Just breathe

So Husband looked at the front bit of garden. "It's too high," he said. "You'll have to rake off all the stones and dig out the earth."

I am just sitting here quietly, taking deep breaths. And massaging my painful swollen finger.

Exercise class this morning, then blueberry muffins made ready for Zac's tonight. We have the Sweet Sorrows with us this evening. They're an Irish/Australian couple who play folksy and traditional music. Always a good night when they come.

* * * * *

A lovely walk with Daughter and Louie yesterday through Ilston valley. I've posted photos before but the height of the trees always amazes me.

Ta-da!

First layer prepared!

I've removed as many of the roots as I can. I even had Elder Son and the grandsons working on them yesterday. Some broke off, some I've lopped off as I was never going to get to the bottom of them. Now I've spread the old stones out fairly evenly. (Although Husband will come home and say it's not level!)

Next it's weed-killer, followed by weed suppressant stuff, followed by new stones, and eventually tubs.

Do you know how long I've been working on this patch? No, nor me, but it's a long time. The fingers on my right hand swell making it difficult to get my gardening gloves off. But I am feeling proud of myself.

In other gardening news, I spotted signs of new life on my eaten dahlia, so I've added coffee grinds to the egg-shells and wool pellets. We'll see if that works.

And here are some blooms from Bring Me Sunshine (I think).

Family came around to swim yesterday and I played cricket with GrandSon3. First game he beat me about 22 -1 but in the second game, thanks to two freak occurrences, I beat him 20-7.

The first freakiness happened when I bowled him out i.e. I threw the ball and it hit what we were using as a wicket, a little plastic thing. Odds must have been 1,000,000-1.

The second freakiness, I caught him out i.e. I caught a ball. Not such huge odds but pretty unlikely nevertheless.

I didn't gloat too much. (No, I did!)

Finally, I learned yesterday that wombats do cube poos. They have circular anuses but still manage to poop out cubes. How amazing is that?

Oh, I forgot to mention Husband has a new barbecue. A snazzy charcoal one. Our last was a gas one but we're going - I was to say back to basics but this new barbecue is anything but basic.

Under attack

You know those cartoons when someone gets hit in the face by a rake? That never happens does it?

Yes, it does. Between the rake and the tree trunk* I was attacked from all sides this afternoon. 

But I'm getting there. I was hoping to have completed the first stage - clearance and flattening - this afternoon but it was a lot harder than I anticipated. When it looked as though I were hitting a coal seam, and I was also worried that I might be undermining our wall, I decided I would have to accept that there were some roots I just would not be able to get to the root of. I had to chop them off instead.

It will be lovely, I tell myself.

And some seeds fell on stony ground . . . and grew anyway.

*I say tree trunk; I mean really thick heather root.

Plants planted in planters

I planned to go to flexercise this morning but ended up planting plants in planters in Zac's instead. 

We're not going to be able to do anything with the demolition site for some time - no money - so I thought it would be nice to prettify it. 

The planters come from Rough Edges and the plants were donated. No idea what most of them are so just stuck them in and will hope for the best. Probably no-one else will notice or care but I will enjoy them.

While I was out my printer arrived, repaired I assume though haven't tested it yet. Good service from Canon.

Husband had his Covid jab yesterday and is very poorly today. 

And that's my life today. Just wondering if it's going to be too cold in the garden to do anything. I was really pathetic yesterday afternoon. Didn't have anything I had to do, it was raining and cold, and I just didn't have the enthusiasm for anything. So it felt like a wasted afternoon. 

Right, pull self together and do something!

How does your garden grow?

I believe the football world cup begins officially today. I hope many boycott it for all sorts of reasons.

I've sent a stroppy email to Sarah Raven complaining about the dahlia fiasco. Sadly my email is not as erudite as the one I composed in the middle of the night. That one contained the word retribution amongst others. They foolishly sent me a 'How did we do? survey too. "* Not very well."

I am sitting at my desk in the study and freezing to death. Slight exaggeration perhaps but jolly cold. Have a yearning to re-read Three Men in a Boat. It's probably here on a shelf somewhere.

It's been wet, wet, wet this morning. No sign yet of it drying up.

Would you like a tour of the garden? It's looking very pretty at the moment. Or it was before the rains began.

Complete with empty compost bag.

My expensive 'daisies'.

The fig tree is gradually taking over.

A quick count and I think I have 5 rambling roses, 5 climbing roses, and 19 shrub roses. No, 20, there's one on the other side too.

Rant ahead

Just remembered the rant I was composing in my head during exercise.

On Sunday evening I went to the third preaching workshop. I did the first, missed the second, but was back for this one. It's in a different church and led by one of their leaders. The first one was excellent. The leader, Brian, is very humble and honest, and encouraging. Sunday night's was focused on aids to preparing: books in particular, although it's mostly online as well now. I came home with a long list of books I wanted to check out.

Brian took the first thirty minutes then he turned it over to Jordan, our pastor, for the next bit about Immersive Bible Study. Immersive? No, wait . . . Inductive. But basically means immersing yourself in the context of the whole book not just a verse. He was excellent.

The final thirty minutes was given over to another man, who used to be a leader, and was also a teacher at my children's senior school. He was supposed to be talking about enjoying the process but I'm not sure that what was he did. Let's call him S.

When the children were in school I was part of a prayer group. We met to pray for the children and the school, and, sometimes, teachers joined us. One time I'd taken a group of young people who were volunteering for a year with the church, to do evangelism, especially with youngsters. 

I was suggesting that the team be allowed into the school to take some assemblies or RS classes. S said no. "We can't have youngsters with piercings out the front. What kind of example would that set to our pupils?"

I was (quietly) livid. The bible tells us to judge by hearts not appearance yet here was this 'godly' man doing the opposite. So I might have had a bit of a grudge against him even before he started speaking on Sunday evening.

First of all he said that if we wanted to ask someone to read a scripture before we preached, we should make sure we told the person in advance so they could familiarise themselves and practise it. "They should know where to put the emphasis. You have to have good readers."

I was tempted to tell him how we do it in Zac's. On the evening we ask for volunteers to read. Quite often the reader will struggle or forget about punctuation or be barely comprehensible in the case of our favourite alcoholic. But we don't care. What's important is that people volunteer, they want to be part of the evening, and we want them to. If necessary we can read a section again as part of our talk about it but that's all part of Zac's. 

I admit I can see that probably wouldn't be acceptable in a big church meeting, or a carefully choreographed one, but speakers have to be adaptable to their surroundings.

Anyway, after that he told us to talk around our tables about what Jesus was really like. He gave us a list of questions based on verses. Things like, "How did Jesus treat women?", "How did Jesus treat foreigners?", "How did Jesus treat the poorest in society?"

When he came to our table and said, "How's it going? Is this helpful?" and I sort of hesitated, he said, "You can say no."

"Okay, no."

There was no need to discuss the subject; the answer was obvious.

And now I've just had an email from Sarah Raven offering dahlias at a bargain price! After they told me they had no dahlia tubers left! What they meant was they didn't want to send me the bigger more expensive ones instead. 

Off to do some gardening now to work out my crossness.

Bounding back from the dark

It seems ages since I blogged but it's only two days. What's happened?

Yesterday it was back to exercise class, the tough one with circuits. Then to writing group in the afternoon. It had been suggested that we tried found poetry so I took books, paper, glue, and others brought magazines, and we had a fun afternoon.

Here's mine based on a quote from a music magazine: I'm a creature of light who got caught in the dark.

Then it was off to Zac's where we celebrated Amar's birthday.

This morning I've been to Rebound exercise. I have a trampoline in the garden. It would make more sense for me to exercise on that - but I know I wouldn't without the stimulus of going to a class. I am thinking it is a little bit easy though - now I'm getting used to it. It's supposed to be very good for your whole body system though. 

I'm also doing lots of gardening. Spent much of Monday afternoon fighting and shouting at heather trunks and roots, but the clearing of the front bit of garden is progressing, albeit slowly.

And I'm trying some eggshells, as suggested by Acorn Hollow, around my almost-deceased dahlia in the hope it will survive. The company finally got back to me - after I complained two weeks ago that two of the four tubers I'd bought were dead - saying they've run out of dahlias so they're refunding me. Won't be buying from them again.

Nearly 21

It occurred to me that this blog must be approaching its 20th birthday so I checked: it was last year.

Nearly twenty-one years of blogging, through lots of ups and downs, and reasonably consistently, only really taking breaks when on holiday. For someone who was told by her careers/maths teacher that she had no persistence, that's pretty good.

Hearing the news that a well-known actor had died aged 72 made me consider my own mortality. I am much too young to die. And I'm not a famous author yet. So death can wait for a bit.

GrandSon3 has got into his first choice football academy. Actually all four academies wanted him but Briton Ferry is the best in the region so all his hard work and dedication has paid off. And he does work hard, setting himself targets, and routines to practise every day, as well as running his socks off on the pitch. So we're all very happy for him.

Lovely walk with Daughter and Louie this morning.

When is a good idea not?

You know when you get a good idea? And a little while later you're wondering if it really was such a good idea?

The heather bushes at the front of our garden have never been especially pretty and latterly they've developed a number of dead-looking branches. I started pruning but then thought, "Perhaps I'll get rid of them altogether. Then I can plant some hydrangeas or azaleas here instead. Or maybe just pots."

I began yesterday and continued this afternoon.

I think the biggest problem is going to be the network of roots issuing from the low light green ground cover plants. That and the ivy roots. And the surprisingly thick trunks on the heather. And what to do with all the cuttings when I've finished. You can't see the heap very clearly in that photo but take my word for it, it's big.

But, I tell myself, it will be lovely when it's finished. Going to treat myself now and sit down and watch Remarkably Bright Creatures.

In the meantime some of the more established roses that I picked to save from the rain.

Oh, and I nearly forgot:

So much for the 'slugs don't like to walk over our wool pellets' boast.

Ice cream and The Eights

I just tried to order a book from the library and I discovered that the page was in a variety of languages, I'm guessing Arabic or Chinese or Russian, I've no idea. There was one in English. I've never seen this before. Maybe they do have the book in lots of languages as it's so popular.

It just threw me completely!

We had all the Harry Potter books but I took them to Italy with me as Younger Son is reading them to his children. While I was there he was reading The Goblet of Fire to them - and me. He's moved on now to the next book and I wanted to read along so I could talk about it with GrandSon4. I have read them all previously but, unlike Younger Son, I don't remember them at all. I think the books are a bit scary but the grandchildren seem fine with them.

* * * * *

Tried a new exercise class this morning. It's called Flexercise and is a very gentle stretching, balance, and strengthening class. Enjoyed it so will continue I think.

Then Husband and I went for a walk this afternoon from Limeslade to Langland.

It was warmer than it looks though Husband, in long trousers, a jumper and coat was complaining, while I in shorts and t-shirt was quite happy.

I was pleased to see my cousin John's disc had been replaced on the Langland surfer and local notables memorial sign.

Then, as I didn't have an ice cream a day while on holiday I had to finish the walk with a Fortes' 99 with raspberry sauce. The taste of my childhood.

* * * * *

Must mention the book I just read. The Eights by Joanna Miller is a typical story of female friendship but set in Oxford University in 1920 with the protagonists all being in the first group of women to be admitted to the famous university. Fascinating insights into the period and the problems encountered, including misogyny and the lasting effects resulting from World War 1.

Flaws and wayward women

Set to packing up my printer to send for repair. First line of instructions:

1. Print your attached order summary and include it in the box with your product(s).

Do you see the flaw?

* * * * *

I'm also doing the church newsletter. Recently I've been including advice from the Book of Proverbs each week. I've reached chapter 5.

"Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?"

Or, "A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love." 

It's all about avoiding adultery. I've skipped on to chapter 6. While the church is getting used to my sense of humour, that might be pushing it too far.

* * * * *

We've made the decision to close Rough Edges. I say 'we'; I mean Sean and I. There's a distinct lack of trustees at the moment.

It's partly down to not making enough to earn its keep, but also a shortage of reliable volunteers. Our managers, Kathryn and Richard, have been wonderful but they're both in their 70s, and have lots of other commitments, and it's not fair on them. 

So I'm off there now to take more photos to try and attract buyers. And it looks as though the sun is coming out, hooray! While one news report says we're heading for a summer of heatwaves, the weather forecast gives us rain for the next two weeks. We'll have to wait and see who is right.

Maybe I'll get a chance to rub down and plant my giant teacup. To go with my normal-sized teapots.

Bounding along but slowly

I have spent most of the afternoon trying to sort out my printer. After a long slow chat online with Canon Support, we concluded that the printer isn't taking in paper. Actually Husband and I had already worked that out and, indeed, I'd written it in the Subject box of my query.

But we had to go through the process. "Is the printer turned on?" etc.

Finally she agreed and sent me a form to ask for repair. Fortunately it's only 11 months old so is still under warranty, a fact I kept checking all the way through the process.

At one point she asked me for a phone number and I panicked. "Don't tell me I'm going to have to talk to a real person! She'll ask me questions I don't understand!"

But I didn't have to. Now all I have to do is pack up the printer and send it away. Naturally I didn't keep the box . . .

* * * * *

Last night at Zac's went okay. I'd planned to do communion at the end but we ran out of time. Which was just as well as I'd forgotten to take any bread with me. 

* * * * *

I'm cooking a piece of gammon for dinner. I always do it in the pressure cooker and finish it off in the oven. This afternoon as I went to do that I remembered my pressure cooker isn't working. I put the meat in anyway and will just wing it. I'm in that sort of a mood.

* * * * *

Went to Rebound this morning, that's exercise class on mini trampolines. Once I'd plucked up courage to let go of the bar I was better until it came to moving my arms and legs in different directions. Too much for a brain to cope with. Afterwards two of the ladies were going for coffee and asked me to join them. Ooh, I felt like a proper grown-up who goes for coffee for no reason. (I had tea of course.)

* * * * *

Am concerned about Marie who hasn't blogged since March when there were health issues. Kathy and Debra are both on a blog sabbatical. Blogging world is very quiet. 

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.