Dreams

The sun is shining warmly. We sit outside. It's early for dinner. Earlier on we had ventured of to the jewellers to collect the Fox's now expanded wedding ring. It's gleaming, just like new. We had contemplated going down to our local village pub. When we got there, the car park was heaving & loud music blared. We remembered it was the last weekend of the month which is when they have live music. We didn't stop. We hastened home instead to sit out in the peace of the garden.

This is so much more civilised. A cool drink or two, good conversation, & the twitter of the birds. Sheer indulgence. 

After a while we get up to cook the dinner which we eat outside. It's been a while since it's been warm enough for such a treat.

We contemplate what ideally we would do to transform the garden. Certain aspects we wouldn't change. We love the amount of wildlife it attracts & wouldn't want to do anything to deter these visitors. The bog garden is looking so much better, better than it has been since we moved here nearly 11 years ago. The ligularia is a blaze of gold shining in the shaded end. The hydrangea shyly shows its pink pompoms of colour. The privacy we love, that sense of not being overlooked, of being in a different other world of peace & tranquility. Oh yes, we want to keep that.

The crazy paving which half the time sprouts patches of green weeds can go. The Fox contemplates getting rid of the shed. We don't use it much - too damp - & there's plenty of room in the garage for the shed's contents. 

We contemplate a veranda. We've thought of adding on a conservatory before now but to our mind it's not worth it. We don't actually need an extra room. To attach it to, & between, the kitchen and the laundry room would mean it would be facing due south, far too hot to sit in during the summer. The more we think about it, the more we like the idea of a veranda, an area to give us a bit of shelter when the sun is too hot for comfort, to stop us getting wet when we go to get stuff from the freezer in the laundry room or to enable us to eat out on a warm but damp day. The more we think about it, that would suit us better.

The Fox suggests we maybe ought to get some ideas from some landscape gardeners. But, in all honesty, I don't think this is the time to contemplate the stress of workmen. Next year maybe.

Certainly the garden will be the next focus for our attention. All that remains inside is the routine redecoration & repairs. The major work is complete now, for a while at least. I know the workmen would be outside so should be less stressful than having them in the house, but I am sure there will be stress &, at the moment, I think that should be avoided if possible. 

Still it's nice to dream....

A ropey day

Yesterday was a ropey day. All the previous night I'd been having stomach pains. I'd had to get up several times in the hope that a trip to the loo would settle things. But it didn't.

I'm not quite sure whether I'd eaten something nasty on Thursday. I will admit the prawns in the jacket potato I had out for lunch that day didn't taste as fresh a they could be. 

Maybe I'm once more reacting against pills, I've noticed I've started a tendency to once more get cramps in my feet on a regular basis. Last time those cramps progressed to my stomach. The solution was to change one lot of pills. Maybe it's the same again. 

Either way I ended up feeling very tired & sore yesterday morning.

I nearly went straight back to bed again. That, in fact, is what I did do around midday. I got up again a couple of hours later feeling much better. My stomach still felt bruised, but not positively aching. I was still tired but more refreshed than I had been. 

It was just as well as we had agreed to go along to the Pub in the afternoon. It turned out a good session with more people than usual turning up. The conversation was lively, friendships reaffirmed.

I was also pleased when I got home that I had persevered with preparing  the Finnan Pie in the morning. It turned out delicious. Readers of the Fox's last blog will realise how much he appreciated it. I was anxious that it might be dry with pastry top & bottom, but no, the cheese sauce made it wonderfully moist. The saltiness of the smoked haddock & the cheese sauce was broken by the blandness of the raw egg I had put in the pie. Great.

Needless to say, last night was an early night for me. But I'm glad to say today I'm feeling much more myself. A little residual bruising but that's it. Now I'm just hoping there'll not be a recurrence.

Minced Collops

I've got the dinner plopping away. It's minced collops this time. I've not done this recipe for many a long year. It was a favourite when we were first married but I'm anxious that now our palettes grown too sophistaicated for its simple pleasures. I suppose I ought to start by telling you what Minced Collops is. Essentially it's an old-fashioned minced beef & onion mix. What distinguishes it is that it is super-smooth.

We're off to the Farmers' Market today. I'm mainly looking for some pork.

I have one organised meal in hand, unable to be made until I've got the pork. After that I will have to do a big shop to get all those extras that will be needed to make up meals. So, until then, I'm still on freezer contents. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the next item on the list - cheese sauce. At present I'm thinking of Finnan pie, a smoked haddock & egg pie. 

 By the time I need to start the cook I may well have changed my mind. I may decide to use up the tin of coconut milk the Fox opened for his Thai beef curry yesterday & make a prawn curry instead. We'll have to see.

Ironed out

I'm all ironed out. I've just spent two hours on the job. It's a good thing I can arrange the ironing board at a height I can easily iron on whilst sitting on a dining chair. Otherwise someone else would have to do it. I couldn't stand that long.

It's also the time I appreciate having a radio in the kitchen to divert me from the task in hand. So today I listened to riots through the ages, Woman's Hour, violence in gangland Glasgow, to name just a few items.

It's also just as well the Fox cooked last night so the meal just has to be warmed up. He's made a Thai beef curry. It's the last recipe he's tackling from the leaflet accompanying Big Ears, the slow cooker. All the rest of the recipes are for puds or other things that have no appeal for us.

Throughout my ironing the sun has shone brightly. It makes quite a change to see clear bright blue skies.

Having finished the ironing I hastily refilled the sunflower seeds for the birds. We seem to have gained a very hungry greenfinch this year. He sits there for long spells, just munching away. Refilling is becoming an almost daily job.

 

Echoes of death

I suppose like so many people my thoughts have gone to the people of Norway, who have lost so many of its population, especially young people, this weekend. 

I suppose part of my reaction is that I remember Oslo & Norway with great affection. My father worked there for a couple of years. He rented  a house just outside Oslo. One summer I went & stayed with him for about a month.


For me this was a rare opportunity to get to know my father. This may sound an odd thing to say, but, for much of my life, my father worked abroad or very long hours, regularly over 100 hours a week, with the result when he was at home, we ended up tiptoeing around so as not to disturb him.

I was a little anxious about going to stay just with him. My mother & brother remained at home in England. In the end my parents suggested I invite a university friend to go too so I would have some company during the day - Dad would inevitably be working - but she didn't stay for the full period of my trip. The first week Dad took off work to show me some of the sights, to locate the local shops, bus stop & train station so I'd be able to get around without him. I don't think I ever spent so prolonged a time with him, unshared with anyone else, in my entire life.


Norway I associate with crystal clear air, a cleanness I'd never seen in England. I wowed over the sculpture park, saw the ruined Viking boats & the Kon Tiki I'd read about so long before, went round the folk museum with its fabulous stave church. We went up into the mountains, climbed up a ski slope (it must take some nerve to set off down one of them!), walked in the woods around a lake. 


It was wonderful & carefree. So safe feeling. So unlikely a place for such a massacre.


I suppose it didn't help when we went to the Pub yesterday to discover the best friend of one of the barmaids  had been involved in a car crash on the M6 over the weekend. She was instantly killed. The friend was just 19, far too young. Not surprisingly the barmaid was off work. She just couldn't stop bursting into tears.

Family

It was a nice surprise. The phone rang. It was my cousin Trudy, the cousin whose golden wedding anniversary we went down to Stoke for.

I've been thinking of her a bit lately. She's a reader of this blog. She's a foodie, like me. The only thing is she can't abide fish or poultry. I seem to have written a lot about fish of late so I've been wondering how she'd been enjoying the blog.

It seems she's not been reading of late. Her eyesight has been playing up with the result she's been having difficulty reading the computer screen. She's now relieved to discover the problem is the result of cataracts & is now eagerly awaiting their removal.

It's strange. So many years I only really knew many of my cousins by name. It is only since my immediate family, my brother & father, died that I've got to know some of them. I'm even more amazed to find how much I like them, nay love them. They've become every bit as supportive as those I've lost. Family can been such a firm foundation through life, with its ups & downs. I am very grateful.

Meatball mad

I'm going meatball mad. Today they're made with minced lamb, with a bit of wholegrain mustard for interest. Monday, my next cook day - the Fox always cooks on Sunday - it's to be curried meatballs using minced beef. You can tell I'm back to working down the freezer a bit.

It never ceases to amaze me how I seem to get into certain food grooves. Suddenly all my thoughts seem to go in the same direction. We've just been through a fish phase. In the last week we've had prawns, mackerel, haddock & salmon, all different meals. Now I'm moving into meatball mode.

To be fair I decided on the ones for today as the only recipe I can think of offhand using the quantity of minced lamb I have in hand. I would have thought further about the minced beef, but curried meatballs is my standby for whenever we have 8oz of minced beef to use up. It's an old favourite recipe, a guaranteed delight. I mentioned I was half-thinking about making the curry. The Fox's face lit up in anticipation. Now to do anything else on Monday would be a cause of great disappointment. I just hope I can get it done before Angie, the cleaner, arrives. If necessary, she will just have to wipe over the hob with the curry still plopping.

A more worthwhile visit

The trip to the doctor's yesterday proved more satisfactory. Although so many things depend on the individual's recovery ability, we both came back reassured that things were headed the right way & unlikely to get any worse. Progress will be slow we were assured. We're talking years rather than days here, but at least it should be in the right direction, which is something. The Fox will have to learn that old lesson known as pacing, never an easy one to learn. I've been trying to learn that for over 20 years, yet I still get caught out occasionally. Sometimes you have no choice but to persevere no matter what the consequences.

It had never occurred to me before that there were two basic types of consequence of a stroke. The most usual means that the part of the brain that sends messages to the muscles etc is killed leaving you with limbs etc that don't work. There then follows a series of rehab training/exercises trying to re-educate the brain how it had previously controlled the body.

The second sort is when a message is received from some part of the body, sent to the brain, and the brain has lost the code to interpret the meaning of the message, causing a sensory deprivation. This is what has happened to the Fox. His brain can remember the automatic series of commands to move his leg & arm. However, his brain can no longer accurately understand the environment the leg & arm is in. It's a bit like that horrible stage you feel when you've been to the dentist & had an injection. You go through a phase afterwards when the anaesthetic is half out, when your mouth feels distinctly odd. You have difficulty in finding your mouth to eat & drink without dribbling a bit. It's a similar effect here only the effect will take years rather than hours to return to normal, if it ever does.

Nothing much can be done to speed up the recovery. The doc did suggest that it is worth trying to give various sensory stimulation to the limbs eg through massage, but that's the best he could suggest. There's certainly no drugs or physiotherapy treatment he could suggest that would help. The one thing he did stress is that when it is particularly a problem, it is telling the Fox he needs to rest & so should do that.

With this in mind we're abandoning all ideas of a holiday for this year. Travelling always involves a certain amount of stress, which, at the moment, is best avoided. We may just contemplate a weekend away later on, just to see how he is progressing. I'm thinking I might try doing the driving on longer journeys, then the Fox can massage his leg if he needs to. 


It's a relief to have got a clearer picture of what the problem is. We were with the GP for a long time, 20 minutes at least. He apparently reckons that, in some ways, the after effects the Fox has are harder to cope with than those of the usual stroke, more frustrating. The Fox is certainly feeling that. 


I suspect it's a bit how I feel with my medical problems. I find it far harder to cope with my mental health problems than my physical one. With the latter I have something tangible to fight against, to adapt to, to learn new ways of doing things. The depression is far more amorphous. It creeps up on you when you're not expecting it, & once in it, your perceptions are screwed up with the result the brain itself isn't working properly to use as a tool to get you out of it. Much harder.

What a contrast!

As we came home from the Pub yesterday, our eyes strayed across the Bay to the Lakeland fells. What a contrast.! On the way there the sky had been blue. It had even been getting warm. Now the sky was grey. Across the Bay, the sky was leaden. Rain spouts descended down on the fells. We wondered if that weather was on its way to us. We suspected it was. The forecast had been for rain coming south from the Lakes & it certainly looked as though the rain had arrived there.

We got home, warmed up the beef curry the Fox had made the night before in Big Ears, the slow cooker, & sat down to eat. Sure enough a few gentle spots of rain began. Soon it had turned to a steady downpour. And yet it rained that soft, mesmeric, sound that only summer rain does.  You could almost hear the plants drinking it in thirstily.

What a waste of time!

The alarm goes off. It's 6.30 am. Why am I getting up at this ungodly hour? The Fox has an appointment at the surgery for 7.40am. I'm going too. I'm determined we're going to get some answers from the doc concerning the stroke. The Fox is still dragging his leg a lot of the time, & sometimes his hand & arm go into a tingly numbness. I had set the clock for nearer 6.45 but our clock is a nearly 40 year old wind up & tends to ring early, especially as it can gain minutes overnight.

Needless to say, with an early alarm like that we were at the surgery by 7.30. The door was still locked. We waited. And waited. Eventually, near 8am, other people started to arrive, including some staff. Promptly at 8 the door was unlocked & we went in.

We tell the receptionist the time of the appointment. She tells us they don't do appointments at that time. (We'd already come to that conclusion!) The Fox showed her the appointment card with the time, venue & doctor's name clearly shown, & definitely not in our writing. She apologised. That doctor wasn't even at  that surgery that day. (The practice we go to is a large one with 3 sites.) She asked if another doctor would do. The Fox said no. She made him another appointment.

At least it is for tomorrow, at a more sensible hour, mid-afternoon, & not in a month's time as usually happens if you are trying to see a specific GP.

We came home. What a waste of time that was! We couldn't even get the repeat prescription we collected filled as all the chemists we passed on the way home were still tightly shut. A complete waste of time!

Let's hope things work out better tomorrow.

Yet more disappearance

Our birdlife seems to be disappearing.. I'm confident they will return. There seems to be two main causes.

The first is undoubtedly the weather. Rain & winds seem conducive to the urge for our birds to stay inside as much as possible, just like humans. It certainly has been raining. The fact the lake to the greenhouse isn't too deep is related to the amount of wind blowing. The gardens really needed the water. Our bog plants are looking a lot fresher for the deluge. The ground there was only superficially dry anyhow, even with weeks of very little water. Beneath the surface you soon hit mud.

Perhaps the main reason is the return of the peregrine falcon. The little birds, in particular, are nervous about coming out until they're sure the coast is clear. You can see them dodging between twigs in the hedge, but they're not very keen to come out in the open.

The needs of the stomach are the only things that draw the birds into the open at the moment. But even then they do not dally long. A quick dash to the feeders & that's it. The blackbirds are more obvious but then they can hunt their worms  & slugs under the shelter of some of the lower big-leafed plants. Even the love doves (our pair of collared doves) are less noticeable, preferring to leave their usual place sat on the trellis, for the shelter of the trees.

I'm already looking forward to dryer weather & the return of our avian friends. Enough greyness say I. 

The mystery of the disappearing herbs

They were certainly right about the weather. It's wet, & I mean wet. It's not helped by a strong wind blowing. At times the banshees are once more screaming down the chimney, making the day feel colder than it actually is. 

I was shocked yesterday when I popped into the garden to collect some coriander for the dinner. Something had just about eaten it all up. On Wednesday it was flourishing, now there are just some bare stems.

This happened not so long ago with the parsley. I'm glad to say the stems have re-grown some fresh greenery. I'm now just hoping the same is going to happen with the coriander.

My suspicion is that the culprits are slugs & snails. They seem to abound here. They are much more under control in the back garden since we've gone for a wilder look. The increasing numbers of birds & frogs are obviously enjoying the bounty. Unfortunately the frogs & birds don't seem as keen on the front garden, though I did see Mr Blackbird disappearing under the lemon balm, reappearing the other side of the chicory the other day. Maybe that's the start of a new trend...

Unexpected shop

The MRI scan was amazingly quick. As you know we were dreading the rush hour traffic. In order to get there we set off at 8am. There was hardly a car on the road. We reached the hospital just after 8.15. The irony is if we'd left it until 8.30 to set off, we would probably still have been stuck in the traffic jam, trying to get through Lancaster in time for the 9am appointment. After the wait, the Fox went promptly in for the scan just after 9 & was out again by 9.20. All done. So much for the hour and a half the letter had told us to expect. Now we just have to wait the results.


 We set off home. We decided to have a quick stop at Morecambe Morrisons for milk. I decided while we were there to buy some fish for dinner. I hadn't really expected to cook yesterday. I'd thought by the time we got back from the hospital all we'd both want  to do is to lie down to recover. As it happened, with it all going so smoothly, I thought perhaps afterwards I could get something prepared.

"Oh, what sort of fish?" asked the Fox.

"Cod", I replied.

"Isn't that one of the fish we should eat less off?" he went on to ask. "The British only eat 5 kinds of fish you know. We're all supposed to be trying new varieties."


"Five fish! In recent weeks we've had cod, haddock (smoked & unsmoked), salmon (smoked & unsmoked), sea bass, sea bream, mackerel, scallops, crab, prawns, shrimps, anchovies, pollack, whiting, pouting, kippers..... We do our bit." I reply. "And today it's cod." 


And cod is what we had!

Preparations

Big Ears (the slow cooker) came out last night once more. The Fox has been busy overnight preparing a sausage pot for our delectation this evening.With this in mind, especially since I've been going through a phase of bad nights & next week I start my fortnight of having to take medication during the night which will mean yet more disturbed nights, I took a sleeping pill last night. I still had to get up at one point to the most tempting aromas. Unfortunately this morning the kitchen remains full of such smells. I've got a bad outbreak of rumbly tum. I'm keeping the kitchen door firmly closed to make life more tolerable.
 
We're off out this afternoon. We'll be going over to the Pub with PD later on, but first we have a few chores to do. The first is to collect my big bag of medication. Then it's off to the jewellers. 

It's not often we go to the jewellers but today is one such occasion. The Fox is due for his MRI scan for his hearing tomorrow. The accompanying letter would indicate he must not wear any metal. Although he's managed to sort out appropriate clothing - he may just have to take trainers off because of metal eyelets - we suspect he must remove his wedding ring too. After nearly 36 years of marriage this ring is now firmly stuck. A few years ago now, I had my rings cut off & expanded. They did a brilliant job. You wouldn't know anything had been done looking at the rings now. The Fox prefers the idea of going back to that shop than letting the hospital do the job. I suspect it would be a wise move even if it wasn't absolutely necessary. The ring is certainly very tight. I wonder if it isn't so tight it might be affecting circulation in that finger & I hate to think what the skin under the ring is like after so many years without ventilation. So it's to the jewellers today.
 
I don't expect I will blog tomorrow. The appointment is for 9am. According to the letter the scan is supposed to take an hour and a half. I expect longer. I doubt we will be home until the afternoon, by which time we will both be ready for a lie down. That will be it for the day.

Sports Day

Another sunny evening. We sit out to eat our ham & egg flan. In the bog  garden, visible from the table, the ligularia is just starting to come out. The rich gold stars are just emerging above the dogwood. One flower is out, the rest still buds with the golden edge of petals just peeping out. The gold seems all the more brilliant for the chocolate coloured foliage all around of the ligularia.

We laugh as we remember PD's account of the school sports day he'd had to attend earlier in the afternoon. He missed supporting his own children at such events - too busy teaching other children to go. Now he was attending that of his grandchildren. They're still of primary school age.


One grandson had thrown his bean bag underarm with enthusiasm. Only thing is he forgot to let go, with result the bag went flying back.

PD used to teach sports as well as geography. "I've never known anyone to get a negative score at a throwing event," he commented affectionately. We made a mental note never to stand behind this young lad if he decides to take up darts.

Clearly one grandson hasn't inherited the sporting gene. PD has to admit this child is far more artistic. They are in fact wondering if he wouldn't benefit from learning some instrument, the piano perhaps. The older grandson is much more sporty.

The next event is a concert in which his grand-daughter is playing the part of Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz". PD's letting his wife support that one on her own. He can't face the assault on his ears of such young children singing(?!). I suspect he will change his mind if his grand-daughter specifically asks him to come. He doesn't like to let them down if he possibly can.

His fourth grandchild is still at pre-school age. Such events are still for the future with him. 

We couldn't help remembering some of our own childhood experiences, the sack race, the egg-and-spoon race, the three-legged race, the obstacle course. Sports day seemed to become so much more serious at secondary school. Neither of us were ever great athletes. Sports days ceased to be fun days & became chore days to be endured. That was all. 

Changing colours

My current source of fascination is the bergamot growing in the herb garden. It's a tall plant so stands up high amidst the parsley, oregano & thyme. What really intrigues me is how the colour changes as the flower ages. At first it opens as a deep purply wine colour. It slowly changes into a more red colour, eventually becoming a deep pink colour. By the time it has matured it's almost the same bright shade as the neighbouring echinacea. That flower just fades as it grows older, turning almost a browny pink.

Most living creatures seem to pale as they age. It has to be admitted I started down the slope of greyness at a very early age. I had some grey in my hair at 4! It surprises me to realise skin pales too. Now, when I go for new spec frames, I'm aware how overpowering a strong colour can look & yet once I wouldn't have hesitated. 

Health concerns

I've just been talking to Jean, Dick Gobble's wife, who is suffering from cancer. It sounds as though things are not going too well for her. Admittedly it's partly that she's recovering from a holiday in Yorkshire seeing family. Like the Fox, it has taken its toll. 

But it isn't entirely that. She recently saw her specialist & the latter is worried. A further emergency scan is being organised but Jean fears it's a sign that the tumour has grown once more. She dreads being told there's nothing more that can be done & there's only weeks left to her. She worries how Dick will cope in that event without her. All I can say is we will all be there for her, and him, if the worst comes to pass. In the meanwhile we can but hope & pray.

Next week will be the time for the Fox's scan for his hearing problem. Needless to say that means another trip into Lancaster for the hospital. I can see, even now, it will be a long tiring day. We've to be in for 9am, which means trying to cross Lancaster at the height of rush hour. We've already been told he'll be there for at least an hour & a half. Experience suggests to me that means probably nearer twice that. I just hope at the end of it we'll get some answers & there will be something that can be done to make life easier for him at the end of the day. We'll soon find out.
 

Done at last

I seem to have been on the go all morning without  achieving much. I was still in the midst of breakfast when the phone rang. Helen, a friend whose birthday it is today. Just ringing to thank us for our card & to catch up on news.  The call was cut short as neighbours arrived at her house.

During the night last night, the Fox got Big Ears (the slow cooker) out & prepared a bolognese sauce. (My stomach rumbled every time I woke up in the night as the smells wafted into our bedroom.) My part of the meal is the fresh tagliatelle to accompany it. So I got started on the pasta. I had only got the flour, egg & tomato puree - we're going rose today -  to the stage of forming a ball, when the phone went again. Helen once more to complete the earlier conversation.

Eventually I got back to the pasta. Kneaded it. Left it to rest while I made a quick mug of tea. Then rolled & cut the pasta. It is now, at nearly 11.30am, finally on the bathroom towel rail drying out. Still the main thing is that it will be ready for this evening & it will be. Now I can relax over another mug of tea & sit down properly this time, for the first time all morning.

We're off to the Pub this afternoon. We had hoped Helen, our friend, would be coming to celebrate her birthday but it seems her family has other ideas. Some of the others will be there - PD, Al the gardener, Mrs B (assuming she can get her grandson settled into his new student accommodation in time) & maybe some of the others. Just a pity Helen can't make it. It would have been nice to see her again.

Holidays

We're just setting off to the shops when we get waylaid by a neighbour. It turns into a half hour chat, mainly about holidays. Another neighbour comes across to join in too. We're told of the delights of the Algarve, of a cruise to St Petersburg, of the north side of Cyprus, of holidays planned in Croatia, and we wonder if we'll manage holidays again.

We're contemplating seeing if we can get away. We're wondering about the exotic Isle of Man. The  ferry port is just minutes away from us. On the ferry/seacat, the Fox should be able to move around if his leg starts playing up. The island itself is fairly small so we should be able to get to most places within an hour's drive. That's if we want to go visiting somewhere. I seem to remember from my numerous childhood holidays there, that there is plenty to see & do, with variety too. The Fox has never been so it would be somewhere new for him.

And of course there's the food. The Manx kippers... The scallops.......Mmmm Mmmmm.

Personally I am grateful for the Isle of Man. I suppose it was probably there that my interest in history & historic buildings was born. The one place we visited every year in my childhood was the castle in Castletown. In those days, in each room, they had little stage sets of what the room would have been like in its heyday - very enlightened in the 1960s. These models helped the place come alive to a young child, as I was then. I avidly read some of the historical plaques. I loved the place. Unfortunately, if we do get to the Isle of Man some time, that is one place I can't see us visiting. In the thirteenth century they didn't build such places with wheelchair access in mind!

The real thing against the Isle of Man is the weather which is unpredictable as it is in any part of Britain. But now I expect some days we will just want to take it easy, not go anywhere much, rest up to give the legs of both of us chance to rest up a bit & recover. 

Anyhow I'm looking into the matter, seeing if I can find somewhere that appeals.

Meanwhile we went off shopping. We were surprised, after a very wet start to the day, to find ourselves eating once more in the garden. As the meal ended the skies darkened. We finished in a leisurely manner, had just got ourselves in, when the skies opened & the rain came down. Very British weather!

Gardens

On Sunday night I went to bed with "Something Understood" on BBC Radio 4, in which Mark Tully explored the idea of gardens & their healing power. I suddenly found myself wide awake as I contemplated the role of gardens in my life.

It has changed as the years have gone by.

In my childhood my parents had a large garden. For me it was a play area, a place to explore. The roses were always a source of some anxiety as my brother was a haemophiliac so their thorns were a danger. A scratch could kill. Then there was the lawn, the venue for cricket, football, high jumping, occasionally daisy chain making. Further up were the apple trees to climb, the rhubarb to eat almost straight from the ground with a bag of sugar. There was an old air-raid shelter, remnant of the Second World War. This became our den. From the flat roof of this structure we waged war with the neighbouring children on their air-raid shelter, on the other side of the hedge.

It was from this garden that many of the flowers came to make my wedding bouquet. My bridesmaid, training as florist at the time, actually made the bouquet the morning of the day.

After that, gardens left my horizons to a great extent. Our first home had a virtually vertical garden up a crag. It was a wilderness when we arrived. As we were only renting it, & expecting to be there only about a year, a wilderness it remained except for a bit of scything when the grass had got so tall that it got into my eyes when I hung the washing out. But as the cottage was in the middle of the countryside, in an AONB (area of outstanding beauty), next to an RSPB bird sanctuary, a garden was no great loss. There was just so much more to explore out there.

Our second home was an upstairs flat so no garden. But again the view from the back window was of open fields & from the front was the Kent Estuary, part of Morecambe Bay. 

In this time we visited some gardens, both those of friends & publicly opened ones. My appreciation of them lay in the beauty of the flowers & trees, the wildlife they encouraged, rather than the mood of the garden. The exception, I suppose, is Graythwaite Hall garden, a fabulous garden for rhododendrons & azalea. For me, it was spoilt by excess pain as I realised the time had come to get a wheelchair if going out was to be any pleasure in future. The trip had been one drag from one bench to the next, in agony all the way. The only real relief was a long sit down in a pub afterwards to recover a bit.

However, once in the chair, one garden in particular stands out in my memory, that at Villandry, in the Loire Valley. The chateau itself was not wheelchair accessible so the Fox went in by himself while I sat in the garden & so discovered its peace.

Villandry

Then we moved here & I really discovered the joy of a garden. At least part of what made us decide this was the place for us was the garden. The longer we have lived here the more I've appreciated its colours, its changing seasons, its plants & wildlife, above all its peace which tells me no matter what happens in life things can't be that bad when there's a little bit of heaven like this to disappear into, to drink in that peace.

Our back garden as it was when we arrived

Since then we have visited other gardens, some very memorable, such as the Chinese gardens in Sydney & in Vancouver. The former we visited on a busy day, yet even so, once in the gardens, which are right in busy Darling Harbour, the hurly-burly of life disappeared. You could see the tops of traffic hurling by, yet their noise & bustle didn't intrude. I suspect by now, a few years on, you won't even be aware of the traffic.

Chinese Garden of Friendship dominated by skyscrapers of Darling Harbour, Sydney

The green tranquility of the Chinese Garden of Friendship, Darling Harbour, Sydney

Then there are gardens that amuse. In particular my  mind goes to the gardens in the Hunter Valley with their section for children, illustrating nursery rhymes & children's books.

Mad Hatter's Tea Part, Hunter Valley Gardens, Australia

 

Humpty Dumpty, Hunter Valley Gardens, Australia

But I always come back to our garden, particularly the herb garden & the bog garden which I still manage to tend. I suppose, like most suburban dwellers, the garden is our opportunity to get in touch with a different rhythm of life, Nature's rhythm, a placed to escape from the worries of everyday life, an oasis of calm. Our back garden is our private park, to love the various visitors, mainly avian. The herb garden is a source of whole panoply of scents, flavours & colours.

The herb garden

 

We did it!

We did it! We've actually got the garden furniture out. We managed to eat our roast lamb, sat in the sunshine to the sound of the twittering of the birds in the trees. It made a really welcome change. I'm hoping we'll repeat the experience tonight, though the food will certainly be different - a beef in red wine pie. So far the sun is  shining warmly so there's a chance.

The table & chairs will now stay out until the autumn has definitely turned too cold to tempt us to sit out. Now we're hoping the sun will keep shining, and there's warmth in the air. I half-expect that the reality will be that this is the precursor for a long spell of wet weather, but there's no harm in hoping.

Good morning to you

I'm not long back from a trip down the prom in the Mean Machine (my electric scooter) to the fish shop. I feel I've just become the singer of that song from "Singin' in the Rain", going around singing, or in my case saying, "Good Morning" to so many people. The sunshine has put everyone in good spirits. Folk are inspired to say good morning to all they meet. Happiness is in the air.

My trip there was excited by the view across the bay. It was one of those still days, rare here. The tide was out. Through the sands wound a brilliant blue sheet of glass, the river making its way seaward. The sand itself was almost red by contrast, almost the colour of the red tarmac used on the promenade itself. Occasional sequins of blue shone where little puddles of water stood. All seemed incredibly quiet. Hardly anything moved. No bird cried. Magnificent & beautiful.

Coming back the scene had changed. The sands looked more muddy, but more noticeable were the number of people, especially dog owners with their charges. I noticed, down on the sand, a man playing with his three dogs, a lab & two chihuahuas. He threw the ball. The dogs chased after it. The little chihuahuas set off, their little legs going as fast as they good. But they didn't stand a chance with the lab. With a few strides he soon outran them. The chihuahuas gave up & returned to master.

The next dog I met was a spaniel. I never saw the owner. The spaniel came running across the prom after his ball, turned & ran back up the cliff, his backside wiggling with joy.

Then I came to a young man with his dog, breed unknown, but big, brown & short-coated. This owner, little more that a teenager, was clearly a football enthusiast. He kicked the ball up the cliff. His dog sat obediently at his feet until told to go fetch. The dog bounded up the cliff but couldn't find the ball. He looked back inquiringly to his owner. The latter indicated to the right. Off the dog went again, hunting for the ball. Clearly this was a well trained dog.

And so I came home, with two pots of potted shrimps (a treat for the Fox who reluctantly endured a salad for dinner last night) & a tub of fresh anchovies for a salsa to accompany today's roast lamb (with a few left anchovies over for nibbles with wine later perhaps). I keep hoping it's going to get warm enough to justify getting the table & chairs out to dine in the garden for a change - in which case the left over anchovies may accompany an aperitif while we wait for the lamb to finish cooking - but so far it remains just too cold, mainly due to persistent chill breeze. It still seems to be persisting at the moment so I'm not holding my breath.