I had two emails, on Tuesday and on Wednesday, from different people, each titled ‘bad news’ which was an unpleasant coincidence. Not good taste to blog about other people’s bad news however, so we’ll move on.

I’m still tired, so it’s a good thing I don’t have any appointments until 4 o’clock this afternoon and I can do whatever I like with the day. The house is pristine (by my relaxed standards) and all I have to do domestically is watering. There is always work I could be doing, but not today. It’s such a luxury to have a free day in the middle of the week, makes me feel quite incautious. Pity the sun isn’t shining. I blame all those gloomy people who grumble continually the moment there’s hint of summer.

I’ve got a governors’ training meeting this afternoon, which I daresay will be useful. It’s one of those dos where you have two sessions, each on a different subject. I’m not thrilled to see that one of the ones I’ve been put down for is on acronyms. I’m turning into a grumpy old woman on acronyms. Each profession has its own set which, it seems to me, is designed to keep out non-members. In education, the acronyms are constantly changing, for no good reason that I can see except to bewilder governors. And once you get into the way of abbreviations, you tend to shorten everything.
In our church, for example, there is a weekly newsletter. This quickly spreads news and information across the six churches and was a useful innovation by the last Rector. It’s called News for the Pews. But several people have referred recently to NFP*. Oh really. Brings out the impatient side of me. It saves all of one syllable, though is, I agree shorter to type (by all of ten letters).

In fact, I’ve lost the letter so I am a bit vague about time of meeting and the other thing I’m to learn about. That’s the result of being too tidy, how are you to find anything if it’s been put away? Chronological layers, that’s the way to go.

*Could be worse. They could write N4P. That would make me retort snappishly.

And, by the way, at the school prizegiving I went to yesterday, there was one chap who was the absolute image of Steve Buscemi, except very short, and another who looked exactly like Rick Moranis. Just struck me, because they are both men with quite an unusual appearance and you would hardly expect to find both their lookalikes at the same time.

As I’m tired and haven’t anything I feel like writing about.

Campanula

The first runner bean has set. I adore runner beans.

Lavender

Swiss chard comes in wonderful colours, bright red, pink, yellow and white.

The grapes look promising don’t they. They usually rot before they ripen however, I only keep the vine from sentiment (cutting from my mother’s vine from many years ago) and because it shades the greenhouse nicely.

It was only a few days ago the the BBC gleefully promised us a heatwave. Now they say it will soon end and we will have the relief of cooler weather by the weekend. I wish they would just tell us the weather forecast and not add their interpretation of whether we like it or not. What would suit me best of all would be a straightforward weather forecast, briefly repeated at the end for those of us who tuned in half way through (either by turning the set on or by starting to listen), only to find the bit of country we live in has already been mentioned and will not be referred to again.

Some may be finding it a bit too hot down in the southern part of the country. But there are flash floods in Manchester and it’s raining in Edinburgh. I am managing to stay quite tranquil and cheerful – I’m not going to have a holiday this summer, so sunny weather at home will do me nicely instead.

Men seem to have more trouble with the heat at night, or so it seems from my attentive blog-reading. I advise a mini-fridge by the bed, with spare pillowcases in it, bottles of water and half-bottles of champagne for those moments when neither of you can sleep and you decide to make the best of it. I’ve recommended it to two people so far, both with vast readerships, so if the sale of such fridges rockets, I will take quiet pride in my part in the boom.

Actually, when I thought of the champagne (suggested to Greavsie today), the thought was appealing enough to make me want a mini-fridge myself. Can you think of anything more delightful? Really beats tossing and turning hotly at 3am. Geena doesn’t think it’s practical, but I think it’s a good enough idea to ditch the boring bedside cabinet and all that sort on nonsense. Books can go on the floor, water is in the fridge, alarm clock can go on top.

Off to google mini-fridges.

I have pink shoulders. Oh, and I’m usually so careful in the sun. I have a pale complexion and freckle rather than brown. But today Class 3 (that’s the 8- and 9-year-olds in the 3 class, 5 year-group, village school) came round to visit my wildlife garden. That is, of course, a euphamism for so many weeds that everything thrives except the expensive bought-in plants, and all wild creatures have somewhere to live.

They divided into three groups, one to look at the bantams and the trees, one for the vegetables and greenhouses and one for the pond and hot and sunny area. There was a teacher, a teaching assistant and me (have no fear, I have higher level CRB clearance, which proves I am to be trusted). I was, of course, given the pond etc, which meant I was an hour and a half in the full sun and far too intent on making sure the children a. did not fall in and b. were learning something useful, to notice I was reddening.

The wildlife came up trumps. I caught a water boatman and children caught pond skaters and a diving beetle larva, as well as a good many snails and all the other little pond creatures you would expect. We saw a frog but, try as Josh did, he couldn’t catch it. There were beautiful little vivid blue damsel flies whizzing around, some of them paired up, which gave rise to some knowledgeable comments (without embarrassment) about mating, likewise with some rapturous snails. None of them, this year, knew that snails are hermaphrodite, although they had all heard of both Hermes and Aphrodite. I made them think about why a pond needs greenery and how a water spider breathes.

The most exciting thing, to most of them and to me, was the discovery of the empty shell of the dragonfly that I wrote about the other day. The first group saw it on an iris leaf, so we left it there until the end when I reached perilously to the middle of the pond, picked the leaf and gave it to them to take back to school. It was a good one too, in perfect condition. And I didn’t take a picture, d’oh.

I’ll email them the photos of the dragonfly, anyway.

And the Sage picked up one of the 5-day-old chicks for them to stroke. I can’t remember if I mentioned them (and too lazy to look), but two broody girls were each sitting on an old egg to keep them happy – and then both eggs unexpectedly hatched, on the same day, too. We have made up for the depletions of the fox, which has not made a return visit since the hayfield next door was cut. Soon all the chickens will be moving house, as I need an area cleared to enlarge the kitchen garden and it will give the grass a chance to grow in their normal roaming area (far too big to be called a run). Since I don’t want them getting out into the vegetables, they will be properly fenced in. Unfortunately, it means that a chicken run will be the first thing you see as you arrive in our garden, but it is there for a reason and so I am resolutely unembarrassed.

You know how it is when a chance remark really upsets someone? Fortunately, upset person had the good sense to say so, and I was able to apologise: there was something of a misunderstanding in fact, as what I said was taken in somewhat the wrong way, but there was enough meat on the bone, as it were, for a simple ‘sorry’ to be better than a long explanation. Unsettling all round though, I don’t like making someone unhappy, or to have them worried about me.

And my sister had a motorcyclist go into the side of her car the other day; she pulled out from a junction and he came round the corner fast; probably about 50:50 blame there. Neither of them was hurt, which is all that really matters, but she’s very shocked and upset still, not surprisingly. I was in a meeting when she rang; luckily I’d forgotten to turn my phone off, as talking to her was more important than the meeting, and I was right by the door and could slip out (this is not something I normally do, of course, I switch it off).

A gorgeous day, I’ve been thinking of my mother. She hated hot weather with a real passion and would have been saying “dreadful weather, you can’t breathe” just as you were settling down with a long drink and a good book on the lawn. She was a Land Girl in the war, so she must have coped with all weathers then, but her thermostat went wrong in later years.
I’ve had a lovely day, I shelved all plans to be useful and simply relaxed. A barbecue tonight, once I’ve done the watering. We had delicious spinach, broad beans, artichokes, new potatoes and courgettes, all village- or home-grown, last night. It is not a good gardening year at all for me, most of the french beans and nearly all the peas dried up and frizzled in the June sunshine, but one takes the good years with the bad, and I didn’t have a good start in any case as I was so late. I’m so pleased with the seed catalogue I mentioned the other day; next year I am going to rekindle my gardening enthusiasm by growing lots of unusual varieties – they have any number of interesting seeds.
I will, no doubt, enthuse about this another time (memo – limited interest only, one for most of you to miss).

I hope you had a very good weekend.

I received an email from the Globe Theatre. In addition to their programme of Shakespeare’s plays, they are putting on a production of UNDER THE BLACK FLAG -The Early Life, Adventures and Pyracies of the Famous Long John Silver Before He Lost His Leg. For a limited season this summer. We are promised, in capital letters, that THIS PRODUCTION FEATURES BARE FLESH AND FILTHY LANGUAGE.

You should come here and watch me cooking dinner in this hot weather if you want BARE FLESH AND FILTHY LANGUAGE, for no charge at all, except a snappy request to unpack the dishwasher.

Having said this, I feel quite mellow this evening. If you are in the right sort of mood, a gentle trickle of sweat down your backbone and your, er, frontbone (with no risqué undertone, if you please) can feel quite interesting.

But back to the Globe. I don’t know if a reproduction of a Shakespearian theatre is wonderful or simply kitsch, but I like it. I used to go every year, but I’ve skipped a couple of years. Partly because of family weddings in Augusts and partly because they will do ‘themes’ (historical plays, for example) and if you don’t care for the subjects, you are not so likely to go.

This year they are doing Coriolanus. Not one of my favourites, though I haven’t seen it for years and years – but it doesn’t seem a play for a summer evening. And Titus Andronicus. Um, no. I haven’t seen it, but it just could replace Measure for Measure as my most unloved Shakespeare play. And Antony and Cleopatra. Well, watchable enough, but I have seen it several times and it is very long… They are hastily bringing in the Comedy of Errors too, I see from the website. That could hit the mindless entertainment spot.

It is the place and its atmosphere that sells it to me though. I have seen some distinctly indifferent performances there, the most disappointing of which was Vanessa Redgrave as Prospero in The Tempest. Miranda was good, Caliban was absolutely wonderful and the supporting cast was fine. But she was dreadful. She underplayed it to the extent that you could not tell what she was saying – she evidently didn’t want to Declaim the Famous Speeches, but surely you should act? and be heard? and she really was being carried by the rest of the cast. I saw her years ago, in the late 60s, in London – I think it was in Camelot, but someone may correct me. I do remember that Laurence Harvey played King Arthur (unless I’m wrong again and he played Sir Lancelot) and my mother complained that he had bandy legs, or possibly knock knees* and was not best suited to tights.

*It’s been pointed out that he could hardly, as I first said, have both.