Some things from this month that I didn’t write about before.
Sunday 1
Very pleasant Sunday lunch with friends, including plenty of wine. Must repeat more often.
Tuesday 3
It was one of those days.
Thursday 5
Today my father would have been 106. It was warm and sunny, and I felt relaxed for once. It was nice to be able to go out in sandals and t-shirt and not get frozen.
Friday 6
After a lovely day yesterday, it was dull and rainy today. But then it is only early March. Although things are beginning to move. In the last few days I’ve seen the squirrel(s) going determinedly in and out of the drey in the top of our oldest silver birch – it was started last year by the magpies and the squirrels have taken it over and made a des res.
Also this morning there were two crows in the top of the far silver birch, tearing twigs off it – so they’re obviously nesting somewhere nearby.
Monday 9
So they’re going to completely close the A40 Westway between White City and Marylebone for 6 weeks: late March to end April. That’s our only sensible car route into central London. It will be chaos and the traffic will be a nightmare across the whole of west London. Fortunately I’m not committed to any hospital appointments or the like in central London in that period; just a Saturday pub meet.
Wednesday 11
I hosted another good literary society Zoom talk this evening. We do always seem to get a good number attending and some interesting talks. Now I just need to wind down and recover my stamina for next week, which is full (and I mean full) of meetings and medical appointments.
Thursday 12
You go to the osteopath and you come home with your arm taped together with zombies.
The tape is intended to take some of the strain off the tendons in my damaged wrist.
Friday 13
Blimey, that was a marathon! Packing orders for the literary society took both of us all afternoon, and the job still isn’t finished – I still have some of the postage and all the finance logs to complete. It doesn’t help that Royal Mail’s website is a complete nightmare to use; totally unfriendly and unresponsive so you end up doing things by the backdoor just to get the job done. And by tomorrow there will no doubt be more to do.
Sunday 15
Why are hearing aid batteries such a pain – apart from being such small fiddly things? This morning I had to put new batteries in my hearing aids as they’d died late yesterday. It took 8 batteries before I got two that worked for more than 10 minutes. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I buy better quality branded batteries, or use the cheap ones provided by the NHS. Yes, the batteries are always in date; I always clean new batteries to degrease them, don’t handle then with sticky fingers, and try to ensure the contacts are clean. Even so it is almost a certainty that at least one of a new pair will be effectively dead on arrival – but eight is I think a record. OK they cost only 20p-25p each, but it is such a waste, and a pain.
Monday 16
What a super view of the Kew Gardens Pagoda across Old Deer Park.
Wednesday 18
A glorious day. Wall-to-wall sunshine; blue sky; and warm. A trip up to central London for a routine hospital check-up, with all the cherries and magnolias in full bloom, and all the trees starting to break into leaf. Absolutely delightful.
Thursday 19
Hot water? We have none. Error code on the boiler. Boiler man supposed to come this afternoon; now coming tomorrow afternoon, allegedly. Well it was a good excuse to cancel my hospital appointment that I didn’t want to go to anyway and get a load of odd jobs (like filing) done.
Friday 20
Yes, the boiler man did come. He fixed the boiler (it sounded like a dead sensor) and did a service. It took about an hour. Then he emptied my wallet.
Saturday 21
Another glorious Spring day. And a really good doctor’s patient group meeting to go with it. Marred only by news that one of our members had died, although he was well over 80 and hadn’t been well for a couple of years.
Sunday 22
This orchid has been amazing. I bought it on 28 November from our local flower shop; it was in full flower with two or three unopened buds. It is still in full flower having opened those buds and dropped maybe four flowers. I know these phalaenopsis orchids normally flower for about six weeks but this is over 16 weeks with even more to come! Just incredible!
Monday 23
This morning there was one very secure and relaxed Boy Cat!
Wednesday 25
Sitting over lunch I realised just how well off we are for breeding wildlife. Just over lunch we had a pair of coal tits, a pair of great tits, and a solitary blue tit – three species of tit which are likely nesting within 100m or so. Add to that we have a pair of robins, a pair of woodpigeons and a pair of collared doves which must also be nesting close by; likewise the magpies. Some, at least will e nesting in the rampant ivy cover growing up our hawthorn and one of our silver birches. In addition we have at least a pair of squirrels with a drey in the top of the silver birch (see earlier). Plus our local foxes; and who knows where they have their den. And that’s what we know about; there’s likely more.
I’ve also seen a report today that the peregrines nesting on Ealing Hospital (so maybe 5.5km away) now have four eggs; which likely means they’ll fledge one, two if they’re lucky.
Friday 27
Yes! Much to my surprise and delight we got some early English asparagus in today’s supermarket delivery. OK, so it will doubtless have been grown in polytunnels as it’s almost a month before the real season kicks off. But I’ll accept that for English asparagus, as it is the only type we’ll buy (it’s fresher and hasn’t been shipped across the world). So hopefully lots of good asparagus for the next three months or so.
Tuesday 31
After a hiatus earlier in the year (see earlier posts) in the last few days I’ve finally completed the next board of 50 Postcrossing cards (numbers 501 to 550). It’s as eccentric as usual!
