Monday Musings

 Rain all day so a long soak in the bath reading my book The Librarian by Sally Vickers then a housework morning and laundry and binge watching Sloborn in the afternoon - finished the first series and starting on the second - not a lot of happiness in it to be honest in fact just the opposite but still enjoying it - not sure what that says about me.  Reading the paper about the cost of coffee and olive oil soaring due to bad weather and distribution problems - we will be back to Camp coffee at this rate - only older readers will know what I am referring to.  After the rain stopped at about 5 pm I walked to the top of the garden to get some air - there’s something about the garden after the rain - the birds appreciated the rain stopping and were singing away in an echoey kind of way - very clear. Made a chicken casserole for dinner and watched Blue Lights on tv violent and depressing but you get used to that on tv these days. We are still having a fire in the evening as it’s still chilly and we had an oil delivery today for the central heating - spending a fortune keeping the house relatively warm although it is switched off for most of the day. And that’s me done - time for bed.

It’s Sunday Again

 

The early tulips have finished and I have moved the pots off the deck into their summer quarters while the plants die back then I can decide whether to keep the bulbs till next year if they are big enough.  The later ones by the greenhouse are still going strong - the parrot type have still to bloom. I can’t decide what to replace them with yet.  The garden itself is transformative and lush in the woodland part as shown above I have Welsh poppies, self seeders, but I seem to have lost quite a few aquilegia - but I guess they have a lifespan like anything else.

Found a good series to watch on the channel 4 iPlayer if that’s what it is called based on an island I thought Denmark but could be Germany because Berlin is mentioned a lot anyway it’s subtitled - called Sloborn about a deadly flu-like epidemic caused by pigeons - sounds ridiculous but a bit like bird flu affecting humans - this first series is dealing with all the characters involved - but they are beginning to drop like flies.  You may think I have a morbid interest in these apocalyptic dramas - considering we have been through a pandemic - I honestly don’t know why they fascinate me so much - I guess it’s all about survival.

Something about a Saturday

 

I was scrolling through all the thousands of photos on my pc looking for one or two favourites to show someone who is interested in photography and it made me realise just how many photos I have which I used to use for my blog - I really ought to spend some deleting a lot of them - I wish I had done it at the time when I was editing them - now it will take forever to do if I ever get round to it - I do it fairly regularly in my iPad because of space issues. Anyway because of this trip through my photos the day kind of got away from me and gave me a stiff neck to boot. 

I finished my book this morning Cold Earth by Sarah Moss - it was a good story of archaeologists in Greenland looking for Viking remains but while they were there the pandemic broke out and everything went kind of haywire - when the time came for them to finish the project the plane didn’t come as arranged to pick them up consequently it was a fight for survival - I won’t give away the ending but I thought it was a bit weak.

Also a long telephone conversation took up quite a bit of time so in the end I hardly did anything I had planned to do - maybe I’ll get on better tomorrow. Watched 60 years of music at the BBC in the evening and tried to log in to my Channel 4 account to watch a Scandi series but it wouldn’t accept my password - so frustrating.  The weather was pretty good but still chilly and we had a chicken stir fry for tea which was very spicy.

Time for bed

That Friday Feeling

 

I used to have a lot of words I needed to put down on paper - I had pen pals  who I used to write to - friends who had moved away - friends from the past - I would write stories - poetry - it was all about words - then there was blogging - at one time I had four blogs which I wrote posts for every week - it was crazy.  Of course I burnt out - couldn’t continue - words were taking up all my time.  Now I feel as if I have used them all up - I have no words left.  Well not many anyway not enough to matter.  I scrape a few together for these small blog posts and a few lines on Instagram every day but nothing significant - as few as I can get away with really.

With these posts on here I am just recording the days uneventful events - a diary - a reminder  that’s all - there is a quote I found some years ago that I wrote down because it seemed significant at the time

Just because I liked something at one point in time doesn’t mean I’ll always like it or that I have to go on liking it at all points in time as an unthinking act of loyalty to myself or to who I am as a person

Thursday Thoughts

 

I used to take loads of photos with my proper camera - out and about - I had a gadget that I could transfer the pictures to my iPad.  Then my iPad began to play up until I knew I had to buy a new one.  Then when I used my camera with the gadget it wouldn’t transfer the photos to my new iPad - I tried to google the problem but could t find a satisfactory solution so I stopped using my camera and just took photos with my iPad but I couldn’t carry my iPad everywhere with me like I could my camera so I just took photos of the garden - which is very limiting especially when we live in such beautiful surroundings.

Thursday as you know is personal shopping day for me- I went into Homebase to check what’s new in the garden centre bit and bought a six pack of aubretia in the reduced section - a Genista reduced from £17 to £2 two different coloured Lewisia which I love and a bag of potting compost.

I also spent a lot in Boots on make up that I needed - I so miss Wilko where I used to buy make up much cheaper.     I counteracted this by going into Poundland, which I found out about from my hairdresser and bought a bath sponge for 50p which cost £3 in Boots

Wednesday Goings On

 

Woke up early to a good sunrise - not seen one for a while - still windy though and through the day sun and rain. Made a cuppa then went back to bed to read for an hour. Tended the plants in the greenhouse a little later the tomatoes are very slow to get going but there are two teeny tiny cucumbers emerging on the new plant and the beans will all need repotting this weekend.  The wind has ruined most of the tulips so I will be moving them into their new quarters out of the way as they die back - always a shame to see them and their colour go - the container display now will seem a little dull without them - till the next batch of flowers begin.

In the afternoon paid my usual Wednesday visit to my friend - it’s always good to have a chat with a female after being in male company all the rest of the week.

Made Mexican Chicken for dinner - watched Midsomer Murders in the evening - and so to bed.

Tuesday Things

 Tuesday tulips.  Had a bad night last night with a gripey stomach - felt rough this morning - some sort of stomach bug.  Felt really tired and out of sorts all day so rested and slept and felt better by evening  something light for tea watched Midsomer Murders and straight to bed.