Rattling On...

Shock tactics...

Signed in, at last. I don't know if it's been the weather or what, but technology here just hasn't been playing the game. At least the rain stopped today, making way for a little bit of late sunshine and a definite drop in temperatures.

Which is a downer as, after receiving the winter gas bill, I've disabled the central heating. I won't go into the exact and somewhat terrible details of my meltdown upon reading said bill, but it wasn't pretty. Fortunately we are not short on throws hereabouts, and jumpers, scarves... you see where I'm coming from?

Someone at work the other day said 'Oh you're back wearing boots again.' There's no again about it, I have only worn shoes to work once since maybe last September, and I'm not kidding.

I grew up without central heating and to the best of my knowledge it didn't do me any particular harm. Anyway, it's summer. You can stop laughing.

Talking of throws, I'm almost finished crocheting one that was going to be called Spring when I optimistically started it a while ago. I think a better name now would be Next Spring; but it's looking good, just small and good. Crafting has taken a bit of a back seat lately but half term approaches and I have ideas, one of them a dress idea. It's a long time since I sewed anything remotely wearable so it may not ever see the light of day but you never know.

The putative dress will be made from another dress that will be getting the chop. I am, you see, on a bit of an economy drive overall. A bit of making-do and mending will be going on. Not that I don't try to practise economy in any case, but we all get lazy.

The pots outside the back door were from the local DIY store a few weeks ago. They were on a trolley by the checkout, marked down to £2.50 each- fully planted but a little jaded. I took home my fiver's worth, primped it up a bit and, lo! Nature did the rest. Wish I'd bought the other two as well...

The week that was...

 Or the week that wasn't, blogging-wise. One word sums it up really. Ofsted.

In other news: Crow has buggered off with a crowy mate. Good news I suppose, but the garden isn't the same without him. The two of them knock about occasionally and make a lot of noise. I don't know if he'll be back after the Season or if they'll now stay together and do crowy things. 

It has rained a lot, almost all the time in fact. It's starting to feel like a replay of last year. Super.

I have dealt with more clutter issues. As in the charity shop has been the beneficiary of a car-load, the tip of another and a local shop yet another. I'm being ruthless. Which isn't to say there aren't any vintage jelly moulds or storage jars left. There are. Today I'll be tackling the old videos (charity shop says yes, they want them), old paint tins in the cellar and possibly a cupboard full of vintage linens. Keeping it varied helps me from getting overloaded or bored, I find. Butterfly mind.

I broke my good scales. Very, very annoying. I was putting them away when I lost my grip. I have a vintage pair (of course) but I'm not sure how accurate they are. I fell for their looks rather than their usefulness.

And finally, the rhubarb keeps growing. I find the look of it most disturbing. It reminds me of the Alien bursting out of John Hurt in the film.

PS. Anne mentioned that she'd found some 'missing' comments in a spam file where Typepad had helpfully diverted them. I thought I'd check mine just in case, and guess what? So if you've commented and it disappeared it may now have re-appeared. I'll check it regularly now.

Clafoutis...

I don't know what happened to the sunshine, it just disappeared overnight and left us with rain for the last few days. Heavy rain and high winds. Groundhog weather.

The fire has been lit and scarves have been pressed back into service. Only the weeds are growing in the garden. Them and the rhubarb.

I harvested what there was, which should really have been left a little while longer, but hey; and courtesy of the gorgoeus Hugh (a long, long time crush of mine) I made a clafoutis. Which smelled as good as it looked and tasted.

I also spent most of yesterday decluttering, again. This time you can really see the difference in the cellar and workroom. About time too.

Garden roundup...

In the last week or, more precisely, in the recent sunny weather the garden has come back to life. I've already seen these different butterflies. The bees are about and the pond skaters are surfing the pond.

Every year I find it amazing that the dreadful cold hasn't done for everything. You can see in the last picture the frost certainly did see off quite a lot of the lovely old reclaimed bricks that I put in as a border, they just crumble when you touch them. But the butter burr is right in there. The picture was pre-apocalypse-weeding spree, but I'm sure it won't be the last I see of it.

You will also note the lady's mantle and the Other Weed I don't know the name of, looks a bit like strawberry plants but that's just a heinous disguise to try to fool you. My garden is a positive Eden Project of the pestilential kind. Should Kew Gardens ever lose any of their extensive plant DNA collection in a freak bioaccident then they know where to come for a one-stop weed roundup.

Or, fingers crossed, fancy London restaurants will start demanding buttercups to fulfill new demand after this year's Masterchef winner uses them in an amazing must-imitate recipe. Obviously I have pre-empted this and am growing an extensive crop this year. In fact it's the best yield the lawn has ever produced. You can imagine how chuffed I am.

The other good news...

After extensive hanging out of the bathroom window when the sun was shining directly onto the pond, I managed to catch sight of both fishy friends at the same time. Thus proving they both are still going. One is much bigger than the other but this is irrelevent for fish spotting unless they are together (which made me think of this sketch).

The frogs aren't so evident this year, though I hear them at night and have seen the odd one. And one was a very odd one, it was standing on tiptoe on the bottom of the pond, reaching up with both hands. Very spooky.

Here endeth the garden roundup.

Oliver Cromwell had a point...

I went to the theatre last Friday with some tickets a friend couldn't use as he was otherwise engaged. I took My mate K with me, she runs a creative writing class and is a teacher of English, so she likes a good play.

So do I, this wasn't one of them. I'm not saying it didn't have good bits, but by (what I desperately hoped was) the last act I was literally squirming in my seat as I couldn't wait for it to be over. I don't think this has happened to me ever before, and I've sat through some crap in my time. Unless of course you count the Elton John concert some years ago, in his addled phase, when I was so unimpressed that I left at half time. I had a cold, which didn't help.

Anyway, back to the play; the social conscience/political ranting turned me off big time, and this from someone who studied politics and likes a good debate on any subject you care to toss in the ring. For me the characters lacked chemistry and the set was boring as it never changed except for some flowers appearing at one point.

Obviously my advancing years are leaving me unable to appreciate anything with a subtext or requiring deep thought. Maybe I should stick to operetta and farce from now on. Start wading through Mills and Boon. Listen to Ken Bruce without irony. Or just learn to walk out of things when I've had a bellyfull.

K agreed with me on almost all the points, I may add. She also found the storyline confusing and lacking direction. But then she's a few years older than me so one can forgive her a little befuddlement.

We did, though, enjoy the people watching opportunities presented by the audience. K being fascinated by the dynamics of the group-of-three sitting directly in front of us. One hesitates to use the word 'threesome' but if the cap fits and all that. Funnily enough I'd had my eye on a similar group just further along our row. Which strikes me now as being unusual, even for round here. Maybe we stumbled into a Speciality night out without realising it? You know, a bit like singalong-a-Sound of Music. But more of a Friday Night is Threesomes how d'you do. Maybe the play was just a front??

Dogs you'd like to meet...

Or...Top Names for Books. Yes, Rowland Johns really did write a whole book on that. I know this after a browse round the fantastic bookshop/bookbinders in town yesterday.

I had a good hour in there ferreting about and find it incredible that there actually are so many different titles for books, though I'm sure some have been duplicated over the years.

I also love the way an innocent (presumably) title of yesteryear has a totally different take these days. What about 'Invisible Dick', 'Queer Doings at Quantham', 'Very Private Secretary' or the magnificent 'How to make Pastry Attractive' from 1958.

On the second floor of the shop there's a little area with brewing up facilities, on an honesty basis. You can sit and read or chat. There was a couple there and I couldn't help listening in as I browsed the Enid Blyton. They were from Cambridge, he was contemplating a move to Reading but since coming here for a holiday has decided that he must live here. You see, it's not two dimensional. When you get up in the morning you feel you could write poetry or walk. He will, of course, work in a book shop (while he explores the space time continuum on his daily stroll) presumably the one he's sitting in or WH Smith's. Which really doesn't have the same atmosphere.

I imagine Academia in Cambridge will be groaning at the knowledge that they lack dimension and walking is a no-go. I used to live in Reading. It was harmless enough.

Written in stone...

Hard to believe that almost 350 years ago these lovely little cottages were the scene for so much suffering.

Several of the cottages have plaques outside detailing the losses in 1665/66, they're lived in now of course and it seems intrusive to stand and take pictures, though I'm sure it just comes with the territory.

During the time the plague struck Eyam was isolated and food etc was left outside the village at a boundary stone. The graves are also outside the village, rather than in the churchyard. Interestingly the gravedigger survived despite being in close and prolonged contact with the bacterium. Roughly a quarter of the residents were left standing, and amongst these there was found to be a significant incidence of a specific gene resistant to the plague.

St Lawrence church , with its natty blue clock face, has a fascinating graveyard. If, that is, like me you are fascinated by that kind of thing.

I like a bit of freestyling in a graveyard, adds character and style (the large cross is 8th century Celtic). Here in town you have to have a uniform size and colour, no statues, angels, books or crosses, just a plain grey rectangle. It's very disappointing to find this out when you want to have something else, as I know from personal experience.

I agree things should be subtle, but really why should there be such draconian rules? No need for church yards to be gloomy places, hopefully people go there to celebrate and remember good things as well as mourn. Maybe you have different views?

It's a beautiful day here, which is incredible luck as there's a Spring Fair on all over town. There will be stalls in the streets for heavens' sakes, what is the world coming to? We are almost modern. I'm hoping someone will be selling plants as I feel the need to plant things in some bare spots. 

I've been gardening like a mad woman, partly on the basis that I can consider it a free gym workout, partly as the garden was over-run with the usual weedy culprits. Three wheelie bins of butter burr roots have gone to composting heaven, consider that amount. They took some sweat to remove, and still the damn things rear their nasty little heads by the pond.

Such takes the form of my own personal pergutory.

A 17th Century day out...

I have been busy, very busy this past week. Which is the reason (excuse?) for the dearth of blogging. I also dropped and broke my phone. The one where everything from phone numbers and passwords to appointments is carefully stored. A right royal, fur lined, ocean going pain in the unmentionables. Oh and I went on a course, to Rotherham.

But first... Last weekend (I told you I'd been busy) we went to Eyam Hall, not far from home and somewhere we've been several times before. But now it's being run by the National Trust and entry is free to members, so we thought we'd go and see if anything had changed.

The house was lived in until very recently and it's a strange conglomeration of very old and very new, you can sit in the fitted kitchen the family used!

The floors are sloping and incredibly creaky upstairs.

Thw walls are hung with tapestries and the wood is dark without being gloomy

I love windows in old houses, and this was built in 1671- the windows don't disappoint, they even have 18th century graffiti scratched on them

 

The National Trust have started work on the garden, it looks like it may be a cross between formal and cottage, bits of each. The espaliered apple trees against the old, old walls were possibly my favourite things there. I can't get enough of old walls and I love the way nature can be trained a little to give pleasing form to a garden. The French have this down to a fine art in public spaces as well as gardens.

Tomorrow I'll show you the plague cottages and the graveyard. I know how to live it up...

All this sunshine is making me...

...sleepy.

You meet them in the strangest places...

Last week I went to the supermarket after school to do the usual pain-in-it big shop. But I went in a different coat than usual. This, while not hindering the delightful experience in any material way, was a logistical blunder. The Other Coat, you see, has a pound coin in the pocket, for the trolley.

I had two fifty pence pieces but they were about as much use as one legged man in a shin kicking contest. Unless I could swap them for a quid. Or...or I could ask the trolley attendant to uncouple me a vehicle so I could be on my way. I was nervous of doing this, having been knocked back once before while trying to pull this stunt. Nothing ventured.

He was standing to attention by the ranks of gleaming trolleys when I approached with the words "You couldn't see yourself to using your thingy to unlock a trolley for me, could you, please?"

Despite the rather ambigous choice of phrase he leapt into action with the retort "I would fashion you a thingy from finest silver if I had the means, meanwhile  I will utilise this one to gain you a trolley." I thanked him most sincerely and he rejoined with "Your beauty will sustain me for the rest of the day."

Despite the obvious fact that he was clearly clinically insane, and somewhat challenged in the orthodintic arts, I lapped it all up and entered the Palace of the Draining of Spirits with a smile on my face.

Only when I stand...

I had to come home from work early yesterday, ill. This is a very rare occurrence for me and has only happened once before in the five years I've had this particular job. The last time was when I allowed a student to make me a cup of tea and I'm almost sure he poisoned me. Really, I mean that.

I was fine, he made the tea, I drank it, I was very ill. Later I was fine again. He isn't an ordinary student but we won't go into that here. Anyway, I knew I was dodgy when I woke up yesterday; woke up twenty minutes late as the alarm hadn't gone off. Well, it had, but my phone was on the kitchen table and as I don't often sleep in the kitchen I'd missed it. I woke up and swung my legs out of bed, as I sat up and moved my head my brain seemed to follow after a delay. I was lightheaded and felt very odd, almost like after a night on the pop. I decided to man up and go in.

After staggering around the classroom for a bit, with kids asking me why I was a funny colour, I felt iller (?) and weirder and decided I needed to lie down. Students feeling like this are usually directed to the chill out room adjacent to the classroom, where we have beanbags and what have you but it wouldn't look good for staff to be recumbent on a beanbag in teaching time. Or possibly ever.

So I came home and hit the couch with a book. Whilst supine I felt almost fine, except for the burning rash that had appeared on my arms and the constant need to wee (too much info?). All was, therefore, relatively well until the window cleaner drew up in his van.

He is a lovely man, Polish and smiley and neat and polite and... I hate being in when he calls. I am like this about anyone who comes to the house, from meter readers to  builders, I'd just rather not be around when they are. So I sat on the stairs, which are in the middle of the house and thus hidden. I could have just gone upstairs as he cleans the top windows with a brush affair on a pole that spews out water, but I wasn't fully compos. When he'd finished he knocked at the door for his recompense and I had to overcome another mountain: bringing up an issue while disguising it as a jolly comment. To whit: he hadn't done the tops of the front room sashes.

Yes I have he said, no you haven't I said. He went to inspect. To be fair to him at this juncture I have to confess that I have a window cleaner precisely because I have a particular aversion to cleaning them myself, which manifests itself on the inside as much as the outside. So I could almost understand why he might have thought he'd done the top ones, however he has a trained eye and the nuances of filth should really be apparent to him if he's to be a success in his chosen profession. He went back for his ladder and ran the cloth over them with a cheery smile, no doubt all the while visualising me with pins in my eyes. I went back to the couch to wallow in self pity. I stayed up 'til 2am when I suddenly felt well enough to go to bed.

Today's picture isn't actually mine, I got it off the net. However when I stayed in New York some years ago with my sister, one of her neighbours cleaned her windows just like that, on the 20somethingth floor, with the cat sitting next to her on the sill. Respect.

Best bit of April...

We are birthdaytastic here today and again in six days, hence the second cake related post. I cannot believe (in fact I refuse to accept) how old my girls are. Obviously I was a child bride.

Off out for a Thai tonight after scoffing cake for afternoon tea when we get home. The two events will also serve as pre-exam stress busting, for what seems the umptyteenth year in a row both girls have important ones to sit. I of course have to deal with all the students at school in varying levels of meltdown. Fun times.

After not eating chocolate for three weeks I had some the other day, and had an allergic reaction that's still ongoing. I'm going to not have any more for a few weeks and test it again. Different brand, just in case it's actually nut contamination. Bummer...

The unbearable lightness of being... a scone

Visitors and last minute baking. The usual Nigella recipe which, as always, was lovely. Cherry jam and whipped cream.

Yesterday morning was fine enough (though not a patch on Saturday which was glorious) and I thought I'd let the grass have another day drying out while the washing blew on the line, then I'd mow it in the afternoon. Or not. To put it mathematically:

A ≫ 0

Where A is the the chance of rain before the last bit of washing hit the line. Oh well.

Blue sky = hard work...

The sun is shining this morning, there's a frost on the grass. I suspect we are, as usual, well behind the rest of the country as far a spring goes but things are happening at last.

My annual battle with the two Bs has begun in earnest. Butterburr and buttercups, proof that butter is bad for you. I had another hour in the garden last night digging up the butterburr runners/roots, they are nightmarishly tough and go for miles. I ended up using the tree lopper tool to cut them.

I've almost forgotten what it feels like to have a garden which only requires average weeding and digging. This was such a ruin when we moved in, requiring a lot of hard work, and it's hard to keep on top of it never mind actually move forward. I've given up with the celandine. It appears each year for a couple of weeks then dies off. I can put up with that I've found.

Speaking of butter being (allegedly) bad for you... on Thursday one of the break-time-boys came in for his tea and toast and asked if he could have just jam on the toast. I asked why and he said he was worried about his cholesterol (he's 13). When I told him we used sunflower spread he was mollified a little end thought he'd risk it. Science lessons have a lot to answer for.

We eat butter here, not ridiculous amounts, we prefer the taste on most things though I do bake with sunflower spread most of the time (the cost is a big factor rather than health matters). For now I don't have to worry about my cholesterol levels, they are quite a bit below average according to a recent blood test. I think the doctor was very disappointed he couldn't lay that one on me, they do like preaching. Mine does anyway.

More gardening today while it's nice. I say gardening but it's more weeding really. Despite having done the same patch twice already the buttercups are back, goodness knows where they lurk. I don't, won't, use pesticides or weedkillers of any sort And after seeing what the slugpellets my Mother's neighbour puts down did to the mistle thrush nesting in my Mother's tree did, then I think they should be banned.

Pretty in pink...

My love of hydrangeas has been well documented on this here blog. But my favourite part of the flower is that little bit in the middle.

It starts off as a tiny blob and later on pops open to reveal...

...paraphenalia.

I am posting about pretty flowers to distract me from the havoc the weather has wreaked outside or, to be more precise, the work that has been generated. To be fair loads of people have been stricken with wind-related damage, but that doesn't make me feel any better. And it was hail stoning yesterday. The heating is back on and the fire was lit last night. Summer's coming.