It came as a shock this morning when I turned the radio on to gather mid sentence from the Today presenter's sombre tone that Leave had won. Tendring is one of the most Eurosceptic districts in the country, but as one of the 30.5% who voted the other way, it was an unwelcome shock. The bookies and the markets got that one wrong.
But as Auden observed, these things happen and people still eat and open windows and walk dully along, while dogs go on with their doggy life and so on. We don't have a dog, and are rather cautious about opening windows at the moment in case the kittens escape, but we ate, and walked about although I hope not dully. I planted the last of my Viv Marsh alstroemeria, a beautiful deep red with no yellow throat called 'Red Elf, and a couple of clematis, and the nice Valeriana pyrenaica my mother bought for me at Beth Chatto.
And I dead headed some of the roses, which have been battered by the recent rain, and the lupins, which are almost trouble free plants except that after flowering to keep them tidy and save their energies you must remove the copious and very heavy seed heads. I pulled up horsetail and trimmed some of the lawn edges while trying to decide if I needed new shears, or if they would be fine if only the grass was dry.
The Systems Administrator managed to weigh the energetic kitten, who paradoxically enjoys sitting in a mixing bowl on the kitchen scales, so much so that he hopped back in after the SA had finished weighing him and curled up there. He has gained one hundred grams in eight days. I don't know if that's good or not. I tried to weigh Mr Fluffy, but every time I put him in the bowl he bounced out again. Neither of us tried to weigh the cool kitten. He is not the sort of cat you can imagine curling up to order in a plastic dish. I think he might have overtaken the energetic kitten and be the heaviest of the three.
The SA remembered to set the camera up last night to try and find out whether the motion operated lights in the gravel outside the front door were having any effect on the foxes. The first night after the SA put the lights up the fox came twice, visits an hour and twenty minutes apart, and hung around each time, which didn't suggest the lights were putting it off at all, but since then there have been fewer fox turds in the drive. When I checked the camera card I got a blackbird yesterday evening, a small and over confident rabbit for several minutes around twenty past five in the morning, and Our Ginger after breakfast. No fox. Once the kittens are allowed out I hope we won't be seeing any more of the rabbit either.
Later on I made some experimental oat and raisin cookies to use up the condensed milk left over from the ice cream. I am not sure how cookies differ from biscuits, or if it's merely a question of American English versus English English. The condensed milk was supposed to give these a chewy interior, which doesn't sound very biscuity. The instruction to roll the mixture into golf ball sized pieces was not the easiest one to follow since as a non golfer I can't think when I last saw a golf ball. My cookies did not look like the ones on the Carnation website, since they spread out on the baking tray until they ran into each other in a sort of giant indented pallid flapjack. Maybe they will taste delicious with chewy interiors.
The Systems Administrator listened to the cricket. The kittens ran around squeaking because making noises is their new thing. And so our first day of the UK economy going to hell in a handcart passed quite pleasantly.
No comments:
Post a Comment