Tomorrow, the Sage is going to release the phantam. Here’s a picture of her – I put one of her up when she was a chick, which I’ll look for and link to if you like, although it was much like any other chick. Not a good photo, but she was very frightened and was running back and forth along the further corner of her run. Her foster mother went back with the other bantams a while ago, because she was taking most of the food but she hasn’t become very tame, even with the Sage, and she’s anxious to get out. She does look much more like a young hen pheasant than a bantam, but she’s definitely a hybrid. We don’t think she’ll settle with her aunts and she’ll be best simply let go, and hope that she’ll come back to roost and feed to the extent she’s comfortable with. The cock pheasant has been keeping her company from outside the run already and, since she’s far too young to interest him as a mate, he evidently recognises her as a fellow pheasant.

The new village school opened today. Squiffany will be a pupil, but as one among those of the new reception year who will go part time to start with, she will start next week. It’s very exciting for everyone concerned; this school has been a twinkle in everyone’s eye for a long time. I really thought it would be built in my time as a governor, it having been considerably delayed by then, and I left three years ago.

I have to say, from the road at any rate, it is not an attractive building. An odd mix of different coloured bricks or wooden cladding in its various sections, it doesn’t look very welcoming as a school or very modern as a design. More a product of the 1970s, perhaps, which is no great compliment. I haven’t walked across the fields to see what it looks like from the other side, and at least the classrooms will look out onto playing fields and a farmer’s field. The pretty Victorian school building it replaces was far too small however, with a small playground and no playing field at all (the church has rented a playing field for them) and it’s wonderful to have been given the funding for this new school. Whatever it looks like from the outside, I’m absolutely sure – knowing the staff, governors, and children – that Squiffany will have a fine education and be very happy there.

What Belgian Waffle wants, Belgian Waffle should get. I hope she didn’t mean I should upload it to Flickr

I’ve been in jeans most of the week, but today I wore a skirt. The teeshirt and pattern on my skirt are black not grey but I couldn’t find a black felt-tip pen and it’s too blunt to show the pattern, and the brown is too dark, so here’s a picture of it. I absent-mindedly coloured in down to the wrist on my left but I deliberately didn’t try to do my hands – I’d made enough hash of my shoulders. My sandals are brown, which I forgot to colour. I’m not sure what went wrong with my right lower arm.

There. Other than that, it’s the image of me.

It’s an interesting thing – Victoria sponges or Bakewell tarts (or puddings, if you’re from Derbyshire) each taste different, but a cherry cake is a cherry cake and one tastes much like another. That was the hardest – the first two tasted almost exactly alike, the third tasted the same but was slightly drier. All – there were 7 or 8 entries – tasted similar but in all but 2, all the fruit had sunk to the bottom. One was beautifully distributed and one was reasonably so. Sadly, the best looking wasn’t the best tasting. This was the hardest decision of all. Marie and I deliberated, and finally gave it to the perfect looking one – it was still a good cake to eat and was, visibly, by far the best.

Anne had rather wanted us to share the items between us – one to do baking and one to do preserves, but neither of us fancied that, and we promised to hurry up and be decisive. Even so, we were diligent and examined jellies (preserves, that is, not gelatine desserts) for clarity and cakes for density and lightness of crumb before our careful tasting. Usually, we were able to decide swiftly on the top three or four, although we usually had to taste again before deciding on the final order. Marie would have overlooked the less than ideal looking entries, but I insisted on tasting everything, and indeed the best looking often wasn’t the best to eat. After it was over and, having tasted 10 or 12 pickles and chutneys, faintly churny of stomach, we had a final swig of water and went for lunch – I left the ham and cheese and ate home-made onion quiche and salad, including a particularly good, fleshy yellow tomato I’m not familiar with – I’ll have to ask around and see if I can find out the variety.

When all the names had been put out, I looked to see who we’d given prizes to. I was interested to see that De had won first prize for her drink for the third year. She’s helped me judge for the last two years and stepped back, leaving it to me, for the class she’d entered in. She gave me no hint and I had no idea, but she won. This year, there was an elderflower cordial, two elderflower and lemon and one lemon and raspberry. The lemon and raspberry was deliciously tart, an elderflower and lemon was slightly sparkling and delicious and we tasted them a couple of times, before deciding that the lemon overpowered the raspberry and it was slightly too sour with raw lemon juice. The other was marginally sweet, but otherwise perfect and we gave it to that. Having once gained 19/20 points for my lemonade in an Area WI class, I reckon I know my soft drinks – anyway, as I say, De’s was the winner as it transpired.

Ro was out on my bike (he had asked) when I arrived home. He’d gone to visit various friends, one of whose mother has just died. Another friend, who gave him a lift home from Norwich on Friday, lost his father to cancer a year ago – tough on these young men. My father died suddenly when I was 16; I miss him still, and it will be 40 years in January – and the centenary of his birth next July.

Anyway, we had an early meal of bacon (local), eggs (home-laid) and tomatoes (home grown) and I took him back to Norwich. I brought back a boxful of shot lettuces from his landladies’ garden, for the bantams.

Today, there was a car treasure hunt and tea at the Rectory. I thought it my absolute duty as a good guest to eat as much as possible, since Brenda and Gill had cooked so much delicious food. I ate sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, sponge cake and fruit cake. Back to a redoubled diet tomorrow. Size 10 (English, darling American friends) has been determinedly re-won and will not be lost again.

Today, I’m going to one of the next villages to judge the Domestic classes in their annual Gardening Club show. It’s the third consecutive year – I have to say that I’m terribly flattered to have been asked again. I know what a dismal old woman this makes me but I don’t care in the least. I also know why they asked me back – it’s because I do the judging in the spirit of the show.

I’d done it before, some years ago, with a friend. Now she took it on with the air of a professional, which she was. She used to be a home economist, worked on various glossy magazines, with well-known food writers/cooks and has written a number of cookery books herself. So she took the schedule seriously, and if it said a 7″ cake, she wouldn’t even taste the 6″ one, but wrote ‘not as scheduled’ and passed it by. Similarly, if she cut it open and it was a bit underdone in the middle, she wouldn’t taste it. After a couple of years, they quietly didn’t ask her. She moved away some time ago so there’s no question of offending her by asking me without her.

I taste everything, even if it smells funny. Even if there are 20 chocolate cakes or 17 jars of pickle, I have a go at all of them, then go back to the best few to finalise my decision. I know nothing, but we all know good food when we taste it; enthusiastic amateur describes me as a judge just as well as it does the entrants.

This year, they’ve cut down the number of classes somewhat, which is just as well, though I see that they’ve removed many of the savoury classes and left the sweet ones and pickles. When I arrive, the first thing I do is check the schedule for tasting order – more or less, savoury, followed by sweet as you’d expect – but the savoury pickles tend to be left to the end in case they spoil my palate, hem hem. The gentlemen’s class is usually keenly contested. Last year or the year before, it was lemon cake. I hardly knew how to choose between the final two absolutely delicious ones, they were gorgeous. Much as I’d already eaten, I had to taste each of them several times.

So think of me from noon onwards (not for the whole rest of the day, darlings, let your minds cast a glancing blow any time between 12 and 2 pm). I will be tasting, in approximately this order, cheese scones, cottage loaf, sweet biscuits, cherry cake, victoria sandwich cake with butter cream filling, Bakewell tart, jars of jelly, lemon curd, chutney and pickles, non-alcoholic summer drink and evaluating new-laid eggs.

Stuffed and slightly nauseated, I’ll then be given a delicious lunch.

Dilly and the children have gone away camping for a few days. It was blowing a gale yesterday, but they didn’t leave until 4 o’clock, when Al shut the shop early and went to help them set up the tent. I had a text from Dilly later to say they were all tucked up warmly. Al will go and join them again on Saturday evening.

Ro is coming home this evening, just for a day. He’s got various things to look out and take back, including his passport. He thought he knew where it was and asked me to look, but it wasn’t in the drawer he keeps that sort of thing – he probably needed it for ID sometime and just put it somewhere afterwards – he’ll find it easier than I would, I certainly don’t want to start looking through all his stuff.

And Weeza and Phil have asked us round for dinner next week, for my birthday. Ro will join us, and we’ll go early in time to play with Zerlina first. Weeza, who finds that routine suits her baby best, asked that we arrive before 6 or after 7, as if we arrive during the run-down to bed time, Zerlina won’t want to go to bed when she usually does, and then she’ll have a restless night. So we’ll pick up Ro from work and go then.

Both Weeza and Dilly had the babycare thing sussed so much more effectively than I ever did. Mind you, I was only 20 when Weeza was born, and getting into a steady routine was certainly something I resisted. A bit more organised when Al came along a couple of years later for practical reasons, but I didn’t want our life restricted by fixed times for a baby – you have to remember I was a ‘child of the Sixties’ and whilst I was by no means a hippy (too young, too sensible, and, though still so far in the closet that I didn’t even know it myself yet, too control-freakish), I had something of the relaxed attitude to life and still do. It is restricting for Weeza and Phil, who will rarely stay out past Zerlina’s getting-ready-for-bed time, but they are rewarded by a child who welcomes and enjoys going to sleep. When it’s getting near nap time during the day, Weeza will get out Barry the Bear and little z reaches for him and gives him a cuddle. Then Weeza gets out the little pillow that someone just gave them from New Zealand, and z takes it and snuggles her face into it. Off they go upstairs to read a book, z goes into her cot and, though she may not go to sleep for a while, she rarely fusses but just lies there happily talking to herself before drifting off. It’s remarkable. Well, it is to me. I love it that my daughter is a better mother than I was!

Just to wrap it up – Weeza did put the tooth in milk straight away, so if it could have been reinserted it would have been in a state to be. And now I’ve thought it through a bit, I suspect that the next tooth will edge over to try to fill some of the gap but if that proves a problem when her next front tooth comes through, the dentist can simply whip it out. And at least Zerlina is too little to know what’s happened and not self-conscious, and Weeza says that she’ll treat the whole thing as a badge of honour to show how tough she is when z is old enough to realise.

Weeza phoned a while ago. I had been going to ring her and offer to go over to see her and Zerlina, but she felt like being out of the house, so they’re coming here. She said the ambulance men said that baby teeth can’t be put back, and she afterwards looked on the internet and confirmed it – I’m not sure if it’s theoretically possible, but it’s not worth the difficulty of the operation and the risk of infection and it just isn’t done. Little z was toddling across the room in her wobbly manner, lost balance as usual but toppled forwards instead of backwards. As to how the other teeth grow and the implications for second teeth positioning in a few years, we’ll have to wait and see. And get to know a good orthodontist if necessary!

Anyway, I didn’t sleep much last night. I went to sleep all right, resolutely thinking of something else, but woke up just after 1 o’clock and couldn’t get off again. My mind wasn’t dwelling on it too much, but only by thinking of other things which just made my brain over-stimulated. Eventually, I got up, read blogs (at last caught up on the backlog from while I was away with Wink) and had a conversation in comments and emails with Dandelion, who was awake too. Then I went and read, cuddling Tilly the while, and eventually slept on the sofa for a couple of hours, not waking until 8 o’clock.

And enough of that. We’ll put it behind us and move on.

In yesterday’s post, the Sage received a disc containing photos of china, so I put it on the computer and set up a slide show – “look, you just have to touch this arrow to move on or this one to move back”. He’s waiting for an email and kept asking me to check if it had arrived. “You wish you could use a computer, don’t you?” I asked. “Maybe it’s time to learn”. “I’d have to have my own computer though,” he agreed. Well my word. I never thought I’d hear those words from my beloved’s lips. Isn’t it great when someone can carry on surprising you? Anyway, it seems he rather hankers after a laptop and taking actual lessons in using it. I think he might as well get a pc, as that will simplify matters for finding someone to teach him, and also he’ll be able to have things I don’t – for example, Publisher, which Weeza uses for our catalogues.

Remember, it almost always could be worse.

The Sage rang Weeza to go through corrections to the catalogue and she had bad news.

Zerlina has had a nasty accident. Standing, she wobbled as she usually does, but instead of sitting down, she fell forward onto her face and knocked one of her front teeth out. No, the ambulance men said it could not be reinserted. She wasn’t much hurt otherwise, but we’re all very upset.

I’m feeling quite gung-ho and positive today. In part, this is because I’ve been doing more looking-into hip resurfacing and have found a brilliant website run by people who’ve had it done, which includes articles written by surgeons who – oh joy – don’t talk down to *ordinary people* and who evaluate their part in an operation not doing so well as it should have. I wish clever people would appreciate that we know well that saying what they could have done better (and have learned from that, so now do) increases confidence in them. It’s made me appreciate that I’ve got a lot of responsibility in choosing who should do the operation (if it’s suitable for me) to increase my chance of having a superb and long-lasting result.

My instincts go that way, in fact. I’m more interested in failures than successes – that is, you’ll be told about the successes but you have to ask about the failures – and I want to know why they happen, if they’re bad luck, surgeon error or patient misfortune or irresponsibility. To me, no surgeon who can’t admit he (‘he’ includes she in my book, as in I’m part of mankind) got it wrong isn’t going to be frank with me or learn. Not that I’d want a long list of failure… oh goodness, you know exactly what I mean and I’m not labouring the point any more.

It reinforces my wish to have it done privately and not push for the NHS though (not criticising the NHS, it’s bloody good on the whole, look at the care Honey is getting for a start). It’s a complex and precise operation, more than a total hip replacement, and I want as much control as I can get. I’m happy to stick with my £1400 car and my old-fashioned house and second-hand everything. I haven’t got insurance – in view of my startlingly splendid health, that would have been a bit of a waste of money over the years – but we’ve always put money aside. In fact, unless I was literally on the breadline I would always live on less money than I had.

Ro is notably frugal in this way. He mentioned a few weeks ago that he’s quite surprised, really, how little he spends on food. Since he’s virtually vegetarian (he does eat meat, but not supermarket meat and butchers are rarely open outside office hours) and his landladies grow loads of vegetables which he’s welcome to help himself to (he helps with watering, weeding and picking in return), it’s not that remarkable.

Other reasons for feeling cheerful include having been approached with a view to someone putting a reasonable-sized collection of china in our sales next year. The Sage had decided to go with the usual two auctions rather than the three he had this year, but this could well tip the balance in favour of a third. And someone has made an enquiry about a couple of pieces she’s got – we’ve asked for a photo – if it’s what we think it might be, it’s good news indeed. Well, if she wants to sell them, that is!

Other reasons? Oh, just general well-being, you know how it is. I’ll come down to earth next week, when I’ll be really busy again.