Green and grey

 

We loaded up the dog and headed up the road to Wales last week. It was beautiful there as ever. There was even some rain. Glorious. There were ferns tucked into slate walls, sea ducks out on the estuary, mountains topped with clouds, mullet feeding in the bay in the evening, mist on the lakes in the early mornings and sheep and rabbits all over the shop.

The eldest boy likes to climb mountains at sunrise and sunset, while the littlest boy likes to dig holes in sand and jump into the sea. The middle boy is easy going and likes all of it, and coffee and good food and funny conversations. Well, okay, maybe he's not a huge fan of digging holes, but he did shin up a mountain and swim in the sea. I climbed up half a mountain and looked at the sea. 

In the evening they played football together and I read my book and lightly policed it when it threatened to turn bickery. It was all rather blissful. And now we're back home and the garden is of course parched and the work has piled up. Not complaining though, not at all, it's all good. Well, not the climate change obviously, but I am putting out water for wildlife and doing what I can to be part of the solution etc. etc.

I need to up my game and entertain the urchins a bit I think. It's very easy to think, oh, I'll work this week and do something next week, and then the weeks slip by and I realise I haven't done anything. The littlest boy has a new-to-him bike which he is loving, so we did do a bike ride today. It's hard to think of things that teenagers would all like to do together though. With their mother in tow. That doesn't involve me handing out wads of cash. Ideas gratefully received.

How are things at your end? Back soon with the sorry tale of my garden bench, which I was going to tell you this time, but I couldn't bring myself to quite yet, it needs to settle a bit first. CJ xx

Mr Beaky

 

Scenes from the garden. It's so dry out there, although by some miracle next-door's grass is a deep green and growing beautifully. I am compiling a list of environmental crimes. Complete destruction of the back lane habitat. Mouse poisoning. Unreasonable grass. He is rather opposed to anything wild or living I fear. It is very much an empty shoebox garden with just grass, not a single other plant. I am working up to having a polite conversation about it all.

Around the neighbourhood we are losing at least a dozen big ash trees to ash die back. The felling notices say that although there will be replanting, it will be done somewhere else. Disappointing, because some of the trees are in big open green spaces, which will then be big empty green spaces. 

I don't mean to be all doom and gloom though. On this side of the garden fence there are all sorts of bees and butterflies and birds and in the other next door garden it is delightfully wild.

I have had the back door open a lot. I was eating my breakfast the other day while reading and something wandered into the room, strolled around and disappeared off again. I saw it out of the corner of my eye while I was engrossed and it took a good thirty seconds for me to realise that it wasn't the dog (he was out on a walk). By the time I'd leapt up and gone to investigate, it had disappeared. I finally spotted it - a cat, sashaying back up the garden path, cool as you please. Very good job the dog wasn't at home. 

Today has felt expensive. Food, petrol, locksmith (dodgy garage door), clothes for urchins and a head torch for the eldest who is going away and says that he thinks he will have to be active after dark. One of those days when outgoings far exceed incomings. Plus, someone is making very free with my organic cacao, which to my mind is a little luxury, to be had sparingly. 

I sent the middle boy out to pick the cherries, like in the olden days when time off of school was so that urchins could help with the harvest. I asked him if he felt a huge amount of homesteader satisfaction in putting provisions by for the winter. I think he was struggling to feel it to be honest. Supermarkets have ruined that sort of thing I fear.

I have been decluttering a little. I took an old hand puppet toy called Mr Beaky (think Emu, only with a shorter neck) to the recycling centre shop when the littlest boy wasn't around - most of this sort of toy removal has to be conducted stealthily or it will all be 'rescued' back again. 

At the recycling centre they have a portacabin where they hang out and all around it they have decorated with garden ornaments such as gnomes and pigs and things. Just as you drive up the slope to arrive, there is a big pole. When I went with the biggest boy, the first thing we saw was Mr Beaky perched right on top of the pole. I really must remember no to go there with the littlest boy for the foreseeable future or I shall be in all manner of trouble. I shall probably have to buy him back as well. Sigh. I had been so surreptitious in sneaking him out.

Hope everyone is cool and calm and collected out there. CJ xx

Flying ant day

                                                                        Dog and frog

It was Flying Ant Day today. That hot, dry day in midsummer when suddenly all of the flying ants appear. I rescued several from the fox/hedgehog/dog water bowls that I have about the place. Also a woodlouse from the pond, which was very satisfying. The pond level is a bit low at the moment, so it must be feeling a bit more crowded in there than usual. I also need to remove some of the weed, which is growing really well. In fact, a tiny strand of it has grown to fill the whole pond, and the water lily also needs to be smaller. Or maybe I just need a bigger pond. The littlest boy is all for digging a new, bigger one, but there is a layer of rock just below the soil surface here and I haven't forgotten how hard it was to chisel out even the small pond that we have now.

The garden is nicely messy and full of flying things, especially the grass which is still thick with clover and probably at least eight other flowers. The blackbirds are stuffing themselves with blueberries and the pigeons are still gorging themselves with cherries from the three trees dotted around. Still no sign of an actual hedgehog, but all in good time.

It is wall-to-wall cricket here at the moment, but at least the whites are drying nicely on the line and of course it does keep the urchins mostly out of trouble for many hours. Although apparently the littlest boy knocked off the biggest boy's hat at tea yesterday, so the biggest boy took a bite out of the littlest boy's apple in retaliation and I feel that may have turned slightly ugly. I imagine they might try and tone it down a bit when I'm not there though, do you think? The middle boy has taken himself off to a different cricket club where he can be nicely distanced from the rabble that is the rest of the family.

I am very aware that in less than three months the biggest boy will have gone to university (all being well). There is a list of things that need to be purchased that promises to be expensive. I am going to have to rein him in a bit I fear. He has researched the local wholefood shop near his chosen uni very thoroughly, and is also aware that he will only be able to buy anything there the day that his student loan is paid and never thereafter.

I need to teach him to cook some nice cheap vegan things. I am thinking lentil things, veggie mince things, scrambled tofu and maybe something around pasta. Feeding him has always been a serious and substantial undertaking. 

He found an actual student kitchen in a video the other day. Apparently it was utterly horrific. I wonder if he will appreciate me more when he is knee deep in uncooked chicken, burned oven gloves and last week's lightly furred washing up. Do let me know if you have any cheap and easy vegan recipes that would do for an optimistic student. CJ xx

Summer solstice in the garden

 

I just love this time of year, love, love, love it. And yes, I know I say that every time. 

I pootled round the garden earlier with the dog, taking a moment to enjoy it all. I love how still it often is out there. I stood at the door in the rain at the weekend and it was magical. Summer rain is fantastic, making everything green, green, green.

The clover in the grass is doing beautifully and there are bees there all day long. The wildlife pond is full of frogs and newts, it's fascinating to watch them. It really needs to be bigger. Ten times the size. Twenty! And every garden should have one. Which is also something I say all the time. But they should! 

I picked some yellow and white solstice flowers and lit a scented candle, just to mark the occasion. The littlest boy and I watched the sun setting behind the distant hills on the other side of the river. That was magical too. All magical! All the exclamation marks! The sun literally disappeared as we watched. Well, of course it did, but the last bit was fast. You know what I mean.

Otherwise today involved a bit of overwhelm. Loads of phone calls and emails and trying to get plumbers and movers and decorators and so on to do small jobs and really, not being hugely successful and trying to shoehorn work in around it all and laundry and food and garden and dog and on, as life does. I am hoping to feel a little calmer tomorrow. Or at least more organised.

The toilet cistern has taken to pouring water constantly down into the toilet, which apart from being un-environmentally-friendly is a bit noisy. I am trying to view it like one of those indoor water features you can get (which actually I would probably quite like)(until it went green and had to be scrubbed). Maybe I will put some crystals about the place to add to the spiritual ambience. 

A plumber has said that he will come. At some stage. Maybe one afternoon. That was as much pinning down as I managed to do. I am hoping that he doesn't forget me and wondering how many afternoons need to go by before I can politely ask if he will be fitting me in soon.

I thought the fridge seemed a bit warm earlier, but I am ignoring that for now. If the worst comes to the worst I shall eat all of the ice-cream and try to formulate a plan.

Leaving you with an outtake from the solstice flowers shot and hoping that it was a good day with you. Enjoy the summer my friends!

The Queen in wool

 

Goodness, I love this time of year. The Jubilee has made it especially nice, with bunting all over the place and a surfeit of cake. The town did of course celebrate by producing a knitted Jubilee scene, complete with the Queen done very nicely in stocking stitch, a range of teapots and some really good knitted cakes, all displayed in the window of the secondhand bookshop.

Elsewhere I came across this brilliant post box topper, honestly, in a league of its own. I see no-one has tried to tackle a corgi though, which is a bit disappointing.

The garden is all abundance and this is the time of year when the clover in the lawn flowers, which the bees love. My new neighbour has new pigeons and when I'm out there I can hear them cooing to each other, which is lovely. 

I have almost no news, which is not a bad thing. I'm working a lot, also not a bad thing, but hopefully I'll be able to take the odd bit of time off in the summer holidays. The eldest two are taking their A-levels and GCSEs at the moment. I feel I have coped with it quite well so far.

In between working I am clearing a property and it is really making me think long and hard about Stuff. At the end of the long day, I come home and declutter here a bit too. 

The Sort-It Centres are busy with people unloading mountains of stuff into the huge skips. I've found it all a bit sickening to be honest, although I am far from blameless. I do try to avoid buying too much, especially new and cheap things that won't last, but there could definitely be improvement. I am definitely resolving to do better and to try and reduce what I have. I may even get Marie Kondo down off of the shelf.

I have been trying to get rid of a piano, which is quite a feat. It turns out there are literally dozens of pianos on Ebay for 99p, buyer collects. It turns out no-one wants them any more. Some of them are lovely, all walnut burr and a high shine. I am looking at my own enormous old piano in a different light I can tell you. I have been quoted £225 to have the other one removed and recycled. If only I had played the cello instead.

How are things in your corner of the world? Good I hope. CJ xx