Busy doing nothing

This week has sped by. This is the first chance I’ve had to get on the computer. I’ve been trying to think what has taken up so much time. Nothing much.

As you’ve probably realised by now, mornings tend to be my time to do my thing, It’s the time of day when I’m most with it, at my best both physically & mentally, so the Fox feels he can leave me on my own without too much anxiety. So what have I been doing these last few mornings?

Monday was dominated by the needs of getting the washing done & put out on the line to dry. I wanted to get it done quickly as I expected a visitor in the afternoon who would need to go into the garden. I had a short trip out to the shops on the Mean Machine, my electric mobility scooter, to by some fresh bread to have with the salad we had that evening for dinner. The trip took longer than expected as I got involved in conversation with a couple of lots of neighbours.

Tuesday turned into the mammoth ironing day. It took over two hours. It’s a good thing I can sit down to the job otherwise it would never get done.

Yesterday was just an off day, one of those days when you feel everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Eventually I retreated to bed for a reassuring snuggle with the Fox. I told myself it maybe had more to do with overtiredness than anything else. That probably explained why I was getting myself rather depressed about things.

Today the Fox is cooking. He asked me to get some potatoes boiled ready for his corned beef & lentil pot this evening. I’m also expecting the home help to come along to clean the place up.

Monday also saw the landscape gardener return for another discussion about our plans. I think we’re finally managing to get our ideas over to him, for him then to turn them into reality. We don’t expect to hear from him until the end of next month when, hopefully, he will have got some more detailed drawings and a DVD giving us a virtual 3D tour of the proposed new garden.

It’s also dawned upon us we’re off on our holidays very soon now & we still haven’t got our flight tickets. A hasty call to the travel agents has located them so we’ll have to go in to collect them. We’ll also get some euros while we’re out. I think that is the only thing we really need to organise apart from the inevitable dreaded packing. It’s not so much the putting into a bag I dread it’s the deciding what to take & trying to remember the odd items like the travel alarm, drinking chocolate etc. I wonder what the weather will be like in southern France…

A field of sunflowers

Earlier this week I took a guidebook to Provence out of the library. On the cover is a picture of a field of golden sunflowers. It set me thinking.

Sunflowers are so often used to epitomise Provence. You see them on pottery & tablecloths in the area.

Yet when I think of sunflowers I think of two places, both far from Provence. The first is a hill overlooking the confluence of the Vienne & the Loire, &, for that matter, Chinon. When we drove up to the top, we found fields of sunflowers drying in the sun ready to be harvested for their oil.

The other place I think of is Gouda in the Netherlands. I remember sitting in the market place one market day watching the world go by. Among other stalls there was a flower stall. So many people seemed to be buying sunflowers. I couldn’t help thinking they are such huge flowers to use to decorate the home but they were undoubtedly popular.

No, the flower I associate with Provence is lavender. One holiday we stayed in the foothills of Mont Ventoux, near Carpentras. One day we drove over to Sault. We passed field after field of lavender. All the postcards seem to be dominated by their blue-purple flowers, even though when we were there they were not yet in flower. Sault is the central collecting point for the lavender collected to subsequently be sent to Grasse to be turned into fine perfumes.

The other flower I associate with the region is the purple iris. They were in flower at the time of that holiday & seemed to be ubiquitous. That was the time I grew to appreciate Van Gogh’s painting of irises. (An aside: I wonder if the Van Gogh painting of sunflowers that make them so popular in the Netherlands? Or is it just some shared attraction to them?)

Maybe it is just a reflection of when we have visited Provence. It has always been in the spring whereas the Loire & the Netherlands we have visited in late August/early September when sunflowers would be more prominent.

For me Provence is about lavender & olives, but maybe I will come back from this holiday with a different image.

Boredom

I’m having trouble with the computer today so if anything comprehensible appears here it will be a minor miracle. I suspect a whole lot of programmes are being updated interfering with my use of the machine. Or maybe it’s just another one of my off days. It never ceases to amaze me that I do exactly the same things one day, or so it seems to me, and everything behaves perfectly, but on another there just seems to be one hurdle after another to jump to get anywhere. Today is definitely the latter sort of day. It’s taken me 3 attempts just to get booted up and ready to go.

Yesterday was a rather sobering day. We went along to the golf club, where we joined Fran & Den. Their first bit of news was that Mrs B, the retired headmistress, was laid up. Some years ago she had an accident resulting in an ulcer on her leg. It took months to heal up. Apparently she’d accidently scraped her leg, more or less on the same spot, and now it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She’d had the nurse round. Even so, in less than an hour the blood was once more oozing through. She’d been given instructions to rest up as much as possible, which was why she hadn’t joined the others for lunch.

As the afternoon passed, we couldn’t help noticing Fran closing her eyes & nodding off. It suddenly dawned upon me she was chronically bored. Whenever we spoke to her, directing questions at her, involved her in our enthusiasms of the moment i.e. our plans for the garden, she brightened up & became lively. Whenever Den set off on one of his long, often repeated stories, her eyes closed. It had never occurred to me before that part of her spiritual absence has just been sheer boredom rather than a medical problem.

They’ve not been married that long, nearly 4 years. Den lived as her lodger for many years when her first husband was alive. The three of them went on holiday together, were more often than not in company with each other, and so she must surely have known what Den was like before the wedding. It just seems so sad that someone could be so bored with life that they are literally shutting down before your very eyes. It’s all the sadder when you see the looks of total adoration for Fran in Den’s eyes.

Part of the problem undoubtedly is Fran’s failing physical health. Her mobility has declined noticeably, not entirely surprising since she is now in her 80s & she had a rather poor hip replacement done years ago, long before we knew her. She’s had several falls in recent years, not breaking anything but seriously bruising herself. She’s never been a great one for hobbies & crafts. She loves seeing people & shops but the latter she is no longer really up to doing. Her whole incentive for life seems to be dying.

Usually I regard boredom as the pause that spurs you on to find something new to get involved in. There are so many potential aspects of life & thought to interest you. The world is full of wonder. You just need to choose a direction to explore. Even if you can’t physically cope with doing too much, that’s no reason not to do a little & to think & learn something new, to observe the little everyday changes. Boredom soon disappears then.

Getting there

As you will realise from recent blogs from both of us, the Fox & I have been obsessed by thoughts about our garden.

As I have said we were not immediately bowled over by the designs proposed to us. We have been trying to clarify in our minds what we do want &, to some extent, what is practical. What we don’t want is something that looks fabulous now but which will be impossible for us to maintain with the result we have another jungle in ten years time.

We’ve had our noses buried in garden design books. We’ve watched garden makeover programmes. We’ve kept our eyes open as we’ve gone out & about, peering into other people’s gardens, noticing path materials, trying to work out what attracts us & what does not.

We finally think we’ve got an outline idea of what we want. We’ve drawn a rough sketch which we can both agree on. The time has come to talk once more to the designer to get something more exact on paper & to check over some of the practicalities. We’ve not even thought about the planting beyond “Here a raised bed for perennials & few annuals”, “Here trees”, “Here shrubs”. But at least I think we’ve got something more definite for a designer to work on.

Ultimately we just want something that gives us pleasure to look out on but which doesn’t involve a lot of work to maintain. Neither is up to the latter &, as we grow older, we can’t see that changing. But we do want to enjoy sitting outside occasionally when it is warm. And for that we want privacy, to not be too overlooked by all our neighbours. We do want to encourage the wildlife to continue to visit, though a few less slugs & snails & other pests wouldn’t come amiss – my basil bush has just been consumed by cabbage white caterpillars, our hostas are lacy from slugs & snails, our marigolds under attack from blackfly. We certainly don’t see us sitting at the far end of the garden or even venturing down there that often though I am hoping that with appropriate paths I will be able to go down there on my Mean Machine some of the time.

But first, before I contact the designer, I want to sort out a few websites & pictures of the sort of things we have in mind. Maybe that way he will have a better understanding of what we want. If not, it will be time for us to try to find another landscape designer to try. There must be someone who can understand our vision & turn it into a reality.

Another social afternoon

Yesterday turned into another very social day.

We started by doing the dreaded big shop. As we contemplated whether to buy some ready made coleslaw to have with a salad later in the week, a cheery voice said hello. It was Linda & Ken. We haven’t seen them for a while. It’s strange. Only the other day, I was thinking about the regular last-Monday-of-the-month meals we used to have. Linda & Ken were regulars. Linda joined the merry group when her husband died. She needed somewhere social she could go without feeling awkward about being on her own or feeling pressured into finding a new partner. Eventually she did meet Ken & started to bring him along too. The years pass. It is good to see they’re still very much together.

We went home first as we had bought quite a few frozen things & it was a warm day. However, having got everything into the freezer or fridge as necessary, we set off for Snatchems. As there was nobody there we knew, we happily found a seat on the balcony overlooking the Lune & watched the birdlife – the geese & swallows – while chatting over our drinks.

Then I thought I recognised a face. He called “Orin”. This confirmed the identity – we don’t know many Orins - the son of a couple of friends, Jimmy & Dor. Sure enough, inside our friends had arrived. We joined them.

Even as we chatted Howie & his wife passed through, stopping only to tell us off for abandoning our usual village pub.

Jimmy & Dor are Manchester folk. They have a caravan just behind Snatchems. They try to escape up here whenever they can, often bringing one of their sons & their little grandson, Orin.

Then just as we were getting ready to leave in came Den & Fran. Fran seemed a lot happier today. We didn’t stop, but I suspect she’s calmed down about that scam letter she received last week.

But they weren’t the last people we bumped into. This time it was Steve & Kieran. They’re in the process of buying, restoring & hopefully then emigrating to Limousin in France. Steve is a builder by trade so he’s in a good position to do most of the restoration work himself. It sounds like it’s a barn conversion. They’ve now got electricity & running water installed. It’s all coming along.

When they first spoke about moving to France a couple of years ago we’d thought they were going to do an instant flit without so much as a word of French. They’d never even visited France before. We thought it was like so many of the couples you see on the property programmes on TV, with no realistic idea of what was involved. However, they’ve taken their time. They’ve found a property near where one of their friends live. They’ve coped with French bureaucracy. Kieran has started to go to college to try to learn some language. Steve is confident he will be able to find work as there are many English people living around that region who need an English-speaking builder. They’d just come back from their latest visit, taking a whole lot of tools he needs to do the renovation. They’re planning their next trip back in a couple of weeks.

We feel quite envious of them. The idea of moving to France does have an appeal. However my health benefits are not transferable to be paid in France &, anyhow, I’ve found it difficult enough explaining my medical problems & understanding what the docs have had to say in English. I don’t fancy my chances in French. But the idea of life in France does appeal. We make do instead with regular holidays there, like our trip to Provence next month.

 

Forced change & anxieties

It’s been an odd few days. Our world seems to be changing at the edges.

I suppose it started on Thursday when we went down to our new butcher. After the demise of the farmers’ market we had started to buy most of our meat from this butcher in Morecambe. We were pleased with the general standard of the meat. We seem to be having a fishy week or two so hadn’t been along for a while. Imagine our surprise to find the place well & truly shut up. There was absolutely no sign of life. It looked as though it had been lying derelict for months. Once more we seek that rare breed, a decent butcher with good quality meat at a fair price.

Then on Friday we were told of Fran’s upset. Fran is in her 80s & not in the best of health. She’d received a letter in her previous name. It purported to come from a lawyer in China, concerning some money left by some distant unknown relative. We all assured her it was a scam. Sooner or later a letter will come asking her for some money before the thousands of US dollars could be released to her. She naïvely is upset as there is no address to reply to & she feels she should reply if only to be courteous. She is also anxious about the fortune that she thinks is coming her way. The fact that the letter does not have a Chinese stamp on it, or that she’s been found purely because she has the same surname as the “deceased”( which would not be a legal basis for inheritance, especially as the surname used is that of her first husband, not her own) is passing her by. She’s just getting in a state of over-anxiety & despondency over the whole business – not what she needs when her own health is not at its best.

On the way home on Friday we stopped at a clock shop to find it displaying a contact number. We duly rang it. Now our kitchen clock has gone off to the repairer. The wall looks very bare without it. The silence without its regular tick is deafening.

So yesterday we got down to our village pub. Howie, who I only mentioned in my blog last week, came in. He seemed casually dressed, rather than in his usual work clothes. It seems he’s had a couple of close shaves with death, resulting in ambulances, resuscitation & days in the Intensive Care Unit. He’s now in the process of selling his business & going into forced retirement. It is clearly a shock for him. He is still a relatively young man, just in his early 60s. At present he’s finding the forced idleness very stressful. He’s very much a doer, rather than a man who can relax & enjoy watching life go by. We hope all goes well for him.

As for us, we continue to dream of our future garden. We have some clarification in our ideas but still nothing is fixed. At the rate it’s going we can see it will be next year before anything gets done.

Meanwhile we dream of our next holiday, next month, when we’re off to southern France for a couple of weeks. We’re starting to get quite excited about the prospect. We’ve started getting organised by buying a new suitcase which will be hopefully easier for me to pull along while the Fox pushes me in my wheelchair. Our old one has a tendency to tip over on its wheels, making even a short journey seem very long.

A change of plans?

Yesterday it turned out to be Ray we bumped into. He & his wife have only recently moved into Heysham. They arrived just before Christmas last year. Since then most of their time has been spent making their house into a home. A frenzy of redecorating has been under way. Now Ray finally thinks he’s got time to make the model railway set he’s been planning for the last 25 years.

Meanwhile at home the sound of the saw has dominated, along with billows of smoke. Our neighbour has decided his garden too is disappearing under self-seeding trees. The time has come to do something about it.

I wonder if what he does will affect our ideas of what we want to do. I had been thinking in terms of a series of trees on the left side of the garden, where the fence is low, to give us privacy. This neighbour, on our right, is now cutting down some of the trees on his side which may mean we will be overlooked from that side too, so will we have to think of screening of some sort on that side too?

I’m certainly thinking of having plenty of trees & shrubs anyhow. Partially because they will help take up the excess water which we suspect will still be around despite any drainage scheme, partially because they take up a substantial amount of space without requiring too much attention &, above all, because they provide homes for our feathered friends as well as perching places. We want the garden to remain wildlife friendly. Seeing the birds, butterflies & frogs give us so much pleasure. And we love trees anyhow.