In praise of big trees

Photos from a glorious afternoon dog walk with the middle boy on his birthday the other day. 17 no less. He keeps muttering things about motorbikes. I pretend I haven't heard.

We were driving home the other day and we spotted a car that someone had driven actually into the front door of a house on a neighbouring road. The house was on the corner so I'm guessing someone went around it a little too fast. Very annoying for the homeowner who had no use of their front door for several days until it was removed. When we got home we found a brown envelope on the mat containing the middle boy's provisional driving licence.

Locally, it seems to be all about trees and hacking things back at the moment. A large number of mature trees have been removed, many of them ash trees with ash die-back I think. A few saplings have been planted to replace them. Fair enough. But the local authority is absolutely obsessed with cutting back hedgerows to almost nothing which is a bit rubbish. I just wrote, 'I am in a permanent fury' and then deleted it. Wouldn't want you to think I am all cross all of the time, but it does REALLY bother me.

Out of the window I can see a wonderful tree. Pictures below.

I always look at it when I get up to stretch and procrastinate. It's lovely and so many different species of birds use it, including for roosting at night and for nesting. There was another one, but it has been removed. I live in fear of this one going as well. But for now it is there, in all its glory. It amazes me how much habitat a single tree provides. It only takes up a few square feet on the ground, but in the air, a whole world of wildlife. Absolutely wonderful. 

Over the past two or three days the frogs have started getting out and about again. The littlest boy and I saw three on the evening dog walk alone today. Sadly, they are struggling to find garden ponds these days. I think about putting one in the front garden sometimes, but then I would worry about the traffic if it attracted frogs. 

I dragged the dog (literally) to the vet the other day. Have you ever wondered why the floor at the vet's is so shiny? It's all the cockapoos being slid along the lino. He didn't seem quite himself and the vets do love to get stuck into tests and things. He was squeezed and prodded and as usual refused to show anyone his gums. I provided a (very small) urine sample which they said they would send off for analysis.

After I chased them up a few days later, they rang me back with a conversation that started with, 'Unfortunately, ...' My heart actually skipped a beat. In fact, the unfortunate thing was that they had failed to send off the urine sample which was now no longer fresh and they wanted another one. It was quite a good tactic because after the initial shock of thinking that he had been diagnosed with something dreadful I was happy as a clam that it was just an administrative snafu. So we went back out on the streets with our pot. It didn't go quite as well the second time to be honest. I didn't really want to go down to the bus stop and have an audience of 15, so we went somewhere else, and the dog wasn't keen about the pot and then there was some leakage in the bag and all in all it was a bit disappointing. Anyway, all seems well and I was promised some sort of small refund because of the failure, which was a surprise.

The two younger urchins had another ski lesson the other day. The middle boy slalomed past some little people at an odd angle so as not to canon into them and ended up hurtling into the netting at the end of the ski run, handily placed to stop skiers from hurtling off the end and into the car park 30 feet below. Both of his skis shot through the netting and he was briefly wedged, which the littlest boy quite enjoyed. At some stage I shall have to buy them all of the things on the list of clothing. I hadn't quite appreciated how much is involved in skiing when I blithely signed the initial form. 

All good at your end? CJ xx

All the things I'm going to do the week after next

How are we enjoying the fresh January energy? I always love this time of year with its lovely cosy winter days, long dark evenings and fabulous skies. I love the excitement of a new year and I am still ever-optimistic this will be the year that I will get ALL of the things done. 

I've realised that I always genuinely believe that just as soon as I get this particular pile of work done, I will have time to make a start on everything that I want to accomplish. Somehow, I imagine that if I can just get on top of stuff, just clear this work away, then I will be in charge and free to achieve absolutely everything.

I know this about myself, and yet I still believe it somehow. I actually will have more time the week after next, I just know it. I can't fault myself for optimism.

The upshot of this is that I don't really have any news, except that I have my nose to the grindstone. It's good to have lots of work of course and I am very glad of it. And very much looking forward to the week after next. Or maybe the one after that.

I have returned the eldest to university. The most interesting change I noticed was that he now enjoys country music. The littlest boy found a secondhand guitar in a local charity shop, so we bought that for him and he is happy as a clam. I told him that we should go to Nashville. I have always fancied a trip to Nashville. I don't know the first thing about it really, except that there will be guitars and cowboy boots and I imagine loads of creative energy. And I believe it is really expensive. 

The books are from the local community bookshop. I popped in and it started raining. As time went by, the deluge got worse and worse and so I was forced to stay where I was and buy books. It was dreadful. I've read Sharp Objects before and really enjoyed it. The others are new to me. It's a brilliant shop, and very cheap. Just 50p a book, with all proceeds going to the local community. I've taken quite a lot in over the years as well. It's good to have a nice secondhand book shop as so many are closing. The big Book Barn I used to go, with over a million books, closed down a while ago. 

I think I shall start with Lessons in Chemistry, which I've heard quite a bit about. I think I shall be able to start it the week after next.

Do let me know your news. And I shall try very hard to do something newsworthy to report back next time. Although most of the things on the calendar are appointments such as 'optician', 'dentist' and 'vet', so I can't exactly pinpoint where the excitement will come from. 

Keeping out the Welsh

 

Glimpses of Berkeley Castle, built in the 12th century to keep out the Welsh, which clearly hasn't worked. It's also where Edward II is believed to have been murdered in 1327. It's pretty much been in the same family the whole time, although it's a wedding venue as well as their home now and also does a bit of jousting and that sort of thing from time to time. It's basically like Lower Loxley, if you are familiar with the Archers.

The white house nearby was the home of Edward Jenner, 'father of immunology' who pioneered the concept of vaccines. He also created a vaccine for smallpox which had killed around 10% of the global population. He experimented with it on his gardener's 8-year-old son. Good job it worked.

Check out the glasshouse round the back. I reckon I could grow my own pineapples if I had something like that.

Did we all power through Christmas okay? It has been nice to have the biggest boy back, although I had forgotten how much space he takes up and how much food he eats. He came home and opened the fridge with a happy sigh, saying, 'The good thing about being at home is there's food in the fridge. Oh.' Turned out it was disappointingly empty.

He texts me and the littlest boy photos of his meals sometimes. The littlest boy looked at one of them and said, 'His food looks so much better than ours mum. How is he outdoing us?' Sigh.

Did I ever tell you about the food shopping insurance? Some student insurance provides £200 of cover in case you are robbed on your way home from the supermarket and all of your shopping is stolen. This type of thing is not reassuring to a mother, imagining some post-apocalyptic urban hellscape where you cannot even get your soya milk and organic lentils and Morrison's vodka home safely.

The dog pretended he couldn't see him when he first came home after three months away. Literally turned his back on him and studiously ignored him. I think he may have forgiven him now. 

Thank you for all of your bench commiserations and pep talks. I love the sound of subdued aubergine and also embracing Mediterranean tastes and stepping out of my comfort zone. 

On another garden topic, I have finally found a use for figs. I usually pick off all the small fruits that are left at the end of the season, but I couldn't reach the high up ones and ladders made me very nervous, being highly clumsy, so I left quite a few this year. It turns out that the birds really like them, or at least they did during the cold snap. Which made me think that maybe I could freeze some of the ripe ones and bring them out for the birds in the winter. They've also been getting through loads of sunflower seeds. 

The local garden shop has just closed its doors for good which is a shame. They sold beans and peas and onion sets loose and you could just put as many as you wanted in a paper bag. They grew all of their own beddings and vegetable plants and the rest of their stock came from local nurseries. And apart from pet food and food for the wild creatures, it was all plants and no novelty hot water bottle covers or peanut brittle. 

The urchins had a go at skiing the other day on the dry ski slope. I say dry, but actually there was biblical rain, so they got soaked. Someone accidentally slid backwards into a row of new skiiers. Honestly, is there anything funnier than seeing a bunch of people who can barely stand up themselves trying to stop someone sliding away by all holding onto a bit of their anorak. And probably nothing much more annoying than seeing someone who is sitting drinking a nice hot flask of coffee and laughing instead of actually getting off their arse and giving it a go. 

Hope you all had a good festive blast and are ready for the clean, clear energy of January. I also hope American friends are all okay in the storm. CJ xx

The importance of a tightly drafted brief

I am just about ready to tell you the sorry tale of my garden bench. I dug out a couple of old photos so that you could get an idea of what it looked like Before. The wood was past its best, but the ends were lovely and smooth with a sort of blue-black look to them.

I wanted to repair it, rather than buy a new one, even though a new one would have been cheaper than buying new wood and new fixings. It's a bog standard cheap bench and quite old, but I hate throwing things away so I got the necessary stuff.

I couldn't remove the old bolts, which were rusted, so I asked the local community repair shop to do it. I gave them the bench and the wood and the new bolts and they assured me it would be no trouble at all to fit the new wood.

I bumped into one or two of the chaps out and about and they hinted that a lovely job was being made of it. The wood would be treated! It would all be magnificent. 

They were also doing up bikes for Ukrainian refugees because they are all in all good eggs, so I waited patiently for weeks, looking forward to having a functional bench again. It was a bit of a treat to be honest, splashing out on the wood. I could picture how nice it would be.

Then the call came. It was done! I could go and get it! 

I rounded up some strong boys and off we went. There was excitement at the shop, they'd gone all out they told me. Not just wood treatment, but they'd given it a coat of paint was well! 

Oh, I said, how nice. Inside I was thinking, paint??? I tried to imagine what colour they had gone for. I guessed green. And I was right. It was indeed green. THICK BRIGHT GREEN GLOSS. WITH ORANGE VARNISH. Oh horror of horrors. 

I was almost lost for words. The lovely smooth patina-ed ends all choked up with hideous gloss paint. Thick, thick, thick gloss paint. It is never coming off, ever. And it will never fade. It might chip, but not to worry, THERE IS MORE UNDERNEATH.

They all looked pleased as punch to have gone above and beyond and delivered such a thing. It was carried out and placed in isolated splendour for me to appreciate it in all its perfection. The orange wood really stood out against the THICK BRIGHT GREEN. I couldn't imagine a more striking combination. 

I paid the money and organised the urchins to carry it off and spent at least two minutes thanking them nicely because I didn't want to hurt the feelings of the person who had had the brilliant idea of green paint and orange varnish and who had made sure I had such a magnificent surprise. But inside, inside I was screaming. 

So here it is, back home in the garden, where I can see it all day from where I work. To be fair, the wood has changed colour slightly, possibly even for the better. But the green paint, no siree, that is as fresh as the day it was painted back in the summer. It has taken me this long to speak about it. 

I suppose you want to see it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Contrast it, if you will, with the other bench, which is blending in nicely and not shouting at all.

I suppose the trick will be to sit on the ghastly orange and green bench and look at the other bench. Although this doesn't solve the problem of me staring out of the window at it all the livelong day. Sigh. I know I am being overly dramatic, but what was supposed to be more of an eco-friendly solution has turned into a gloss paint nightmare. But it's fine. I am almost over it and I am certain that you will come up with a tasteful solution for me, such as covering it with a nice soft padded patchwork throw or rubbing yoghurt into it so that it ages back into beauty. You will come up with a tasteful solution, won't you?

Tranquility, and the magnificence that is Patricia

 

Photos from a glorious day by the canal with the middle boy, who wanted to go fishing. We were out pretty much from sunrise to sunset. He caught a pike while I pottered around taking photos and reading about canal history.

It's fascinating. Take this pill box for example:

It is one of a ring of around 260 pill boxes forming a protective circle, known as Stop Line Green, around Bristol and the port of Avonmouth, to try and prevent German forces from approaching from the east in the Second World War. It was also to defend the factory there, which was a ghost factory, ready to take over munitions production if another factory was bombed. Scary times indeed. The pill box is unusual in that it is two storeys high, rather than just one, and has what is believed to be an anti-aircraft placement on top.

The factory was in an old cloth mill, originating from the late 1400s. Lots of history down on the canal, I'm telling you.

The bit I liked best was called 'The Ocean':

Not exactly ocean-sized, but very pretty. No-one knows exactly why it's called The Ocean - maybe a touch of sarcasm. Or maybe because back in the day it was as near to an ocean as the yokels got.

I also read about how a railway bridge over the canal has just been rebuilt after they drained a stretch of the canal, moving fish and everything. The wildlife has reappeared now the water is back. A kingfisher flew right past me and I saw a buzzard right overhead and a greater spotted woodpecker in a tree. A family of swans spent the day drifting up and down a pretty stretch of the water. All in all a good day out. I even managed to stay calm(ish) when the fish was caught. You will be happy to know it was released again and no-one was bitten.

The old manor house behind the wall with the grass and the bench (ate my sandwiches there) is Stonehouse Court and dates back to 1601. In fact the estate is mentioned in the Domesday book. The church next to it (the photo with the weeping willow) dates back originally to the 1200s, but the building that is there now was started in the 1400s.

Panning out, there was a glorious barge in the canal next to Stonehouse Court called Patricia. I know you'll want to see her...

Magnificent, no? Who knew you could get a JCB boat?

In other news I am ignoring both the World Cup and Christmas. There is almost nothing positive about the former and the latter is just annoying and generally an eco-disaster.

I've been enjoying the early sunsets and the cosy winter feeling. While simultaneously trying to hold back with the heating :) Tricky isn't it. I do so love the countryside in winter. All that cold clean sky and pretty cottages with lighted windows in the dusk. 

Do you think it's time to put sunflower seeds out for the birds? They naturally dispersed in spring so I stopped feeding them, like they do at the wetlands place. But I feel it might be time to start up again.

I'm also contemplating getting a crab apple tree for wildlife. Although I never see birds actually eating crab apples. Maybe that's because I am always walking past the tree at the time. I have pretty much persuaded myself anyway. They are very pretty almost all year round. I would want one with small berry-sized (bird-bite-sized) crab apples for the birds I think. 

I am still waiting for a hedgehog. Well, there could actually be one in the hedgehog house but I don't like to look in case there is and I disturb it. I think the rat is still living under next-door's decking though. Bertie has a good sniff around on a regular basis and he should know with his super-spaniel nose. I am not fussy about wildlife, a rat will do nicely for now. 

All okay at your end? Ignoring anything? Got a hedgehog?