Ro called in today, which was a good surprise – that is, he did text first to be sure we were in.  He stayed for dinner; I having luckily bought a pound of mince, which stretched to lasagne for all of us plus a portion for him to take home.  Not that he doesn’t cook for himself, and does it very well at that.

He is thinking of buying a smartphone – not an iPhone, probably, although he did rather like mine.  At one point, he was checking out a website that he uses and started to type in its name  – “you’re not on the internet, you know” – “eh?” – “go on to Safari first” – “Oh, what was I doing?” – I’m afraid I did a little air-punch and a yes! for a moment there, as it’s the first time ever that I’ve corrected him with anything technology-minded for years.  Twenty years, probably.

“Tell me that you don’t want an iPad”, he begged.  I admitted that I want one, most passionately.  But, I added, not until it’s some use – that is, the second or third issue.  I confessed to being a complete convert to all things trendy, even faux-trendy, since buying my phone.  I have gone over to the dark side.  Worse, I don’t care.  Worst, I enjoy it.

I went down to the church to check the flowers.  They are all fine, even the daffodils.  I was watering them when a friend and her daughter arrived.  Daughter is getting married here, where she grew up, in the summer.  We chatted and, when saying goodbye, she mentioned a run her husband is doing tomorrow, which reminded me – “I was excited to hear that one of Rosie Swale-Pope‘s marathons will be here” – I bought her book telling of her “little” run around the world, last year – it was when I was in Glastonbury, where there was a lovely independent bookshop so I bought a couple of books there.  One, I have already mentioned over at ILTV’s place – it’s Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I was hooked by, and Rosie’s was a complete winner too – as is she – in a different way.  Anyway, apparently she will be staying in her camper van overnight at the Staithe* and will be running the Yagnub marathon route – it’s half-marathon distance so she will, like those who will be running it the previous weekend, be doing it twice.  I won’t join her, but I hope to cheer her on at some point.

*These details for Badgerdaddy, as she is one of his heroes.

Thanks for all your help yesterday – you are kind, and far cleverer than I am.

It’s been lovely today, Weeza and co came over in the morning and Phil set of on a 50+ cycle ride home (yes, I know, he did it entirely for fun by a circuitous route) and Weeza and Zerlina stayed.  Phil has had a week off work, so little z has turned entirely into Daddy’s Girl and, when invited to kiss Granny hello, said “No!” with a dismissive wave of her hand.  “She’s doing it to me too, this week,” said Weeza with resigned consolation.  z did kiss me later, when I’d curried favour with a Mini Egg.

In the afternoon, Squiffany and Pugsley came here too, as their mother had an appointment with the hairdresser, so everyone had a lovely time.  I’d bought some coloured pencils and writing pads and Squiffany drew lovely pictures for Zerlina and wrote affectionate messages underneath.  Her writing and spelling are very good – she spells things out phonetically, but also understands that not all words are written phonetically, so says “l – o -v – e ‘love'” and “y – o – u ‘you'” and has very clear handwriting too.  Pugsley is better with numbers than letters so far, and has never been interested in drawing or painting.  Squiff likes numbers too – having a linguist father and mathematician/scientist mother is showing itself.

The death watch beetle is clicking away in a companionable manner.  It’s not a big problem, but we do squirt some Rentokill into the walls where we hear noises.  The house has been here more than 450 years, it’ll see us out *shrugs*.

I’ve been happily watching Fred and Ginger on BBC4.  They sang the song that I associate with the Sage – not that he knows that, of course.  We’re far too buttoned-up to mention that sort of sloppy nonsense, my word we are (caught him using the ‘a’ word not so long ago, however – hah!).  Anyway, given that it’s not “A Fine Romance”, if anyone can work it out, a small prize will wing their way.

Ooh, the other thing I was going to tell you is how lovely it is to sleep for hours and hours until I wake up naturally.  I had no idea how many times I woke up, but now I don’t, and if I do I just read on the iPhone and that makes me sleepy again in no time.  I do get backache, as my left-right balance still has not adjusted – I still don’t know if my legs aren’t quite the same length or if my pelvis hasn’t quite straightened yet, but I’m quite prepared to give it six months to right itself – but I wore heels last night and I had no pain or awkwardness at all.  I really wondered if I’d be confined to ground level for the future, but it seems not.

The benefit of being a close family showed itself last night.  I was due to go out to dinner – not only do I belong to a lunch club, but a dining club too – I know, darlings, I am all you think of me! – but Weeza and co still have my car.  So I just asked Dilly if I could borrow hers, as the Sage was going to one of his clubs too and besides, I’ve never tackled his clapped-out old van.  It’s even older than my elderly and rheumatic Mercedes.

I found a spider of a sort I’ve never seen before in the greenhouse this afternoon.  A big fat brown body, it had, like a well-filled tick, only brown.  I had it amble all over my hand while I took its photo, but some of you are sensitive, so I won’t put the pictures up here.  I’ll get a spider book from the library to find out its name.  I saw a black and white wolf spider, but this one isn’t the same type – it spins webs.

You’re all inventive and intelligent types out there in Blogland.  Can you please put your ingenuity to work for a few minutes to help me?

I grow a lot of vegetable plants, both for Al to sell and for us to grow.  Apart from trays of beans etc, most of them end up in individual pots and, in some cases, there are several varieties that can’t reliably be told apart until they fruit.  So I have hundreds of pots to mark.  I can either buy the labels or cut up yoghurt pots, that’s not a problem – but it’s awfully tedious to write down each variety numerous times.  We all know how lazy I am and, besides, it’s the repetitivenous that really gets to me, as I’ve a short attention span to boot.  I don’t mind how many hours I work potting things up, as that’s a pleasure, and I don’t get bored doing nothing as that is too – it’s a boring repetitive task that I can’t stand.

The printer ink isn’t waterproof, so it’s no good typing onto sticky labels.  I have, by the way, written on sticky labels and cut them up to stick straight onto the pots, covering with sticky tape and this did work to a point, but the tape tended to peel off and let water in, so wasn’t entirely reliable.  Last year, I tried typing the labels, laminating the sheets and then cutting them up (this is much cheaper than buying plastic labels as you get dozens per sheet), but the moisture in the compost seeped into the paper and washed off the writing.  Cutting up the sheets first and putting them in between the plastic  sheets and then laminating them really isn’t an option – impossible to keep them in place and far too fiddly to attempt.

So far, I’ve still got pots in trays and can just mark one or a few per tray.  But I have to mark them individually before the end of this month.  Buying T-shaped labels and putting the printed label on them isn’t an option – for one thing, the ink would still wash off when watered and for another, the labels are too expensive.

Later – Some extra clarification – each pot has to be marked with the name of the variety, or the customers don’t like it.  That’s fair enough, actually nor would I – if I went and bought some plants, I wouldn’t think “but I couldn’t be bothered to write labels individually” was an excuse not to have them marked.  I know this, because I tried marking the pots with the initials of the varieties and printing out information sheets, and they liked the sheets but wanted the full variety name written too.

Ro has a laser printer with waterproof ink but he won’t waste it on this use.  I’m not buying a printer just for this.   That would be silly.

I have 9 varieties of tomato and 5 varieties of pepper (sweet or chilli) and 3 of courgettes.  I also have different squashes, but I can deal with them, as I plant nearly all that I grow and Al sells the crop later.  So I can keep the varieties apart – but it doesn’t actually matter if they do get mixed up.

*Waits hopefully*

I only remembered that I hadn’t written anything as I climbed out of the bath, and now I can’t recall the awfully interesting thing that I had, earlier, meant to tell you. What a pity.

Looking at the state of the lawn today rather dismayed me. The chickens have scratched up most of the grass, managing to leave only moss behind. It has acquired humps and dips, I’m not quite sure how. It really needs a lot of work to be done on it, and frankly imnot I’m not the woman to do it. In any case, there’s no point while the chooks are roaming free to scratch it up again. I’m trying quite hard to put their interests first – after all, it’s only a patch of grass and it doesn’t matter that much. And at least there won’t be any need to get the mower out.

They are certainly earning their keep at present, anyway. The Sage is very adept at watching them to find out the latest hiding places for eggs. When he spots a hen sneaking off after breakfast, he watches to see where she goes, and later checks out the place. He always leaves a marked egg so that she doesn’t become suspicious. Surpluss surplus eggs are sold in the shop – there are tight controls on selling eggs not stamped now, but you’re still allowed to sell your owneggs own eggs, as it were. They are very popular at 80p per half dozen.

Excuse poor typing. Can’t be bothered to go back and change all mistakes. I’ll do it in the morning. Goodnight, darlings.

Obviously time I read Paradise Lost again.  Milton taught me more about English than anyone but my Latin teacher.  But I did enjoy the conversation of the fallen angels on the burning lake, especially Belial.  When I do reread it, I will, no doubt, remember why.

I spent most of the day outside, because of the gorgeous weather.  Still breezy, but warmly sunny.  I say outside, but I’m including the greenhouse in that.  I’ve still got a lot of potting on to do, but I thought I’d let the newly-potted tomatoes have another night in the propagator first and I have run out of room.  I do have another potential propagator, but setting it up just for a couple of weeks would be a nuisance – if there’s frost forecast for a few nights I can cope, but another prolonged cold spell will mean some faffing about.  Still, it’ll keep me out of the mischief for which I’m normally renowned.

Anyway, as a result of all that sunshine and awfully hard work (all the beds in the veggie garden are now dug [actually, I should admit that I didn’t do the actual digging (I’m not allowed to dig yet)]), I’m terribly sleepy now.  I’m being entertained by a programme about Louis Armstrong on BBC4, which includes Hoagy Carmichael, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and various other delights, and not planning to do much else this evening.

Tomorrow, I’m looking after Squiffany and Pugsley for the day, so that should be fun.  The playground if it’s fine, cooking and/or painting if not.  Dave says it’s going to rain, and he’s so rarely wrong that I disregard the possibility.

Well certainly, if we were fortunate enough to have a lovely day, I’d be out in the garden.  And if the sun shone a bit, I might spend a couple of hours in the greenhouse.  There’s a lot of potting up to do and I will have to do it tomorrow.  I might even be all hearty and energetic and go for a bike ride, if it were not for a chilly wind.  As it is, however, I’m taking the opportunity to do pretty well nothing.  I’m lounging about eating chocolate, listening to Jimi Hendrix and reading.  It’s an ideal opportunity, being a Bank Holiday and I haven’t the least anxiety that I ought to be doing something useful.

At least I’m awake, which can’t be said for the Sage.

I suppose I’m easily entertained.

The day would have been perfect if Weeza’s car hadn’t broken down.  It all worked out all right – she’s vastly appreciative of the RAC breakdown man who came out on Easter Sunday and took it to the garage, and of Ro and his friend who, having just arrived here from Norwich, turned round and went back again to fetch her and Zerlina.

I knew nothing of this until I arrived home from church.  Phil had cycled over so wasn’t involved it the kerfuffle.  It didn’t actually delay lunch at all, as I’d planned it for 1.30 and they all were aiming to arrive early, so we carried on with the birthday celebrations as soon as everyone turned up.

I forgot to take a picture of the birthday fairy cakes, but they had either chocolate or strawberry icing (some of each, that is, it’s not that I’ve forgotten) and the candles were in the shape of letters, so spelled out “birthday” and the last one said “girl”.

Afterwards, most of us went on a health-giving walk over the Three Bridges and across the marsh as far as the weir.  Here is a picture of the weir.  There are pictures of the weirdos, but I suspect permission would not be given to publish them, so sorry.

I checked my diary and I don’t need my car for the next few days – actually, as long as I can borrow someone else’s in the family on Thursday evening, I don’t need it for ten days – so I’ve lent it to Weeza and Phil.  He had to leave his bike behind, but if he wants it they can always come over and he can cycle back again.  He’s got this week off, so he doesn’t need it to get to the station.

Hope you’re having a lovely Easter, darlings.

I spent half an hour or so this morning standing still in the cold, talking to someone out in the garden, which wasn’t a good idea.  I hobbled back to the house, limping on my *good* leg.  Then I had breakfast, then picked daffodils on the way to the church with the flowers I’d bought, and spent some time doing a flower arrangement and dragging tables around.  I felt a bit fragile by the time Wink and I set off for Norwich.

However, things went swimmingly after that – we fetched Weeza and all went out for lunch, and then shopped for birthday presents.  I’d already got Weeza’s present, but it’s a bit sensible, though something she wanted, and in the end she plumped for some cosmetics – but she particularly wanted the sort of deal whereby, when you buy two items, you get a nice freebie.  Bonds didn’t have anything on offer.  Nor did Debenhams.  However, Jarrolds came up trumps with Lancôme, and in the end I bought lipsticks too, so that I could get my own freebie, because we were all having a jolly time.  I also bought Wink’s present, and some of Weeza’s favourite chocolate which I could have got locally but forgot on the way to Norwich so had to pay Norwich prices for (ouch) and so I was all shopped out.

By the time we arrived home, I was just in time to get the chicken into the oven for dinner.  I’d planned to make fairy cakes for church tomorrow, but will have to do that in the morning as I didn’t care for the thought of cake and chicken cooking in the same oven at the same time – so I’ve got all the vegetables ready instead.  Most of them, that is, now I think about it.  Champagne and other wine in the fridge, but the table isn’t laid.  Oh well.  It’ll all happen, and the worst that can happen is that everyone grabs a handful of cutlery on the way to the table.

Sunshine this morning, then clouds, followed by rain, sleet, sunshine again, then a chilly wind before evening mildness.  April weather is entirely dependable.

So in addition to those sort of evaluations of people’s ‘types’ (that I daresay all you on Facebook do already), like being a Horse, a Bird or a Cow, or the physical ones like Ectomorph, Endomorph or Mesomorph, or else Apple, Pear, Banana or Hourglass for a woman, or else your learning type, known for short as VAK, which is effectively seeing, hearing or doing – Christopher now tells me that the length of your arms relative to your height decides whether you are a square, a rectangle or a gorilla.

It’s like that bit in Pretty Woman where it said that your forearm is the same length as your foot, and every woman in the cinema instantly checked it out.  That is – really? oh! who knew?

Anyway, I knew I had short arms because I’ve never bought a garment with full-length sleeves where the sleeves were not too long.

I shall leave you pondering these matters while I cook Wink’s lunch – she’s just arrived for the weekend.

Well, the good thing is that Weeza’s present, which I only got around to ordering on Monday night, has arrived.  The firm didn’t email me to say that they’d despatched it, and since I wasn’t here when it arrived, the even better thing is that Dilly happened to be at home to receive the parcel, as otherwise I’d have to go to Norwich to fetch it.

A long morning at school and then over to the crematorium, half an hour’s drive away, for the funeral of a lady I never met but whose daughter I’ve known slightly for many years.  No time in between for shopping for dinner, so we’ve had fish and chips, which were excellent.  We’ve got good chippies here anyway, but they got it just right this time and there were only a few pieces left for Tilly.

The sun came out and warmed the greenhouse sufficiently to do the watering.  I also potted up a couple of dozen courgette seedlings.  Next week, all the tomatoes will have to be done.  I hope the weather is better by then, or else I’ll have to sort out another propagator.  This can be done and will only take half an hour, but will only be needed for a couple of weeks and hardly seems worth it.

The Head is seeing a new side of me since I took on an extra responsibility and started to not disengage.  He looked slightly hmm when I told him that I’m not taking it at all personally.  I explained how I know – that is, I haven’t lost a minute’s sleep, unlike when there were the problems at my last school.  But I was a bit on edge at that time, what with one thing and another, and I’m blissfully relaxed now.

Encouraged by Ziggi’s example, I bent (straight-legged, of course, or that would be cheating) and touched my toes.  It wasn’t easy, I can tell you, which startled me a bit.  Even with a very dodgy hip, I could still touch my toes.  Of course, I haven’t been allowed to do so since my operation – I couldn’t even put my right sock on for more than six weeks – but I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.  I got within about 3 inches and thought that was it, but gravity managed to take over, like coming downhill from the moon (hmm)  and I did the deed.  I haven’t demonstrated this ability to the Sage, as I thought that once was enough for today.

Oh, and I’ve just got my hands on Al’s Christmas present – a blow torch for his beehives.  I shall give it to him for his birthday tomorrow and a contribution to his new beehive (a small piece of wax, perhaps?) as a bonus.  He’s not very easy to buy presents for, as he already has everything in life that he could wish for (Dilly).