Tag Archives: meme

amusements, personal

Unblogged December

Being some of the things that happened, but which I didn’t otherwise write about. Not every day, as foretold last month.

Sunday 1
Just what is it that screws up the universe? Both N and I have had one of those days, where everything has gone wrong, not worked, fallen on the floor, got tangled, or otherwise buggered up. Apart from wasting time and stuff, it is not good for the blood pressure. Why is it like this?

Monday 2
More garden bird fun today. While we were eating lunch a jay appeared on the peanut feeder a few feet outside the dining room window; I wasn’t too surprised as I had seen it fly across the garden a few minutes earlier. It had a good feed, went away, came back … Of course the green parakeets were around as well, and took exception to the jay. On one occasion a parakeet saw the jay off the feeder; the jay having flown into the top of the ballerina crab apple, was then bombed, quite deliberately, by another parakeet and displaced again. The parakeets were defending their feeder against this jay, and despite the jay being a bit bigger they were winning. This went on for a good 15-20 minutes, interspersed with visits from the squirrel and at least one great tit. Meanwhile another two squirrels were chasing each other, nose to tail, to and again across the middle of the garden. All highly amusing to watch.

Friday 6
I got some tangerines in this week’s supermarket order. Real tangerines. None of this satsuma rubbish. They’re absolutely wonderful: sweet, flavourful and not a mouthful of membrane. They’re a good size too. Just as they should be. It is a real change to find some citrus which is worth eating these days.
And while we were eating lunch there were squirrels running about the garden as if they’re on speed or something. One is quite podgy, so I guess could be pregnant although it’s not showing any signs of nipples and it’s a bit too early as they generally don’t start giving birth until late-February after a gestation of 45-ish days. So maybe we just have a Billy Bunter squirrel.

Saturday 7
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain … For the rain it raineth every day.

Monday 9
Blimey creatures! Yesterday afternoon the seed and peanut bird feeders were refilled, to the brim. A combination of mostly squirrels and parakeets have emptied the peanut feeder outside the dining room window, within 24 hours. While we ate lunch there was our podgy squirrel almost continually eating the peanuts: it would extract a nut and sit there nibbling away, rinse and repeat. In the time it took us to eat lunch this squirrel got through about an inch of peanuts!

Tuesday 10
16 green parakeets sitting in a tree.

Friday 13
Today I received my 250th Postcrossing card – which is rather sooner than I had initially expected. Here are cards 201-250 on our corkboard.

Saturday 14
And today my 250th Postcrossing card arrived at it’s destination in Switzerland. And another 3 cards in my letterbox, so we’re off to a flying start on series 251-300.

Monday 16
Tom came and brought us a couple of very nice fillet steaks – he knows somewhere he can get them at a sensible price (we don’t ask!). So we had steak (pan-fried, medium-rare) and chips for evening meal, and very good they were too.

Tuesday 17
What an awful dull, grey day, which seems to have fitted everyone’s mood. I started wrapping Christmas presents while N was at the hospital, and didn’t make a lot of progress. I’ll have to finish them on Thursday afternoon.

Thursday 19
Our friend Sue dropped by for a coffee this morning, having disgorged her husband at the hospital for a minor op. It was about the best time we could muster between us; fixing our Christmas pressie swap is always fraught. Sue originally suggested we go to them for food on 23rd or 24th, but N is being extra cautious about too much mixing at the moment, especially with the amount of flu there is around – and it’s looking as if this year’s flu jab is not very efficient.

Friday 20
Don’t you just love the NHS’s ability with communications! Late today N was told she has an appointment with the renal consultant on 7th January (not before time!), exactly at the time she is supposed to turn up for her dialysis session – although, for a wonder, it’s the same area of the same hospital! Moreover it is clearly expected that I go with her – which I want to anyway, as it’s time to harass the consultant. But of course this means I have to rearrange, for the third time, the meeting scheduled for that afternoon.

Sunday 22
Who knew that foxes like garlic bread? We had the crusts left over from the end of a loaf we’d made into garlic bread. So N put them out along with some chicken remains. Looking at the trail camera images, the chicken of course vanished first, but the foxes came back for the garlic bread. It’s all easy calories, so useful for them at this time of year.

Monday 23
Working in food retail is a pig of a job at this time of year; I know because I did it in the early days of UK supermarkets in late 1960s. So I wasn’t surprised when today’s grocery delivery turned up with only 3 crates out of 4 – luckily nothing missing that would have been a tragedy. The delivery guy said that the fourth crate would be delivered “this afternoon”. But at 19:30, no sign. I rang Customer Services who promised to give the Fulfilment Centre a prod. Sure enough, as soon as we sit down to eat the missing crate appears. Phew! I do have great sympathy for the guys at this time of year; both those working in retail and on the post, having done both.

Tuesday 24
As usual there’s just the two of us for Christmas, so we did what we traditionally do and bought a small bronze free-range turkey and a pork joint (leg, boned & rolled). I butchered the turkey: remove spine, legs and wings. That leaves us the crown for tomorrow; the rest is in the freezer for later. The pork came up 25% larger than we expected, so I removed a third which is now also in the freezer and the larger piece will be roast tonight. Result: we have a good amount of meat frozen for the future, and after roast for two days we’ll have lots for cold/pie/meat loaf/etc. over the next week. No doubt the cats will help too; in fact Rosie was wanting raw turkey (no chance).

Wednesday 25
A pretty normal Christmas Day here. Just the two of us; very quiet. Roast dinner in the evening with a bottle of champagne. A mountain of washing-up.

Monday 30
It’s that disconcerting time between Christmas and New Year when nothing is happening, little is working, you don’t know what day it is, or even what year it is. For some reason this year seems to have been more disjointed than usual. I wonder if that is because Christmas, and then New Year, are midweek so there’s no run of “normal” days from which to get one’s bearings. Of course N’s hospital trips don’t help, especially as the schedule has been juggled to avoid holiday days, so even that isn’t stable. Hopefully thinks will become more reliable next week when everything opens up and we’re no longer subject to Christmas TV.

Tuesday 31
So the old year ends, much as it started, grey and miserable, with little bits of rain. It’s scheduled to be a wet, warm and very windy start to the new year, but after tomorrow it gets much colder for at least a couple of weeks, although there is little sign of snow at least here in outer London. But we’ll keep warm, if only because we have a full wine rack! And, of course, we have a bottle of champagne in the fridge up for later: a glass just before midnight to say good riddance to the horrors of 2024, and a glass or two at/after midnight to welcome in 2025 with a wish that it is a much better year for everyone.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE

amusements, memes, personal

Unblogged September

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 200th 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.noticeboard covered with postcardsI wonder how soon my 200th 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 200th 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 45th 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.Gleditsia

amusements, memes, personal

Unblogged July

Being miscellaneous things from the past month.

Monday 1
Why do these things always happen late at night? Last evening at 11 N says we have no hot water. It was fine in late morning as we both had showers. I check: it’s the same low pressure error that we had last December. But can I remember exactly how to fix it? I’m certainly not confident. Spend 45 minutes hunting for my notes from that previous time – to no avail; they’re not in any of the places they should be. Very annoying; have to leave it to the morning. So this morning I message our boiler guy, who reassures me I had remembered correctly. Problem then fixed in about 2 minutes. Now I’ve made some notes; they’re stored in at least 4 places, and I’ve given N a copy. Also fixed boiler man to come next week to do a service.

Tuesday 2
I do just love days like today. I spent the whole afternoon checking that I have all the paperwork and information needed to complete our tax returns. Despite my careful housekeeping during the year there were inevitably gaps in what I needed. This entailed logging on to internet banking for everywhere we have money – and of course ending up having to double check every bank account. This isn’t just soul-destroying work, it’s so laborious when every institution needs 3-4-5 different codes before they’ll actually log you in. I’m knackered! Still, with luck I should be able to complete the actual tax returns quite quickly now. When I can make myself do it!

Wednesday 3
Another day at the coalface. So anything could have happened, and probably did. Of course, as it’s Wimbledon, it’s been wet on and off most of the day – and not very warm.

Thursday 4
So today is General Election day. Everyone, including the pollsters, seems to be predicting a landslide for Labour. I think it’s going to be a lot closer than that and, as I’ve said before, we could still have a minority Tory government, or even a small Tory majority. Sure there will be a lot of tactical voting, but if all the Reform and Tory voters the polls say are there decide to unite it’s going to be a close call. I think Joe Public will chicken out when he gets to vote and decide to go with the Devil he knows, who he thinks is going to put money in his pocket and not raise taxes. I hope, for everyone’s sake, that I’m wrong and I have a pleasant surprise. We’ll see, although all may not be clear until Saturday.
(For the record I’ve not seen the news today and this is written at about 19:40. I also live in what should be a safe Labour seat.)

Friday 5
OK, so I was wrong. Labour have a huge majority. The LibDems and the Greens have done well, but so, unfortunately, have Reform. It’s interesting that 4 of Reform’s 5 seats are in the less thinking areas around the east coast, especially Essex. It’s just a shame that the LibDems couldn’t relegate the Tories to be third party in Westminster. As for the Tory big-hitters who are left in Parliament, I don’t fancy any of them as Leader; I wouldn’t trust any of them, and many even less than that; what a choice of the bad, the ugly and the dangerous! It’s going to be interesting to see what happens now. The Labour government now have 5 years to turn things round; I wonder how much of it I’ll live to see?

Saturday 6
I know I say this every week, but what day is it? I’m totally thrown these days. It’s partly down to being retired, although I should be used to that by now. But N’s hospital days aren’t helping; it seems unnatural to be going to the hospital on a Saturday, as well as Tuesday and Thursday. It throws the weekend out of sync, which is in part down to the fact that we end up having a light, quick Saturday evening meal. We always used to cook something more special on Friday, Saturday, Sunday but the Saturday has now gone by the board. And I’ve not adjusted.

Sunday 7
Having talked yesterday about weekend food being disrupted, we did today revert to our usual good Sunday evening meal – we gave up cooking Sunday lunch many, many years ago in favour of eating in the evening (as we also do at Christmas). Anyway this week I’d bought a small piece of beef topside with no intention of roasting something so pathetic. This morning I cut it into slices and marinaded it in some lemon, brandy, olive oil and Worcs sauce with garlic and ginger. This evening I pan fried it for us to enjoy between bread with individual bowls of salad. This was followed by mixed fruit crumble (we had lots of fruit to use) and cream. All washed down with a non-celebratory bottle of Champagne. Verily it was a substantial repast.

Monday 8
Comes the gardener. I didn’t think he was going to get a lot done as it was forecast wet from lunchtime, but it stayed dry all day, and a lot was achieved keeping everything in order.
However comes not the man to service the boiler. Not entirely unusual, but a bloody nuisance. A courtesy call would have been helpful. What is it with plumbers etc.?

Tuesday 9
Yet another dismal day, in so many ways: definitely feeling like I need a new body and a new head, and – surprise, surprise – it’s been raining on and off all day. In fact it was raining so hard at one point this afternoon that I couldn’t see the hill which is no more than a mile away as the crow flies. It doesn’t help that I’ve not slept very well the last couple of nights: not lying awake but just not restful either. So I was quite grateful to have my morning meeting postponed until next week.

Wednesday 10
Finally N managed to get the Boy Cat to the vet for his dental, which had been outstanding since April. Poor little bugger had 8 extractions (on top of the 2 he’d had previously) and a load of stiches, and is going to be sore for a few days. He’s becoming a toothless senior cat at the not advanced age of 7. One doubts, however, that the lack of teeth will stop him guzzling dried food – does he not crunch it because his teeth hurt, or are his teeth bad because he doesn’t crunch dried food? But blimey, the dent in the credit card. Let’s hope the insurance pays up!

Thursday 11
Boy Cat seems to be recovering OK, although he’s still a bit dopey. But then he managed to tuck away a bowl of tinned tuna this morning and a bowl of fresh cooked cod this evening – it’s called a light diet! But all three cats are getting fed up with being kept in; we think they’ll have to be allowed their freedom again tomorrow.

Friday 12
It feels like it’s been a successful week, for once. Several meaty chunks of literary society work completed during the week, somewhat against the odds as I wasn’t looking forward to doing them. Boy Cat’s dental done, thanks to N, and a claim form sent off to the vets for them to complete their bit. And today I filed both our tax returns in under 1½ hours total. That was made possible by (a) spending a couple of hours last week ensuring I had all the information to hand, and (b) a good, easy to use, software package to pull it together and then file it online. Overall a result, so a small glass of sherry might be had while I cook Friday evening dinner.

Saturday 13
Why does everyone care so much about this godforsaken football match tomorrow? OK so England are in the Euro final. So what? Will it matter in 5 years (weeks?) time? Win or lose the country is going to be unbearable for the next week, at least; and I’ve no doubt there’ll be a few bars trashed tomorrow night, more if we lose. Actually I hope we do lose because the great unwashed supporters need to understand that we’re not God-given champions but a set of overpaid prima donnas. They all think it matters. It doesn’t. It’s a game, which like all the others has been ruined by money. (Which is why I now have no patience with cricket, which I used to love.)

Sunday 14
The melon experiment [see Culinary Adventures #111] concludes. I had another couple of slices following lunch, and again I have a sore throat, although not as bad as previously. I also gave N a piece (less than ¼ slice) and she later reported a slightly sore throat and slight queasiness. So it does look as if we are both, at least to some extent, intolerant of melon, although it clearly isn’t a full on allergy.

Monday 15
So we lost the football last night. What a surprise and what a shame – NOT. I’ve not been following the football, but it sounds as if England have been dull and lucky to scrape through each round. On the other hand, it seems that Southgate has been a decent manager: quiet, thoughtful and has got the most out of a set of less than effective players. Can England get further? From what little I’ve seen not without a completely new set of more dynamic players; but no need to change the manager.

Tuesday 16
Teatime this afternoon and I could hear some gentle but persistent rain. Looking up, the sun was shining. A rainbow? Yes. An absolute stunner, although I could see less than half as it disappeared behand our oak tree. Clear, wide and bright against a very dark cloud. So clear you could easily see off into the far red on the outside and into the far violet on the inside*, which is unusually clear. I managed to get a few quick snapshots with my little point-and-shoot camera on a sunset setting.**rainbow* I won’t say infra-red and ultra-violet as we can’t see them, but that’s what it felt like.
** It pays to always have a camera readily at arm’s reach; you never know what you’ll suddenly see. It also pays to know your camera settings.

Wednesday 17
Boy Cat went back to the vet for his post-op check-up, and got a clean bill of health. Which is more than our credit card did, as the insurance has declined to pay for his dental work on the basis that he’s had previous dental work before we changed to policy to the new provider, so it counts as a pre-existing condition. Such is the way insurance works, as I know well as my father worked in insurance and always said it amounted to gambling against the insurance company. Still at least we can afford it, and we’d do it for ourselves.

Thursday 18
Most of the day taken up with a long and difficult meeting with GP’s Practice Manager, and then documenting it. Lots of survey results, and recent data, which isn’t all good reading, so we were trying to get to see what we (the patient group) can do to help the Practice turn this round. Not easy; there are no easy answers; all GPs are under the same pressures – which was emphasised by a BBC News report this afternoon on the same issues being faced by a larger practice at the other end of the country!

Friday 19
A day for doing nothing except melting in as few clothes as possible. It was scorching hot. RAF Northolt (5km West) recorded 31°C, Heathrow Airport (10km SW) 30.6°C, and a weather station in Hatch End (7km NNW) 31.5°C. So we likely topped 30°C. Definitely the hottest day of the year but some way to go to get to 2022’s approx. 40°C which really was unreal. Cool showers required.

Saturday 20
Blimey it was hot and sticky last night. Despite having the fan on most of the night I was perpetually wet, so with nasty wet bedding. Gah! Thankfully much cooler today, as forecast, but still quite humid and sticky across the middle of the day. I had all the study windows open which was very pleasant, with the merest of breeze – and we had a shower of rain this afternoon. Otherwise a noteworthy day for being completely unnoteworthy!

Sunday 21
A day of odds & sods. Potting up my germinated date stones (7 of 11 have germinated). Unload images from the trail camera, which I didn’t do last week as it was raining heavily. Stocktake/audit the contents of the wine rack, only to discover we have a lot less wine than I thought, but a lot more spirits. And then cook dinner: salmon en croute, with broad beans, sugarsnap peas, and a green herb & cream sauce (this latter needs to be improved), followed by nectarine tarts & cream, with a bottle of Crémant de Bourgogne. Of course the cats helped with the salmon and the cream!

Monday 22
Cometh the gardener to cut the hay meadow of a lawn. This upset the cats as they now have nowhere to hide on the savannah! It’s surprising how much better, and bigger, everything looks with a cut lawn. It’s a bit brown where it’s been long, but a solid night’s rain and it’ll soon green up.

Tuesday 23
Well that’s the biannual (maybe triannual) wine order done. As usual Champagne** (just 6 bottles) from Majestic; they always have pretty decent Champagne at reasonable prices. Some Crémant on this week’s supermarket order; again they do a good one at a sensible price. And another 3 dozen of various from the Wine Society. It’s only money; and it’s something we enjoy at a weekend. The next order will probably be in the run up to Christmas, unless we run out of Champagne first!

** In the words of Hester Browne “Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes, the special occasion is that you’ve got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge.”

Wednesday 24
Sitting outside late this afternoon over tea and cake and there were two red kites circling overhead. They appeared to be a pair as one was that bit smaller, so probably a male (unless a juvenile); and they were doing acrobatic close flying manoeuvres. They’re big birds: a passing gull (probably black-headed gull) was not impressed but soon backed off as the kites were noticeably bigger. They eventually drifted off towards the west. It would be interesting to know if they’re nesting anywhere close.

Thursday 25
Last thing yesterday N came in from the garden bearing a feather. A Ring-Neck Parakeet feather – and that after I had commented earlier in the day that I was surprised never to have found one. Unexpectedly it was mostly dark grey but with green along the leading edge and tip. Checking, it is obviously a primary (wing feather), probably P1 as it was about 13cm. Out of curiosity I checked it under UV light, and the quill is very slightly fluorescent. I managed to photograph it under normal light but couldn’t also get a good shot with my little UV torch.parakeet feather

Friday 26
Today was the day the supermarket delivery system tipped me over the edge. The “warehouse” (sorry, fulfilment centre) which supplies the deliveries holds a much smaller range than even a medium size store. This is a retrograde step as deliveries used to be fulfilled from the nearest large store. There are items I can get via UberEats (yeuch!) quick delivery from our nearest (medium size) store, but which the fulfilment centre doesn’t carry. This seems daft in the extreme. And the fulfilment centre range seems to be dwindling, with products just disappearing. All this has been annoying me for a long time. But recently the fulfilment centre, and the UberEats delivery, have done some stupid things. This culminated in both Customer Services and the Executive Office getting a very stroppy (but polite) email. What I didn’t say, but could have done, is that the whole offering is predicated on ready meals and barbeque fodder, all of which is over-processed rubbish. I don’t expect anything much to happen as a result, but if they aren’t told nothing will change. We’ll see what management bollox they come up with!

Saturday 27
The Ring-Neck Parakeets have been squawking non-stop all day! N says they’ve half emptied the large seed feeder in under 24 hours. One, this evening, was flying around right by the study window; almost as if it was trying to land on the open casement window. There was a loud “bonk” so I think it flew hard into next door’s bedroom window; it fluttered off into the ornamental crab apple tree and sat there looing dazed for a few minutes.

Sunday 28
More natural history … Late last evening I found a small parasitic wasp which had self-immolated in my bedtime mug of tea. The poor thing must have thought it has a nice piece of wood to sit on, but instead found itself instantly cooked. Anyway I rescued it, but CPR was not effective. I kept the corpse to photograph today.tiny black parasitic wasp, with spread iridescent wings, and red-brown legs, and a long ovipositor; wingspan approx. 12mmWhen you look at them, these things are rather splendid (for all their gruesome lifestyle). The engineering is incredible, considering it had a wingspan of about 12mm. It’s even more incredible when you see a tiny, tiny gnat – how can legs that thin be constructed (with exoskeleton, muscle and nerves) let alone work?

Monday 29
Blimey, it’s been hot again today, although with weather stations locally recording only 29°C, not quite as hot as the 30° of a couple of weeks ago. But it must have been even more humid; it was unbearably sticky this afternoon, to the extent that I was bathed is sweat – horrid! I sat outside for 10 minutes after lunch and had to give up and come indoors as it was just too hot. Even now, in mid-evening, it hasn’t cooled a lot. Tomorrow is forecast to be about the same; then it gets gradually cooler with some rain and likely thunderstorms. We need something to clear the air.
In other news we took delivery of our Wine Society order at 08:10 this morning. The wine rack now looks a lot healthier!

Tuesday 30
Another blisteringly hot day, about 2°C hotter than yesterday, so probably the hottest day of the year so far. It left me feeling completely knocked out. Even lying in the bedroom in front of the fan didn’t help much; and I must have drunk at least 3 litres of water during the afternoon. It’s no wonder I have a headache.

Wednesday 31
Late last night a rather pretty yellow/brown moth in the bedroom – probably a Yellow Shell (Camptogramma bilineata bilineata). Wingspan about 25-30mm. I photographed it with my phone, so not a brilliant picture.yellow & brown mothIt didn’t want to be caught and put out the window, so as the windows were open I left it sitting on the ceiling and it had disappeared by this morning.