Tuesday 10th June - home again home again joggerty jog

 Up at six, that's normal for us. (I slept very well in my altered pyjamas; that extra length in the front and back makes Such a difference).

Out of the house at 7.15, that's early for us. J had a routine chest clinic appointment in London for just before 11. Three and a half hours to travel along mere 31 miles? I made it with a scant 5 minutes to spare; BB pulled up outside the hospital door 'quick, quick,' said a porter as he was guiding an ambulance into that space. I leapt out, dragging my oxygen cylinder with me while BB sped off to the preboooked parking space nearby.

They were running an hour late.

Height ho - but you can never tell.

The problem is Putney Hill. It's only about five miles from the top of the hill to the hospital but at that hour of the morning it can take nearly two hours...

Halfway down the hill is an office block with a golden sundial on the wall. The words underneath read

 Time like an ever-Rolling stream

All too true when you are stuck in the traffic  watching the minutes tick away...

There is a church at each end of Putney Bridge. The one on the south bank has a clock and a sundial on the tower with the words

Time and tide wait for no man

Not very comforting in the circumstances!

Once I saw the consultant we had a very useful and encouraging time. I'm doing ok, and it's good to know that the way I manage my pulmonary fibrosis symptoms is on the right lines.

As usual it took over three hours to drive there, and less than an hour and a half to drive home! But it's worth the hassle and expense to have a face to face appointment from time to time  rather than zoom.

Music

More Schuman, more sleepy music; 'Kind in Einschlummern' from Kinderszenen. 

I reckon to sleep well tonight. 

Monday 9th June - Sewing against the clock

 

"                                        ......  I have no spur

 To prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps   "

 (Macbeth, Act 1 Scene 7)

Macbeth is plotting to murder Duncan... I have merely maimed a pair of pyjama trousers. If I had just stuck to Ang's instructions on how to add length to the body I'm sure things would have gone reasonably well. Apart from having to mend a couple of places where I was forced to cut into the fabric to separate the elastic from the waistband. The original machinists were obviously determined to make the seams very secure.

No, where my vaulting ambition overleapt itself was in deciding to add pockets at the same time. If I'd stuck to patch pockets it still might have been OK.

If I wasn't wanting to wear them tonight...

If I hadn't needed to reuse the elastic because I cannot find the new packet of elastic anywhere...

If I hadn't put off beginning the alteration until yesterday morning...

I spent the whole of yesterday snipping and snipping and snipping, and managed to open out the waistband and pin on a strip to extend the body. Also in searching for the new elastic. 

I've spent the whole of today in pinning ang pressing and sewing and bodging 'making it work'. 

I'm two days older and two days wiser and tonight I'll be wearing clean pyjamas. With pockets.

If you are of a nervous disposition look away now;

The waistband showing the new facing  

One pocket with a mended 

The other pocket; I cut away too much so had to patch it back on again. 

I don't really care about all the botches and repairs; I've learned a lot and they are only pyjamas!

Music 

now that I've finished and the pyjamas are ready for bedtime, I'm ready to relax...

Schuman,  'des Abends' played by Daniel Baramboim.

Ahhhhhh...

I 

Sunday 8th June - Pentecost

 Pentecost, 50 days after Easter ('49, actually' she said in the reflection, but I have resisted the urge to count for myself), us when we celebrate the day the Holy Spirit came like tongues of fire resting on the disciples's head, and they all flooded into the streets speaking in different languages. 

That must have been an extraordinary sight and sound. 

The Holy Spirit is sometimes described as the Breath of Life.

The Collect for Purity is said at the beginning of the Communion Service;

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name: through Christ our Lord. Amen

I've always loved the phrase 'by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit', with both meanings of the word inspiration; of creating new ideas and also breathing in.

(I was secretly amused when a doctor listening to my chest when I was unwell noted that I had an 'inspirational wheeze')

And here's a favourite, and very ancient hymn 

Saturday 7th June - this and that

Decluttering - there are some truly weird 'methods' put there;

I culled this little list from a magazine article a week or so ago;

People in glass houses (me) shouldn't throw stones, and to be fair I've tried x number of things a day for a week/month, and x number of books from every bookshelf - or nearly every bookshelf  - or created a kind of scavenger hunt.

In the end it boils down to just getting on with it. We are doing a huge exercise in 'letting go of  things' as we clear my parent's flat. I began to learn this lesson when clearing my godmother's house at the very beginning of 2020; just because something was precious and meaningful for her, in her 94 years of life, didn't automatically mean it had to be precious and meaningful for me. 

I'm hanging on to things which I treasure for my childhood memories, but I'm not sure that the mug from my grandmother's cupboard has any relevance for my own children, who never met her anyway. 

.....

Oddly enough it's programmes like 'Flog-it' that have been helpful. 

'Why are you selling your grandmother's bracelet, given to her by her husband on their wedding day?' he asks.

'I never wear it, and someone else might like it instead of just leaving it in a box in a drawer' she says.

That sounds like good sense.

.....

It must be some kind of cosmic universal rule, that although you have almost every size of drill bit, the one you need is missing. I expect it is in the same place as the blue food storage box which matches the stray lid in the 'tupperware' bag.

......

Music; 

I mainly listened to classical music all through my youth and later; I must have been the only girl at my school who didn't watch Yop of the Pops every week. 

I'm aware of the songs of the 70s, 80s, 90s in a vague, foggy way. My little radio was permanently tuned to Radio 3. 

But there were a few exceptions when I got to university; Simon and Garfunkel, Carol King, Leonard Cohen and Ralph McTell. I loved RMcT's story telling, and his gentle voice, and lovely guitar playing. Here's one of my favourites, called Barges.

When the children were young, about 7 and 8, I used to gather up a flask of coffee, rug and book for me, snacks, drinks and an empty margarine tub each for the children and set up camp by the stream that goes through the little woodland behind the houses. We'd find a bit where it was fairly broad and shallow - there well some dangerously deep pools further along, and spend a couple of peaceful hours in the Summer holiday afternoons. 

Friday 6th June - delivering destruction...

I googled 'how to get rid of blackfly'; we had everything needed and so BB set to work. Time will tell.

The recipe; I decided that a dollop of sunflower of oil (around a tablespoon) and a squeeze of washing up liquid (about a teaspoon) in an empty 750ml spray bottle was a reasonably close approximation, as I had no wish to make up a little of the washing up liquid/sunflower oil combination and then take 10ml and dilute it...

As I said, time will tell. (I'm wondering if I washed out the spray cleaner from the bottle first)

My last two bread machine loaves looked tired and wrinkly. On looking at the yeast and flour I realised that they were all pretty past it to a greater or lesser degree. So I added yeast and bread flour to my grocery order.

What a difference! I'm looking forward to cutting into today's loaf.

'May' tree pictures, okay, a week late. The last week of May was busy.

The great oak, and little apple tree, at the bottom of the garden. The apple boughs are so weighed down by apples they touch the ground. 

This is how my portion control works; snippets snip!

BB remains skinny whatever he eats, whereas I  - well, I clearly have a very efficient metabolism which extracts every calorie from everything I eat.

So I divide everything unequally... especially cake, snacks, biscuits and croissants!

Music

The Raindrop Prelude by Chopin seems another weather appropriate choice...

Thursday 5th June - the ponisettia that

that wants to live;

I've killed many a poinsettia in my time. Sometimes I've had what looks like a whole battalion of them lined up on parade at the end of the autumn term; poinsettias, biscuits and chocolates were favourite 'teacher presents' (and I much preferred them to bath bombs, soaps and scented candles).

One by one the red leaves (bracts?) drop off...

This was one of the tiny weeny ones in a tiny weeny pot, and it stood no chance. 

All that was left was a stick. The pot got left on a windsill pending clearing up. Last week I was about to throw it out, when I noticed the merest possibility of growth on it. Someone, maybe me, must have absent-mindedly watered it from time to time.

Now it has tiny leaves! Who knows, this might be 'the one that survived'.

Knitting has happened. I'm going to name the cowl 'taking the rough with the smooth'. Or 'as you like it'.

It's a sort of mindless knitting - for zoning out - for calm, as an alternative to free cell. As opposed to a more complex pattern requiring concentration and accuracy,  where mistakes will spoil the final effect.

Music

Jardins sous la pluie, by Debussy. An obvious choice, considering the weather today.

I listened to maybe 10 versions before choosing this one. Some were too loud, some too spiky. Older recordings tended to be awash with too much pedal...

 I spent a great half term teaching impression in music to a year 5/6 class. We'd done a lot on using instruments expressively, and creating geaphic scores, so they were ready for the challenge. First we listened to extracts of this piece, noticing where fragments of melody emerge from the overall texture, like half-seen summerhouses or statues, and looked at pictures which were impressionist rather than exact drawings. 

The next week, they came in to find the classroom set up for watercolour painting! The task was to create an impression of the music using watercolours - for example creating a pale wet background wash, and then adding stronger colours to suggest trees, flowers, buildings seen through the rain.

Once the pictures were dry, they used them as graphic scores to compose their own 'jardins sous la pluie', working in small groups and combining their ideas. It was such  fun, and the children really enjoyed the whole process and treated the whole topic with great imagination and thoughtfulness.