One of the cats was sick in the night, right next to the disgusting cardboard box they sit in, and we don't have the heart to throw away, by the sitting room window. Only Our Ginger and the big tabby use the box, and my money's on the big tabby. I have no proof, but he is an anxious creature, getting on in years, and Maine Coones seem less thrifty animals than the common moggies. Our Ginger appears to show a remarkable degree of hybrid vigour. But I might be wrong. In the meantime we are watching them both for signs of ailment, and doling out food in tiny spoonfuls to stop any of them bolting down too much at once and making itself sick. This means it is impossible to go through the hall without meeting at least one set of accusing feline eyes as they hover near the empty dishes.
Quite a number of bees came into the house this morning, and we're at a total loss to explain why. There was one in the bedroom, which managed to get into an old guitar I still keep (I was never any good at playing it, and cherish no ambition that I'm going to learn now, but lack the impetus to sell it. I suppose I am waiting for the right deserving young relative or friend of the family to show musical promise so that I can give it away). The sound of a bee in an acoustic guitar is strange, very resonant. If you were to sample it (I expect you could lure some in on purpose if you put a few drops of honey in there) the noise could form the basis for some experimental electronic music. Last night I had to evict half a dozen from the sitting room, and this morning more like a dozen from the kitchen, and the Systems Administrator had to collect one from the study. I don't know why they have suddenly started coming in. I did have a jar of honey on the kitchen worktop last night, but I've generally got a jar of honey on the go in the kitchen and it's never attracted them before. The SA went to look outside the front door to see what they were doing and said that one flew up and down in front of the house several times before quite deliberately flying through the open door.
I spent another day weeding the gravel. The back lawn still squelches audibly when I walk on it, and I was on a roll with the gravel. I listened again to the R4 adaptation of A Murder of Quality, and then started on The Honourable Schoolboy. I listened yesterday afternoon to From Russia With Love, and though I adore Toby Stephens I much prefer Le Carre's world of grottiness, intrigue, and moral ambiguity to Fleming's glamour and gizmos.
There isn't much new to say about the gravel. The Helianthemum or rock roses have finished flowering and so their old flowering stems need cutting back. The cold weather killed some of the lavender, especially the ones with ears which aren't as hardy as the traditional English ones, but they seed themselves generously. There are lots and lots of weeds. I wrote up my gardening diary on Friday, and was shocked to see that I hadn't filled it in since 7 July, but when I looked at my pocket diary and blog entries for July realised that I'd only had two and a half day's gardening since then. Work, days lost to rain, a trip to London, a day of cooking and housework (we had guests, just as well or the cleaning would never get done), setting up the Show stand, the mudbath of the actual Show, wrestling with the accounts afterwards. It's not surprising the weeds have grown. The Systems Administrator looked at the rainfall records and while June's rain wasn't as much as we expected, only 55mm, which is half what was recorded at the site in Epping that the SA follows, in July to date we've had 150mm. That is over a quarter of our expected annual rainfall in three weeks.
The good news is that for the next month my diary suddenly empties. Apart from going to work, I have only one thing booked in the next four weeks, which is my Pilates lesson. I am planning on catching up on a lot of gardening, so if you aren't interested in gardening you might as well tune out now, and come back in a month's time. Actually I might nip up to town one last time before the Olympics start, to see the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican which closes next month. After that, even when things start happening again it's a wildlife fair at the Beth Chatto gardens and a lecture on, er, gardening.
Addendum I am not sure whether to delete the last paragraph. It feels like tempting fate, and the next thing I know things will be happening and the story line will have darkened dramatically, Archers style. They are losing listeners, according to the Telegraph. I thought they would.
On balance I have left the paragraph in, but deleted the word 'wretched' from before the word Olympics. OK, I am not going to risk travelling through Stratford for the duration and so London is out of bounds, but other people will enjoy them.
No comments:
Post a Comment