Things I didn’t write abut in the last month …

Sunday 1
Well that got the second half of the houseplants re-potted – apart from two large (tall) cacti which are probably best left alone. This was mostly the larger plants: aloe vera and sansevieria, all of which needed dividing so lots of bits discarded including an enormous jade plant which was harvested for cuttings. But who knows how much of the offshoots etc. will take, and heaven knows where we’re going to find space for them all.

Monday 2
After a lovely warm, even hot, sunny day yesterday, today was dull, dismal and not very warm. Autumn is definitely on the way; the silver birch has started to change colour. It all left one thoroughly demoralised.

Tuesday 3
Today my 200^th Postcrossing card arrived here. As usual I’ve just managed to get the last 50 on the corkboard, although it’s always a bit of a challenge to fit in the last 2 or 3. Anyway here are numbers 151 through 200.I wonder how soon my 200^th card sent will arrive at its destination? [Actually just 2 days later on 5 September.] I have a full complement in the mail (and a few which have expired) but outgoing post seems to be generally much slower than incoming. (Although today’s 200^th card has taken 2 months from Canada!)

Wednesday 4
A fun afternoon, which N and I spent at the doctors, supposedly meeting the patients as part of our patient group activity. We didn’t do a lot of that! But we did reorganise the noticeboards (which we supposedly manage) and then discovered that the contents of “our cupboard” hadn’t been touched since Covid closed everything down – despite that we had been told the Practice had cleared it out. It was crammed with books (the spares from the defunct book exchange) and 3 boxes of out of date leaflets. We brought about half the non-book material away (basically as much as we could carry); it all has to be sorted through but most of it is destined for recycling. Such unexpected fun.

Thursday 5
It’s been so dark today, I had to have the lights on all day – which I don’t expect in September. Moreover it absolutely threw it down with rain for about 15 minutes this afternoon. Real white water. It was so heavy I couldn’t see the hill a mile away.

Friday 6
Why is it that some weeks, like this week, the grocery order is so much more than usual? It’s not as if there was any more meat on it and no alcohol, which are the two things which bump up the price, although fruit and veg isn’t cheap these days.
And talking of prices, how can Royal Mail get away with yet another hike in the cost of postage. From early October first class postage goes up 30p to £1.65 (although second remains the same at 85p) and the cost of a postcard or minimal letter abroad goes from £2.50 to £2.80 – it was £2.20 in the first months of the year.

Saturday 7
It’s a bit early really, but somehow I’m already working on all my regular blog posts for next year – well the ones I can do in advance, like quiz questions and historical events; whereas posts like monthly links, monthly collected quotes etc. have to be one at the time. So the afternoon was spent finding information – in between falling asleep!

Sunday 8
As mentioned elsewhere today was our 45^th wedding anniversary, and we still don’t know how we’ve managed it! Anyway we celebrated quietly this evening with a very nice piece of flatiron steak, garlic roast potatoes & mangetout (cooked by me), followed by peaches in brandy with cream, and washed down with a very nice bottle of Champagne and a liqueur. It was, as N said, restaurant quality. My cooking was always pretty good, but is getting better over the last year or so – well one of the things we said when Covid struck was that, whatever else happens, we’re determined to continue to eat as well as we possibly can; and we do, but without spending ridiculous money; we still always look for the bargains.

Monday 9
Well the week’s hardly started and it’s already gone to the dogs in a handcart. I woke up even more depressed than usual. I wish I understood it! Comes the gardener? No, comes not the gardener as he’s unwell. And I needed to move my diabetes check-up from Wednesday to the first full week of October; at least I can probably get my flu jab at the same time, though I just hope it doesn’t knock me out for days as we’re due to meet up with friends from Japan two days later (bad planning on my part; I really wasn’t awake!). As a result, nothing got done apart from a few odds & sods admin jobs.

Tuesday 10
I caught the beginning of Escape to the Country this afternoon. Parents, 2 daughters & a boy wanting to move to North Norfolk. Never have I seen such a set of gawd-blimey Essex (I assumed) chavs in my life. They all looked alike: pale podgy puddings, who survive on a mix of Big Macs, KFC, chips, milkshakes and pop; and giving the appearance of wood between the ears. But of course, everyone’s greatest desire is to be on the TV; it was probably the highlight of their lives.

Wednesday 11
At last! Cometh the man to service the boiler. We finally managed to get our diaries together a couple of weeks back, and today was the day. An excellent job as always, which took about an hour, including standing and chatting! Good job done for another year. We now just have to put the contents of the airing cupboard back.

Thursday 12
As usual I’m trying to buy something sensible, but which doesn’t exist. It seems that whatever you try buying and want options A, B, C, D, but don’t want E and F, either you have to have E but not C, or F and not B & D, or all 6 options at double the price. And every manufacturer makes essentially exactly the same two products, in the same format, but with a subtly different shape and/or colour casing. You’d think there was only one supply of the innards – there probably is, in China. It does my head in. As my father was once told “There’s no demand, Sir, you’re the fourth person who’s asked for that this morning”.

Friday 13
So what have we got available to concoct dinner from? We need to clear some space in the freezer. Ah … noodles, frozen turkey strips, a few runner beans, yellow pepper … OK so I did a stir-fry with a slightly sweet and sour sauce (brandy, lemon, light soy, HP sauce, ketchup, tomato paste, ginger, chilli …). Not my finest achievement, but it worked OK. Especially when followed by summer fruit salad (dressed with a little cherry brandy) and cream.

Saturday 14
It’s Saturday, just like it was yesterday! So of course I spent the day working; I’m inundated at the moment, having just had three extra pieces of literary society work dumped on me at no notice and without a by your leave. Some people never seem to learn that a lack of planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine. But then N was at the hospital, so I needed something to keep me occupied.

Sunday 15
Here beginneth a new regime. Our house is something approaching a tip; after 40+ years it’s silted up to the point of there being no navigable water. So I’ve instituted a rule: we do some clearing up every day. 15 minutes on days when N is at the hospital; 1 hour on days she isn’t. We started with an hour this morning, and it’s surprising how much you can get done, together, in that time. But you have to be a bit ruthless, although not necessarily Marie Kendo ruthless – if only because I wouldn’t get away with it! Let’s see how long it lasts.

Monday 16
I quite accidentally ended up going down a curious rabbit hole in my family history. My 2x great-grandparents (Henry Williams & Catherine Nowers) had 7 children; my great-grandmother was the youngest. I came upon my 2x great-grandparents (both dead before 1900) on the 1915 naturalisation papers as the parents of a Susannah Margaret Mann, born 1848 in Dover, but given as German and living in Eastbourne. What?! This doesn’t make sense. I go looking. There is no such Susannah Margaret Mann. And Henry & Catherine don’t have a child Susannah Margaret. Ah, but they do have Margaret Susannah, born 1847 (their second child). Right. And yes, when you follow through Margaret Susannah Williams marries a guy called Jacob Ferdinand Mann, in Dover in 1871. He’s obviously a German, and a bootmaker, as later censuses confirm. Jacob Mann dies in 1893 having fathered five children (all born in Eastbourne). So despite having been born in Dover, of parents also born in Dover, and never obviously lived anywhere other than Dover, Hastings and Eastbourne, Susannah Margaret is legally a German because she married an ex-pat German, now deceased. And thus in 1915 she needs naturalisation papers to make her British again. I shouldn’t have been surprised; this whole family is full of oddities.

Tuesday 17
A quiet morning talking to patients at the doctors – something we’ve started doing again a couple of times a month. It was so quiet that once I got home and had lunch I fell asleep for a large chunk of the afternoon – quite without wanting to. Why does this always seem to happen as we get older?

Wednesday 18
A happy half-hour this afternoon getting dust everywhere going through our 5 solander boxes of maps. As trips around are now getting difficult, we’ve kept only about 25% of what we have; the rest will go to our nearest Oxfam bookshop along with at least a couple of boxes of books.

Thursday 19
Another day. The same coalface.

Friday 20
This afternoon, as another part of our grand sort out & tidy up we went through several solander boxes of guide books. Only about 70% were kept, re-boxed and rehomed in a different shelf. End result we have the unprecedented luxury of 2 feet of empty bookshelf space!

Saturday 21
A good social call for the literary society at lunchtime. As usual only about 8 of us, but some good discussion and good to see a couple of our American friends. It always surprises me that, when you scratch the surface, how many disparate things people know, and the connections they can make.

Sunday 22
One of our neighbours hates trees; the leaves make a mess and they’re untidy. He’s probably had apoplexy as the Gleditsia in the pavement outside is shedding it’s thousands of tiny golden yellow leaves everywhere, including on his hard-standing. And because it’s wet, they’re sticking and resistant to being cleared up. In Buddhist terms “Your fate is the sum total of your stupidity”; to reduce that sum, stop doing stupid.

Monday 23
Blimey did it rain last night; I looked out of the bedroom window at one point and the gutter on our side of the road was an absolute torrent, like a mountain stream in spate, about 3 feet wide and 3 inches deep flowing down the hill at some speed. Then today, at last, we see the gardener again, and he started the autumn tidy up in the garden (despite the wet) and did a couple of odd maintenance jobs.

Tuesday 24
Yet another day at the same old coalface.

Wednesday 25
This evening I hosted a literary society trustees/executive meeting over Zoom – because the Secretary who normally hosts it is away on holiday in the Far East. But I’m not a trustee, nor an executive officer, so I opened the call and once there was a quorum handed over to the Chairman and turned off all my sound so I wasn’t privy to the business – I left video on so if needed I could be visually hailed. I busied myself with various small tasks and when they all wandered off I closed the call. Crazy, but it seemed to work OK.

Thursday 26
Once more I spent most of the morning on literary society work. This time getting all the papers for next month’s AGM online. It took forever, mainly as I’m still working out how to do things in the new system. Despite losing some more hair I eventually got there without having to ask for help from the website provider. Like every system, things work differently so you’re always having to work out how to achieve what you know you can do. I then consoled myself by ordering a couple of cases of wine.

Friday 27
Big cook-a-thon this afternoon. Apple crumble, enough for several days breakfast. Two small chicken pies for cold tomorrow evening. Small cheese roll to use the pastry remains. Tray of roast veg, and some garlic roast potatoes, to go with this evening’s steak which I pan-fried. So tomorrow’s lunch and evening meal sorted, apart from the wine, as well as this evening and several days breakfasts. Result!

Saturday 28
Much to my surprise I ended up with nothing pressing to b done today, apart from a bit of household admin. So did I have a day off? Of course not! I spent most of the afternoon thinking about a household emergency plan and getting all our important information reorganised and gathered together. So at least now I have the concepts of a plan.

Sunday 29
It’s cold, grey and miserable. And not just the weather, ‘cos that’s very much how I feel too. I’m totally out of elastic or any other form of energy supply, today.

Monday 30
Spent a surprisingly tiring 90 minutes sorting out the household filing drawer, weeding aged paperwork out for archiving (or the bin), creating some new files and discarding a couple of others. It badly needed doing as it probably hasn’t been done for several years. It’s a good job done; just don’t leave it so long next time. Now I just have to sort the pile of papers etc. for the archive.

I’ll leave you this month with a photo I took a few years back of the Gleditsia outside our house. It’s not been quite so magnificent this year as the wind has removed all the leaves much quicker than normal.