Monthly Archives: May 2012

It’s raining

I suspect there are a lot of people anxiously looking at the weather forecast this week.  There are so many events planned over the long Jubilee weekend.  The powers that be did their best to fox the weather elves, it not being the 60th anniversary week either of the Queen’s accession nor of her coronation, but miserable weather is traditional for a Bank Holiday, after all.

I looked at two weather apps on my phone just now.  One promises 17º and some sunshine on Saturday, when we’re going to be at a wedding.  That looks okay, if not quite summery.  But then I looked at what it says today’s temperature is.  18º.  Um, no.  The Met. Office (I’m sorry, I used to be able to spell meteorological but now it just looks wrong whatever I put – all those o’s? – typing for years has ruined my spelling) app says it’s 17º now and feels like 16º.  I just don’t think I’d have gone upstairs and put on a wool jumper if it felt like 16º.  For Saturday, 14º and feels like 12º.  I’m going to have to rethink my wardrobe.  I can’t wear a woolly jumper at a wedding, especially in June.

The village is planning a picnic on the green on Sunday.  And the pub is doing a barbecue.  Fingers crossed.

This is a blog

I finally finished clearing away after the party this morning.  I put the garden table back in the garden, put the napkins in the washing machine, took half a dozen borrowed chairs back to Al and Dilly, put several dozen glasses back in their boxes and polished the dining tables.  Then I took my lunch of cheese and biscuits out to the garden and sat at the table – that was the main reason for clearing up, of course, that I’d wanted to do that as it had turned out unexpectedly warm and sunny.  Friend Mike (not blogger Mike and Ann, other Mike and Ann) arrived just as I was starting, so I fetched another plate, knife and glass and he joined me.  He asked about the party, the Sage having told him it was a blog party – do you know, he had never heard of a blog? – so I sent him a link.

Hello Mike, darling, if the link works … this is my blog.  I write about me, mostly.

This afternoon proved distracting.  I’m supposed to have checked and completed the minutes of the last governors’ meeting, but it’s slow going.  I’d better get on, if you’ll excuse me.  

Cor – phew

An odd thing happened, but we’re not sure when. It must have been on Sunday evening or early Monday, because the Sage found it out on Monday morning.

We have no idea what cracked the window.  There has been a hole in it for many years, undoubtedly caused by a bullet (someone potting rabbits or pigeons on the field without permission) and that happened in the Sage’s parents’ time, before we lived here.  That is visible in the middle picture.  But there’s no reason for it to have spontaneously cracked so badly as a result of that.

I couldn’t sleep at all last night, far too close and muggy.  Mind you, the Sage usually opens the bedroom windows and he didn’t, and I only realised it and opened them myself at 1.45 and I did at least catnap after that.  I went to sleep when I arrived home after lunch and napped for a good hour.

I’m keeping up the social whirl, having gone out for lunch again with a friend today.  And soon after I woke, friends called round.  They spend much of their time abroad since their retirement, having holiday homes in Portugal and Corfu, and have invited me to visit them in Corfu several times although I’ve never been able to make it at a time to suit them.  Now, I’m really going to try.  They’re coming for supper on Monday and I’ll have looked through my diary by then and will see if I’ve got a free week.  Put it another way … this time, I’m jolly well going.  I’d love to.

It’s quiet at the Zeddery. Too quiet.

Before
After
There was hardly enough left for Chris, although packaged up and sent by special delivery (as suggested by Blue Witch), I’m sure he’d have been grateful even for small crumbs.  
He was not the only absentee in fact, because the Gardner family should have been with us too.  They had been obliged to cancel a couple of days previously because their kitten-sitting arrangements fell through.  In fact, it was a good thing as first Amelie and then Lisa came down with a horrid sickness bug, Lisa in particular was very ill and they would never have made it here (and if they had, we’d all be in quarantine right now).  Since Lisa is very pregnant, it was quite worrying and Phil has had quite a busy and stressful weekend.  Good news on his blog is that she’s on the mend now, though.  I should say, by the way, that I’d planned two extra puddings that were cancelled when I discovered that he wasn’t coming.  They’ll come along and stay with us once Junior is born and we’ll show them the heady sights of Norfolk and North Suffolk … or maybe take the baby for long walks so they can catch up on some sleep.
Wink took Dilly and me, with Hadrian, out for lunch today.  A slight setback when the pub I suggested turned out to be closed on a Monday, but we probably did rather better with my second suggestion as the garden was lovely.  We sat under the shade of a huge parasol and enjoyed looking at the flowers and eating substantial sandwiches – goat’s cheese and bacon for me, sausage and onion for Dilly, prawn for Wink.  Then Wink set out on the long drive home (some 230 miles) and Dilly drove me home, and then I went to sleep.  
And so to bed, darlings.  Back to the real world tomorrow with Year 9 music and composing in 5/4 time.  It’ll be fun.

Just desserts

Just to make Chris feel thoroughly regretful at his absence from the party, I took a photo of the puddings.  It’s a bit on the huh, taken in haste on my phone.

The gorgeous Bakewell pudding on the left and the delicious pineapple fruit cake in front of it were made, respectively, by Ann and Madeleine – I ate a slice of each.

Today, we went to visit Weeza and co.  Phil was taking part in the Norfolk 100 cycle ride from Norwich to the north Norfolk coast and back – he was more than an hour slower than last year’s time because he was cycling leisurely with a friend and they took a whole 5 hours and 10 minutes to cycle their 100 miles.  After that he biked home (another 5 miles, uphill) and we went to the village pub for lunch.

Tomorrow, Wink will leave too.  It’ll be so dull and quiet, just the Sage and me.

Which reminds me, the Sage has been brilliant.  He doesn’t read any blogs at all, not even mine, but he takes both my blogging and my internet friendships in his stride, welcomes my friends and takes them as his own too, and has been such a help in getting ready for the party.  I appreciate it so much.

Just to finish with, a big smile from Augustus, who has four arms, one tooth, unruly hair and ears that need some growing in to.

Party!

Thank you so much for coming to our party.  A party is like a blog, in that it doesn’t matter how much effort you put in to it, it’s the ones who come along, join in with the spirit of the occasion and engage with each other that determines whether it goes well or not.  I had a lovely time and I hope you did.

I’m starting to plan next year’s already.

Friends

Wink and Mig are here and Tim is staying down the road.  Looking forward to seeing many of you tomorrow, when I’ll think of absent friends too.

I had an unexpected letter from a friend today, who I used to see often in Norwich when we were on the same committee.  I recognised his writing at once on the envelope (yes, darlings, a real hand-written letter!) and it was such a pleasure.  It’s horribly easy to lose touch a bit and blogging is the only way I communicate regularly with most people, though I am reasonably good at emailing friends once in a while.  Twice, even, if they’re very good friends.

I’m so looking forward to tomorrow…oh, I said that.  Well, so I am.  I’ve had a very relaxed day today, I’d done most of the preparatory work I could and spent quite some time sitting outside in the sun reading the papers.  Never let it be said that I miss an opportunity to relax.

Lunch

I do enjoy the Thursday Music class.  I know these pupils better as I sometimes can’t get to the Tuesday one, but I like them too.  There are some lively characters, but when their interest is engaged they work hard.  One boy, who did very well indeed with Unsquare Dance last time, asked me for help with Tubular Bells (indeed, I can’t get the bloody thing out of my head).  I spent ten minutes coaching and encouraging him, then he declared he’d got it.  All he needed was to practise he said, waving me away.  Then he realised and apologised for being dismissive.  I assured him that I hadn’t taken offence – and it was only because he was so intent on his work.

I was busy this morning, so it was just as well I have an alert come up on my phone ten minutes before I’m due to leave for Meals on Wheels.  One lady is in hospital so her meals have been cancelled – except that the Sage promised to tell the cafe (without the é is correct, it’s a caff and a very good one) and he forgot, so I had a meal over.  So I paid for it and ate it.  Very nice too, turkey with carrot, cabbage and potatoes and then rhubarb crumble and custard.  The Sage was out for lunch, having a guided tour round Adnams, one of the perks of being a shareholder.  He wanted me to come, but I had to say that I didn’t have time.  If he’d given me more warning than two days then I could possibly have made it, but he always thinks a surprise is a good idea.  He’s always wrong in that regard, I don’t really like surprises – that is, tell me there’s a surprise in the offing and I’ll be very happy.  It’s a surprise I’m not prepared for that I don’t have much time for, often literally.

24th May was a Thursday in 1973, too.

Swings but not roundabouts

I stayed with Weeza and family last night, we took Zerlina to nursery school this morning, dropped W’s car for its service and then I took W and Hay home because he needed a sleep.  So then I went off to the supermarket for the rest of the food and other essentials … or maybe simply desirables, but they’re the fun bit, after all.

When we were going to fetch Zerlina, I suggested that I might take them out to lunch and we decided on Wroxhamam BARNS, as z always calls it.  She loves it there and there’s lots for young children to do.  And for grannies. After lunch, we went to the Junior Farm and I fed the goats, who took the feed pellets delicately, nibbling gently from my hand, and I cuddled a guinea pig, stroked lambs and talked to a splendid ginger Tamworth pig.  Then we went to the playground and I went on a swing.  I do love swings, though sometimes get dizzy on roundabouts.  Then I had an ice cream, a Mr Whippy-type cone with a chocolate flake in.  We had a brilliant time, the children were tired out by the end and fell asleep on the way home.

Saucy libertine

The funniest moment of the day came early, when I was reading the local paper over breakfast.  Carol Pearson, who is married to ex-MP Charles Clarke, writes a weekly article, usually with a rather carping semi-political tone to it – I might well often agree with her, but somehow the tone rather needles me.  On this occasion, she was criticising Michael Gove.  An easy target he certainly is, I know very few people who do not criticise Michael Gove in stern and sometimes exasperated terms, and I’m certainly not one of the few.  I couldn’t quite go along with Carol’s view however, which seemed to decry all academic subjects in favour of very basic life skills.  And then she said this about her cookery lessons.

“Thus I left school with a handful of O- levels (sic) and a handy acquaintanceship with chopping, whisking, rubbing-in and how to make a roué sauce.” She was so pleased with the roué sauce that she repeated it at the end.

I almost fell off my chair with laughter.  Roué and sauce seem to form a natural partnership it’s true, but I can’t think what the ingredients might be.

(For anyone with no knowledge of cookery terms, a roux is an amalgam of melted butter and flour which is cooked gently before liquid is added – with milk, it’s the basis of a white sauce, for instance.  It isn’t a sauce in its own right, and its pronunciation is indistinguishable from roue, but not from roué.  I assume you know what a roué is.)