Bridgewater cups and bowls and mugs, but, hey, I am so fickle.

I've always admired the 'dinner service' at a friend's house - a collection of mis-matched blue and white china. No worries about replacing a broken item with the same pattern, then.   

Monday 17th October - Double Surprise

 I have started the week in the way I probably won't manage to continue. One doesn't like to become predictable, after all.

We've got into the habit of 'Second Breakfasts' - a slice of toast or a couple of mini-croissants or  biscotti if there are any left in the tin.

Today I surprised Himself  with a second breakfast of a poached egg on toast. It was about the same amount of effort as making a couple of slices of toast and marmalade.

Step one. Read the destructions on the oh-so-nifty Joseph Conran microwave egg poacher. Looks easy enough.

Step two. Put a slice of toast in the toaster

Step three. Add water to the egg poaching thingy up to the line, put in microwave to heat for 60 seconds

Step four. Assemble eggs, plate, knife, fork, salt, pepper, butter. It's all close to hand.

Step five. Remove thingy from microwave, add egg, deal with shell, put thingy plus egg into microwave for 50 seconds.

Step six. Butter the toast, put knife, fork, salt and pepper on table, replace butter dish in cupboard and eggs, in fridge.

Step seven. Serve up perfectly poached egg to delighted husband. He needs the calories as he uses them up getting his daily steps and doing this and that around the house all day.

Here's the second surprise (which I haven't mentioned to him yet, after all, I didn't want to spoil his egg.

Step eight. Clean up the microwave after the lid popped off the every-so-nifty-thingy just before then end of the 50 seconds, so that the entire interior of the microwave was sprayed with little fragments of cooked egg white and steam.

I cunningly served the egg upside down on the toast, so the explosion site was hidden - it looked great as I bore the plate to the table!

And as the microwave was still all steamed up inside it was quite quick and easy to clean, while the toast for toast-and-marmalade to go with the coffee was in the toaster.

I still think this is the easiest method so far - in olden days I've done the dropping an egg into a pan of simmering water, suspending a sort of ladle in said pan of boiling water, tried paper pouches (messy) and other microwave egg poaching devices but I prefer this one... I reckon I'll go for 40 seconds next time and let it stand for 10 seconds... I'll let you know how I get on!

All very eggcellent, if a little too eggciting...

Sorry!

  

  

Wednesday 10th August - Siesta time

 It feels as though we should be having siestas; and it is supposed to stay hot, or even hotter, until the weekend.

The garden is looking faded, apart from a few valiant efforts from the rose near the house. The colour appears far more saturated through my glasses, which have reaction tinted lenses.

From this end of the garden, the ornamental grass (no idea what it is called, but it is one of the best things in the garden) catches the light. The feathery ends have filled out over the last couple of weeks from delicate filaments to these brush-like fronds. I would like to get another to go in the border, but closer to the house.

 In the very darkest patch of shade beyond the end of the border is the apple tree, where Himself is sitting reading. I could be there too; the wi-fi reaches that far, but - effort. Walking. Heat.

Here is good.

I am nursing a sightly sore sit-upon; crouching down to write 'MILK' on the upturned bucket by the front door in readiness for the imminent changes to the milk delivery schedule and possibly even a new milkman, I lost my balance and ended up ignominiously on my bottom lying on the driveway. I don't thin I have actually bruised anything and fortunately (in this circumstance at least) my posterior is pretty well padded. So I rolled myself back up and completed the task. At least I know what to draw for today!

We had an excellent light lunch of roast chicken etc, including a glass or so of white wine. This could well be the explanation for my unplanned gymnastics...

The brick is bolted to the bucket to weight it down and act as a convenient handle. We have an on-going problem with urban foxes, and some people further down the road actually feed the brutes ('oh, but they are so cute and we love animals'). Say that to people who keep chickens, if you dare.

Our lunches yesterday and today have been more splendid than usual, not because of the menu, but because we have cleared the table.

Well, half the table;

 It is very pleasant to sit up and face each other, maybe even converse.

The reason is because the piano tuner came on Tuesday. It is just about three years since he last came. I am so lucky that my piano - a wedding present nearly 45 years ago - stays in tune so well. I was just about ready to go to twice-yearly tuning when Covid struck. The piano was beginning to become unplayable to my ear; there was a definite wow-wow-wow going on in some chords, so I was grateful to get this done.

But, oh, the trauma of excavating it from several years of accumulated paper, notebooks, penpots, music heaps! And the assorted bags of knitting and sewing stuff! And the horrific amount of dust and cobwebs to be cleared out!

Still, we got there;

and I am determined to be very considering about what goes back;

I can't get too carried away with re-filling the space as he is going to return (when?) to re-glue the two veneers which came unstuck from Middle C and B. Luckily they slid inside the piano when they came off, so he has been able to retrieve them.

I shall try NOT to return to this state of affairs; (the title of the music seems appropriate, perhaps I'll give it a play through)

 

Saturday 23rd July - many a slip and all that

 

If I'd have taken this photograph a few seconds later, I could have included a bemused cat.

And then another photograph of the cat having decided that it was safe to walk on.

And then the cat not liking the warm sticky sensation on her paws, and being held upside down while I wiped all her paws before she could go any further.

However I can confirm that no people or animals were hurt when this happened, and that the microwave recipe I used for the gooseberry jam works very well for apricot jam.

 I managed to save half a jar.

In other news - is it news - just the ordinary day-to-day goings on in an maybe not quite ordinary household; my third tub of potatoes yielded 750gm, and I had some of them washed, boiled, buttered and on the plate a scant half hour after excavating them from the tub where I had been growing them.

They were delicious. I was 'cooking', if you can call it that; ham, new potatoes, coleslaw and a three bean salad. The salads came from M and S. (I did make yesterday's salads; tomatoes thinly sliced with finely chopped spring onions and vinaigrette dressing, and cooked and cooled french beans in a lime and ginger dressing).

Tuesday 19th April - In other news

 I mentioned that I was knitting, and un-knitting;

The 'Baby Surprise' Jacket took a couple of restarts, but is now underway;

I have knitted this pattern twice before. At this stage it is impossible to visualise what is going on. The blue line (deliberately chose to be easily identified once I have finished knitting!) will form the cuffs of the little sleeves, and the top of the back. Somehow. At the moment I am knitting in towards what appears to be the centre, decreasing by two stitches at each of the diagonals. Eventually, once I am down to 90 stitches from the original 160, I will increase by two stitches along the diagonals, creating a weird 3-dimensional shape. By some magical sleight of hand, the lower edge of the blue strip will be folded up and over, and something sewn to something else to make shoulder seams, and hey presto - a jacket! It worked the last two times so I am hopeful.

The cardigan that I was ripping out is almost completely unravelled; 

One thought I have is to just knit up another 'Surprise' jacket, following the same instructions with thicker yarn and larger needles, to see if I get a me-size jacket. A better idea might be to get hold of the book 

 which has the pattern written up to make a number of different versions in different sizes. It is rather expensive though... The annoying thing is that I remember cutting the pattern out of the Sunday Times magazine about 35 years ago, and throwing it away about ten years ago. It just goes to show that you should never throw anything away, ever. Not never.

The weather was so warm on Friday that we spent a lot of time sitting out in the garden under the tracery of the apple tree branches, just coming into blossom. I took my tablet out, intending to read, but the light was too bright, so, using the stylus and a fairly primitive drawing program produced this instead;

I've not really got my head around how the different 'pens' in the program (called Bamboo) work, so it was all a bit hit and miss. Sadly the following days grew progressively cooler, until today it really wasn't warm enough to sit outside. The scattered pink dots of blossom have given way to a complete canopy of white petals, and the big old oak at the bottom of the garden, always the last to realise that it is Spring, has suddenly burst into leaf.

Yesterday we finished the Hot Cross Buns, and tomorrow we will start on the Simnel cake. I do like to make a celebration last as long as possible! 

 

 

Tuesday 5th April - Genius knitting techniques

Ok, this bit is all technical knitty stuff. Scroll to the bottom for Noah's Ark, and the mysterious door handles.

I have a definite antipathy towards sewing up the seams of my knitting. So, this jumper has been created without any sewing (apart from weaving in ends and sorting out the occasional dropped stitch or other weirdo stitch that appeared along the way).

Yesterday I finished the shoulders with a - wait for it - drum roll - 3-needle bind off - and was able to try on the completed body;

I've just pulled it on over the guernsey I was wearing because I was feeling too lazy to remove it first. I was mainly concerned that the neck was a good size. It is still on two circular needles, one for the front, and one for the back, and there's a long dangly bit of yarn draped down the side as well.

Here is a close-up of the shoulder seam.

I've done a sort of Norwegian stand neck, where you bind off the front stitches, and then knit an an inch extra at the back before binding off and sort of sewing the edges to the front. The thing is, I did an I-cord bind-off for the front and back stitches, and it has made such a great edge! I did test out the concept on a swatch first.

 How neat is that!

I started off wanting to knit this Elizabeth Zimmerman 'wishbone' pattern from 'The Knitter's Almanac', but soon realised that the yarn and needles I had were never going to match the pattern instructions for stitches per inch, whatever I did. 

So I turned to my Elizabeth 'Knitting Workshop' and started modifying as I went along...

In the end, following her 'recipe' (she's not one for precise patterns!) I knitted 'in the round' to the armholes, split the front and back and continued separately in garter stitch for the length of the armholes. The sleeves have been knitted 'in the round' and still have the needles in (luckily I found I had two circular needles of the right size and length!)

The instructions for the Norwegian neck, I-cord and 3-needle bind-off are all in 'Knitting Workshop';

here's the Norwegian neck from the book;

 The other techniques are freely available  on the internet, but I couldn't find anything about this type of neck..

The next task is to fathom out how to join the sleeves into the armholes - I can see another 3-needle bind off  event, and I have done a couple of trials. The end is in sight - I should be able to wear this thick, warm woollen jumper around the time Spring arrives for real! Apart 

I can recommend 'Knitting Workshop'

It is expensive (around £25 new) but full of interesting ideas, techniques and patterns included how to knit a jumper without a pattern, and also how to knit the famous 'Baby Surprise Jacket', knitted entirely in one piece and then folded and sewn across the shoulders. I have made two of them so far, one over 33 years ago for my son, and one for a friend's grand daughter. 

by StarKnits  Flickr
picture from 'Baby Suprise' link above

The original new sheet style publication

Noah's Ark today

'The wolves shall lay down with the lamb'- Isaiah 11 6. 

The door handles? Daughter moved into her first bought, not rented, flat at the weekend. There have been some surprising discoveries since moving in; but that none of the internal doors had the latch fitted (the sticky out bit that protrudes into the door frame and holds the door closed) but only the handles screwed to the sides of the door was probably the most unexpected.

Oh, were you expecting a connection to Noah's Ark? I did put a comma in the statement at the top of the blog... 

Sunday 5th December - More unexpected consequences

 Such as changing the sheets on the bed today resulted in me discovering my missing sock tucked into a fold of the fitted sheet... 

presumably it hid itself there when it was in the washing machine, and stayed there while the sheet was hanging over the spare room door to dry, 

clinging to its hidey-hole while I folded the sheet and jammed it into the airing cupboard... dozing in the warmth and darkness until rudely tipped out when we used that sheet to make the bed.

Such as making rice pudding in the microwave because we were running over with spare milk, taking my eyes off the bowl so that in two seconds the milk al,l over-flowed and now the microwave was running in milk...

and as we cleaned it out it became apparent that the bearing in the bit that turns the turn-table is completely worn out and so ordering a new microwave (the old one is a ripe old age)...

Rice Pudding

1 tablespoon of pudding rice

1 tablespoon (not rounded) of soft brown sugar

1 pint of milk

A bay leaf and a couple of cardamom pods

All placed into a suitable receptacle and brought to the boil, then simmered until it is not quite as thick as you think it ought to be because it will thicken as it cools. This takes maybe 30 mins, and you should stir the mix quite frequently to stop it sticking and stop that horrible skin forming. Wait, you LIKE the skin?   

This makes enough for 4 portions - no, not really. Probably 4 'yogurt pot sized' portions. So He had a large portion, and I had a small one, and there was a small one left over for the next day. 

The best rice puddings were made in the slow cooker, we remembered. This had been banished to the cupboard under the stairs some years ago, but was retrievable, cleanable, and soon made ready for use. But where to put it?

The consequence - plastic storage containers sorted, and a new home found for them, all corralled into suitable canvas bag and put in the broom cupboard, the bread maker repositioned and cookery books reorganised. 

We shall bring it back into use next week.

That's quite enough for today - when the new microwave arrives on Monday the opposite side of the kitchen will have its chance to be cleaned and sorted...

Dress day 93. Just one week left of the 100 day challenge.

     

Thursday 25th November - Chit chat, this and that

 My poor little Christmas cactus is making a valiant attempt to flower. I have neglected it all through the Summer, and was on the verge of chucking it out several times. Only laziness on my part saved it.

 I've moved it to the kitchen windowsill where I hope it will have a better chance of survival.

I got my new glasses yesterday. As I had hoped, they are making it easier for me to read the music and teach. They are large and fairly round so the lenses are bigger which all helps. And lookee lookee at the wonderful case they came in! Sparkly! That was a nice surprise.

Several of my piano students have gone severely off the boil as regards practicing. Sometimes it is because they are 'stuck' and become discouraged over a particular piece, sometimes they have too much on at school, especially with Christmas coming on, sometimes they are tired of everything except their phones and computer games.

Strategy Number 1; 'as soon as you have done three practices, sent me a text or email and I will post you a postcard.' She has chosen this one, and I have set it aside for her. 

Strategy 2; for a very competitive student 'We can do a practice challenge together; we will each do scales, sight reading, a new easy piece and and get on with learning a 'proper piece' each day'. Oh, hang on, that means I've got to start practicing every day too. Here's my chart (I only started on Tuesday).  

Strategy 3; 'Just do a tiny amount every time you practice - one bar of your Bach, and as soon as you've played it twice you can move on, and the next phrase of the other pieces, left or right hand, and any scale you like played twice, and a Christmas Carol from your easy-peasy book. Then you are done'.

Let's see where that gets us.

The secret is in the word 'play' - as in 'playing' the piano. Now, do you suppose it would help if I called it 'houseplay' instead of 'housework' and had a star chart?

(probably not!)

Saturday 6th November - Nothing to see here, no wait...

As I mentioned a day or so ago, three new cherry trees have been planted outside our neighbours along the round and opposite. What a great idea!

I made some preliminary enquiries, and now I am wishing I had been a bit quicker off the mark, like acted six months ago... 

We too have had a truck turn up, and with remarkable efficiency, we too, have had something planted right outside our front window! 

This is taken through the upstairs window; a stonking girt big telegraph pole, complete with a notice saying we have a short period of time to appeal against it! So, peering through the left hand pane, I have an eye-level view of the telegraph pole, and through the right hand pane is the street light, which has always been there in one form or another. If you take into account the fire hydrant access cover just to the left of the telegraph pole that doesn't leave much room for a cherry tree!

I'm not over-joyed to have the pole in front of our window, but I take comfort from the fact that I can't see it when I am sitting in my usual place, and I suspect that after a while I will stop noticing it. I am told that the new cabling is not as strong as the old copper cables, so the poles have to be closer together. We shan't make an objection - some one has to have a post, why shouldn't it us?

I am already feeling very 'Advent'-y. I met on zoom with some friends last night to listen to and reflect on the first of the seven Great 'O' antiphons; O Sapienta - O Wisdom. These have been around since the 6th century, if I have remembered aright, and are usually sung at Vespers in the days leading up to Christmas Eve. We are meeting to think about one each week. You can find out all about them on wikipedia, or this site has information and links to the plainsong chants. Many people already know them through the Advent hymn 'O come, O come Emmanuel'  which is a 19th century paraphrase.

I have also already started on the Advent tealights;

They are very simple - just a piece of Christmas washi tape stuck around the edge!

If you are interested in the Johanna Basford 30 days of Creativity course - the videos and ideas, if not the actual book, you can sign up here; today is sweets.

Friday 27th November - yesterday's post

 I reckon that if I am posting to the blog at 7 in the morning it can count as yesterday's post for NaBloProMo purposes, which means that so far I have only missed one day - probably a record. But there are still a couple of days to go...

Yesterday was a most confused day

I had six people calling round with birthday cards and flowers and presents and cakes - did I mention it was my birthday?

Two Jacquie Lawson ecards - they are always so lovely.

I opened a huge number of parcels all in cardboard packaging; this was full of surprises as all the deliveries for the previous weeks or so had been stacking up in the hall as it was impossible to be sure which were things that I had ordered (stationery, Christmas presents, clothes) and which were birthday presents. In the end I had two packages from my daughter, two from my son, two from my husband, and also opened a Christmas present from my husband to me (handed it back in a hurry) and some books I had ordered as Christmas presents for him (repackaged in a hurry)

Quite a haul

The red heart tin of chocolate contains ten individual pralines - perfect. That will be one each for me and husband to keep us going until we can get going on our Advent calendars.

All of this celebration was interwoven with a series of phone calls, emails and texts to and from close family as my father is currently in hospital (not covid, but equally concerning) and decisions were needed regarding the best way forward, and to let people know of the situation. First thing in the morning things were looking a bit bleak, but there was a unexpected opportunity for the best option (a surgical intervention)  to be followed through and the day ended better than it started. More phone calls and emails were needed... but on a happier note.

It's not surprising that my head was spinning by the end of the day, when I first had a zoom meeting with our children, and then joined a book group meeting later in the evening. One of my presents had been a mini bottle of sparkling rose - I drank it all during the book group which is probably why one of our members commented that my book suggestions were becoming increasingly random...

Anyway, I have started reading our new book, 'A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet' by Becky Chambers. Not one of my random suggestions, but a response to the question 'why do we never read science fiction?' from one of the others. I have read this before but am very happy to read it again.

Our previous book was 'A Shepherd's Life' by James Rebanks, and before that 'Girl, Woman, Other' by Bernadine Evaristo. No-one can claim that we always read the same sort of books...

I slept like a log for the first time in a week.      

Tuesday 21st April - Nearly a week

Friday - Saturday - Sunday - Monday - Tuesday -Something happens each day, to be sure, but I have to go back through calendars and journals and diaries to extract the details...

This is turning out to be one of the best memory joggers;

along with photographs on my phone.

The piano keyboard is Wednesday of last week, when I signed up for an on-line piano course on practising techniques. It a 'how to practise' rather than 'how to learn these technical skills' and I'm finding it very inspiring;  the course, and also starting piano teaching again after a break, has got me playing much more than I ever did over the last couple of years. But I might have written this in the last post.

On Thursday as we looked out of the kitchen door we saw a very bright star in the sky directly over our garden gate.

'Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,
wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight'

is a song I have been teaching for around 10 years... a simple, rocking tune using just two notes.

I was having a zoom chat on Friday morning with a friend when an ENORMOUS parcel arrived - we looked at eachother in blank amazement, wondering who had ordered what without saying anything to eachother?

It was addressed to me -  and came from Canada, and inside was this;

There's a hardware store there called Lee Valley follow the link and get lost in a world of wonder for several hours. We've bought 'essential must-buys' from there every time we visited. Search on 'music' and you will see what our friends started with - and with skill, persistence and determinations turning into this beautiful glockenspiel! If you want to play the starlight song, pick G and E and play

G E   G E  G EEGGE   

GGE   GGE  GGEEGGE 

The rest of Friday and most of Saturday were screeds of emails, letters, telephone calls, catching up with friends, completing the last pieces of unfinished business from being furlouhed by one employer, and setting up the schedule for on-line zoom piano lessons starting on 22nd April.

Sunday was 'zoom church' -  an oddly moving and chaotic time of songs and Bible readings and sermon and prayers; one person is the Controller, from his study, another person 'assissted' by her ten-year-old son does the powerpoit screens, the Bible readings, prayers and songs all came from different households and our vicar gave the sermon from his house in Kent because he hasn't been able to move here yet. It was well 'attended', many still finishing their breakfast, drinking coffee (me) colouring, doing crochet (me - I was delighted as I got four rows done!) The square for Sunday is a merging of the colours of the blanket I am making as a wedding present for some friends. The deadline was august - now - who knows...

Monday is when I did gardening, and we also discovered that our drains were blocked - again. Himslef and two neighbours and a set of rods managed to clear it, just in time for the water authority man to turn up and say - 'it looks fine now'. He did check it with a camera, and disinfect everywhere so his time wasn't totally wasted.

I made a tiny sketch on the bottom of a post card I sent to my father. I also took pictures in the garden; the lilac is in flower, the apple blossom is wonderful, the camelia has two more buds 

The anenomes have come back to life (I thought they had been eaten by slugs or pigeons)

and Leo has a new favourite spot, balanced on a wooden beam and leaning against the fence after the sun has warmed the surfaces for an hour or so. 

I did a tiny watercolour of the anenomes for another postcard

Today I've had a zoom chat with friends, and then we went out for a little 'tour' - dropping books off for my father, who islooking very well, I might add, and collecting some plants from a friend who is handing out 'extras'. I've two courgettes to plant up, and four hollyhocks which she has to 'weed' out of her borders.

Tomorrow I have to try and be a piano teacher again - so far I will have two pupils on Wednesday, five on Thursday and four on Friday, I reckon three - five pupils on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays shouldn't interefere too much with my 'retirement'!