The despicability of printers and bindweed

Is there anything in the IT world more challenging than a printer?

In my lifetime printers have caused me far more grief than is reasonable for a quiet little machine that just sits there for most of the time. (As I was writing that sentence my screen went blank and it seemed that everything had died. Then it came back.)

Yesterday I decided to print out my Zac's prep notes so I could sit comfortably and read them. The printer - which to be fair has been warning me for some time - said, "I'm out of toner. I will not print."

Considered the options: getting toner quickly or hand-writing 13 sides of A4. (It's in very big print so I don't have to wear my glasses when using my notes in Zac's.)

I ordered toner and paid extra to make sure it would be delivered today. Which it was. This afternoon.

So I set my notes printing. We get through 9 sides and then it jams. "Remove jammed paper." I do so arguing that it wasn't really that jammed anyway.

Several attempts later and the message remains the same even though there clearly isn't anything jammed.

"Have you switched both your computer and the printer off and on again?" Husband asks.

I try that. Same message. I am begging it to work now but it sniffs and insists paper is jammed. I peer inside its delicate mechanism. I wonder if it's dusty. I blow it. I get a bit of paper and ram it in. I mean, I gently poked it. I peer in again and see a tiny brown bit of something and wonder if that is causing a problem. It seems unlikely but . . . I get a damp cotton bud and poke that in. I am successful and retrieve tiny brown bit but still printer refuses to work.

I give up. I finish writing out my notes by hand.

Bindweed and printers. On the same level of despicability.

Finding poetry

Now I've lost my shears.

It's one thing to lose scissors, but shears? I had to get out an old pair of shears - and quickly found out why I bought a new pair. They did cut but only if they felt like it.

For a few moments I thought I'd lost my new yellow watering can too. I bought bright yellow deliberately so I couldn't lose it. I found it at last but had to wander around the garden a few times. I knew I'd used it near the barbecue (to pour water over Grandson3 who'd been water-shooting me earlier and I promised I'd get my revenge! And sweet it was!) So I was convinced it had to be there somewhere.

Do you do that? Be convinced the watering can/scissors/shears/whatever is in a certain place and keep looking there even though it's plainly not there?

* * * * *

Someone from writing group suggested we do some found poetry. In the example she sent me, the writer had taken a page from a book and inked out most of it just leaving odd words to create a poem.

When I did it on a writing course we did it differently. In the first example I cut words out of a magazine, and fitted them together in a way I liked.

Jeremy Clarkson was a car person from television who wrote sometimes amusing articles in a Sunday magazine. All the words or phrases in this poem are taken from one of his articles.

I think the cutting-out method gives us more scope so I'll probably suggest that to the group.

And finally, do you like my new t-shirt?

Catching up

Continued to swim, weed, and potter around the garden while the heat lasted. Rainy today and the forecast's not good. But that's good for the garden and means, after tomorrow, I should be able to get down to some serious weeding. I did make a start on the raspberry patch. Filled two garden waste bags and that's just with the obvious, easy-pull stuff. Need to be more thorough.

Leading Zac's tomorrow so currently prepping. It always happens: I start off checking on something and end up following paths to lots of other things. Fascinating stuff.

Meanwhile in the garden. This is our here-one-day-gone-the-next bush, whose flowers drop off daily.

I ordered four dahlia plants from Sarah Raven. Only two of them have grown; the other two are dead. I messaged the company last week. Their standard email reply said due to high number of emails it would take a week to reply. Is that because all their plants are duff, do you think? I hope two replacements are already on their way to me.

Anyway, last time I planted dahlias the slugs completely destroyed them so I wanted to protect them this time. Husband has slug pellets but I wasn't convinced they were pet-friendly - and we have two dogs who visit us, one of whom will eat anything. So I bought this:

The wet wool pellets apparently form a surface that is unpleasant to slugs. I might have put too many down because it looks like dog vomit now.

And with the rain incoming I decided to pick some of my roses.

MPs and aliens

I emailed our MP recently asking him to confirm his position regarding Keir Starmer's leadership. (I want him to stay.) His answer gave absolutely nothing away. He would not commit. All the standard blurb about what's best for the party and the country, blah blah, blah. Pah!

Remember the woman in church who gave us a 'word' to look out for news of aliens this week? This was posted by the White House yesterday.

Obviously they're talking about immigrants. Maybe that's what she was getting at.

I've just sent my monthly article to the editor. I'm early because I'm getting political and I want his approval, in case I need to moderate it or write a different one. I'm only pointing out that the party that bangs on about Christian values chooses to ignore those values when it comes to how we treat aliens/ immigrants. He can decide if I'm over-stepping my place as the writer of living life as a Christian.

Off to the library now. Running out of books to read. Of course I have a huge TBR pile but, well, you know.

* * * * *

I forgot to take a bag so told myself I would take out three books maximum. I brought home four, large, hardbacks, that I had to carry back to the car via the garden shop to get pet-friendly slug protection for plants.

Then before coming home I popped into Saint Hugo Bakery to buy a cake recommended by Elder Son as the best pastry he'd ever had. It has a strange name I can't pronounce.

From a website:

The kouign-amann is pronounced “queen a-mahn” and is from Brittany, France. The name comes from the Breton language words for cake (kouign) and butter (amann).

I was disappointed. It wasn't as I anticipated: layers of sweet, caramelised pastry, but rather a doughy centre with a sweet topping.

Have now discussed this with Elder Son and you would think we were talking about different pastries. Maybe the baker had an off day. 

* * * * *

The editor is very happy to publish my 'excellent' article. I'm glad.

First time this year

First swim yesterday.

Twenty degrees in the water, 32.9 in the shade. Wonderful.

More gardening today. Weeding, tying up roses and peonies, sweating, losing things. I can't find the scissors. Normally I would blame Husband but I was definitely the last one using it in the garden. I remember my belt dropped off at one point so if I can remember where that was there might be the scissors. However, I've looked EVERYWHERE. Must be naughty elves.

One a day

The canes went quickly once I'd put them on Facebook marketplace so, pleased about that.

I was battling with myself over whether to go to exercise this morning. I haven't been for ages for a variety of reasons. Eventually I decided that I get hot enough during an ordinary session - it's in a church hall not an air-conditioned gym - and going in this heat I would be at risk of melting completely. So I messaged them only to find out it's half-term so it's not on anyway! Yay! Don't have to feel guilty. 

Instead I went out and did some gardening in the shadiest bit of garden I could find. A pleasant surprise: in between the weeds I discovered that the potatoes that had gone to seed last year, that I'd stuck in the ground, are growing. At least I assume that's what they are. I'm pretty sure of it.

What I haven't mentioned in regard to our holiday is ice cream.

My holiday mantra of 'One a day' fell far short this time, on account of Husband's sickness. We did manage to - what's the phrase? bookmark? No. One at each end. What is it? Anyway, we did at our favourite ice cream parlour.

I was so excited by my nutella sundae I failed to get it into focus!

The next time I had peach melba.

The grandchildren loved their exotica sundaes with coconut ice cream and mango.

And while we're on the subject of food, we also paid a visit to the 'croissant' café.

So much choice! And so delicious.

Bookend! Is that it?

Cor, it's a scorcher!

Tabloids often like to use that headline to describe a bit of warm weather and they would not be wrong today. Husband opened the pool on Friday and since then we've had grandchildren nagging, "Is it ready yet? When can we go in?"

It's taken a while to get the chemical levels right but maybe this afternoon will be 'jump in and freeze' day. It's pretty cold in there. 

Anyway, I spent a lot of last week clearing the garden of dead forget-me-nots ready for summer planting. Not that I have any summer plants yet except two dahlias. There should be four but two of them died so I'm sending a photo to Sarah Raven asking for replacements.

I've left a couple of little spindly things that I think I planted just before leaving. But I could be wrong. Much as I love the sight of buttercups they went in my rampage. They're very pretty but provide cover for the bad boys - bindweed etc. To make myself feel less guilty I picked them for the kitchen.

I'm doing well in my general garden tidying but there's one area I can't face yet, certainly not in this heat: the raspberry patch. Completely over-run with bindweed and other weeds.

I've also got quite of rhubarb to find a use for.

Now, what would you call these?

If you said daisies, I'd agree with you. I seem to have paid money for several pots of daisies. That's what having a posh name does. Fools us innocents. That said, I actually think our grass daisies are slightly prettier. Never mind. I'd like to say I live and learn but I don't.

Having stored away half a forest of bamboo canes I've put another load outside the front gate hoping they'll find a home.

* * * * *

Church yesterday was Pentecost Sunday and the pastor, Jordan, had asked me to say something about it, and then lead into a time of open prayer. That was fine; I was happy to do that. The church is a very lovely and kind family, and always pray with compassion and love.

So yesterday I opened it up and a regular prayed, and then a woman, a visitor started speaking. She said, "I've been sent here today to tell you that tis coming week is going to be momentous, the beginning of the end."  She was quite loud and vehement. "Things are going to be happening. Look out for them. Watch the television news, read the papers, listen out for events. We may have different views of President Trump but he's working for God." At this point one man walked out. She carried on in this vein for a little while then ended saying, "So keep your eyes open for the signs and look out for alien news!"

Normally after someone prays whoever is leading would say, "Amen." I sort of muttered, "urhum," into the mic. I didn't want to be rude.

Afterwards several people told me how upset they'd been that a lovely atmosphere had been ruined.

In which Husband is both lucky and unlucky

We drove the four miles or so to collect GrandDaughter3 from school and back. What we didn't realise was that Husband had left his glasses and phone on the roof of the car.

Amazingly the phone was still there when we got back. The glasses, which would have been on top, had gone but they were part of his 5 pairs for £13 set so no great loss.

He was less fortunate when cutting down saplings trees in the woods. He tripped, fell, rolled down the hill and crashed into a tree. He got up, climbed back up the hill and repeated the process: fall, roll, hit. No lasting damage but a sore ankle for a few days. This was before he got struck with gastroenteritis of course.

As a concession to "I can't face another hill, we'll just go for a short walk," Lobo and I did a 5 kilometre (altogether) wander along one side of the valley to Norea and Dho,  and then back along the other side.

I grumbled to Lobo and later to Younger Son about the misleading signposts. "Whoever wrote those signs should be sacked!"

There was one that said Norea 670m.

We walked quite a distance and then came across another sign that also said Norea 670m. "Well, that's not possible!"

When I was telling YS this he began to smile. "That's the distance above sea level," he said.

Well, honestly. It's in the biggest letters, obviously anyone walking by would assume it was the distance. Yes, it does, if you look closely, tell you in small letters how long it takes to walk there and how far it is to cycle there. Although on looking more closely again that doesn't make sense either. So I stand by my complaint.

* * * * *

Anvilcloud asked in his comment, "What are coopy down toilets?"

To my horror, I was introduced to them on the camp site on my first night on my first trip to France. After that I insisted that I be allowed to check the toilets before we booked in to any other camp sites.

What that helpful poster doesn't mention is the need to keep your clothes raised off the ground and out of the way of where you might pee.

I've looked them up and, apparently, they are very good for you. The squat position you have to take up aligns the colon, encourages bowel movement, and can help with some intestinal problems. It's also more hygienic, not sitting on a seat used by who knows who? And they strengthen your legs.

They're also popular in countries with water shortages because they use night soil, which is then used to fertilise crops.

As for the question, how do old people manage, again there are loads of answers, but maybe it's a third world first world thing: those of us in the first world are often not as flexible as we might be.

It's possible to buy a squatty potty on Amazon, or elsewhere, in the form of a baboo stool that allows you to get into a position similar to the squat but on an ordinary toilet.

I bet you're glad you asked, AnvilCloud!