Monday 30 April 2018

A Somewhat Scary Experience.

When I answer the telephone I always remove my hearing aid. I answered the telephone at lunch time, removing my hearing aid as usual, then went straight out into town to do one or two jobs.   It was only when I got into the Post Office that I realised I had forgotten to put my aid back in my ear.   I had entered a completely silent world.

Luckily at the Post Office counter I could do the one or two jobs without having to hear what was said to me and then going to the bank I managed too.   But it was frightening.   Everywhere was silent and I hoped that no-one would speak to me or ask me anything.   Luckily I got away with it.

Then Tess and I went for a walk on the way home.   I couldn't hear a single bird singing.  A tractor and roller in the field at the side of the lane was rolling the grass.  The smell was so reminiscent of Spring - I guessed it was happening but when the tractor turned only yards away from me on the other side of the stone wall, it made me jump.   I hadn't heard it coming.   Also I had to keep looking behind me on our lane walk in case a car was coming up behind us.

It was a salutory experience.   It made me thankful for modern aids.   It would be no fun at all to be in a silent world and putting the aid back in my ear suddenly brought the world to life again.

Sunday 29 April 2018

Climate change?

My friend and I were walking back to the car after our usual lunch out today.   The wind was very chilly and there was rain in the air.   The sun kept making a fleeting appearance.   We were speculating.

When I was young we learned to swim in our local river - the Witham. As I remember it we started around now and we seemed to go down to the river every night after school to swim.   Day after day the Summer days were warm.

My friend suggested that it really was not like that at all; that we only remembered the sunny, warm days but that really the climate had not changed all that much, it was our memories which were faulty.
The same would also apply I suppose to the Winters, when it always seemed to snow and we were able to go sledging night after night after school.

Is this how it was do you think, or has there really been a change in the seasons?   Derek, walking daily as he does in the Nature Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey, talks today of forecast rain overnight and for most of tomorrow, rain which will  without  a doubt wash out the nests of all the ground nesting birds and almost certainly drown any chicks which have already hatched.   Last year the drought down there made it a disastrous season, now this year it is the excess rain.   Has it always been like this or has our climate really changed?   What do you think?

Saturday 28 April 2018

Back to normal.

Whatever that is!
Yes Rachel - you are correct.   My niece and her son, my Great Nephew, have been staying since Wednesday and have just started their drive back to Long Eaton in Derbyshire an hour ago.   My Great Nephew has been very seriously ill for a year and is now, at last, on the road to recovery.   It was good to see him looking well again. 

The weather here is very chilly.   Looking at the weather map this morning I see that by next week-end we are coloured yellow again, suggesting warm weather.   But at the moment  it is really 'sitting by the radiator' weather.

But the birds are into their Spring Routine like mad and Mr and Mrs Blackbird, who are living in my hedge, are both out this morning gathering worms from my front lawn.   So busy and eager are they that when Tess and I stood on the step to wave off my Niece they continued to forage for worms while keeping a beady eye on us.

Three days without any News leaves me in a sort of void.   Yes, I have had a cursory read of The Times each day over my breakfast and in the evenings we have done all  the  puzzles, crosswords etc. together.   But actual 'real' news has been non-existent in this household - and perhaps I am all the better for it.   Breaks in such things are good for the soul.

Lunch and Dinner out yesterday means that I have eaten far too much.   Both were delicious.   There seems to be a sudden fashion here for sweet potato chips - I have developed a taste for them - they are very good indeed.

Tess has  enjoyed lots of walks and will definitely miss them today when I am catching up with things.   My washing machine has just 'pinged'
which means I can put the sheets and towels to dry and thus get everywhere 'back to normal' - so goodbye until tomorrow.

Monday 23 April 2018

A New Royal Baby.

Welcome to a new royal baby - born on St. George's Day - a very appropriate day - and so near to his Great Grandmama's birthday, everyone will remember his day with ease.

I hope he has had sun to greet him in London.  The sun keeps making an appearance up here only to disappear behind a cloud shortly afterwards.   There is a chill wind blowing and all semblance of Spring is a thing of the past.   I have to report that I am just jolly cold.

The blackbirds don't seem to be feeling the cold (how do they adapt I wonder) and each time I open the front door at least one is singing.   Some pairs have broods and here both parents are scavenging in lawns and gardens for food for their offspring.
This pleases me as they are really good at locating and digging up leather-jacket larva - good protein for those babies and one less Daddy Long Legs for me to contend with.   Creepy crawlies and I don't go together I am afraid.

Sunday 22 April 2018

The Land

Driving down the steep bank after lunch in our Sunday haunt today, we turned the corner and the top end of Wensleydale came into view.   There was only one word to describe it today - green.
After months of awful weather when it has been mostly under water, thick with frost, dried up after a cold, dry  spell.   In fact anything other than what it should be at this time of year.

Farmers are, of course, now a long way behind with the work that needs doing.   These few days of very warm weather mean that the grass is growing - and I mean growing.   This is bringing silaging into view more on time than was ever expected. 

But the fields are still very wet under their covering of thick grass; certainly too wet still to take the great heavy tractors which are now waiting to put on the 20:10:10 fertiliser to make the grass grow even more quickly.   And meanwhile, because the cattle are almost always out by this time of April, silage will be running low for some farmers.  But the fields are so wet that putting out the cattle just yet would result in churning everywhere up too much.   'Wait another week seems to be the rule at present.'

In other words - the jobs are piling up for farmers who are now working all hours to catch up.   And let's not forget lambing, which is still going on up here in the uplands  - plenty of Swaledales still left to lamb.   Today is Lambing Sunday which serves as a reminder.

Still a lovely sunny day but temperatures are back to normal for the time of the year - chilly with a sharp breeze.   But it does us all good to remember that things do even out and get back to normal - Derek's Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey has been suffering from water deprivation for months but is now back to how it should be,

So following that premise farmers will no doubt all being silaging at the middle of May and any doubts will all have been forgotten (fingers crossed).

Saturday 21 April 2018

Gardens and all things weather.

I seem to have recaptured the gardening bug since the warmer weather came - within the bounds of my capability at any rate (I can't walk without a stick and my garden is on a slope with steps) - but parts of it are beginning to look quite presentable.  I am buying some plants each week and what I can plant I am putting in for myself - others are waiting for my gardener to plant.

My front lawn seems to be a haven for dandelions.   But as my neighbour H says - we do back on to a grass field and dandelions host thousands of seeds so the result is inevitable really.  When I took Tess for her early morning walk today I picked the heads off ten dandelions as I crossed the lawn (yes, I know they are pretty when they are in flower, but think of the seeds I am preventing from floating about in a couple of weeks).   An hour later I went out to drive into town and was able to pick another fourteen heads on my way to the car.   Now, looking out of the sitting room window there are at least as many again shouting to be picked, so out I shall go when I have finished here.

I think I speak for us all here in the UK when I say we feel better for a few days of warm and sunny weather.   In fact I think I shall take my lunch out on to the patio to eat - and if this weather carries on I shall shortly be out and about looking for a bench to sit on out there.

Friday 20 April 2018

What a difference a day makes.

Two days of wall to wall sunshine and everyone I know looks and feels better for it.  Here in the UK it has been a long, cold and dreary winter and now, suddenly, it is Spring - at least for a day or two.   Spring flowers which have been in bud for weeks and weeks have burst into bloom today and I fear that they will be over and done with by the end of the week-end.

This morning on our weekly market I bought more alpines for the top rockery and pansies for a trough under the sitting room window.   Then I came home and planted the alpines - it took me ages as I am not really up to doing gardening jobs - but I managed it.   Then I planted my pansies, watered them and left them there to soak up the sun.

Summer clothes are emerging from wardrobes - slowly.   Mine might even start moving tomorrow (with my mother's voice ringing in my ears - ne'er cast a clout til May be out!   In my day winter vests and liberty bodices stayed put until the first of May come what may in the way of weather.

Thursday 19 April 2018

What a day

I have had a very busy day.   I always have my hair done early on Thursday morning and then I went into town to buy garden supplies - weed killer for dandelions on the patio, fertiliser for a very sad lawn, a planter for  under the sitting room window.   Then it was an early lunch and half an hour with my feet up before setting off with the little gang to play and sing for the local Alzheimer's Society and their carers.   It was a lovely afternoon - all the doors and windows open and a lovely atmosphere as they chose and we all sang the old favourites - they knew every word.

It is such a privilege to do this becase every single one of us gets such a lot of pleasure from it.

Then it was home, tea and an hour in the garden planting up the plants I bought this morning (yes, I know I didn't intend to buy plants - but can any gardener, hand on heart, honestly say they can resist the odd plant here and there?

I forgot to mention that this morning I also had to have a new tyre on my car.   My car is only just a year old but at the garage they thought I must have caught the tyre edge in a pothole and chipped a chunk out of the rubber.   The tyre set me back £109 which was a blow.   Served to remind me that cars are not cheap to run.   Insurance for the year is due tomorrow!

A blackbird has built a nest in my garden hedge and they now appear to have babies as both Mr and Mrs are frantically searching the lawn and gardens for food.

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Gates

After two days hard work by the joiner, this evening I have new fencing and new gates shutting off the back garden from the front.   Once I have checked all side exits through next door's fencing on both sides, I shall be able to let my dog out into the back garden for a wander without the fear of her getting out.   This is my last big job on the bungalow and it is completed - a great relief, now I can relax.

Our walk first thing this morning took in a row of flowering currant bushes in absolute full bloom and almost every bloom had a bumble bee on it.  At last signs of Spring are arriving and the sun came out to verify it. 

As I have visitors coming to stay fr a few days next week I have done several major (for me) cleaning jobs - I cleaned all the inside windows (the window cleaner did them outside last week).
I washed out the  kitchen cupboards and then - hardest job of all - put on a clean duvet cover!

I am saddened to read that John is hoping to leave Trelawnyd - I have enjoyed the life of the village for so long that I feel part of it.   Wherever he and the Prof move to I do hope John continues to regale us with the doings and the goings on in the area.   Knowing what a lovely, friendly and helpful man he is he will certainly be a great asset to any community who are lucky enough to get him and the Prof in their midst. 

Just a footnote.   Did anyone else see the clip on Breakfast T V this morning of the mother gorilla kissing her newborn baby?   It was utterly delightful.   Don't let anyone ever tell me that animals don't feel love.

Tuesday 17 April 2018

I shall have another try.   Things have certainly gone quite haywire with my computer.   Most of my comments are being returned by bt internet for some reason.   My son says it will help if I tick 'I am not a robot' but I can't find it to tick!   So if anyone has any idea what is happening I would be grateful for any advice.

Once a month we have a meeting where we chat about things.   This morning we chatted about accent and about the way language is evolving so quickly these days.

And I do wonder firstly - does one's accent make any difference to how one is viewed by people one meets?   Is a London/Southern accent more acceptable than a Northern/Geordie/Yorkshire  (the opposite I would say is true up here!)?
Should we accept slang words from children in school or should we be more interested in getting them to talk and express themselves and correct their language later on?    I vividly remember when I first married my farmer his father had already stopped milking but each milking time he would go out and stand in the milking parlour watching as the farmer milked.   They would chat to one another but if I went in it was as if I was listening to a foreign language - I couldn't understand a word they said.    And the same would be true at Friday's Auction Mart over the canteen lunch!!

Monday 16 April 2018

AND...

add Rachel and Sue in Suffolk to the list now!!

AND.....

Seems I can't leave a comment on your site either this morning Cro.   But loved your photographs of that cosy inglenook.

PLEASE NOTE

For some reason best known to Google they are refusing to print my comments on John (Midmarsh) and Barbara's (Homestead Hill Farm)
sites.   John tells me he has tried looking into it but can find no reason - so it seems we must put up with it until such time as Google mends itself.   But please do not think I am not replying.   John's videos of a Great Tit nesting and Barbara's weekly tale of life on Homestead Hill Farm are two of my favourite  blogs - I do hope they will soon be sorted out - and in the meantime I apologise.

Sunday 15 April 2018

Sunday

Today it has been wet since early lunch time and it looks as though the warm weather is not set to reach us until mid week.   Never has there been a winter when everyone has longed so much for spring to arrive.

But I must say = there are signs.   Every single time I open the front door to go out there is a blackbird singing.   I am almost certain they have built in my hedge.   In my front garden my lawn is looking rather sad.   I don't think it has had a feed for many a long year so I intend to rectify that shortly.   In the meantime two starlings are walking around on it, digging their beaks into the grass and searching for grubs.  I hope they have a lot of success - taking away pests and also aerating the ground at the same time.

Sunday lunch out was good as always and staying drinking tea until almost four o'clock meant the day was almost over when I returned.   Just a walk round with Tess in the pouring rain.  Not very Springlike.

 

Saturday 14 April 2018

Warm

My bungalow faces South.   Stepping out of the front door at ten this morning it was warmer outside than it was inside.   The first time this year when it has actually been warm - and it was glorious.   All day the sun has shone.  All day folk have been doing jobs around the place.   Even I have wobbled up the steps to the top of the garden
to plant three bits of rock plants I have salvaged from my garden at the farm - rock alchemilla, sweet woodruff and viola labradorica.   I hope they grow because I brought them with me from Wolverhampton in 1987 and these are snippets from the original plants so have happy memories.

Everyone seems to be studiously avoiding mentioning the Syrian conflict - perhaps the best way as I think we all feel rather helpless.   It is only at times like this that we actually realise we elect our representatives to put forward our views in such times.   And it is only with hindsight that things come truly into perspective.

Tess has been on a marathon walk with her friend Meg this afternoon.   She has come back flaked out, eaten her tea and is now flat out on the carpet fast asleep.   Feel a bit like that myself, so shall settled down to the Percussion section  of Young Musician of the Year.   I was stunned by the absolute perfection of the playing in the strings section last week - I hope I am similarly stunned this week.

Friday 13 April 2018

To KirbyLonsdale.

Today was our jolly outing to Kirby Lonsdale to meet our friends P and D for lunch.   We left here in murky, foggy weather and a temperature of five degrees.   Crossing over the Pennines, just for a moment, the sun broke through - it is a long time since we saw it!   But you will see from the photograph I took as we passed the Ribblehead Viaduct (photo specially for you Rachel) that there is still a lot of murky weather around.
After a delicious Italian lunch (including a Tiramisu pudding), it was a walk back to the car and the journey home via Sedbergh.   It is one of our favourite outings.

When I arrived home it was to find that my gardener, D, had been here all afternoon, had cut my lawn and put in all the plants I had bought.  My garden is beginning to look so much better and is already giving me such pleasure, so thank you D for the work you have put into it.

Now to go and watch Monty Don do it all so much better than me!

Wednesday 11 April 2018

Comments

Please note that many of my comments on other posts are just not getting through.   For some reason they are being returned to me - this applies to Midmarsh John, Sue in Suffolk and Gwil today to name but three.   There are also three others who I don't recognise as anyone I blog with in any case.   But rest assured I do read everyone's post every day.

The Armchair Gardener

On the patio there stands a forlorn group of herbaceous perennials all waiting to go into my new herbaceous border.   Each is a named variety.
In the new bed there are seven or eight already planted and they are named too.   I love the Latin names of plants and the way they slide off the tongue - there is a Helleborus niger, an Astrantia Shaggy - it gives them such a sense of importance.

The group already in the garden have plant tags attached.   The ones waiting on the patio have their names written on their pots, so this morning on the way to the manicurist I called in and bought some plastic plant tags.   When the rain stops (if it ever does) I shall go out and write the names roughly on a sheet of paper and then come in and  print them neatly on the tags.   That way, when my gardener puts them into the garden, we shall be able to call them by name.

My father was a great armchair gardener.   He loved his garden and, most of all, he loved to be able to rattle the Latin names off his tongue.  He won a scholarship to go to Grammar School in the early nineteen hundreds but there was no way his parents could afford for him to go.    But he became self-educated, reading the classics, learning reams of poetry off by heart and learning the rudiments of Latin.

I remember very little Latin from my Grammar School days (amo, amas, amat:  Mensa, mensa, mensam just about covers it) but I   do love those Latin plant names and I shall have them in my garden for posterity.

Here is a little poem I wrote about my father in 2007:
The Armchair Gardener.

Swathes of poppies,
banks of delphimium,
frondy ferns, and a
cascade of ponds.

He planned it all from the
comfort of his armchair.
Outside
the golden dandelions
and a rash of purple thistles
painted their own canvas.

 

Tuesday 10 April 2018

New Beginnings

Do you have new beginnings?   I have them quite regularly because I am a great one for putting off until tomorrow what I should be doing today.   This week became the week when I determined to get everything in order - and I have made a good start.

There were half a dozen telephone calls that needed making to organise things - I have kept putting it off.   On monday I made a list, made the calls, crossed them off my list as I made them and had the whole lot organised within an hour.   Why, I asked myself, had I been so silly and kept putting it off? 

Then there were several drawers which were untidy and disorganised so that I could never find anything.   That was my next job and I have tackled it this afternoon.   Now my desk is super tidy with all envelopes, cards, writing  paper, drawing pins, paper clips, sellotape and the like in their correct cubby hole.

My next job (tomorrow if I have time) is now to empty the 'jobs to do' basket by my computer and file everything in it properly away.    I should have time tomorrow as I have to stay in all af ternoon
waiting for the Gas/Elecricity men coming to fit my Smart Meters.   Getting all these jobs done in the same week is set to make me feel so much more organised.

Do you have to do this occasionally or are you one of those irritating people who never get things in a mess in the first place? My inner self fits into the latter category - but my outer self gets everything in a muddle when suddenly I haven't got time enough to file things away.

So wish me luck tomorrow with my final tidying up session.

Monday 9 April 2018

Spring?

Tess and I went on a Garden Crawl after lunch today - to several garden centres looking for more herbaceous plants to put into my new border.

The sun was trying hard to break through the heavy mist - the mist had that sharp 'frosty' edge and you couldn't see very far ahead.   The hills were invisible for most of our journey. 

Tess sat in the front passenger seat - her favourite spot.   She would very much have liked to wander round the garden centres with me but for various reasons she was better left in the car.   

I bought another seven herbaceous plants and have just left a message on my gardener's answer phone giving him the news and asking him 'when he has a minute' to pop round and put them in.   The height and the spread is clearly marked on the tag of each plant so his distribution will be as good as mine and I am not comfortable going up the steps to the top of the garden.

On our return journey we turned down the lane towards the farm and our old home.   There is a lane which Tess loves and where she can be off the lead and in no danger, so we walked there.  If it can be said that dogs 'enjoy' anything, then she certainly enjoyed that just as much as I enjoyed watching her.   And I got a sure sign that although the mist was quite Autumnal, it was Spring.   The edges of the lane were peppered with celandines, all wide open 'suns' turning their faces towards the sun above them.   And one cowslip too.   No orchids yet but the lane is full of them in another month or so - so we shall go back.

Sunday 8 April 2018

Sunday

I have just returned from my usual Sunday lunch out and to put it mildly - I am replete.

The temperature is on the up, so that although it is a cloudy day it is actually quite warm out there.  At last the daffodils are beginning to open and there of pots of polyanthus everywhere.

When I was a child there was a man in our village called Tom F who grew the most beautiful polyanthus and each Spring he bedded out the whole of his front garden with them, tightly packed in - an amazing show of colour.   Folk came from miles around to see them.   Funny that I should just be reminded of him maybe seventy five years after his colourful garden attracted interest -  I don't honestly think I have thought of him in the interim years.   And yet that one act served to ingrain itself in my memory - the brain is such a wonderful thing.

I am sure we all have memories stored away somewhere from our past, memories which can be triggered by the slightest happening in present day events.  Have you one you can share with us?




Saturday 7 April 2018

Nature can be so cruel.

Out in the big, wide world Nature is such a cruel force.   For the third time this week it has been a  pouring wet day here.   Passing fields this afternoon on my way to see a friend, I noticed little lambs in the fields - tiny little things couldn't have been more than two or three days old - they looked wet through and perished.   I know that all they need to survive, within reason, is a really good helping of mother's milk, so let's hope they were all getting it.

Sitting at my friends, watching the birds on her feeders,  listening to the blackbirds singing and looking at birds in the holly tree opposite her window, we suddenly noticed a cat shooting up the trunk of the holly tree, almost to the top.   A little later the cat came down, a young bird in its mouth.  After eating the baby bird it was immediately shinning up the trunk again intent on bringing down baby bird number two for eating.
In my friend's garden a couple of wood pigeons (or they could have been stock doves, I am not sure of the difference) searched for food.   It was almost certain that they were the parents - as I say, Nature can be so cruel.

A male blackbird is spending most of his day standing on the hedge in my back garden and singing his beak off - presumably looking for a mate.   Later on today he seems to have been joined by Miss Blackbird - so, hopefully Mr and Mrs Blackbird will shortly be building a neat little home in my hedge.   I just hope they have enough sense to get into a cat-proof position. 

Friday 6 April 2018

Friday

Looking out of the window, a hazy sun is out and there is a slight breeze.   Step out and you will find that that slight breeze is a cold slight breeze and the haze around the sun means that there is little warmth to be had.

Still, it is Friday, it is Market Day (much more market today as it is dry) and, as usual, the 'gang' meet for coffee in the Post Horn.   Tomorrow there is a Sale at our local auction house, so friend W and I went down, ostensibly to look round the sale items, but in reality to have our lunch in the Restaurant.   I had a delicious bowl of mussells in white wine sauce - ages since I had shellfish and I have missed it.

Now I am home, warm and cosy.   Tess has been on her Pet Pals walk so there is no need for me to take her out this evening, the central heating is on, 
and I am relaxing.   The Times still to read - although really the news is all so depressing that I really wonder why I take a newspaper.   I do feel it is important to keep abreast of world and national affairs, but stabbings in our capital, the dragging on and on of the 'spy poisoning' story which seems to be getting more and more complicated rather than getting sorted out,  so many stories and absolutely nothing I can do about any of them.

So, do I continue to take a newspaper just to keep abreast of things or should I cancel it, be better off and bury my head in the sand like an ostrich (do they really do that or is it a myth?)
 

Thursday 5 April 2018

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday it barely stopped raining and at several points during the day the water absolutely poured down my windows.   Today there isn't a cloud in the sky.   The sun is shining non stop.   There is a sharp breeze blowing so it is not all that warm, but oh how it lifts the spirits.

The garden is very well-drained and is quickly losing that waterlogged look, so I have high hopes for my plants although they have had such a soaking. 

A day of doing many odd jobs has been quite satisfying and now, at tea time, I have switched the central heating back on and shall settle down to watch the News.   Not that that will lift the spirits.
 

Wednesday 4 April 2018

Yet another pouring wet day.

For the second time this week it has rained all day.   At one point it looked on the verge of clearing up, but no such luck.   Pouring rain set in yet again.

Imagine the scene. We are in our local Market Place.   It is Friday morning.   It is wet.   Very wet.

Although it is market day most of the traders have taken one look out of the bedroom window and gone back to bed.   There are a couple of fruit and vegetable stalls, a fish stall, the cheese lady, the biscuit and bits and bobs man and - don't let's forget the garden man - standing shivering in the rain amongst his Summer bedding.

Otherwise the Market Place  is full of traffic cones, most of them strategically pushed to one side by locals, who know from experience that no more traders will be coming today in this weather, so they can park their cars there.

Customers?   Well, we need our five a day and the produce on the fruit and veg stalls is excellent and super fresh.   The fish is newly caught.   The selection of cheeses is second to none and mouth-wateringly tempting.   So there is no doubt the customers will be there.   And this is where my plea comes in.

 If you were to stand on top of the Town Hall and look down on the scene it would seem as dull and monochrome as a Black ahnd White Photograph.   Brollies would be black or a dark colour, macintoshes would be of the black, brown, fawn, navy sort of colour that everybody wears in wet weather. 

So here is my suggestion.  Please local clothing shops - fill your windows with yellow sou'westers, bright blue wellies, red macintoshes, green anoraks, polka dot umbrellas.   Because would it not be joyous on a pouring wet Friday morning to walk into town and see a plethora of cheery colours brightening up the wet day?   Oh, and a jolly music group playing on the Town Hall steps wouldn't come amiss either.

Then we could all start out with a spring in our steps saying, 'Bother the rain.   Who cares if we get wet.   At least we look cheerful.'

 

Tuesday 3 April 2018

Tuesday

There is a strange phenomenon in the sky - it is called 'the sun' and round here we had almost forgotten what it looked like after an Easter week-end of rain and snow and a bitter wind.

This morning, after a misty start, when snow was still lurking around, especially on the higher ground I can see from my window, suddenly the sun burst through, the temperature shot up and Spring emerged in a short burst before there was another sharp shower.   Now the sun is out again and it is (dare I say it) warm.   There is a mass of scillas out on my rockery and they are cheering me up no end. 

Just friend C and I for coffee this morning but a nice chat over a cheese scone and a cafetiere of Italian coffee.   And the world looked better for it. (and with things as they are at present around the world, anything which does this is an asset).

 Tess and I had a warm, sunny walk around the estate to deliver a letter and now we are home again and time for a mid afternoon cuppa.   Another one of Michael Portillo's Train Journeys around India this evening - something to really look forward to.   Are you watching it?

Monday 2 April 2018

Easter Monday

And the view from the window is more like January.   Apparently a warm front is coming in and hitting the cold front already here and causing havoc yet again.   The good news is that it is not set to last.   The bad news is the view of my garden from the computer room and bedroom windows at 11.10am.
There is about four inches of snow and it is still falling.  At a quarter past eleven I am still sitting here in my dressing gown, too lazy to have a shower and get dressed.
Tess took one look out of the front door and only with the encouragement of my slippered foot did she go about two feet outside the door on to the lawn and do a wee - then back in to her basket close to the radiator where she has remained ever since.

Now I shall shower, dress and make myself some soup from a variety of vegetables in my fridge for my lunch.   The chiropodist comes at four - that is the extent of my day I am afraid.

What are you finding to do on a day like this?   The weather seems to be pretty general all over the country - but rising temperatures to come - don't despair!

Sunday 1 April 2018

Sunday

Happy Easter Day to everyone.

There is a tiny sliver of blue sky as I draw back the blinds this morning -I hope this is augurs well for a better day than the pouring wet one we had yesterday.

Once one is retired all days are the same unless one is a churchgoer (which I am not being a Humanist) and yet somehow Sunday mornings are just that little bit different.  A bit of a special breakfast (quick-fried pancetta slices on wholemeal bread for me this morning, followed by a banana) is followed by a couple of mugs of coffee and a half hour read of yesterday's Guardian magazine.

Now, sitting in my computer room and writing this, still in my dressing gown and in no hurry to have my shower.   It is out to the Golf Club with friends for lunch and Tess has not even raised her head from sleeping position in her bed, so there does not seem to be any hurry for anything.

Did anyone watch the twenty minute film on BBC1 on Friday night - 'The Silent Child'?  It was, I believe, nominated for an Oscar .  It was the most beautiful but heart-rending portrayal of a small girl who is totally unable to hear.   I watched it with tears pouring down my cheeks from beginning to end.

On a more cheerful note - it is April - it is officially Spring - the daffodils are not out here but they are well in bud - there are at last lambs in the fields with their mums up here in the Dales -
what's not to like?    Have a good day.