Category Archives: amusements

amusements, memes

Unblogged April

Hereinafter follows the usual summary of the last month’s doings not otherwise reported upon.

Mon 1 OK so it’s April Fools’ Day. I must admit I never really saw the amusement, although over the years the media have pulled a few good stunts – who remembers the Spaghetti Tree? The origins are unclear, and the first British reference to “Fooles holy day” appears to be by John Aubrey in 1686. April Fools’ Day is not to be confused with the medieval Feast of Fools, celebrated by clergy across Europe on 1 January.
Tue 2 The place is awash with roadworks. Our nearest major road is hobbled, north and south, by ongoing works associated with HS2. And the alternative north-south route from/to the A40 Westway is also closed this week for resurfacing work. This latter has a diversion, which takes you at least 2 miles out of your way, and which this morning also had two sets of roadworks, one with temporary lights. Coming north from the A40 there is no decent alternative; going south is little better. Oh and from next month there will be 6 months of roadworks on the A40 itself, at one of London’s busiest roundabout/underpass junctions. Just to pile on the agony even more, not far away the major road at Old Oak Common (major HS2 station site) is about to be closed for four years, with no sensible alternative route! Why can the planers never manage to join the dots?
Wed 3 I chaired a really good meeting of GP’s patient group at lunchtime. Some interesting background from our Practice Manager on a recent development (later postponed) and some good ideas for futures. But blimey weren’t the minutes hard to write even though I tackled them almost immediately afterwards.
Thu 4 Dear God! What a day. Spent the whole day, apart from taking the supermarket delivery, doing stuff for the patient group: meeting minutes, monthly news bulletin, meeting prep for next week. It was never ending, and I just cannot clear the other miscellaneous stuff off my desk. It’s completely knackering.
Fri 5 My brain is frazzled to a cinder. Working on literary society stuff all day – mostly membership renewals and getting the member DB tidied up for the move to the new website etc. It is Saturday, isn’t it?!
Sat 6 Fuck! To put too fine a point on it. I’ve got this f’ing cold again; I think that’s 3 times in 8 weeks or so. Felt miserable all day and doing things at about half speed, at best. But here are some daffodils to cheer things up! Pale yellow daffodils with orange trumpets
Sun 7 Boy Cat certainly had the right idea for a Sunday occupation. An almost all white cat lying with all 4 feet in the airFollowed by fresh cod for tea, and another good snooze.
Mon 8 Why the the Americans get a total solar eclipse and we get nothing. How do they deserve it more than we do. It’s a conspiracy I tell you. I shall never see a total solar eclipse, and I’m pissed off about it.
Tue 9 Cloudy, dull, rain, sunshine, wind … I think the only things the weather didn’t throw at us today was thunder & lightning and snow. Everyone is getting really hacked off with the rain and the wind. “With hey, ho, the wind and the rain … For the rain it raineth every day. With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no.”
Wed 10 Phew! That was a bit of a fight: taking all three cats to the vet for check-ups and their annual injections. Each cat has to go in its own carrier; sharing is not permitted. N had much the worst of trying to catch and imprison them. Luckily we had our friendly local London cabbie to take us, so there is plenty of room on the floor of the cab for 3 cat baskets. We were early to the vet’s, and they were running late, so we had to sit around for nearly an hour waiting. But at least all three got a clean bill of health except that Boy Cat has to have some dental work done, which will hurt the credit card even more than today’s little outing.
Thu 11 I don’t believe it! Not only has it been dry today, but it’s been considerably warmer too. Cloudy and dull most of the day, although this evening there is at least a bit of blue sky. It was even warm enough to have some windows open and get some fresh air in the house. It also made life a lot easier and more pleasant for the window cleaner this morning.
Fri 12 Well what a surprise: a sunny, warm and dry day. And there’s still a little daylight at 20:00 BST (so 19:00 GMT).
Sat 13 As befits a lovely warm, sunny Spring day, we have our first rose in bloom – one of the pink ramblers.
Sun 14 As usual on Sunday afternoon, I unloaded this week’s captures from the trail camera. I got a good shot of one of our foxes (we have at least three visiting regularly) in morning daylight. The fox is standing about 5m from the house and 3m from the camera. It’s not a brilliant shot due to camera resolution. I’ve no idea what it was watching on next door’s roof!Red fox standing looking intently upwards at something
Mon 15 Full marks for the doctors today. I’ve got this filthy cold for the 4th time in 8-10 weeks; the same sinus/cold. Sent a request to GP, explaining this was how I was 30+ years ago before a sinus op, and the only fix to stop the cycle was antibiotics. The doctor didn’t even call me, but just sent a prescription over to the pharmacy, who walked round the corner with it for me. Now that’s what I call service.
Tue 16 Back on Sunday I actually took a few photos in the garden. This one’s called “Lions on the Savannah”.three dandelions amongst the green grass
Wed 17 We’re getting there. Spent the day working on the new literary society website etc. including helping the developer start switching our email accounts and doing a chunk of testing and small updates. Hard work!
Thu 18 So the magpies are still using the nest they built in the top of the silver birch tree. I’ve seen one going into it several times today. It’s not obviously been carrying beaks-full of food, but it could be feeding chicks.
Fri 19 Getting more and more despondent about N’s health. Hospital are not acting with any urgency while her health is just deteriorating. Hospital called at 17:30 this afternoon; she now has to have an appointment with an anaesthetist in a week’s time before they’ll confirm a date of the procedure she needs which is pencilled in for a week later. That then has to heal before it can be used for treatment. That’s going to be much too late and probably past the point of no return.
Sat 20 It’s that time of year, when this week I’ve had an absolute deluge of financial and other important paperwork. Like today arrived the renewal for the house insurance. But it beats me why they have to email 11 (yes, one short of a dozen) separate documents one of which is 50+ pages and another 20+. Then when you renew (online!) they send another three documents which only duplicate the ones you’ve already had. It’s no wonder the premium has gone up almost £80 (or 17%); they’re clearly overpaying people to write by the yard.
Sun 21 Oh dear! It’s many years since I’ve consumed a whole bottle of wine at a sitting. But I managed it tonight with a pretty strong bottle of my favourite Tavel Rosé – and it did slip down easily. Everything that’s going on is enough to drive you to drink! (Actually I’m typing better after the wine!)
Mon 22 Amazing! Today I picked the first six ripe Hot Lemon chillies from the one odd plant I overwintered from last year. And there are at least another eight well on the way; but currently no further flowers. This is amazingly early.six ripe yellow chillies on a black cloth
Tue 23 I avoided going to the hospital with N this morning. I wanted to keep an arm-wrench on the consultant, but I didn’t need to as he decided that N needs treatment urgently. So there will hopefully be several more appointments & procedures over the coming days. Really worrying to have got to this stage quite so suddenly; I feel sick in the stomach. And it’s always when you’re under stress from other things too.
Wed 24 N off to the hospital this morning – at their request – as not feeling good. She was well looked after and there all day, but sent home late afternoon. She now knows what constitutes a real emergency. It has also finally got her appointments sorted out, including a procedure on Monday morning.
Thu 25 Everything just gets worse and very stressful. Having to watch N’s condition like a hawk. And trying to get to implementing the new literary society website over the weekend. And of course everything is conspiring against it. Not a happy bunny today. Beer is definitely needed.
Fri 26 Although N is not in an especially good place, and has a very depressed appetite, we’ve had interesting sandwich combinations last night and tonight. Last night was brie and (warm) asparagus, which worked remarkably well. This evening I had hot bacon and asparagus between bread with some HP sauce; again this worked surprisingly well for a combination one wouldn’t normally even consider palatable. If nothing else the English asparagus season is so short one needs to make the most of it.
Sat 27 Our oak tree is coming nicely into leaf. But if you walk down the garden there is a veritable carpet of small twigs with clusters of young oak leaves on the lawn. Yep, it’s the squirrels again! They clearly like nibbling the fresh oak buds and/or flowers, and in the process are dropping the remains. Obviously they don’t realise that the more oak tree they destroy now, the fewer acorns they’ll have come the autumn.
Sun 28 A day of watching paint dry, at least metaphorically. The literary society’s new website due to go live today. But of course a delayed start as the developers have to update another part of their platform first. So nothing started until after 17:00 and is still not complete as I write about 19:30. Nothing I can do except twiddle my fingers until it’s done. And true to form with most of these things it’ll doubtless run on until pushing midnight! How many times have I been here over the years?
Mon 29 At this moment, 19:20, I have no idea what is happening. Sent N off to the hospital at crack of sparrow fart this morning for the plumbing procedure to facilitate dialysis. She managed to ring me at lunchtime to say it had been done, but no further news. At 17:30 she texted to say she was starting a 2 hour dialysis session. I’ve no idea if they’re keeping her overnight, or if I’m going to have to race off to the hospital to collect her in the dark. It doesn’t help that she can’t get much of a phone signal in the hospital. So I await instructions.
At least yesterday’s website migration went OK and completed just before 21:00; barring the inevitable few silly things, of course.
Tue 30 Well 10 minutes after writing yesterday N rang to say the hospital were sending her home. Brief discussion ensued and concluded she was OK to get a cab herself, rather than me going to collect her – especially as it would likely be an hour before I got to her. In the event she arrived home in about an hour, pretty exhausted. This evening she has gone off to a nearer hospital for her first real dialysis session, which will now happen 3 times a week. While none of it is good, thankfully she now has the treatment she needs – and should probably have had 3 months ago. Fingers crossed that she’ll start seeing some improvement over the coming weeks.

And breathe!

a single pink rose against a bright skyOur first pink rambler rose of the year, taken earlier in the month

It’s been a hard month, but hopefully we’re ending it in a better (if not ideal) place than we started. Please can we now have a quiet, warm and sunny May!
amusements, memes, science, topographical

April Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Geography

  1. There is a very small (180 square miles) landlocked sovereign country between France and Spain with a population of approximately 75,000. What is the name of this country?  Andorra
  2. What is the world’s largest coral reef system?  Great Barrier Reef
  3. What is the only US state that borders just one other?  Maine
  4. What does the Beaufort scale measure?  Wind Strength
  5. On which continent is the volcano Mt Erebus?  Antarctica

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.

amusements, memes, science, topographical

April Quiz Questions

Each month we’re posing five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As before, they’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as having a bit of fun.

Geography

  1. There is a very small (180 square miles) landlocked sovereign country between France and Spain with a population of approximately 75,000. What is the name of this country?
  2. What is the world’s largest coral reef system?
  3. What is the only US state that borders just one other?
  4. What does the Beaufort scale measure?
  5. On which continent is the volcano Mt Erebus?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

amusements, personal

Unblogged March

Here follows the usual list of things what I did done but didn’t feel impelled to otherwise write about.

Fri 1 We shouldn’t wonder that everyone is depressed and fed up. February has been warm and wet: the warmest on record in the SE half of England, with up to twice the average rainfall (and the 4th highest total ever), and about 50% less sunshine. The long-term trend for our winters seems to be that they’re getting warmer but wetter. If the rest of this month follows the pattern of today we’re all going to drown: apart from a short time at lunchtime the rain has been lashing it down all day, and I’ve just been greeted by a half-drowned cat. Meanwhile it’s Leeky Daffodil Day, and our first daffodils are now out.
Sat 2 Where the fuck did that come from? Woke in the middle of the night with a streaming nose. Yes, I’ve got a filthy cold: runny nose and eyes; can’t stop sneezing; can’t breathe; feel meh. Think I might go back to bed.
Sun 3 Sunday; I think. Still got the cold but somewhat clearer than yesterday. A long sleep last night helped. But I didn’t do anything except beat my brains out over the postage rate increases coming in April and how to adjust literary society merchandise pricing. Postage rates, especially overseas, are making merchandise unaffordable.
Mon 4 Things must be on the up. Not only is it a lovely sunny day … but the forsythia is suddenly a mass of yellow flowers. And the dark purple crocuses are out – they’re usually a bit later.
Tue 5 Today has been a real struggle with this **** cold. Yesterday was better, but today we’ve gone backwards. It’s a bloody nuisance to say the least – and always when there is more than enough to do. Still I did make myself do about 75% of what I needed to before giving up for the day.
I did a Covid test mid-afternoon, which was negative as I expected. But pissed off that a over a box of tests we had were expired; luckily we have others which are valid for some months yet.
Wed 6 News today that one of our friends has lost their cat to a tumour. This is always hard, especially as the cat was only 5 years old and should have been in the prime of life. I know it is sad; that they are a loved and valued part of the family; and that one must grieve. But why does it always reduce me to tears, even when it’s not my cat and indeed not a cat I’ve ever met. I think I’m getting ever more soft-hearted in my senility.
Thu 7 I do hope things really don’t come in threes! Two today has been quite enough, on top of everything else that’s piling up. First this morning I discovered we had no email – it just didn’t. Seems the provider have had a major hardware issue and are having to recover, and it’s taking a lot longer than expected – writing this at about 21:00 and it’s been down since before 07:30 this morning. Then I find the literary society website is down. It seems the security certificate renewal which I did on Friday didn’t go through properly, so it’s expired. Our ISP ask me to put it through again, whereupon they bill us twice! Oh no you don’t!
Fri 8 I had a call today from a friend locally who I’ve not spoken to since before Christmas. He’s nudging 85 and been in the wars: what was thought to be a goitre turned out to be cancer – which they have apparently fully removed. However he had a stoke while on the operating table and is having to learn to talk well again, and remember all the words – at least he’s getting speech therapy. He can’t praise the senior medics and nurses highly enough; less impressed with the junior medics; and has no opinion of hospital admin – it sounded like everything admin touched got buggered up. But he’s up-beat, cheerful and still doing for himself, which is half the battle.
Sat 9 So much for weekends; spent another day at the coalface. Much of the time taken up with testing some parts of the new literary society website (now well into development); overall it’s looking good but inevitably there are the usual few glitches. The rest of the day seems to have been taken over by paperwork and cats demanding krunch. I have a tin of mixed cat krunch on my desk, which they know, so they always come to me for a little something for the starving kitten. It’s no wonder I have to refill the tin every few days despite attempts at rationing!
Sun 10 What an odd day. It was peeing with rain all night and all day; really dark and miserable. And I succeeded in doing absolutely bugger all apart from piddle around. Well actually not quite true as I did get the literary society subscription renewal notices sent out: already setup and mostly by email so it was quite quick. Oh and I bought a couple of art works on eBay, in between falling asleep all afternoon. Here, have some daffodils to cheer things up!group of white & yellow daffodils
Mon 11 The next couple of months are going to be pretty crazy. We have literary society year end and membership renewals, plus the new website in test with cutover planned for late April – so lots of setup and training to be done to get us all up to speed. There’s the usual GP patient group too, with an open meeting and a newsletter to finalise; plus some development work. On top of which we have all N’s hospital appointments to be supported. And of course everything will shut down over Easter.
Tue 12 So I didn’t go to the hospital with N today, if only to avoid the stress of sitting about all day! Although N was there early and away earlier than expected, it sounds like I missed a fair amount of boredom – and some nasty weather too. Meanwhile I got quite a bit of fiddly work done which I’d otherwise be scrambling to catch up on.
Wed 13 You do have to wonder about the medical professions at times. N is supposed to be on (I hate to call it) a special diet. The problem is that you look at various NHS sources (like different hospitals) and they cannot agree with what is/isn’t on the forbidden list. OK the bulk of the inclusions are the same, but there are so many differences between hospitals, as well as apparent inconsistencies on each list. Just as an example: nuts and seeds are forbidden, yet olive oil, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil are OK. It seems nonsensical; it probably isn’t but it’s never explained.
Thu 14 Yesterday evening I found a cat whisker on the bedroom floor. The photo (below) doesn’t show it well but it is incredibly kinky and curly – so it must be a Boy Cat whisker.white curly cat whisker on a black backgroundThis is one reason we think he’s probably part Devon Rex: he still has good curly whiskers, and they were even better when he was young. Here’s the little tyke pictured by our vet when 10 weeks old: just look at those whiskers!headshot of white & tabby kitten with very curly whiskers
Fri 15 Beware the Ides of March for it shall bring forth lions whelping in the streets and the bird of night hooting and shrieking at noonday, whence unicorns shall be betrayed by trees. Yet Caesar shall go forth.
Sat 16 We’re living like the gentry again, as I’m sure our gg-grandparents would have thought! Yesterday we had the first English asparagus of the season – as part of a beef & noodle stir-fry. Today we had a second round, steamed, with roast chicken. OK, we know it’s grown in poly-tunnels, but mighty nice for all that; really sweet and succulent. And of course we had to toast the noble asparagus with a bottle of Champagne. We always eagerly anticipate the English asparagus season; it’s so much nicer and I object to having it shipped round the globe from places like Peru.
Sun 17 So it’s Green Leprechaun Day. There’ll no doubt be quite a few sore heads, especially as Ireland won the 6-Nations Rugby yesterday. But I do get tired of all these celebrations in central London: New Year, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, St Patrick … and that’s just so far this year! Anyone would think the Mayor had loads of spare money to throw around.
Mon 18 One of those days when we both felt totally without our rubber bands. But we still managed haircuts and showers, after which I reckoned we had negative stuffing left to spare.
Tue 19 They tell me today happened.
Wed 20 After a burst of activity a few days ago, the magpies seem to have given up working on their nest in our silver birch. There’s been no sign of construction work for several days, and no coming and going to suggest one of them is sitting on eggs. And I’ve seen only one magpie about in the last few days – hopefully that’s not a bad sign.
Thu 21 Cometh the gardener, to do odd jobs and not gardening. Job the first was to fit a new loo seat, the current one having cracked apart yesterday. And a good job I enlisted him to do it, because the old one was an absolute pig to get off, especially as I’ve managed to lose the tool for it since I turned out the bathroom cupboard a couple of weeks ago.
Fri 22 Why can people not get their life in order? Tomorrow at midday we have a literary society social call over Zoom. This was announced months ago, with an email reminder sent to members 10 days ago, both asking them to register with me. Yesterday I sent out the Zoom link to those who’ve registered. Today I’ve received four last minute requests, which means extra emails and work. And I almost guarantee I’ll get at least two more requests tomorrow in the hour before the call. Oh and at least one American who gets the time zone adjustment wrong. Clearly people don’t realise quite how disruptive all this is.
Sat 23 A really excellent literary society social call at lunchtime. Several new faces, which is always good to see, and lots of thoughtful, interested and wide-ranging discussion. It was marred only by a couple of participants having computer issues and hence being able to contribute little.
Sun 24 This morning in the space of 5 minutes watching the ash tree at the front (actually just in next door’s front garden) we had a great tit; coal tit (very pinky-buff underneath); and twice a blue tit with a beak-full of nesting material – in addition to the usual miscellaneous collection of pigeons. The blue tit(s) went off over the house, so is probably nesting somewhere at the back, but no idea where.
Mon 25 A nasty, crap, stressful day; mainly because N is unwell and the kidney issues may be the cause. So several phone calls with various medics.
However in good news I ignored the problems and did a couple of hours testing on the new literary society website. I found the usual few little silly things, but it’s basically looking very good.
Tue 26 This morning in the bathroom I was looking at the forest of hairs on my forearm. They’ve never been dark, only ever light brown, and are now mostly grey, so they’re not especially visible. But there they are in luxurious growth. Some are even rather long – at least longer than I would expect – with a few making 6cm or more. Mind you, I have one hair in the small of my back which must be well over 10cm, possibly as much as 15cm. I’m sure they’ve all got longer with age; I don’t recall such long hairs when I was young.
Wed 27 Out this afternoon to get my annual NHS Diabetic Eye Screening, and as the last few years the female doing it managed to get good enough pictures without having to put drops in my eyes to dilate them. Looking at all the trees, an signs of Spring, I was surprised to note that effectively no silver birch was yet showing any signs of catkin growth. However I did spot both a horse chestnut and an ash with buds just starting to open.
Thu 28 Rain, rain, rain. Admittedly it didn’t start until mid-morning, but it then lashed it down for most of the rest of daylight hours, at least. And blowing a gale … I was sitting in the kitchen about 17:30 when N opened the back door, and I nearly got blown off my stool in the gale. It’s unusual for the gale to be felt quite like that indoors, so I wasn’t surprised that some weather forecast had said there was a (small) chance of tornados in London.
Fri 29 It’s mad! It’s Good Friday and not even the end of March. We’ve had a warmer than usual winter, and a wetter than usual winter. Today is intermittently sunny, but with little bits of rain; it isn’t very warm. And yet the apple blossom is beginning to come out; which I reckon is four weeks earlier than usual; and it isn’t all apples trees (despite compatibility). Moreover there are few insect pollinators around yet. None of which bodes well for a good apple crop.
Sat 30 Really lovely dinner this evening for Low Saturday. A very tasty salmon fillet (because on offer from the supermarket), steamed English early season asparagus, and new potatoes; with lemon & butter. Followed by some fresh raspberries. Accompanied by an excellent bottle of Greek white wine, and liqueurs. Plus daffodils on the table too.a jug of bright yellow daffodils with wine
Sun 31 So we’re now on artificial time for the next seven months. What a pity no-one told the cosmos and my body clock.
amusements, memes, words

March Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Language

  1. Sea urchins got their name from what non-aquatic animal, which was known as an “urchin” until the 15th century?  The hedgehog
  2. What is a group of crows called?  A murder
  3. How many letter tiles are there in a game of Scrabble?  100
  4. What is the origin of the expression “cobblers”, meaning something isn’t true or rubbish?  It derives from “cobbler’s awls”, Cockney rhyming slang for “balls”.
  5. What in pidgin is “Magimiks bilong Yesus”?  Helicopter

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.

amusements, memes, words

March Quiz Questions

Each month we’re posing five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As before, they’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as having a bit of fun.

Language

  1. Sea urchins got their name from what non-aquatic animal, which was known as an “urchin” until the 15th century?
  2. What is a group of crows called?
  3. How many letter tiles are there in a game of Scrabble?
  4. What is the origin of the expression “cobblers”, meaning something isn’t true or rubbish?
  5. What in pidgin is “Magimiks bilong Yesus”?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

amusements, memes

Unblogged February

Thu 1 Today is Imbloc, or St Brigid’s Day, depending on one’s belief system. It was originally a pagan, Gaelic festival which marked the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Imbolc holds significance in various modern pagan and witchcraft practices. It represents the awakening of the Earth from its winter slumber and the anticipation of the coming spring. It is a time for focusing on new beginnings, creativity, and personal growth; fostering a connection with the natural cycles of life and the energy of rebirth. As befits the day our weather, although chilly, was full of bright sunshine.
Fri 2 After a pagan festival yesterday, today is the Christian feast of Candlemas, or the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. In Biblical times this occurred 33 days after a boy’s circumcision and is now set as the fortieth day after Christmas. In some traditions Christmas decorations are taken down on this day, as opposed to Twelfth Night.
Sat 3 We had the weekly supermarket delivery today, instead of yesterday. And it has completely thrown me. Today seems to have been some combination of Friday-not-Friday-not-Saturday-not-Sunday-maybe-Sunday, while at the same time being some inglorious admixture of them all – sufficient that my mental calendar is completely addled.
Sun 4 Squirrels like avocado, but who knew that foxes do too – or at least they consider it a trophy?
Mon 5 Having spotted the first mauve crocus a few days ago, we now have an absolute drift of pale mauve flowers throughout the lawn. I know we planted quite a few bulbs some years ago, but they must be spreading. Oh and the pink hellebore is now in flower.
Tue 6 I don’t quite know where the money has gone in the last month, and it isn’t the hangover from Christmas. But at least we’re still solvent, and may even be able to save a bit extra.
Wed 7 Well that scuppered that. We should have been having an outing this afternoon to the dentist for check-ups etc. But N wasn’t feeling well, so she cancelled it; and I had to nip to the doctors with a sample for her. I must say I wasn’t heart-broken not to be wasting an afternoon – much as we like our dentist.
Thu 8 Good grief! That never happens. A day when I didn’t have to do any work for anyone. So I actually managed to do a couple of hours on my family history – not that I made any progress
Fri 9 In the open porch at our front door we have a woven coconut fibre doormat; it’s been there for some years. Very recently something has taken it into its head to attack it, and has been pulling it apart so there are lots of broken and loose threads. The mat is too sturdy for it to be a cat, so one suspects fox; I don’t think even a bold corvid would come that close to the door for the time which would be required. But why would a fox do this? I can think of three reasons: (1) it could be territorial; either marking its territory or trying to remove the markings of another. (2) It fancies some (all?) of the material for lining its den. (3) It fancies the mat as a trophy – we know foxes like trophies – but it would be quite large and unwieldy for a fox to carry away!
Sat 10 Oh happy days! Afternoon spent setting up the mail merges for literary society membership renewals. Still at least I have all the skeleton documents and know how to do it after 20+ years! It’s just a tedious job, so you always miss something stupid which you don’t see until too late. It’ll be good when we can get the new website etc. completed, when with luck it’ll be a job that’s automated.
Sun 11 Spring is definitely on the way. Lots of stuff in the garden is beginning to move. I spotted breaking leaves on some of the roses, lilac, an ornamental crab apple and even the liquidambar. But not yet any sign of movement on the silver birch, oak, ash or hawthorn.
Mon 12 What a lovely sunny day – when I should have been out taking photographs. Especially as yesterday I noticed our small ornamental crab apple is growing a really superb crop of lichen – nothing very special I think, but remarkable that it’s there, so prolific and looking so good.
Tue 13 So today I was going to photograph the lichen I mentioned yesterday. But instead of being nice and sunny it was dull, grey and raining all day. Even the wildlife stayed hunkered down and out of sight; scarcely a pigeon, parakeet or squirrel to be seen; cats likewise.
Wed 14 It’s Valentine’s Day, and an excellent example of how to get the day buggered up! First comes the gardener, which is always disruptive. Then the doctors demand to see N today, to which she wants me to accompany her. We spend around 40 minutes with the nurse – never let it be said you don’t get the time when you need it! It turns out they’re being rightly cautious given that she’ll have surgery coming up – and it was useful for me too. But it took out a large chunk of the afternoon.
Thu 15 And the medical stuff goes on. My turn today with an audiology appointment. As I had a couple of errands to do on the way to the hospital, and they took a lot less time than expected, I was very early for my 12:15 appointment. Astonishingly I was seen almost immediately, so I was ringing for a cab to pick me up by 11:40, and was home about 12:20! Result! What wasn’t a result was that I got a tea on my way into the hospital; it was so hot that even with a carrier I managed to spill a bit and burn my thumb! By the time I’d finished my appointment it was still too hot to drink! Luckily it cooled down enough in the 20 minutes I had to sit in the sun waiting to be picked up.
Fri 16 A surprisingly quiet day, and not because I left my hearing aids out; just not a lot happening. And yes, I was wearing my hearing aids, which are much more comfortable having had them adjusted yesterday – although I’m noticing I need them turned up a bit more now. It’s good wearing them; everything is very dull without; but it is nice to take them out at the end of the day!
Sat 17 For the first time in some years we had a total reorganise and clear-out of the bathroom cabinet. No, we didn’t find a pile of expired drugs (a) because we don’t have expired drugs and, (b) most drugs don’t live in the bathroom cabinet anyway. There were a couple of ends of ointment that were consigned to the bin though, as well as a certain amount of supernumerary crap – but nowhere nearly as bad as I had expected. The first aid box – which is almost never used! – got turned out too.
Sun 18 Dear God, we had some rain last night. It must have been throwing it down all night. This morning we have standing water in the garden, on the path by the pond; an area of about 6m x 1m! I know the water table is high at present – the gardener reported on Wednesday that it was only a few centimetres down – but I think this is the worst I’ve seen it (except when next door’s kiddo leaves their garden hose on). Not that the wildlife is deterred: as I type this there’s a pair of magpies ripping twigs off the silver birch; squirrels and parrakeets hopping about everywhere. Well it’s better than that because the magpies have decided to build a nest almost at the top of the silver birch.
Mon 19 So how much worse does it have to get before it gets better? Everything’s going to the dogs in a handcart – or is that going to Hell in a dogcart? Either way there seems to be no chance to jump off and run away to sea.
Tue 20 Went with N to her hospital appointment this morning, which as usual turned into a 2½ hour marathon – consultant, samples, bloods, pharmacy, nurses … it seemed never ending – and apart from 15 minutes with the consultant all I was doing was sitting around. The waiting area we were in was heaving; hardly a spare seat. There must have been 50 patients/hangers-on all the time, plus at least 20 staff of all grades. Out of all those, at no time were there more than 5 mask wearers; and the air quality was dreadful. This in a clinic for people at high risk if they get Covid. Boy, was I glad of my well fitting N95 mask. Needless to say we escaped to the fresh, but cold, air as soon as possible.
Wed 21 What a dismal day, so no surprise that very little got done apart from the supermarket order. So I really cannot blame the gardener for not coming today. The weather was absolutely filthy. It had clearly been raining most of the night and was peeing it down until gone lunchtime, then on and off. Nobody would want to be out working in that, especially as everything is so wet that it goes audibly “squelch” under foot. And the weather people all seem to be predicting that we’re in for at least another two weeks of mostly wet, wet, wet. I think by then we might all have drowned!
Thu 22 Arrggghhhh!!!! My main email worketh not. Two ways to access it, neither works. Everything else is OK, including lots of other email accounts. Oh, N’s email is dead too! After much head-scratching the guys at the ISP find that there’s something misconfigured at our end (how?) which is causing our IP address to get blocked – but only for those email addresses. Seems all to be OK from soon after lunch – now to read the influx of 50 emails since last evening. Later I checked over N’s email and found a misconfigured server address.
Fri 23 One of the few perils of having a cat flap is that the local bovver-cats think they can come in; mop up any spare food lying around; and generally make themselves at home. But they soon skedaddle when we appear. Mind in this weather who can blame them. Oh, and by the way, it is Saturday isn’t it?
Sat 24 Something must have happened today, but if it did it passed me by and I have nothing to show for the day other than writing one of my monthly blog posts and then getting depressed.
Sun 25 04:00 Thick fog, and yet the full moon was visible.
07:00 Fog cleared, heavy frost.
11:00 Bright and sunny.
14:00 Dull and raining.
Mon 26 Well the magpies seem to have abandoned their nest building in our silver birch tree. Although a couple of days ago I did see one of them “paddling” in what little they’ve built, I’ve seen no activity, and there’s been no obvious construction since the day they started. But then we know that many birds will start several nests before settling on which they prefer.
Tue 27 Luckily it was dry, because the gardener came by. He spent the whole time from 11:00 to dark rise, pruning and cutting back shrubs etc. Then after dark spent an hour sitting nattering – once he starts it is almost impossible to get him out the door to go home!
Wed 28 So the magpies have obviously come into some funds, because they’ve restarted construction work in the silver birch tree. They were around a bit yesterday, but there’s been more activity today. Mind you they need a good Clerk of Works or QS … Several times today I watched one of them trying to magpie-handle a twig twice it’s own length, held cross-ways in it’s beak, into the nest and wondering why the twigs of the tree were getting in the way. They mostly succeeded, but knowing how cunning they are I’m surprised they didn’t work it out faster.
Thu 29 It’s Leap Day. We haven’t had one of those for a while. In fact it’s been four years since this happened. That calls for a celebration and a bottle of Champagne – after all we may not live to see another.
And I’ll leave you this month with a picture of my Dendrobium orchid, which chose today to burst into full flower.Three magenta Dendrobium orchid flowers