Monthly Archives: January 2013

Z pulls her weight

There are railings between the churchyard and the road.  Many such wrought iron fences were taken down during the War, to be melted down for munitions (I’ve read that most of them weren’t used for this purpose at all and it was rather a wasted effort) but cattle were regularly driven past the churchyard to graze on the fields beyond and, since there are yew trees in the churchyard, it was felt too unsafe if there was no barrier.  Just inside the railings, there’s a row of lime trees.  Electricity and telephone wires are strung above the pavement too.  And it was felt that the trees should be topped, because there was a danger of one falling onto the road which would have brought down the cables to boot.

The Sage was asked for advice and he spoke to someone we know – actually, he’s the chap we employed to do our drive, which is his primary business, but people are always obliging and he agreed that a couple of his men could work for the church.  One of them was our good friend (and, for all too brief a time, gardener) Jamie.

There must be a dozen trees and Jamie, Jimmy, the Sage and I worked on the job for several weeks.  Jamie was the brave man who climbed the trees and wielded the chainsaw and the rest of us hung on ropes and lowered cut sections into the right place.  it was jolly hard work and quite tricky.  Experienced and careful as Jamie was, he didn’t have all the equipment a professional tree surgeon would have – this was 25 years ago, you’d not take the risk now.  I came to admire him hugely during that time because he kept joking and never gave up.  After the job was completed, he admitted that he had been pretty nervous at times and the fear was cumulative.  I’d known it, I would have felt the same.

He reminded me recently of one occasion where a large chunk of tree wanted to fall one way and we were all hauling on a rope to pull it the other.  I was at the front of the rope and the others (including Jamie, who’d got down the ladder to come and help) were lined up behind me.  Suddenly, the chunk of trunk came the way we wanted it and we all fell over, me on top.  Jamie said that my presence had been appreciated, if you see what I mean….

Another time, we could hold the tree but not pull it, it was too heavy.  Being an 8-stone weakling at the time (I pulled above my weight, I was very strong, but the least useful person there) I was sent out into the road to find someone to help.  It just so happened that the coal lorry was going past at the time.  A man who can carry hundredweights of coal on his back isn’t daunted by a bit of tree and he came and saved the day.

I love mucking in and getting a tough job done and none of the men I’ve ever worked with has ever been in the least sexist or patronising, even though I’m a girlie, strength-wise.  I pull my weight: it’s just that I’m not all that heavy.

By the way, if any of you is having trouble with spam comments, mine have dried up altogether since I turned on Open ID, and I had been receiving several dozen every day.  But if it causes you a problem in leaving a comment, do let me know.  My email is on my profile.

Z rambles, rather

Six months after we moved here, my stepfather died suddenly.  He and my mother had breakfast, he went upstairs to shave and was gone a long time so she went to check and found him.  It was only a week or so before their tenth wedding anniversary and they had been very happy together.  He was a lovely man and was thrilled with the welcome he had received into our family.  My children loved him too, so much so that my daughter gave her son his name as a middle name in loving memory of Grandad.

My mother knew he had booked at a restaurant for a special celebration, but he hadn’t told her where and she wasn’t able to cancel it.  This bothered her – having been a hotelier in the past, she was punctilious about consideration and politeness to those in the hospitality business.  As a result of her telling me about this, I’m the same, especially in hotels.  I always leave my room tidy, wipe round the washbasin (toothpaste splodges are horrible) and bath, leave a tip when I go.  Mind you, we had a cock-up on the supper front a few weeks ago, booked for a meal at the Yacht Club and forgot to go.  I have sent the money (which they didn’t ask for) but still felt awful.  Um, I digress.

My mother was still only in her early 60s, widowed twice and planning to leave the home where she and Wilf had been so happy.  It was tough for her and she faced it bravely, but I admit that I was anxious about her coming to live here.  I’d so enjoyed settling in and getting to know people, starting again with a new identity in a sense – no baggage from where I’d grown up – and half an hour away had been a good distance from her strong personality.  We did get on well, but I’d found an independence (yes, I know I had been married over ten years but I had remained in her shadow) that I relished.

Anyway, the alterations were done to the bungalow during the spring and Roy the painter came in to do the decorating in the summer.  We had a project of our own that summer, dismantling, mending and re-erecting the summer house.  I was in charge of repainting it.  I bought a hot air gun and stripped every scrap of paint from it, inside and out.  The exterior had been painted several times, layer on layer and it took a lot of work.  Roy told me afterwards that he thought I’d give up and call him in to finish the job, but I enjoy seeing a task through.  I’ve repainted the summer house a few times since, but sadly it’s in a bad way again now.  Moles got under the runners (it’s a revolving one) and we can’t open the door more than a crack and it needs dismantling again.  I don’t think there’s any point in re-erecting it at present and I hope we’ll be able to take it down (it’s all bolted together, but it’s very heavy and we need help) even if the sections are just stored for a while, because it’s a mess as it stands.

I’ve always enjoyed getting stuck in to a project.  Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know about the building of the Wall, which was done over two summers, and there have been several other tasks over the years.  One of them was topping the trees in the churchyard.  

Z hasn’t done a lot

You know the radio programme 1’ve never seen $t@r W@rs, where people own up to several things that *everyone* has done and they haven’t, and they then do it and talk about it?  Well, Macy was talking about the gym yesterday, and it occurred to me – not only have I never belonged to a gym, I’ve never even set foot in one.

It’s a matter of good fortune, but I’ve never broken a bone.  That is, my right hip was sawn off three years ago, but I don’t think that counts in this context.

I’ve never taken any illegal drugs.  Not a sniff.  Nor any legal but dodgy ones, either, nothing to change my mood in any way.  I’m clean, darlings, completely clean.  I know, child of the 60s, I should be ashamed.  But I’m a self-control freak instead.  I don’t mind in the least what anyone else does, but I want to choose what I do.  I didn’t smoke in my teens either (I’ve had the odd cigarette but never been a smoker) because of the peer group pressure.  I don’t do peer group pressure and if everyone around me is doing something, that’s quite enough reason for me not to.

It so happened that, the other day, Weeza mentioned that she’d never seen Titanic.  I can’t say that, I’m afraid.  She said, maybe she should, but the rest of us suggested that she should take it as a matter of pride.  I’m trying to think of a film that I should have seen or that everyone else has, but I’ll have to give that a bit more consideration.

I’ve never read a Mills and Boon novel, but on the other hand I’ve not read anything by George Eliot either.  I’m not sure why the latter omission, I read most classics in my teens.  Oh, I’ve never read anything by Salman Rushdie.  I stood next to him in the bar at the Theatre Royal in Norwich though, when Arthur Miller was doing a show – various actors were doing readings from his plays.  It was very good.

Exchanging emails with my friend Martina in Seattle the other day, it was mentioned that she’s been to Pompeii.  I haven’t.  If I was going to, I should have been there years ago when I’d have found it fascinating, but now I don’t want to.  I’ve become more tender-hearted as I’ve grown old and the horror of it would upset me too much now.  Actually, we didn’t get away much for years so the list of places I haven’t been to is a very long one.

I’ve never owned a cat – if one can use the expression.  I’ve never lived with a cat.  I like cats, I don’t mind the idea in the least, but I’d rather have a dog.

Anything I should have done that I might not have?  I’ll answer all reasonable questions.  Or any admissions of your own?

Update – I’m prompted by Sir B into another admission.  I’ve never ridden on a motor bike, not even a moped or a scooter.  He suggests I might get a licence, but it seems a bit like running before you’ve tried standing on your feet.  Or possibly trodden on your own toes, which might be more my style.

PS – do click through to the comments which, as so often, are shaping up to be the best part of the post.

Rambling Zose

I did grow flowers to cut, but mostly I was interested in vegetables at the time, because I was greedy and because I loved sowing seeds and nurturing baby plants.  The three round beds in front of the house had some elderly rose bushes in, well past their best, so I dug them all up and moved them elsewhere, because I didn’t have the heart to put them on the bonfire, and then planned what to put in their place.

I’m not sure how big the beds are and I can’t be bothered to go out and measure them – say 12 feet diameter, but that’s a guess.  3 of them. I’ve probably said that already.  There used to be an Anderson shelter there during the war where the family decamped when the air raid siren went off.  In the summer, the Sprig* slept out there in his little siren suit.  A line was attached to the front door knocker so that he could rouse his parents if he needed them.  I’ve no idea what it looked like or how safe it was: I’d have thought there was more protection from a bomb in the house, unless it was on fire.

Anyway, I went off to the marvellous local nursery, B100ms of Bress1ngh@m and got one of their catalogues.  I’m afraid that since the family sold it, it’s become a poor shadow of its previous self.  They used to raise much of their stock and cultivate many new varieties, they had a vast range of interesting plants and a comprehensive and helpful catalogue.  Now the nursery and glasshouses are abandoned and the garden centre sells pre-packed and bought-in plants and a lot of garden-related stuff and it’s a lot more expensive than it used to be.

What I wanted was a range of shrubs that wouldn’t grow more than about 4 feet tall, had some variety in leaf colour and shape, that some of them would be evergreen and that they would thrive in poor, sandy soil and a sun-baked location.  I wasn’t too bothered about flowers, though obviously some flowers would be an advantage.  I bought about 25 or 30 plants and spent £100 and some of them are still there.  Two of the beds are nearly all sand and stone and it’s really quite difficult to get anything to thrive, but the third is almost as I planted it.  As planned, it needs little weeding and no watering after the first year or two.  I reckoned that anything that had to be cosseted was in the wrong place.  The few more unusual plants didn’t survive in the long term.

In the house, we’d had a lot of work done before we moved in.  A new roof, windows, kitchen and bathroom, it was rewired and completely redecorated and we had an Aga installed.  Not all the rooms were painted before we moved and the local painter and decorator came along when he had a few free hours and did some work, usually by finishing early and coming here in the early evening.  We used to chat as he worked, if he was within talking distance, and we had a glass of wine together before he went home.  Nice man.  He retired a few years ago and he and his wife live in a village by the sea now.

*baby Sage

Happy DayZ

There’s quite a lot of ground here, but you wouldn’t call much of it a garden because it’s so bitty.  The front garden and the small lawn are separated by the drive and another part of the drive separates the lawn from the kitchen garden.  Then there are various outbuildings, quite a lot of gravel and a fair bit of rough grass.  The Sage’s parents had always had a gardener, usually someone who’d retired from full-time work and wanted to work half days.  Kenny came to work for Ma the year after Pa died, he stayed on after her death to keep an eye on the place and he carried on with us until he was well in his 80s.  But he was still in his late 60s when we moved in but very tough and he never gave up on a job.  Nor do I, so we made a good team.

We did have help to lay the paths though and to erect the greenhouses as well.  In those days it was one of the highlights of my year (I know, loves, but it was before the days of blogging) to read through seed catalogues and I spent hours comparing varieties and prices and writing out my wish list, which was hardly cut down before I carefully filled out all the forms and sent off my orders.   I started sowing seeds as early as possible in those days, and it took a lot of care to keep everything alive and growing through the winter.  Nowadays, I reckon it’ll all catch up and I don’t sow anything in the propagator before March.

But I’m jumping ahead of myself, because we moved in late July.  After consideration, I decided to grow vegetables as normal at my old house and leave them for our buyers.  They were appreciative: we knew them quite well and Ro was about the same age as their daughter.  Actually, she was dismayed when they moved in and she found that we’d taken his swing, which we kept in the hall and she had loved playing in.  Ro wasn’t that fond of it, because he was an independent little boy and didn’t like having to be lifted in and out, so we took it back for Rebecca as a moving in present.

They asked us round when they’d been there a few months and showed us the changes they’d made.  Um…sorry, we didn’t like them much. A lot of rather elaborate paint effects and gilding and tiling all over the place.  Not that it didn’t need updating, we’d lived there ten years and, having done a lot to start with, hadn’t changed much since – but it wasn’t to our taste.  Still, it was a lovely house and you couldn’t take that away.

I was still very close to my mother when we moved and it did me good to be out of our previous social circle.  Still only half an hour away, we saw each other often, not least because Al was still at his prep school in Southwold and he stayed with her and her husband, my lovely stepfather, a couple of nights a week to save a lot of travelling.  But I started to grow into my own skin, I made friends – making the effort to go out and do that did not come naturally to me – and I didn’t hanker after the life I’d enjoyed in Lowestoft.

Undeterred, Z returns to the drawing board

Right, so now I’ve proved to everyone’s satisfaction that I can’t draw, not even straight lines, and you’ve roundly teased me for it, I’ll continue with my story.

We moved in the day before Ro’s second birthday, and this was also the start of the school summer holidays, which gave us plenty of time to settle in and start to get to know people.  I can’t remember much about what we did, specifically, but I do recall a very happy time.  As I said, I felt at home straight away, rather to my surprise, and there was plenty to do in the house and garden.

The vegetable garden was not in a convenient place at all, and an ash tree overshadowed it.  I wanted a large greenhouse – this had been a stipulation when we moved here.  I’d had two in my last garden, one was 12′ long and the other 8′ and I wanted nothing less.  In the end, the best value turned out to be three  greenhouses, each 10′ x 8′, which worked out less expensive than two 12′ ones.  We erected them end to end, with closable doors in between.  We removed the turf from an area of lawn where my father-in-law used to practise golf shots and stacked it to rot down, and prepared my kitchen garden.

And a picture will paint another thousand words here, so I’ve picked up my pencil again, and a ruler too this time (the left line doesn’t look quite straight because I had the paper on my knee to take a photo and it sagged slightly).

The shaded areas are paths and the white ones the beds.  I drew it from the side, so what looks like a Z with an arrow beneath is actually N, showing the direction of north.  *Sigh*  Yes, I know.  Just think what it’s like actually being me.  It’s not very clear, so I’ll tell you that what I’ve written across the bottom of the picture is ‘Greenhouses divided by sliding doors.’

Each bed was 4′ by 30-something ‘ – I can’t now remember whether the length of the beds is 38′ or the beds plus the paths at each end is 38′: ie, the beds are 34′ long.  You can deduce that each path is 2’ wide.  The paths were made of concrete and this had several benefits – the obvious ones are neatness, not digging and fertilising areas that were to be walked on and (in this dry area and with our sandy soil, quite an important consideration) not watering areas that were not growing crops – indeed, rain ran off the paths onto the beds.  I wasn’t going to have to walk on the beds often, as I could reach the middle from either side, and I could put fleece, cloches or netting over the beds easily.  They were easier to maintain: even if I didn’t use one of the beds for a year, the weeds would not encroach on the rest of the garden and the digging and weeding could be done in manageable sections.  There was yet another benefit that I hadn’t taken into account, which was that the concrete held the warmth of the sun and helped to warm the soil.  All in all, it was one of my better ideas.

Since then, the kitchen garden has been enlarged considerably, but this was the original set-up.

Once the paths had been laid, the rotted-down turves were dug in, along with a lot of cow muck, and I was able to start growing vegetables the next spring.  I grew flowers for cutting in those days too – cornflowers, sweet peas, all sorts of things, and had flowers in every room for much of the summer.

I loved my greenhouse and it became my refuge when I needed a break from the family.  Any of them was welcome to come and join me there and help with the potting up or whatever job I was doing, but total tranquillity was a firm condition.  If any child came complaining that they’d quarrelled with a sibling, they’d be chivvied straight out again.  If they just came to cool off and become relaxed again, that was fine.