History was not well taught at my school. We spent an inordinately long time on the voyages of Christopher Columbus, and the acts of Parliament relating to women's suffrage, and as soon as I was forced to choose between history and geography I plumped for the latter. The geography teacher was very good and I enjoyed my O level, but I managed to emerge from my schooldays with absolutely no knowledge of Medieval history beyond what I'd read at home. This amounted to an image in an illustrated children's history of England of Matilda escaping from captivity in the snow dressed in a sheet, a fairly good impression of the workings of the wool trade and the introduction of the printing press from two stories by Cynthia Harnett, and the expulsion of the Jews from England plus the death of Eleanor of Castile and leprosy thanks to Geoffrey Trease. And of course there was 1066 and All That.
As the Systems Administrator began to grasp the depths of my historical ignorance it is fair to say that the SA was well and truly flabbergasted that anybody who was supposed to be educated could know quite so little about the history of their own country, or anybody else's. So began a programme of reading which has carried us through many Christmases and birthdays. After the Tudors, Stuarts, industrial revolution, Victorians, and Georgians, we are now on to the Middle Ages.
The Middle Ages are dreadful and fascinating, ripping yarns in their own right, but also horribly illuminating of how power works and how people in pursuit of power are apt to behave. Charles Clarke as New Labour Education Secretary suggested that there was no point in studying Medieval History, or at least as it brought no social good nobody else should have to pay for those who did study it. He was wrong. Politics, current day international relations, or life inside a big corporation, you will find them all mirrored in or illuminated by the antics of our Medieval forebears.
My guide through four hundred years of political history in seven hundred pages is Dan Jones. I started with The Plantagenets for my birthday, and now I'm nearly through The Wars of the Roses. He has a very lucid, lively style, and keeps the pace moving along relentlessly by focusing almost entirely on the politics of the time. The wood trade has scarcely had a mention, beyond the fact that London's merchants were a powerful economic force, and nor have the lives of the poor. It was a wise decision on his part. If he'd tried to cover economic and social history as well the books would be three times the size and sprawlingly unreadable. I recommend them highly.
It is a lot to get to grips with all at once, when you have a dozen kings and five of them were called Henry, or else Edward, and practically all of them were married to somebody called either Eleanor or Isabella. It turns out to be a very good way of going to sleep, trying to remember them. Henry I came after William the Conqueror after his brother William Rufus died mysteriously in a hunting accident, and after him came Henry II, no there was Matilda first in her white sheet after William the Atheling died in the White Ship, and then came Henry II who was married to Eleanor of...somewhere...one of the Eleanors. And was John married to the She Wolf of France or did she come later...zzzz
Monday, 1 January 2018
Sunday, 31 December 2017
happy new year
The Systems Administrator's cold has lingered on, and my incipient cold has got worse, after hanging around ominously in the background for the past week. We compared notes on symptoms and decided it sounded like we both had the same one. My true love hath my cold and I have his. I have done slightly better out of the bargain since I retain possession of the marital bedroom with the en suite, while the SA has retreated to the ironing room, which doesn't have a working radiator since the SA borrowed the control to replace one in the sitting room that had broken and never got round to ordering a replacement.
Fortunately neither of us have ever been great fans of New Year's Eve, so we are not missing anything. I don't think any of our friends are having giant parties they haven't invited us to anyway. Some are celebrating with their children, and I think some ask the neighbours round for a quiet glass of champagne, but we don't live within strolling distance of any of them.
Maybe 2018 will be really good.
Fortunately neither of us have ever been great fans of New Year's Eve, so we are not missing anything. I don't think any of our friends are having giant parties they haven't invited us to anyway. Some are celebrating with their children, and I think some ask the neighbours round for a quiet glass of champagne, but we don't live within strolling distance of any of them.
Maybe 2018 will be really good.
Saturday, 30 December 2017
a gardening day
Suddenly the wind has swung round to the west, and it is warm enough to garden. Indeed, by the middle of the day I was so warm that I had to take my scarf off as I continued working my way down the slope in the back, weeding, chopping down the remains of the herbaceous plants, sprinkling blood, fish and bone over the border, and topping up the Strulch.
The brambles would take over if they could. From the few rootstocks tucked in close to the trunks of the mature shrubs, where I never had time to dig them out last year, they have sent long arms arching and scrambling forward across the bed. Every time they touch down they root at the tip. Here and there along the bed are irritating little mini-brambles, growing from the rooted tips of past incursions that I never got to in time to extract them completely. I chisel them out with my trowel, but they don't wholly die, sending up new, spindly, irritating shoots from their remaining roots. The shoots from the main roots are fatter and faster, much more visible now the leaves have dropped from the shrubs than they were in the summer. I cleared arcs of bramble stem out of the flowering currants and the Exochorda x macrantha 'The Bride', disentangled them from the rose 'Fritz Nobis', and nipped a few in the bud that were just starting to think about exploring the golden yew.
I must make the time to work my way back uphill along the rear of the bed, and attack them at the root. It is tempting, when time is limited, to focus your efforts on the fronts of the beds because they show more, but in the end you need to clear up behind the scenes as well. There are great long shoots of bird-sown ivy running over the ground at the back of the bed and creeping outwards under the shrubs. Give it another season and it will start climbing them. It already had begun to loop its way through the yellow berried Cotoneaster 'Rothschildeanus'.
There is a patch of Allium triquetrum in the bed. A native of the Mediterranean, this has become a fearsome weed in some parts of the world, and is regarded with suspicion by many British gardeners because it spreads so readily. It is in fact listed on Schedule 9 of the Countryside Act, meaning that it is an offence to plant or otherwise cause to grow it in the wild. That doesn't stop the RHS listing thirteen suppliers in their Plant Finder. If I had known quite how rampant it was when I first planted it I might not have chosen to include it, on the other hand it copes valiantly in a rather nasty stretch of claggy soil and only spreads at the edges of the patch. I have never found it coming up anywhere else in the garden or wood, or else I should worry. The flowers are white and quite pretty in a small, wild way. The foliage is dense and weed suppressing when it's out, which it is now, but it will disappear by the summer.
The brambles would take over if they could. From the few rootstocks tucked in close to the trunks of the mature shrubs, where I never had time to dig them out last year, they have sent long arms arching and scrambling forward across the bed. Every time they touch down they root at the tip. Here and there along the bed are irritating little mini-brambles, growing from the rooted tips of past incursions that I never got to in time to extract them completely. I chisel them out with my trowel, but they don't wholly die, sending up new, spindly, irritating shoots from their remaining roots. The shoots from the main roots are fatter and faster, much more visible now the leaves have dropped from the shrubs than they were in the summer. I cleared arcs of bramble stem out of the flowering currants and the Exochorda x macrantha 'The Bride', disentangled them from the rose 'Fritz Nobis', and nipped a few in the bud that were just starting to think about exploring the golden yew.
I must make the time to work my way back uphill along the rear of the bed, and attack them at the root. It is tempting, when time is limited, to focus your efforts on the fronts of the beds because they show more, but in the end you need to clear up behind the scenes as well. There are great long shoots of bird-sown ivy running over the ground at the back of the bed and creeping outwards under the shrubs. Give it another season and it will start climbing them. It already had begun to loop its way through the yellow berried Cotoneaster 'Rothschildeanus'.
There is a patch of Allium triquetrum in the bed. A native of the Mediterranean, this has become a fearsome weed in some parts of the world, and is regarded with suspicion by many British gardeners because it spreads so readily. It is in fact listed on Schedule 9 of the Countryside Act, meaning that it is an offence to plant or otherwise cause to grow it in the wild. That doesn't stop the RHS listing thirteen suppliers in their Plant Finder. If I had known quite how rampant it was when I first planted it I might not have chosen to include it, on the other hand it copes valiantly in a rather nasty stretch of claggy soil and only spreads at the edges of the patch. I have never found it coming up anywhere else in the garden or wood, or else I should worry. The flowers are white and quite pretty in a small, wild way. The foliage is dense and weed suppressing when it's out, which it is now, but it will disappear by the summer.
Friday, 29 December 2017
special seeds
The post between Christmas and the New Year has brought more gardening catalogues, including one of my current favourites, Derry Watkins' seed list from her nursery near Bath, Special Plants. It is an excellent list, not the longest but including all sorts of things that I should like to grow, many of them rare, and many sounding as if they actually would grow in southern England. Most are herbaceous, and her descriptions of perennials are admirably nuanced, identifying those species that are naturally short-lived as well as those that are only marginally hardy.
I always feel sorry for people spending several pounds on something they may have seen in a magazine without realizing that after a couple of seasons it will almost certainly die. Lysimachia atropurpurea 'Beaujolais' springs to mind, and every Agastache I have ever attempted to grow. They may well seed themselves, given the chance, but anyone thinking they had invested in a permanent feature for their border will be disappointed. Some will then vent their disappointment on the front-line retail staff at their local garden centre, who were not responsible for the less than complete descriptions on the plant labels.
The Special Plants seed list also makes life easy for its customers by pricing all packets at two pounds. If a species produces seed freely and plentifully then you get more in a packet, and the converse if seed is only sparsely produced or tricky to harvest. Ten packets, twenty quid plus postage. Most seed catalogues are addicted to odd price points, £1.89, £1.55. £4.50, £2.72.
This year's catalogue includes a couple of things that I knew I wanted. After seven years of trouble- free existence, my specimen of the herbaceous yellow flowered climber Dicentra scandens failed to come up last spring. I have no idea why, if something about the weather proved its undoing, or if it too has a shortish life span, albeit more than two seasons, or whether something ate its resting core last winter. It is a pretty thing, with dangling locket shaped flowers, attractively divided foliage, and deceptively vigorous, fragile, fleshy stems, which in the course of the season make a good three metres of growth. I have never seen plants offered for sale, and given its growth habit I can imagine they would be very difficult to manage on a nursery. They would soon grow into each other and everything around them, and by the time you'd disentangled them they'd be a mess of broken stems. I grew mine from seed. Until it disappeared it used to sprawl over a Magnolia stellata for the summer. The Magnolia had finished flowering before the Dicentra got going, and didn't seem to mind its passenger. The seed is not the rarest and most difficult thing to find, but neither is it common.
She has Teucrium hircanum as well. I raised some previously from seed, which made splendid plants in their pots in their first year, but then began to go downhill rapidly. Some things will sit patiently in pots for ages waiting to go out into the ground, and some won't. One problem with growing your own garden plants from seed is that after you have sown them, site clearance may not progress as rapidly as you had hoped, and so it proved with the Teucrium and the brambles in the meadow. The tray of plants I managed to get into the ground last spring staged a remarkable recovery, having looked so weak and half dead when I planted them that I wondered if I was wasting my time, but the rest that I didn't manage to plant out faded away quietly in their pots. Teucrium hircanum produces vertical spikes of purple flowers that are very, very attractive to bees. They are nice-looking plants in a slightly wild way, just the thing for a naturalistic part of the garden, and I should like some more. They are said to be drought tolerant and to self-sow, both of which would be useful along the side of the wood.
At the last Chelsea Flower Show I was greatly taken by something called Anthyllis vulneraria in a display of drought tolerant planting. I am always looking for good plants for dry sand, and this one had clover-like flowers in a fetching shade of dark red. When I got home I looked at the exhibitor's website, which is surely largely the point of exhibiting at Chelsea, but they did not sell it. Derry Watkins offers seed though, of the dark red form as seen at Chelsea and not the ordinary pink.
That's only three packets so I can choose a few more. There's no point in buying too many, since they all have to be sown, and pricked out, and potted on, and a space found for them in the garden. But the postage will be £1.50 whether I buy three packets or ten. Maybe this year I should try the small flowered red Zinnia that I admired in Rod Leeds' garden without knowing it was a Zinnia. Or I have never tried growing flax. Or there's a tall, rusty red kind of Tagetes from Great Dixter that might make better plants in pots than the unhappy Tithonia did. So much choice, it is like standing before the sweetie counter, aged six, with pennies to spend and the competing charms of gobstoppers and sherbet dib-dabs to weigh up.
The other reason why I like Derry Watkins so much is that she highlights species that really need to be sown fresh to germinate, and then offers seed through the year when it is fresh. Most seed catalogues don't, and after sowing my fair share of umbellifers and anemone that never came up, I am rather exasperated with them.
I always feel sorry for people spending several pounds on something they may have seen in a magazine without realizing that after a couple of seasons it will almost certainly die. Lysimachia atropurpurea 'Beaujolais' springs to mind, and every Agastache I have ever attempted to grow. They may well seed themselves, given the chance, but anyone thinking they had invested in a permanent feature for their border will be disappointed. Some will then vent their disappointment on the front-line retail staff at their local garden centre, who were not responsible for the less than complete descriptions on the plant labels.
The Special Plants seed list also makes life easy for its customers by pricing all packets at two pounds. If a species produces seed freely and plentifully then you get more in a packet, and the converse if seed is only sparsely produced or tricky to harvest. Ten packets, twenty quid plus postage. Most seed catalogues are addicted to odd price points, £1.89, £1.55. £4.50, £2.72.
This year's catalogue includes a couple of things that I knew I wanted. After seven years of trouble- free existence, my specimen of the herbaceous yellow flowered climber Dicentra scandens failed to come up last spring. I have no idea why, if something about the weather proved its undoing, or if it too has a shortish life span, albeit more than two seasons, or whether something ate its resting core last winter. It is a pretty thing, with dangling locket shaped flowers, attractively divided foliage, and deceptively vigorous, fragile, fleshy stems, which in the course of the season make a good three metres of growth. I have never seen plants offered for sale, and given its growth habit I can imagine they would be very difficult to manage on a nursery. They would soon grow into each other and everything around them, and by the time you'd disentangled them they'd be a mess of broken stems. I grew mine from seed. Until it disappeared it used to sprawl over a Magnolia stellata for the summer. The Magnolia had finished flowering before the Dicentra got going, and didn't seem to mind its passenger. The seed is not the rarest and most difficult thing to find, but neither is it common.
She has Teucrium hircanum as well. I raised some previously from seed, which made splendid plants in their pots in their first year, but then began to go downhill rapidly. Some things will sit patiently in pots for ages waiting to go out into the ground, and some won't. One problem with growing your own garden plants from seed is that after you have sown them, site clearance may not progress as rapidly as you had hoped, and so it proved with the Teucrium and the brambles in the meadow. The tray of plants I managed to get into the ground last spring staged a remarkable recovery, having looked so weak and half dead when I planted them that I wondered if I was wasting my time, but the rest that I didn't manage to plant out faded away quietly in their pots. Teucrium hircanum produces vertical spikes of purple flowers that are very, very attractive to bees. They are nice-looking plants in a slightly wild way, just the thing for a naturalistic part of the garden, and I should like some more. They are said to be drought tolerant and to self-sow, both of which would be useful along the side of the wood.
At the last Chelsea Flower Show I was greatly taken by something called Anthyllis vulneraria in a display of drought tolerant planting. I am always looking for good plants for dry sand, and this one had clover-like flowers in a fetching shade of dark red. When I got home I looked at the exhibitor's website, which is surely largely the point of exhibiting at Chelsea, but they did not sell it. Derry Watkins offers seed though, of the dark red form as seen at Chelsea and not the ordinary pink.
That's only three packets so I can choose a few more. There's no point in buying too many, since they all have to be sown, and pricked out, and potted on, and a space found for them in the garden. But the postage will be £1.50 whether I buy three packets or ten. Maybe this year I should try the small flowered red Zinnia that I admired in Rod Leeds' garden without knowing it was a Zinnia. Or I have never tried growing flax. Or there's a tall, rusty red kind of Tagetes from Great Dixter that might make better plants in pots than the unhappy Tithonia did. So much choice, it is like standing before the sweetie counter, aged six, with pennies to spend and the competing charms of gobstoppers and sherbet dib-dabs to weigh up.
The other reason why I like Derry Watkins so much is that she highlights species that really need to be sown fresh to germinate, and then offers seed through the year when it is fresh. Most seed catalogues don't, and after sowing my fair share of umbellifers and anemone that never came up, I am rather exasperated with them.
Thursday, 28 December 2017
a visit to Firstsite
This morning I went with a friend to see the Grayson Perry exhibition at Colchester's Firstsite. The gallery was opened in 2011, late and over budget, and you can get a pretty good idea of how well it has done since when I tell you that, despite living only five miles away and liking art enough to be paid-up supporter of the Tate and the Art Fund, I have been there twice before today.
It was built, amidst much local derision, to showcase contemporary art. I like some contemporary art. I like Grayson Perry enough to have traveled all the way to Margate to visit one of his shows, but an awful lot of it passes me by. Still, if it is good enough for Hoxton who is to say that the good people of north Essex shouldn't have some as well? To make sure that Firstsite could not be used for anything more than a small exhibition of traditional art it was designed with practically no vertical interior walls that you could hang anything on. And the roof leaked. One of my previous visits to Firstsite was to hear a string quartet, and it turned out that it was not a good venue for chamber music either, because during the quiet passages you could hear the thumping bass line from one of the town centre's clubs.
The main reason I didn't take to visiting Firstsite is that they never seemed to have anything on that I liked the sound of. It required a certain amount of effort to find out what they were up to, as the pages on their website take an extraordinarily long time to load and they never managed to put me on a mailing list, but nothing I heard about seemed worth the extra hour's parking and a trip to that end of town. Never mind the star architect and statement building, if you don't have a good management team putting on interesting exhibitions you might as well not bother. I have looked enviously over the past six years at the good reviews of shows in the regional galleries along the south coast at Chichester, Eastbourne, and Bexhill-on-Sea, wishing that they could tour to Firstsite as well, but they never did. I don't know what the problem was, if Colchester was unlucky with its curators, or if the terms and conditions on offer weren't good enough to attract the best in a limited pool of talent. At one point the manager of Colchester Arts Centre stepped into the breach. He managed to increase footfall by dint of stunts like putting a van in the foyer (actually, most of Vinoly's design looks like part of the foyer) and holding food fairs, but that still left us short of any serious art.
A few months ago I read in the local paper that a new curator had been hired, so I live in hope that things will look up. Getting Grayson Perry was a step in the right direction. He designed a house at Wrabness a while back, a sort of extraordinary Mughal gingerbread house, intended to be let out (at great expense) so that people could holiday surrounded by a work of contemporary art, though you can see the outside from the public footpath. The current exhibition is about the ideas behind the house, which is envisaged as a shrine to an upwardly mobile Essex Everywoman. There are four big tapestries and five woodcuts (all displayed on the limited vertical hanging space), some preparatory sketches, photographs of the house, a stylised ceramic model of it, and a green ceramic Sheela Na Gig tile like those that decorate it, plus an essay about the imaginary Everywoman's life narrated by the artist and playing on a continuous loop. It is really good, if you like Grayson Perry. It is not very big, though. Janet Street-Porter came specially from London to see it, and tweeted about the fact that Firstsite was not signposted from the town centre, and I wonder if she felt the effort had been worthwhile.
Entry is free. We managed to arrive and leave without interacting with any member of staff, and Firstsite still don't have my details so that they could tell me about future exhibitions. The loos are very clean, and there is a cafe (or rather some tables and chairs and a counter) in the end of the endless foyer nearest the door, though we didn't stay. My friend looked at a mug in the shop as we left, but it was £25.
It was built, amidst much local derision, to showcase contemporary art. I like some contemporary art. I like Grayson Perry enough to have traveled all the way to Margate to visit one of his shows, but an awful lot of it passes me by. Still, if it is good enough for Hoxton who is to say that the good people of north Essex shouldn't have some as well? To make sure that Firstsite could not be used for anything more than a small exhibition of traditional art it was designed with practically no vertical interior walls that you could hang anything on. And the roof leaked. One of my previous visits to Firstsite was to hear a string quartet, and it turned out that it was not a good venue for chamber music either, because during the quiet passages you could hear the thumping bass line from one of the town centre's clubs.
The main reason I didn't take to visiting Firstsite is that they never seemed to have anything on that I liked the sound of. It required a certain amount of effort to find out what they were up to, as the pages on their website take an extraordinarily long time to load and they never managed to put me on a mailing list, but nothing I heard about seemed worth the extra hour's parking and a trip to that end of town. Never mind the star architect and statement building, if you don't have a good management team putting on interesting exhibitions you might as well not bother. I have looked enviously over the past six years at the good reviews of shows in the regional galleries along the south coast at Chichester, Eastbourne, and Bexhill-on-Sea, wishing that they could tour to Firstsite as well, but they never did. I don't know what the problem was, if Colchester was unlucky with its curators, or if the terms and conditions on offer weren't good enough to attract the best in a limited pool of talent. At one point the manager of Colchester Arts Centre stepped into the breach. He managed to increase footfall by dint of stunts like putting a van in the foyer (actually, most of Vinoly's design looks like part of the foyer) and holding food fairs, but that still left us short of any serious art.
A few months ago I read in the local paper that a new curator had been hired, so I live in hope that things will look up. Getting Grayson Perry was a step in the right direction. He designed a house at Wrabness a while back, a sort of extraordinary Mughal gingerbread house, intended to be let out (at great expense) so that people could holiday surrounded by a work of contemporary art, though you can see the outside from the public footpath. The current exhibition is about the ideas behind the house, which is envisaged as a shrine to an upwardly mobile Essex Everywoman. There are four big tapestries and five woodcuts (all displayed on the limited vertical hanging space), some preparatory sketches, photographs of the house, a stylised ceramic model of it, and a green ceramic Sheela Na Gig tile like those that decorate it, plus an essay about the imaginary Everywoman's life narrated by the artist and playing on a continuous loop. It is really good, if you like Grayson Perry. It is not very big, though. Janet Street-Porter came specially from London to see it, and tweeted about the fact that Firstsite was not signposted from the town centre, and I wonder if she felt the effort had been worthwhile.
Entry is free. We managed to arrive and leave without interacting with any member of staff, and Firstsite still don't have my details so that they could tell me about future exhibitions. The loos are very clean, and there is a cafe (or rather some tables and chairs and a counter) in the end of the endless foyer nearest the door, though we didn't stay. My friend looked at a mug in the shop as we left, but it was £25.
Wednesday, 27 December 2017
what to do on the day after boxing day
I was out gardening on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, which is pretty good going, but today as the rain gave way to horizontal sleet it was clear that I would not be spending the day out of doors. I considered whether to start getting to grips with the new woodland charity presentation and the garden club accounts, but decided that the gap between Christmas and the New Year was still officially holiday.
One of the pleasures of the post Christmas period is having left over Christmas pudding for breakfast, fried gently in butter and served with left over cream. I was able to indulge yesterday and this morning, and then the Systems Administrator asked whether there was any left, and I was obliged to yield up the last slice. I couldn't really complain since I'd had more than half of it. Instead I made some mince pies, smarting slightly that the BBC's Victorian Bakers at Christmas had dismissed shortcrust pastry as the poor people's inferior version. I am rather proud of my shortcrust. Given I had all day ahead of me I could have chosen to embark on making rough puff, or flaky, but I wasn't feeling that energetic.
The Systems Administrator's cold was better than it was yesterday. Anybody who want to eat Christmas pudding for breakfast can't be at death's door. Nonetheless it was very bubbly and unpleasant.
The cats were bored. They would have liked to go out. Sometimes, between showers, they did go out, before coming in again as the next wave of sleet arrived. Then they prowled about restlessly before grudgingly settling down in their baskets. Last night, after the Systems Administrator had gone to bed early with the cold, Our Ginger sat for a long time in front of the cupboard containing the overflow fridge in which there was the remains of the roast chicken, and next to him sat his apprentice in crime, Mr Fluffy. This afternoon I picked over the chicken carcass for them. Somehow we didn't fancy it, knowing the cats had been at it. There was still quite a lot of meat on it and I felt rather cross, even though we have lots of gammon left to eat up and are behindhand with eating the leftovers anyway, what with the SA being ill. I'll have to look on it as the cats' revenge for not getting £22 each of Christmas presents like the average pet.
A ritual of Christmas is escaping from the confines of the study for a few days. It is nice to sit by the open fire in the sitting room, with the Christmas tree and the cards and the greenery decorating the mantelpiece. After two months of spending evenings hunkered down in the study and the prospect of another three months of winter to go, we appreciate the brief change of scenery. This afternoon, as the thermometer outside plummeted, so did the the temperature inside as the sitting room's barn-like void swallowed all the heat that both radiators and the log fire could throw at it. We gave up and retreated back to the study.
One of the pleasures of the post Christmas period is having left over Christmas pudding for breakfast, fried gently in butter and served with left over cream. I was able to indulge yesterday and this morning, and then the Systems Administrator asked whether there was any left, and I was obliged to yield up the last slice. I couldn't really complain since I'd had more than half of it. Instead I made some mince pies, smarting slightly that the BBC's Victorian Bakers at Christmas had dismissed shortcrust pastry as the poor people's inferior version. I am rather proud of my shortcrust. Given I had all day ahead of me I could have chosen to embark on making rough puff, or flaky, but I wasn't feeling that energetic.
The Systems Administrator's cold was better than it was yesterday. Anybody who want to eat Christmas pudding for breakfast can't be at death's door. Nonetheless it was very bubbly and unpleasant.
The cats were bored. They would have liked to go out. Sometimes, between showers, they did go out, before coming in again as the next wave of sleet arrived. Then they prowled about restlessly before grudgingly settling down in their baskets. Last night, after the Systems Administrator had gone to bed early with the cold, Our Ginger sat for a long time in front of the cupboard containing the overflow fridge in which there was the remains of the roast chicken, and next to him sat his apprentice in crime, Mr Fluffy. This afternoon I picked over the chicken carcass for them. Somehow we didn't fancy it, knowing the cats had been at it. There was still quite a lot of meat on it and I felt rather cross, even though we have lots of gammon left to eat up and are behindhand with eating the leftovers anyway, what with the SA being ill. I'll have to look on it as the cats' revenge for not getting £22 each of Christmas presents like the average pet.
A ritual of Christmas is escaping from the confines of the study for a few days. It is nice to sit by the open fire in the sitting room, with the Christmas tree and the cards and the greenery decorating the mantelpiece. After two months of spending evenings hunkered down in the study and the prospect of another three months of winter to go, we appreciate the brief change of scenery. This afternoon, as the thermometer outside plummeted, so did the the temperature inside as the sitting room's barn-like void swallowed all the heat that both radiators and the log fire could throw at it. We gave up and retreated back to the study.
Tuesday, 26 December 2017
the fridge thief
Like many households we have hung on to the old fridge from before our fitted kitchen, fridge-freezer days. Sometimes I wonder how much it costs us to run, and worry about the environmental extravagance of having two fridges. But the fact that we waste very little food and have not so far given ourselves food poisoning is not unconnected with the quantity of fridge space. And it is useful for chilling drinks and having somewhere to store salad and puddings when we have guests. Many people keep their overflow fridge in their garage. Ours lives in a useful, fridge sized space in a cupboard in the downstairs sitting room, complete with electrical socket, dating from when the house was first built and that room was in fact the kitchen.
This morning as I came downstairs I saw the door to the cupboard was open. That was not unusual, neither of us being tidy people, but what was unusual was that the fridge door was open as well. I went to shut it, hoping that the leftover Christmas ham had not got too warm, and wondering how on earth the fridge had come to be open. Presumably the roasting trays balanced on top of the bag of King Edwards had slid forward and stopped it from latching fully.
When I looked in the fridge I saw that the tinfoil had gone from over the breast of the small free range Duchy Organic chicken. Ah. Cats. Your reaction to discovering that your cats have been eating the remains of your Christmas roast is a test of your devotion as a pet owner. If your immediate thought is that they have only had the breast and not the legs and so have almost certainly not swallowed any sharp bones that could hurt them that marks you down as a hopelessly devoted owner. I am quite hopelessly devoted, though I was also relieved that on the balance of probabilities I was not going to spend the rest of the Christmas holiday trying to track down an emergency vet.
I shoved the tray of chicken back in the fridge and shut the door, thinking I would sort it out later and telling myself that ham was a preserved meat and the downstairs sitting room must have been pretty cold anyway overnight so it would be fine. I did feel a pang that there would be no cold chicken breast with cranberry jelly, and wondered if it would be worth salvaging the meat off the legs for a pie, or if neither of us would really fancy it knowing that the cats had been at it.
Much later in the day the Systems Administrator noticed Mr Fluffy sitting near the fridge, looking guilty. The SA went to investigate whatever it was that Mr Fluffy was guilty about, and found Our Ginger with his paw hooked around the edge of the fridge door, yanking at it. Intent on his mission, Our Ginger did not pay a great deal of attention to the SA, and presently managed to jerk the door of the fridge open. So much for theories about sliding roasting tins. The cat can open the fridge, if he thinks it's worth his while.
The cupboard door is now firmly shut.
This morning as I came downstairs I saw the door to the cupboard was open. That was not unusual, neither of us being tidy people, but what was unusual was that the fridge door was open as well. I went to shut it, hoping that the leftover Christmas ham had not got too warm, and wondering how on earth the fridge had come to be open. Presumably the roasting trays balanced on top of the bag of King Edwards had slid forward and stopped it from latching fully.
When I looked in the fridge I saw that the tinfoil had gone from over the breast of the small free range Duchy Organic chicken. Ah. Cats. Your reaction to discovering that your cats have been eating the remains of your Christmas roast is a test of your devotion as a pet owner. If your immediate thought is that they have only had the breast and not the legs and so have almost certainly not swallowed any sharp bones that could hurt them that marks you down as a hopelessly devoted owner. I am quite hopelessly devoted, though I was also relieved that on the balance of probabilities I was not going to spend the rest of the Christmas holiday trying to track down an emergency vet.
I shoved the tray of chicken back in the fridge and shut the door, thinking I would sort it out later and telling myself that ham was a preserved meat and the downstairs sitting room must have been pretty cold anyway overnight so it would be fine. I did feel a pang that there would be no cold chicken breast with cranberry jelly, and wondered if it would be worth salvaging the meat off the legs for a pie, or if neither of us would really fancy it knowing that the cats had been at it.
Much later in the day the Systems Administrator noticed Mr Fluffy sitting near the fridge, looking guilty. The SA went to investigate whatever it was that Mr Fluffy was guilty about, and found Our Ginger with his paw hooked around the edge of the fridge door, yanking at it. Intent on his mission, Our Ginger did not pay a great deal of attention to the SA, and presently managed to jerk the door of the fridge open. So much for theories about sliding roasting tins. The cat can open the fridge, if he thinks it's worth his while.
The cupboard door is now firmly shut.
Monday, 25 December 2017
happy christmas
Happy Christmas, one and all. We have made it. The Systems Administrator, although still nursing a cold and a sore throat, rallied sufficiently to cook and eat lunch, a small free range Duchy organic chicken (that was the only free range chicken Waitrose had last Thursday that was good until December 25th, most of the space that would normally contain free range chicken being given over to turkeys) and all the trimmings, and last year's Christmas pudding. Gifts have been exchanged. Christmas music has been listened to. None of the kitties have gone missing or broken anything. Mr Fluffy had a go at tobogganing on the tablecloth and rampaging among the cards, but that was before I'd laid the table, and Mr Fidget sat quietly on a chair all through lunch without trying to jump up. By dusk I was starting to feel a little plaintive that I hadn't seen Mr Cool since breakfast time, but when I went down to shut the conservatory door there he was, dozing quietly out of the wind. Our Ginger has been omnipresent, with the air of a cat that knows a party is going on that he hasn't been invited to fully join in with. My mother emailed. My Japanese gardening friend emailed and my card to her arrived in time.
It is a relief. The ritual has been accomplished, and there is enough cold food to last for days without our having to do much cooking. One of us will have to venture out tomorrow because the SA is running out of cold remedies and I have been eking out the cat biscuits since Friday. I feel rather bad at having bought such monstrous quantities of food for us and forgotten to get more biscuits for the cats. We have a good stock of tins but they don't want tinned food, they want biscuits.
The chickens spoofed me into fetching them an extra helping of sultanas because it was Christmas day and they looked so hopeful when I went past to bring in more firewood. I gave the Systems Administrator a pair of Danish felt house shoes, AKA slippers, in an entirely non-ironic way because I have found mine so warm and light and comfortable. The SA admits they are all of those things.
It doesn't sound very much like the Perfect Christmas that the papers have been banging on about since around mid November, but compared to last year it was a triumph.
It is a relief. The ritual has been accomplished, and there is enough cold food to last for days without our having to do much cooking. One of us will have to venture out tomorrow because the SA is running out of cold remedies and I have been eking out the cat biscuits since Friday. I feel rather bad at having bought such monstrous quantities of food for us and forgotten to get more biscuits for the cats. We have a good stock of tins but they don't want tinned food, they want biscuits.
The chickens spoofed me into fetching them an extra helping of sultanas because it was Christmas day and they looked so hopeful when I went past to bring in more firewood. I gave the Systems Administrator a pair of Danish felt house shoes, AKA slippers, in an entirely non-ironic way because I have found mine so warm and light and comfortable. The SA admits they are all of those things.
It doesn't sound very much like the Perfect Christmas that the papers have been banging on about since around mid November, but compared to last year it was a triumph.
Sunday, 24 December 2017
the day before christmas
The omens for Christmas did not look too good first thing this morning, as the Systems Administrator's lingering, will-it won't-it cold had got worse in the night. He rallied a bit by mid morning, and managed to take a shower, eat some lunch, and collect the holly and ivy for the mantelpiece, but I remain agnostic about whether we will be sitting down to roast chicken and all the trimmings at lunchtime tomorrow, or if I will be going through the contents of the fridge to see what needs to go in the freezer. My own cold feels as though it had not gone but merely stepped into the next room.
Meanwhile the mantelpiece looks suitably wild and pagan for the spirits to live in, and very pretty, though the birds had eaten almost all the berries off the holly. They always do, but I think that after the cold spell at the start of the month there are even fewer left than usual. We use rose hips instead, though they had eaten quite a lot of those as well.
The cats have been very good about the Christmas tree. In fact, they have mostly ignored it, apart from Mr Fluffy who has been sitting under it. We only used plastic baubles, so that they would bounce instead of breaking if dragged off the tree, and if they did break they would not be expensive or impossible to replace, and the bits would not be as dangerous as glass, and there are no lights because we were afraid the cats would chew them, but they have behaved in an exemplary fashion with only the briefest and most desultory batting at the baubles. You can never tell with animals.
I spend a useful day weeding and mulching in the back garden. Things are indeed gently moving on: the first hyacinth snouts are already poking through. I was more than usually aware that I really must not poke myself in the eye, since having to seek treatment at the walk in centre on Christmas Eve seemed like a very bad idea. Cornus is the worst with its fine, pointed side stems coming off the main branch almost at right angles, and I did catch one piece of dogwood tapping on the side piece of my safety glasses.
By half past three it was too dark to see properly to weed, or to avoid sneaky sideways twigs, and I finished listening to the nine lessons and carols in the kitchen with Mr Fidget. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.
Meanwhile the mantelpiece looks suitably wild and pagan for the spirits to live in, and very pretty, though the birds had eaten almost all the berries off the holly. They always do, but I think that after the cold spell at the start of the month there are even fewer left than usual. We use rose hips instead, though they had eaten quite a lot of those as well.
The cats have been very good about the Christmas tree. In fact, they have mostly ignored it, apart from Mr Fluffy who has been sitting under it. We only used plastic baubles, so that they would bounce instead of breaking if dragged off the tree, and if they did break they would not be expensive or impossible to replace, and the bits would not be as dangerous as glass, and there are no lights because we were afraid the cats would chew them, but they have behaved in an exemplary fashion with only the briefest and most desultory batting at the baubles. You can never tell with animals.
I spend a useful day weeding and mulching in the back garden. Things are indeed gently moving on: the first hyacinth snouts are already poking through. I was more than usually aware that I really must not poke myself in the eye, since having to seek treatment at the walk in centre on Christmas Eve seemed like a very bad idea. Cornus is the worst with its fine, pointed side stems coming off the main branch almost at right angles, and I did catch one piece of dogwood tapping on the side piece of my safety glasses.
By half past three it was too dark to see properly to weed, or to avoid sneaky sideways twigs, and I finished listening to the nine lessons and carols in the kitchen with Mr Fidget. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.
Saturday, 23 December 2017
back outside
Finally, after the extensive preamble about the tulip bulbs salvaged from last spring's pots, I went out to plant them into the dahlia bed and found they were dead. Half had been hollowed out by some sort of insect, turning to grey powdery dust inside their tunics when I touched them, and the other half had rotted in their bags. This is why it is safer to start with fresh bulbs from a bulb merchant if you know you definitely want tulips. I daresay they use temperature controlled stores and insecticidal treatments and all sorts of precautions to ensure that they still have a live crop come autumn. It was a disappointment, though not the first one. Two or three years ago I found mice had got into the garage and eaten them.
After the debacle of the tulips I cleaned the hens' roosting board, which I had been put off doing while it was drizzling and cold outside and until I did not have a streaming nose and a headache. I gave them another straw bale for their run as well, so that they could amuse themselves by picking it apart and searching for insects. In fact, they still hadn't made a very complete job of spreading it out by the end of the afternoon, and I might scatter it around the run before letting them out tomorrow. A layer of straw on the ground helps keep their feet clean, which is nicer for them and stops them leaving muddy footprints on the eggs.
Then I was able to return to the task of tidying the sloping bed in the back garden, weeding, feeding, cutting down the old herbaceous growth, and topping up the Strulch. It was very good to get back outside, and I advanced a gratifyingly long way down the slope. The rate of progress was slightly illusory as I'd already weeded that stretch before the weather turned horrible, only the foliage was too damp then to sprinkle the blood, fish and bone without it sticking to everything. Fairly soon I will get to the stretch where evil tentacles of brambles reach out from the back of the bed, where their roots are tucked away under the canopies of various large shrubs so that it will be very difficult to get a proper swing at them with the pick axe.
The buds on the Prunus mume 'Beni-chidori' are already swelling, and in the front garden the winter flowering cherry has produced a flush of its little pale pink blossoms. The other day I saw the snout of an emerging snowdrop already above ground level. Things keep moving gently on.
After the debacle of the tulips I cleaned the hens' roosting board, which I had been put off doing while it was drizzling and cold outside and until I did not have a streaming nose and a headache. I gave them another straw bale for their run as well, so that they could amuse themselves by picking it apart and searching for insects. In fact, they still hadn't made a very complete job of spreading it out by the end of the afternoon, and I might scatter it around the run before letting them out tomorrow. A layer of straw on the ground helps keep their feet clean, which is nicer for them and stops them leaving muddy footprints on the eggs.
Then I was able to return to the task of tidying the sloping bed in the back garden, weeding, feeding, cutting down the old herbaceous growth, and topping up the Strulch. It was very good to get back outside, and I advanced a gratifyingly long way down the slope. The rate of progress was slightly illusory as I'd already weeded that stretch before the weather turned horrible, only the foliage was too damp then to sprinkle the blood, fish and bone without it sticking to everything. Fairly soon I will get to the stretch where evil tentacles of brambles reach out from the back of the bed, where their roots are tucked away under the canopies of various large shrubs so that it will be very difficult to get a proper swing at them with the pick axe.
The buds on the Prunus mume 'Beni-chidori' are already swelling, and in the front garden the winter flowering cherry has produced a flush of its little pale pink blossoms. The other day I saw the snout of an emerging snowdrop already above ground level. Things keep moving gently on.
Friday, 22 December 2017
a winter posy
We had guests to tea, and so I wandered around the garden this morning looking for things to go in a small vase to make the low table in front of the sofas look suitably festive. The garden looked very brown, very drippy, and not terribly festive at all, but I was sure there had to be something.
Holly leaves are the obvious starting point, and I nipped the tips off some side branches of the variegated Ilex aquifolium 'Argentea Marginata'. This is not an especially rare variety, and if you have ever bought a ready trained variegated standard holly from a garden centre that was quite possibly the one. The pale variegation runs around the leaf edges, and in young growth is often attractively tinged pink. I very rarely, if ever, have to trim pieces out that have reverted to plain green, which can be a problem with variegated shrubs. In general they are less likely to revert if they have a pale band around the margin rather than a white splash in the centre. I don't understand why that is, biologically speaking, and have just taken a few minutes to dig around on the web before coming up with an article by Anna Pavord, whom I trust implicitly, confirming I'd got it the right way round and wasn't just lucky with this specimen.
Ilex aquifolium 'Argentea Marginata' is a female variety, so theoretically bears berries as long as there's a pollinating male somewhere nearby, but there were none on ours. I think the birds have already eaten them, so made do with some hips off the rose 'Fritz Nobis'. This is a largish shrub rose, blooming only once in summer but with a generous display of double pink flowers, followed by nice, round, fairly large, orange-red hips, and good healthy foliage. The excellent Trevor White will sell you one if you are so inclined. I planted mine by accident, having ordered (not from Trevor White) the altogether smaller and daintier Rosa 'Fimbriata'. Both varieties begin with F and I guess somebody got in a muddle. I planted 'Fritz Nobis' anyway, as it was there, and have grown very fond of it. It is beginning to sprawl rather, and perhaps I should be brave and prune it hard, and then feed it a lot.
The arrow shaped leaves of Arum italicum 'Marmoratum' are good in arrangements. You sometimes see them in the little vases of flowers in the Chatto gardens cafe at this time of year. The leaves are darkish green with an elaborate pattern of pale green stripes inside a plain dark margin, and ruffled edges. They grow from tubers, which multiply underground to build up into nice patches unless something digs them up and eats them, but that hasn't happened this winter (yet). I believe they are rich in starch. For some plain green leaves I nipped the ends out of a few shoots of a Pittosporum which I am pretty sure is 'Wrinkled Blue'. I wish I was entirely sure, since it appears to be relatively hardy and it would be useful to know which variety it was. Pittosporum hail originally from New Zealand, and I used to grow more than I do now before the two successive unusually cold winters we had on the trot a few years back. It is a nuisance when plants that were supposed to be evergreen structural features die on you, or become massively scruffy taking several years to recover fully, and it put me off rather.
The weather had turned the promising pink flowers of Viburnum x bodnantense 'Charles Lamont' to an off-pink shade of fawn, when I went and looked at them closely. There will be more coming on before the end of winter, but in the meantime I cut a few heads from the winter iris, Iris unguicularis, searching carefully for ones that hadn't been nibbled by snails. They grow in a dry, rubbly bed against the south end of the house, where they are in sun for much of the day, and they like it there, except that their dense foliage against the brickwork does make a paradise for snails. I ought to do something about them, either hide some slug pellets down among the leaves, or else go out by torchlight and pick the snails off. I have seen thrushes in the back garden, which is a good reason not to use pellets, but since I don't like snail hunting I have been putting up with the damage.
Thursday, 21 December 2017
the shortest day
Today is the winter solstice. I don't know if latter day druids and followers of wicca still gather at Stonehenge, now visitors have to go in via the new English Heritage visitor centre and it costs an arm and a leg, and the stones are a ten minute shuttle bus ride away though visitors aren't allowed right up to them anyway, but if they did go they must have got terribly damp. I went to Waitrose.
I think I got everything we need to put on Christmas lunch, and tea for my relations tomorrow afternoon, and to keep ourselves fed until next week. If possible I would prefer not to go near a supermarket until then, although I have just noticed that we're running rather low on cat biscuits so I might have to go to Budgens. Waitrose wasn't too bad first thing this morning, but as December 25th draws nearer it can only get worse. In fact, if I've forgotten anything I think we might just smile wanly and agree to do without it.
Christmas last year never happened because we both had flu, we had to cancel this year's annual holiday, we have both been nursing incipient colds all month that mock us by seeming to start getting better for a couple of days and then come back, and frankly if we both remain reasonably well between tomorrow and Boxing Day, and able to cook and eat a large meal containing most of the right constituents of a Christmas lunch, and the cats do not disappear or do anything that requires the attention of a vet, I will be entirely satisfied. Start with modest expectations and they are more likely to be exceeded. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve, a small tree with a limited selection of plastic ornaments that the cats can't break or electrocute themselves on, the usual collection of Christmas music, and a mince pie and some nuts and raisins, will be sufficient entertainment. I have not decided on my Christmas Outfit but I am fairly sure it will be something warm that won't be spoiled if a cat decides to sit on my lap, in other words whatever I would have been wearing on any other Sunday spent at home when I am not out in the garden.
Meanwhile, the amaryllis is opening just in time for Christmas, which was very clever of whoever prepared the bulb. I read that left to their own devices they would bloom in April or May. The flower is a wonderful shade of pink, the kind of intense pink I associate with lacecap hydrangeas. You see it in interiors painted by Bonnard and Matisse, suffusing a wall or a tablecloth, then it crops up in the work of Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury set, and other early twentieth century movements. The petals are thick, fleshy and luxurious, with a green tinge on their backs and a slightly rough, warty texture. I wish I could have a big scarf made out of wild silk in just that shade of pink, lightly shaded with green. As it is I am enjoying looking at the amaryllis when doing the washing up.
I think I got everything we need to put on Christmas lunch, and tea for my relations tomorrow afternoon, and to keep ourselves fed until next week. If possible I would prefer not to go near a supermarket until then, although I have just noticed that we're running rather low on cat biscuits so I might have to go to Budgens. Waitrose wasn't too bad first thing this morning, but as December 25th draws nearer it can only get worse. In fact, if I've forgotten anything I think we might just smile wanly and agree to do without it.
Christmas last year never happened because we both had flu, we had to cancel this year's annual holiday, we have both been nursing incipient colds all month that mock us by seeming to start getting better for a couple of days and then come back, and frankly if we both remain reasonably well between tomorrow and Boxing Day, and able to cook and eat a large meal containing most of the right constituents of a Christmas lunch, and the cats do not disappear or do anything that requires the attention of a vet, I will be entirely satisfied. Start with modest expectations and they are more likely to be exceeded. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve, a small tree with a limited selection of plastic ornaments that the cats can't break or electrocute themselves on, the usual collection of Christmas music, and a mince pie and some nuts and raisins, will be sufficient entertainment. I have not decided on my Christmas Outfit but I am fairly sure it will be something warm that won't be spoiled if a cat decides to sit on my lap, in other words whatever I would have been wearing on any other Sunday spent at home when I am not out in the garden.
Meanwhile, the amaryllis is opening just in time for Christmas, which was very clever of whoever prepared the bulb. I read that left to their own devices they would bloom in April or May. The flower is a wonderful shade of pink, the kind of intense pink I associate with lacecap hydrangeas. You see it in interiors painted by Bonnard and Matisse, suffusing a wall or a tablecloth, then it crops up in the work of Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury set, and other early twentieth century movements. The petals are thick, fleshy and luxurious, with a green tinge on their backs and a slightly rough, warty texture. I wish I could have a big scarf made out of wild silk in just that shade of pink, lightly shaded with green. As it is I am enjoying looking at the amaryllis when doing the washing up.
Wednesday, 20 December 2017
christmas preparations
I had to go into Colchester this morning because I was due for a haircut. My hairdresser was beginning to flag from the weight of Christmas preparations on top of work and had a cold. As she washed my hair it became apparent that the boiler, which had only just been serviced, was not entirely working. It didn't stop her making a very good job of my haircut, but I felt for her as I ambled off into the drizzle, leaving her to sort out the hot water system and keep working flat out until Saturday afternoon. It is not even as though I was having my hair done specially for Christmas, it was simply eight weeks since the last appointment.
The only other customer was a grey haired woman about two decades my senior, who was clearly a regular. As we sat side by side to be washed she asked if the curl was natural, and as I left she told me that my hair was very pretty. It is certainly very 1980s. My hairdresser talked about keeping the cut light around the sides because I only had a small face, but reassured me that no, she would not give me a mullet. Pampering is a hobby that has passed me by: facials, manicures, pedicures, eyebrow threading (what on earth is eyebrow threading?), bikini waxes, any kind of waxes, sunbeds (very bad for the skin), wrapping yourself in seaweed, wrapping yourself in mud, all of these seem a sublime waste of time and money. I do enjoy having my hair cut, though.
I went home via the vet to stock up on flea and worm capsules. Poor cats, they are not getting gift selection boxes containing two handmade white and pink sugar mice, a gingerbread toy, and organic catnip, a snip at £45. For that you can buy a box with six doses of Broadline flea and worm treatment, thank you very much. I am sure they will be perfectly happy playing with the wrapping paper from our presents, even though it is just from an ordinary roll from Waitrose and not special pet friendly paper made from soy based ink.
I called in at Tesco as well in search of stuffing. There was a slight atmosphere of contained panic, despite there still being three days to go before Christmas Eve and the fact that Tesco will be open again on Boxing Day. Anxious people with lists milled about, and I joined them, circling the chilled aisles several times before finally managing to track down pork and chestnut stuffing. The Paxo was easy. Tesco, bless them, had put it somewhere obvious. I am glad pork and chestnut stuffing is still a thing and I do not have to buy a pouch of vacuum packed chestnuts and start learning to make my own.
My cunning plan to wrap presents this afternoon while the Systems Administrator was out came to a premature close because I ran out of sellotape. I thought we had some, but maybe we used it up. Or perhaps the Systems Administrator has put it somewhere, since the last thing to be gift wrapped was probably my birthday presents, but it did not seem a good time of the year to start poking about in the SA's railway room. I think I had better buy some gift tags as well, since my mother and the SA have radically different tastes in reading matter and it wouldn't do to mix the parcels up.
The drizzle did not lift, and my sinuses screamed in protest each time I took them outside. I looked regretfully at the latest drift of oak leaves on the lawn, and the dripping mess of the herb bed, and decided that they were going to have to stay like that for another day. Probably several, looking at the weather forecast. According to The Times, December is the foggiest month of the year.
The only other customer was a grey haired woman about two decades my senior, who was clearly a regular. As we sat side by side to be washed she asked if the curl was natural, and as I left she told me that my hair was very pretty. It is certainly very 1980s. My hairdresser talked about keeping the cut light around the sides because I only had a small face, but reassured me that no, she would not give me a mullet. Pampering is a hobby that has passed me by: facials, manicures, pedicures, eyebrow threading (what on earth is eyebrow threading?), bikini waxes, any kind of waxes, sunbeds (very bad for the skin), wrapping yourself in seaweed, wrapping yourself in mud, all of these seem a sublime waste of time and money. I do enjoy having my hair cut, though.
I went home via the vet to stock up on flea and worm capsules. Poor cats, they are not getting gift selection boxes containing two handmade white and pink sugar mice, a gingerbread toy, and organic catnip, a snip at £45. For that you can buy a box with six doses of Broadline flea and worm treatment, thank you very much. I am sure they will be perfectly happy playing with the wrapping paper from our presents, even though it is just from an ordinary roll from Waitrose and not special pet friendly paper made from soy based ink.
I called in at Tesco as well in search of stuffing. There was a slight atmosphere of contained panic, despite there still being three days to go before Christmas Eve and the fact that Tesco will be open again on Boxing Day. Anxious people with lists milled about, and I joined them, circling the chilled aisles several times before finally managing to track down pork and chestnut stuffing. The Paxo was easy. Tesco, bless them, had put it somewhere obvious. I am glad pork and chestnut stuffing is still a thing and I do not have to buy a pouch of vacuum packed chestnuts and start learning to make my own.
My cunning plan to wrap presents this afternoon while the Systems Administrator was out came to a premature close because I ran out of sellotape. I thought we had some, but maybe we used it up. Or perhaps the Systems Administrator has put it somewhere, since the last thing to be gift wrapped was probably my birthday presents, but it did not seem a good time of the year to start poking about in the SA's railway room. I think I had better buy some gift tags as well, since my mother and the SA have radically different tastes in reading matter and it wouldn't do to mix the parcels up.
The drizzle did not lift, and my sinuses screamed in protest each time I took them outside. I looked regretfully at the latest drift of oak leaves on the lawn, and the dripping mess of the herb bed, and decided that they were going to have to stay like that for another day. Probably several, looking at the weather forecast. According to The Times, December is the foggiest month of the year.
Tuesday, 19 December 2017
a winter's day
Didn't they have another baby? I asked the Systems Administrator last week, as I was working my way through the address book to write the Christmas cards. Brow furrowed, the SA admitted that he thought they probably did, but neither of us could remember what it was called. I deputed the SA to find out the details, since they were his relations, and put their card down as o/s on my spreadsheet. Fortunately they are organised people and a card from them arrived in yesterday's post, signed on behalf of all of them including the mystery baby. Otherwise unless the SA had come up with the info they wouldn't have got one from us, since you can't send a card to Ali, Claire, Georgia, and the other one (you did have another, didn't you?).
I walked up to the post box with it, congratulating myself that when I was in one of the last two remaining post offices within a five mile radius I had bought some first class stamps, so our card should still arrive decently before Christmas. And then I was able to delete Christmas cards from the list of Things to Do.
The walk to the post box was enough to convince me that it was too cold to be outside. The cats came to the same conclusion, and by lunchtime all four were curled up in the study, Our Ginger on the stool in front of the electric fire, and the three kitties in a row in their baskets on top of the cupboard. Even the sight of the birds on the bird table wasn't enough to get them back outdoors. I did see Mr Fidget on the gravel earlier eating a mouse, which he promptly sicked up in the hall, so perhaps he had had enough of the outdoors for one day.
We are going to have to do something to stop the fake fur Cat Snoozers sliding off the cupboard. Mr Fluffy has just jumped up, only for the bed and Mr Fluffy with it to toboggan straight off the other side. I am relying on the SA to come up with a technical solution. I did the Christmas cards, after all. The list of Things to Do did not end up any shorter, though, because reading though my pile of gardening magazines reminded me that I needed to add Prune the grape vines.
I walked up to the post box with it, congratulating myself that when I was in one of the last two remaining post offices within a five mile radius I had bought some first class stamps, so our card should still arrive decently before Christmas. And then I was able to delete Christmas cards from the list of Things to Do.
The walk to the post box was enough to convince me that it was too cold to be outside. The cats came to the same conclusion, and by lunchtime all four were curled up in the study, Our Ginger on the stool in front of the electric fire, and the three kitties in a row in their baskets on top of the cupboard. Even the sight of the birds on the bird table wasn't enough to get them back outdoors. I did see Mr Fidget on the gravel earlier eating a mouse, which he promptly sicked up in the hall, so perhaps he had had enough of the outdoors for one day.
We are going to have to do something to stop the fake fur Cat Snoozers sliding off the cupboard. Mr Fluffy has just jumped up, only for the bed and Mr Fluffy with it to toboggan straight off the other side. I am relying on the SA to come up with a technical solution. I did the Christmas cards, after all. The list of Things to Do did not end up any shorter, though, because reading though my pile of gardening magazines reminded me that I needed to add Prune the grape vines.
Monday, 18 December 2017
back in the garden
Finally it thawed out, a bit. I was all set to plant the tulip bulbs from last year's pots in the dahlia bed, but by mid morning there was still frost lying on top of the Strulch, and I decided I'd better stick to weeding and deadheading. Soil is an extremely efficient insulator, so you really don't want to go burying cold or frozen lumps of it six inches down, where they will sit like little blocks of ice, chilling the roots of your plants. Tulips and dahlias, both left permanently in the ground, live together quite happily, the former having pretty much finished doing anything for the year by the time the latter have really got going. I suppose, following on from what Fergus Garrett said in his lecture, that you would not want to have a tulip with massive, broad leaves right next to any of the dahlia crowns in case it shaded out the new dahlia shoots, but I don't pack them into the bed that densely.
The combination started as a way of reusing the bulbs from the displays in pots, unless they had split into tiny offsets that wouldn't be capable of flowering for years, because it seemed a shame to throw them away and I couldn't think where else to put them. I didn't want to risk reusing them in the pots in case they didn't flower again. Like my amaryllis on the kitchen window sill, bedding tulips bought from a bulb merchant are virtually guaranteed to flower in year one, but the following seasons are more hit and miss. I didn't mind a miss or two in the open ground, but pots with only two or three flowers in a display that was mainly leaves would be a disappointment.
The only issue with replanting the bulbs afterwards, apart from making time to actually do it, is that your choice of colour scheme for the pots is then limited by what you've already got in the garden. The tulips in the dahlia bed are a medley of hot colours, deep reds, orange, purple and bright yellow. If I fancied soft pinks or cream in the pots for a change I'd have to think of something else to do with the bulbs. A couple of years ago I did opt for pink and soft yellow, and the bulbs that were fit to be reused ended up being planted around the hybrid tea roses. This time to make things easier for myself I have gone back to purple and red. We both like the hot colours anyway, and they go well with the lime green flowers of Euphorbia characias that are out at the same time.
Some people plant their spent tulip bulbs in grass that's allowed to grow long, taking the view that if they die out after a season or two it doesn't matter. Prince Charles used to have them at Highgrove, though he may have bought them specially for the purpose, before deciding that it was not a green or sustainable form of gardening and switching to Camassia. I toyed with the idea, but couldn't think of a piece of grass where they would look right, and doubted I would get much of a display even in year one. Asking a tulip to cope with competition from grass as well as our dreadful soil seemed too much.
The tall bedding varieties are not reliably perennial in the ground anyway. A few stalwarts last for years, of which the most determined has to be the pillar box red 'Apeldoorn'. I even have an odd tulip that looks just like 'Appeldoorn' that comes up reliably every year in the gravel, close under the house wall in a spot where I never planted it. I think it sowed itself there, otherwise if it is a legacy of the previous owners it has survived since 1993. 'Appeldoorn' is a Darwin hybrid, and they are reckoned to be among the best of the tall tulips for permanent plantings. The lily flowered orange 'Ballerina' is pretty good as well.
I am running ahead of myself, though, since I never got as far as planting any tulips today, and had to make do with deadheading lavender and pulling sheep sorrel out of the gravel.
The combination started as a way of reusing the bulbs from the displays in pots, unless they had split into tiny offsets that wouldn't be capable of flowering for years, because it seemed a shame to throw them away and I couldn't think where else to put them. I didn't want to risk reusing them in the pots in case they didn't flower again. Like my amaryllis on the kitchen window sill, bedding tulips bought from a bulb merchant are virtually guaranteed to flower in year one, but the following seasons are more hit and miss. I didn't mind a miss or two in the open ground, but pots with only two or three flowers in a display that was mainly leaves would be a disappointment.
The only issue with replanting the bulbs afterwards, apart from making time to actually do it, is that your choice of colour scheme for the pots is then limited by what you've already got in the garden. The tulips in the dahlia bed are a medley of hot colours, deep reds, orange, purple and bright yellow. If I fancied soft pinks or cream in the pots for a change I'd have to think of something else to do with the bulbs. A couple of years ago I did opt for pink and soft yellow, and the bulbs that were fit to be reused ended up being planted around the hybrid tea roses. This time to make things easier for myself I have gone back to purple and red. We both like the hot colours anyway, and they go well with the lime green flowers of Euphorbia characias that are out at the same time.
Some people plant their spent tulip bulbs in grass that's allowed to grow long, taking the view that if they die out after a season or two it doesn't matter. Prince Charles used to have them at Highgrove, though he may have bought them specially for the purpose, before deciding that it was not a green or sustainable form of gardening and switching to Camassia. I toyed with the idea, but couldn't think of a piece of grass where they would look right, and doubted I would get much of a display even in year one. Asking a tulip to cope with competition from grass as well as our dreadful soil seemed too much.
The tall bedding varieties are not reliably perennial in the ground anyway. A few stalwarts last for years, of which the most determined has to be the pillar box red 'Apeldoorn'. I even have an odd tulip that looks just like 'Appeldoorn' that comes up reliably every year in the gravel, close under the house wall in a spot where I never planted it. I think it sowed itself there, otherwise if it is a legacy of the previous owners it has survived since 1993. 'Appeldoorn' is a Darwin hybrid, and they are reckoned to be among the best of the tall tulips for permanent plantings. The lily flowered orange 'Ballerina' is pretty good as well.
I am running ahead of myself, though, since I never got as far as planting any tulips today, and had to make do with deadheading lavender and pulling sheep sorrel out of the gravel.
Sunday, 17 December 2017
the bleak midwinter
There was a proper, hard frost last night. A thick sheet of sculpted ice covered the Systems Administrator's Skoda even though it was parked in the shelter of the house, the gravel had lost its crunch and was welded into one solid mass, the lawns glittered whitely, and the frosted seed heads would have been a joy if it had not been too cold to want to hang around outside looking at them. I had to defrost the hens' galvanised drinker with hot water, and was mightily relieved on looking in the greenhouse to see that the electric fan heater had managed to prevent the geraniums from freezing.
The early morning sun was beautiful, a deep orange globe still not fully risen above the horizon. By mid morning it hung low in the sky, a pale orb to the east, while across the fields to the west freezing fog had settled in, the thermometer was still a couple of degrees below zero, and I was relieved that we did not have to drive anywhere. By lunchtime the freezing conditions had given way seamlessly to rain, and I turned the heaters off. Tonight it is not supposed to freeze, and I will risk leaving them off. The geraniums do not know what a precarious existence they lead at this time of the year, ignorant inhabitants of the Shires with the Nazgul ever prowling at the periphery.
I thought I could spend the afternoon usefully mugging up on my new woodland charity presentation. They notified me that it was ready on their website three days after my father died, and for obvious reasons I did not get round to looking at it at the time. The old presentation did perfectly well for my last booking of the season, and then had to be pressed into service again for the additional talk I did at a couple of days' notice, but I might as well be ready for next year. I managed to find the woodland charity's original email in my inbox, but the link to the new presentation was only valid for thirty days so I couldn't download it. Ah well, it was a good idea. I hope somebody will be there next week to send me a fresh link, since we are getting towards the stage of the year when everything grinds to a halt until 2 January 2018.
The early morning sun was beautiful, a deep orange globe still not fully risen above the horizon. By mid morning it hung low in the sky, a pale orb to the east, while across the fields to the west freezing fog had settled in, the thermometer was still a couple of degrees below zero, and I was relieved that we did not have to drive anywhere. By lunchtime the freezing conditions had given way seamlessly to rain, and I turned the heaters off. Tonight it is not supposed to freeze, and I will risk leaving them off. The geraniums do not know what a precarious existence they lead at this time of the year, ignorant inhabitants of the Shires with the Nazgul ever prowling at the periphery.
I thought I could spend the afternoon usefully mugging up on my new woodland charity presentation. They notified me that it was ready on their website three days after my father died, and for obvious reasons I did not get round to looking at it at the time. The old presentation did perfectly well for my last booking of the season, and then had to be pressed into service again for the additional talk I did at a couple of days' notice, but I might as well be ready for next year. I managed to find the woodland charity's original email in my inbox, but the link to the new presentation was only valid for thirty days so I couldn't download it. Ah well, it was a good idea. I hope somebody will be there next week to send me a fresh link, since we are getting towards the stage of the year when everything grinds to a halt until 2 January 2018.
Saturday, 16 December 2017
in the supermarket
I went to Waitrose to get more Christmas cards, since it was that or central Colchester. The emergency cards I ended up buying at Tesco a few years ago had such tacky artwork and naff wording that I still remember them with shame. Since I needed to go to a supermarket I thought I might as well combine it with a preliminary Christmas shop, for things like nuts and ginger beer that are not going to go off between now and Boxing Day.
Waitrose was not at all crowded when I arrived, though it was getting busier by the time I left. I spent a long time looking forlornly for Paxo stuffing, but couldn't find any. How can there be so many kinds of risotto rice but no packets of stuffing mixture? We eat Paxo stuffing once a year and once only, as part of Christmas lunch. It is traditional. I know it is awfully 1970s, but that's the point of traditions. I couldn't find any sausage meat and chestnut stuffing in the chiller cabinets either. Perhaps stuffing is just hopelessly out of fashion, like being called Mildred or standing up when the national anthem is played. Maybe people who shop in Waitrose don't eat stuffing, or make their own from sourdough breadcrumbs and fresh herbs. Or perhaps it was somewhere and I just couldn't find it. I shall try in Tesco the next time I am passing. There are 364 other days in the year to eat quinoa and red wild rice, and for Christmas lunch I want Paxo sage and onion.
I stared for a long time at the packets of biscuits to eat with cheese, wondering if there was any point in buying anything besides Carr's water biscuits. They are the perfect cheese biscuit. There is nothing, simply nothing so good with a soft French cheese as a plain water biscuit. Once, by mistake, the Systems Administrator picked up a packet that were flavoured with black pepper. Flavoured is too kind a description: they were adulterated. I wish manufacturers would not try to extend their range without making it obvious on the packaging whether you are buying the original article. I was joined by another, equally indecisive, customer, and we agreed that there was too much choice, and that some biscuits were too strongly flavoured when the cheese had a flavour of its own and the biscuits weren't supposed to compete, and perhaps it was safer to stick to what you knew but perhaps that was boring.
The queue for the till was not too long. Instead the hazard lay on the other side, where a Rotarian was hovering. He offered to help pack my bags, and I said that was kind but I would rather pack them myself. A Rotarian might have been better than a Scout, but I really do prefer to do my own packing. That way I can be sure that all the heavy things end up in bags together at the bottom of the trolley, unlike the time in Sainsbury when we succumbed to the pressure to let the staff help us pack to keep the queue moving, and found when we got home that the tiny demented woman wearing a Santa hat had pushed the edge of a tin through the foil lid of some yogurt, while a melamine tray that she had with much trouble succeeded in squeezing into a plastic bag had been left behind during the confusion. Also, I would rather chocolates destined to be given as presents didn't emerge with spots of condensation or worse on their packaging because they'd been shoved in next to the pork chops. The Rotarian seemed reluctant to be rebuffed, and hovered over me, standing inside what I still considered to be my personal space even in a fairly busy supermarket and watching as I packed.
As soon as anybody watches me do anything, especially if I am trying to do it a hurry, I become slower and clumsier. It got worse when I lifted the second bag to put it in the trolley and the bottom split, shooting ginger beer bottles and bags of nuts over the checkout. The Rotarian by now was standing next to me in the aisle, squawking faintly, and I told him again that I would really, really, really rather do my own packing. The woman on the till could see I was trying to keep the heavy things together, and pointedly handed me a four-pack of tinned tomatoes to go with the mincemeat and flour, and the Rotarian finally retreated. When I got home I saw in the Body and Mind section of my free Telegraph that for £149 I could buy a Wellbe wearable device, that would measure my blood pressure, track my location, and tell me what situations I had found stressful. Thank you kindly, Zach Sivan and Doron Libshtein of the meditation site Mentors Channel, but I think I already know that. The random conversation with a stranger about cheese biscuits was fine.
Addendum Mr Fluffy has spent the entire afternoon curled loosely in his new fleece Cat Snoozer, not looking as if he were voluntarily going anywhere. I went and bought a second one to go on the remaining space on top of the cupboard, so that they could have a bed each. Touching beds might not be a good idea, however. We put the old blanket in the gap last night, and with two cats side by side there was a certain amount of tail swishing followed by prodding, so it may be that cat beds need to be the feline equivalent of two swords' lengths apart, like the front benches in the House of Commons.
Waitrose was not at all crowded when I arrived, though it was getting busier by the time I left. I spent a long time looking forlornly for Paxo stuffing, but couldn't find any. How can there be so many kinds of risotto rice but no packets of stuffing mixture? We eat Paxo stuffing once a year and once only, as part of Christmas lunch. It is traditional. I know it is awfully 1970s, but that's the point of traditions. I couldn't find any sausage meat and chestnut stuffing in the chiller cabinets either. Perhaps stuffing is just hopelessly out of fashion, like being called Mildred or standing up when the national anthem is played. Maybe people who shop in Waitrose don't eat stuffing, or make their own from sourdough breadcrumbs and fresh herbs. Or perhaps it was somewhere and I just couldn't find it. I shall try in Tesco the next time I am passing. There are 364 other days in the year to eat quinoa and red wild rice, and for Christmas lunch I want Paxo sage and onion.
I stared for a long time at the packets of biscuits to eat with cheese, wondering if there was any point in buying anything besides Carr's water biscuits. They are the perfect cheese biscuit. There is nothing, simply nothing so good with a soft French cheese as a plain water biscuit. Once, by mistake, the Systems Administrator picked up a packet that were flavoured with black pepper. Flavoured is too kind a description: they were adulterated. I wish manufacturers would not try to extend their range without making it obvious on the packaging whether you are buying the original article. I was joined by another, equally indecisive, customer, and we agreed that there was too much choice, and that some biscuits were too strongly flavoured when the cheese had a flavour of its own and the biscuits weren't supposed to compete, and perhaps it was safer to stick to what you knew but perhaps that was boring.
The queue for the till was not too long. Instead the hazard lay on the other side, where a Rotarian was hovering. He offered to help pack my bags, and I said that was kind but I would rather pack them myself. A Rotarian might have been better than a Scout, but I really do prefer to do my own packing. That way I can be sure that all the heavy things end up in bags together at the bottom of the trolley, unlike the time in Sainsbury when we succumbed to the pressure to let the staff help us pack to keep the queue moving, and found when we got home that the tiny demented woman wearing a Santa hat had pushed the edge of a tin through the foil lid of some yogurt, while a melamine tray that she had with much trouble succeeded in squeezing into a plastic bag had been left behind during the confusion. Also, I would rather chocolates destined to be given as presents didn't emerge with spots of condensation or worse on their packaging because they'd been shoved in next to the pork chops. The Rotarian seemed reluctant to be rebuffed, and hovered over me, standing inside what I still considered to be my personal space even in a fairly busy supermarket and watching as I packed.
As soon as anybody watches me do anything, especially if I am trying to do it a hurry, I become slower and clumsier. It got worse when I lifted the second bag to put it in the trolley and the bottom split, shooting ginger beer bottles and bags of nuts over the checkout. The Rotarian by now was standing next to me in the aisle, squawking faintly, and I told him again that I would really, really, really rather do my own packing. The woman on the till could see I was trying to keep the heavy things together, and pointedly handed me a four-pack of tinned tomatoes to go with the mincemeat and flour, and the Rotarian finally retreated. When I got home I saw in the Body and Mind section of my free Telegraph that for £149 I could buy a Wellbe wearable device, that would measure my blood pressure, track my location, and tell me what situations I had found stressful. Thank you kindly, Zach Sivan and Doron Libshtein of the meditation site Mentors Channel, but I think I already know that. The random conversation with a stranger about cheese biscuits was fine.
Addendum Mr Fluffy has spent the entire afternoon curled loosely in his new fleece Cat Snoozer, not looking as if he were voluntarily going anywhere. I went and bought a second one to go on the remaining space on top of the cupboard, so that they could have a bed each. Touching beds might not be a good idea, however. We put the old blanket in the gap last night, and with two cats side by side there was a certain amount of tail swishing followed by prodding, so it may be that cat beds need to be the feline equivalent of two swords' lengths apart, like the front benches in the House of Commons.
Friday, 15 December 2017
indoor gardening
The green shoot on the amaryllis I won in the garden club raffle, that I thought was an emerging leaf, has turned out to be a flower bud. It is such a long time since I grew an amaryllis that I'd forgotten what order they did things in. Now I have one I suddenly see amaryllis everywhere, even in the Marks and Spencer food hall alongside the Christmas chocolates and Prosecco, and it's clear that flowers before leaves is the normal order of events.
The bud is one of a cluster, still held tightly together and pointing upwards so that I can't yet see how many flowers it contains. The flower stem is lengthening by the day after a slow start, and must be six inches tall by now, while at its base a second bud is emerging from the top of the bulb. Now I am starting to get my eye in I can see how from the first moment it appears it is subtly fatter than a leaf would be. At the very bottom of the new bud, just clear of the bulb itself, is what might finally be a leaf. Although a third flower stalk would be even more exciting.
None of this has anything to do with my efforts as a gardener, beyond the bare fact that I gave the bulb some water while managing not to let it rot. The embryonic blooms were packed away inside the bulb when I got it, all down to the efforts of some (probably Dutch) grower. The challenge for me will be to persuade the plant to ever do it again. I shall have to ask the bulb merchant who donated it to the raffle the next time I see him, would it prefer clivia food, nerine food, agapanthus food, or something else? And does it ever want to be dried out, or once in growth would it rather keep its roots all year round like a Crinum? He would probably rather I didn't ask so many questions and simply bought another one next year, but he is an amiable chap.
Meanwhile the day was so cold and raw that I couldn't face attempting to garden. The Systems Administrator went out briefly to move more of the fallen ash from the far end of the meadow, and clear my bits of overhanging hazel branches and dead rhododendron off the lawn, but I stayed by the Aga writing Christmas cards, only venturing out to go to the post office and in the hope that the Chatto gardens or Budgens might sell Christmas cards, since I was half a dozen short. They didn't, and the post office counter in the garage had a sign up saying the Post Office was closed until further notice. That's rural life nowadays, driving two miles to a post office that turns out not to exist any more.
Wherever Mr Fluffy disappeared to the other day I think it was definitely an error, and not a prelude to moving out, since he spent most of today lying on the new cat bed on top of the cupboard. It has an elliptical base of faux sheep skin, just the right size for a largish cat to fill it completely, and a rim like a squashed, furry life belt, low enough for the cat to look over it but tall enough to curl up against. We've put an old wicker cat bed at the other end of the cupboard, but on a cold day like today that still left one cat over, as Mr Fidget didn't get a bed and sat staring enviously at his brothers. I am going to have to buy another fake sheepskin, and the Systems Administrator has had to find a new place for the electrical chargers that used to live on the cupboard.
The bud is one of a cluster, still held tightly together and pointing upwards so that I can't yet see how many flowers it contains. The flower stem is lengthening by the day after a slow start, and must be six inches tall by now, while at its base a second bud is emerging from the top of the bulb. Now I am starting to get my eye in I can see how from the first moment it appears it is subtly fatter than a leaf would be. At the very bottom of the new bud, just clear of the bulb itself, is what might finally be a leaf. Although a third flower stalk would be even more exciting.
None of this has anything to do with my efforts as a gardener, beyond the bare fact that I gave the bulb some water while managing not to let it rot. The embryonic blooms were packed away inside the bulb when I got it, all down to the efforts of some (probably Dutch) grower. The challenge for me will be to persuade the plant to ever do it again. I shall have to ask the bulb merchant who donated it to the raffle the next time I see him, would it prefer clivia food, nerine food, agapanthus food, or something else? And does it ever want to be dried out, or once in growth would it rather keep its roots all year round like a Crinum? He would probably rather I didn't ask so many questions and simply bought another one next year, but he is an amiable chap.
Meanwhile the day was so cold and raw that I couldn't face attempting to garden. The Systems Administrator went out briefly to move more of the fallen ash from the far end of the meadow, and clear my bits of overhanging hazel branches and dead rhododendron off the lawn, but I stayed by the Aga writing Christmas cards, only venturing out to go to the post office and in the hope that the Chatto gardens or Budgens might sell Christmas cards, since I was half a dozen short. They didn't, and the post office counter in the garage had a sign up saying the Post Office was closed until further notice. That's rural life nowadays, driving two miles to a post office that turns out not to exist any more.
Wherever Mr Fluffy disappeared to the other day I think it was definitely an error, and not a prelude to moving out, since he spent most of today lying on the new cat bed on top of the cupboard. It has an elliptical base of faux sheep skin, just the right size for a largish cat to fill it completely, and a rim like a squashed, furry life belt, low enough for the cat to look over it but tall enough to curl up against. We've put an old wicker cat bed at the other end of the cupboard, but on a cold day like today that still left one cat over, as Mr Fidget didn't get a bed and sat staring enviously at his brothers. I am going to have to buy another fake sheepskin, and the Systems Administrator has had to find a new place for the electrical chargers that used to live on the cupboard.
Thursday, 14 December 2017
christmas is coming
This morning was the Art Society's monthly lecture, which was of course Christmas themed. I imagine that as the years roll by it might get difficult to find a fresh topic each December. Today we got the Three Kings, who are not actually described as Kings in the bible, but as magi, and while they are described as bringing three kinds of gift there is no record that there were three of them. Never mind. Their bones are now interred in a very splendid sarcophagus in Cologne cathedral, though when the contents were analysed there were remains from more than three bodies. I have enjoyed the Art Society enough to sign up for another year. Indeed, I liked the sound of the January study course on the history of architecture, but really can't spare three Mondays.
As I was in Colchester I stopped to do a little shopping, and bought crushed oyster shell for the hens and a new and superior cat blanket to go on top of the cupboard in the study, and most important of all a 2018 classic boats calendar for the hall. The latter is the work of a local photographer, and we have had one for more years than I can remember. I suppose at some point she will retire, but with any luck she has a stock of images that will keep the calendar going for years to come.
Colchester wasn't looking too bad. Fenwick keeps expanding down the High Street. A branch of Hotel Chocolat has opened, which is good, and The White Stuff, whose clothes are pitched at the middle to upper end of the high street, though I have never actually bought any, but I like Schuh, which opened a couple of years ago. There is a very good independent bookshop as well as a Waterstones. Letters to the local paper always seem to bewail Colchester as a litter strewn dump full of pound shops and drunks, but it isn't remotely that bad. It is about to acquire a branch of Wahaca. My travels took me to Marks and Spencer, where I bumped into somebody from the garden club, and the book shop, and Millets because when I was looking for my winter gloves a couple of days ago I could only find one.
Millets had a whole rack of gloves, stretching away out of reach up the wall, but when I moved to climb on to a step to get to the ones on the top row, an assistant whisked the step away from me and said she would get them down for me. I wasn't able to tell her which ones I was definitely interested in, since I was still looking, and she thrust a pair of black and a pair of grey knitted ones into my hands and flounced off. Both were size nine, while I take a seven and a half. In the end I bought some by The North Face with furry backs, that felt as though they should be warm but allowed me to move my hands, and were reduced in the sale, and left. The irony of a shop that sells outdoor equipment not allowing customers to climb on to a step a foot high seemed lost on the assistant, along with the idea of offering any kind of helpful advice to customers. There is another outdoor shop further down the High Street, so I will go there next time, if I don't give up and simply shop online. Although it is quite nice to try gloves on. One pair I tried were so fat my hands felt like the Michelin man and I couldn't move my fingers, a second were too tight over the palm, while a third had the thumbs in completely the wrong place.
It was all rather a waste of good gardening weather. Retailers and town planners take note, you really need to make the shopping experience more like the independent bookshop and less like Millets if you want people to haul themselves into the middle of town and pay £2.70 for parking, when they could be spending the day doing something else, and do their shopping in the evening from the comfort of their own armchair. I have my calendar now, and Christmas comes but once a year.
As I was in Colchester I stopped to do a little shopping, and bought crushed oyster shell for the hens and a new and superior cat blanket to go on top of the cupboard in the study, and most important of all a 2018 classic boats calendar for the hall. The latter is the work of a local photographer, and we have had one for more years than I can remember. I suppose at some point she will retire, but with any luck she has a stock of images that will keep the calendar going for years to come.
Colchester wasn't looking too bad. Fenwick keeps expanding down the High Street. A branch of Hotel Chocolat has opened, which is good, and The White Stuff, whose clothes are pitched at the middle to upper end of the high street, though I have never actually bought any, but I like Schuh, which opened a couple of years ago. There is a very good independent bookshop as well as a Waterstones. Letters to the local paper always seem to bewail Colchester as a litter strewn dump full of pound shops and drunks, but it isn't remotely that bad. It is about to acquire a branch of Wahaca. My travels took me to Marks and Spencer, where I bumped into somebody from the garden club, and the book shop, and Millets because when I was looking for my winter gloves a couple of days ago I could only find one.
Millets had a whole rack of gloves, stretching away out of reach up the wall, but when I moved to climb on to a step to get to the ones on the top row, an assistant whisked the step away from me and said she would get them down for me. I wasn't able to tell her which ones I was definitely interested in, since I was still looking, and she thrust a pair of black and a pair of grey knitted ones into my hands and flounced off. Both were size nine, while I take a seven and a half. In the end I bought some by The North Face with furry backs, that felt as though they should be warm but allowed me to move my hands, and were reduced in the sale, and left. The irony of a shop that sells outdoor equipment not allowing customers to climb on to a step a foot high seemed lost on the assistant, along with the idea of offering any kind of helpful advice to customers. There is another outdoor shop further down the High Street, so I will go there next time, if I don't give up and simply shop online. Although it is quite nice to try gloves on. One pair I tried were so fat my hands felt like the Michelin man and I couldn't move my fingers, a second were too tight over the palm, while a third had the thumbs in completely the wrong place.
It was all rather a waste of good gardening weather. Retailers and town planners take note, you really need to make the shopping experience more like the independent bookshop and less like Millets if you want people to haul themselves into the middle of town and pay £2.70 for parking, when they could be spending the day doing something else, and do their shopping in the evening from the comfort of their own armchair. I have my calendar now, and Christmas comes but once a year.
Wednesday, 13 December 2017
found
After I had posted yesterday's blog entry Mr Fluffy appeared through the cat door. He did not look like a cat that had been wandering lost all day in the snow and the slush: his feet were too clean, his fur too dry, and his whole demeanour too self-possessed. He consented to be clasped to my chest, ate some supper, went out of the cat door, came in again, ate some Dreamies in lieu of a fatted calf, and spent the rest of the evening reposing in the bosom of his family, looking gradually more relaxed as he remembered about home. The Systems Administrator's theory is that he sneaked into a neighbour's garage and got locked in for the day, escaping when they got home. My mother reminded me of the cat we had when I was a child, that used to go around to be fed by the inhabitants of a nearby bungalow. They rang up when it snowed and he didn't call on them to check that he was all right. I am more inclined to the locked-in than the social visiting theory at this stage because Mr Fluffy had never vanished for anything approaching that length of time before, and it seemed unlikely he would choose the coldest day of his short life to start visiting, and stay for so long on his first visit.
We will probably never know where he was yesterday, unless we happen to bump into a neighbour who happens to mention that they saw our cat. If he starts making a habit of going out for longer we will know not to start worrying so soon, though we can then start worrying in case he is planning to move in somewhere else.
The garden is thawing nicely. The thermometer sat above freezing all day, and the remaining lumps of snow and patches of ice got steadily smaller, then it rained which helped melt them. Most of the shrubs that were bowed down by the snow have bounced back without damage, though I was irritated to discover that a piece of the evergreen, hydrangea-like climber Pileostegia viburnoides had been peeled off the front of the house. It was already on a remedial feeding programme because the leaves had turned so yellow in the poor soil, and I don't want to have to cut a large piece off. The Systems Administrator will fasten a couple of screws into the mortar for me and I will try tying the loose branches back in, but my provisional assessment of Pileostegia is that once the plant senses a stem is no longer firmly attached to its support it is reluctant to make further growth. A well grown plant is a joy, but on sand it turns out to need a lot of extra care. I have been feeding my plant, but clearly not enough.
We will probably never know where he was yesterday, unless we happen to bump into a neighbour who happens to mention that they saw our cat. If he starts making a habit of going out for longer we will know not to start worrying so soon, though we can then start worrying in case he is planning to move in somewhere else.
The garden is thawing nicely. The thermometer sat above freezing all day, and the remaining lumps of snow and patches of ice got steadily smaller, then it rained which helped melt them. Most of the shrubs that were bowed down by the snow have bounced back without damage, though I was irritated to discover that a piece of the evergreen, hydrangea-like climber Pileostegia viburnoides had been peeled off the front of the house. It was already on a remedial feeding programme because the leaves had turned so yellow in the poor soil, and I don't want to have to cut a large piece off. The Systems Administrator will fasten a couple of screws into the mortar for me and I will try tying the loose branches back in, but my provisional assessment of Pileostegia is that once the plant senses a stem is no longer firmly attached to its support it is reluctant to make further growth. A well grown plant is a joy, but on sand it turns out to need a lot of extra care. I have been feeding my plant, but clearly not enough.
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