Diary-type thoughts on what occurred around here which weren’t otherwise written about
Saturday 1
Today I was reminded that the traditional Korean equivalent of “once upon a time” is “back when tigers used to smoke”. I’ve always puzzled as to why?
Sunday 2
Spring is on the way. There’s a nice, but small, drift of pale lilac crocuses in the lawn.[Later in the month the lawn was just a mass of crocuses.]
Monday 3
Excellent Zoom meeting this evening for a reading group for Anthony Powell’s 12 novel series A Dance to the Music of Time (one book a month). This was the first meeting so we were discussing A Question of Upbringing. It’s being run by an American literarist, so it’s not an AP Society event, although we’re supporting it and about a third of those present were Society members. Of the rest quite a few were newcomers to Powell. It’s good because it is making many of us old lags reread the books, again!
Wednesday 5
I was woken this morning by the Rosie cat lying between us purring like a Harley-Davidson. I stretched out an arm to stroke her, whereupon she decided I needed a wash. She started at my left armpit and over 10-15 minutes worked her way down to the inside of my left elbow. She spent so long on my elbow that her wonderful raspy tongue made it quite sore and has left a rather red abrasion!
Thursday 6
We gave in and ordered pizza!
Saturday 8
Making coffee in the kitchen this afternoon when through the catdoor comes Rosie. She leaves several trails of superb wet and muddy pawprints, very neatly formed, across the floor. Back at my desk, it is covered in muddy pawmarks; not Rosie as she had followed me, so I suspect Tilly. And that’ll be the second time today I’ve had to wipe down my desk.
Sunday 9
Checking the pond today. Lots of big chubby goldfish. But the ground was like a marsh.
Monday 10
Trip to the dentist for the four predicted fillings. Remarkably she managed to do all four in the one (long) appointment, so I don’t have to go again in a couple of weeks time – result! The credit card is still smarting a bit though – although when you think about what the cost has to pay for it’s not that unreasonable.
Tuesday 11
What an incredibly useful session this morning meeting patients at the doctors, where we do twice monthly “Meet the Patients” sessions. First up a very sensible conversation with couple of black guys, one who’d been in the police for 20 years. Then an old boy of 90 who had walked up the hill to find he was there the wrong day; we listened to him grumble about the NHS for half an hour – after which my colleague very nicely gave him a lift home. And finally a very nice lady taxi driver to run me home who also turned out to be a relatively new patient at our surgery, so we compared notes about the doctors. Overall it felt like a good outreach session.
Thursday 13
Well I was warned. At the hospital today for some blood tests in the new, purpose built, centre. And it’s dreadful. It’s an absolute rabbit warren of corridors, corners and doors. With almost no signage, and half of what there is consists of sheets of paper blu-tacked to the wall. And when you get to the right place the décor is a sunny-ish yellow and sick green. Worse the green area (an alcove) is decorated in four slightly different shades of sick green: floor, wall below the dado, wall above the dado and the seating; none is a nice colour. This is juxtaposed with the yellow area and a plum red area. GOK how anyone can work in it.
Friday 14
Valentines Day, and I got told off because I’d bought her a present when she hadn’t bought me one. It’s a tough life!
Saturday 15
Late this evening I was reading an article in New Scientist about when babies brains develop an integrated consciousness of the world. [https://rb.gy/puso5n] And I suddenly had a memory which I’d totally forgotten. I remembered having a “rattle” consisting of several hard plastic shapes on a string; pieces of different sizes and colours. Now this must have been quite early, as I have no later memory of this toy. I’d completely forgotten it. The memory was just a single still photographic image and fairly indistinct. I don’t think my brain was making up the memory, but durable coloured plastic in the early 1950s seems somewhat unlikely (though not impossible). Unfortunately I no longer have my mother to ask.
Sunday 16
Following on from yesterday’s entry … isn’t the mind strange. So I was minding nothing while washing a houseplant saucer this afternoon and my mind suddenly reminded me about a girl I knew over 45 years ago. She was a colleague; never even close to being a girlfriend – although I think we all fancied her. She sat next to me on our final qualifying sales course, wearing a pale blue, floaty, low cut, summer frock and no bra. But why does she suddenly pop into my mind now, and for no reason, when I’ve not thought about her in ages and ages? I always wonder where these people are now.
Tuesday 18
My dendrobium is in full flower. It’s clearly thriving on benign neglect, although it’s been on the study windowsill getting whatever sun there is, occasional water, and over a radiator. I caught a grumpy-looking Tilly cat was sitting in front of it.
Saturday 22
Absolutely snowed with work. Loads for both literary society (mostly website related) and the doctor’s patient group. Not a chance to do anything else this week or next, and probably the one after.
Sunday 23
Who would have guessed that foxes like pickled herrings and also cream cheese? Earlier in the week they demolished the remains of the duck (mostly just bone and fat) we had last weekend too – except for the orange we’d cooked with it!
In other news we seem to have this one, lone, dark grey feral pigeon; and only very occasionally a second – very odd because there are many others around.
Monday 24
Came the gardener (aka. odd job man) today. Despite the marsh which is the garden he went an filled the bird feeders just before lunch. By teatime one of the peanut feeders was already half empty! Oh and we agreed on a count of 22 goldfish.
Tuesday 25
And it rained again all night and most of the morning. Our garden is just a swamp, with a large area of casual water – larger, I think, than I’ve ever seen it before. The photo gives you an idea: the area outlined in yellow largely under water, despite us having raised the ground a couple of inches.
It’s not really surprising as we think there was probably an old field ditch running across the gardens about where the blue line is. There seems to be a little spring next door to the left. There is definitely water there as we’ve dowsed it, and it runs left to right (downhill) in the photo. The houses were built in 1930 on what was fields, and I bet the builders just bulldozed their rubble in to fill the field ditch and dumped a bit of topsoil on it. If the area where the ditch probably is wasn’t a mass of tree roots, I’d play archaeologist and dig a test pit to find out.
Thursday 27
I was hoping to receive my 300th Postcrossing card before the end of the month, and the three which arrived today hit the target. So here is the board of cards 251 to 300.
Friday 28
So here endeth February, and somehow we’re already 16% of the way through the year. On 14 March there’ll be 20% of the year gone. How?
