Eh, three days have gone past. To think that I used to post every day, without fail. Catching up…

I was reminded on Tuesday that there was a meeting planned for Wednesday – the reminder politely didn’t mention that I, as the secretary of the committee, should have sent out the paperwork last week. I simply hadn’t put it in my diary because I’d written it on the minutes of the last meeting instead. No matter. There are two meetings a year and we always have the same agenda for Meeting One and Meeting Two.

Offered a Zoom meeting, the one with furthest to travel said that he’d had too many of those and would like to meet in person. It has to be said that you get extra things done face-to-face. Though not having to leave the house is nice too. Anyway, it was a 200 metre walk to the meeting and a bit longer back, because I discussed hedge trimming with the Rector, so walked back to his place.

This morning I drove Wink to the next town, because she had a hospital appointment there – just for an eye checkup, no illness or anything. She had drops dripped in, so couldn’t drive herself. The specialist wanted her to have another eye test at the optician and she has been given one tomorrow. So, a jolly to Norwich. That is, not jolly for her, but I’ll spend my time at the market, maybe buying books at Jarrolds too. Things that used to be normal are now such a treat.

There’s an acre of land around the house, not counting fields, and much of it is grass. We dutifully leave it to give wild flowers a chance, but it rained when it should have been cut and now the grass is waist high. So I started cutting it with the wheeled strimmer (this has probably got a ‘proper’ name, but it’ll do). Admittedly it was a warm and muggy day, but I was panting after ten minutes. I managed another ten later, but there’s a long way to go. Meanwhile, Wince was constructing another tunnel for the chickens, so that they can have a third outside area. One chicken got out when we removed the pane of glass, ready to insert the tunnel. She had a lovely hour pecking around outside and then she wanted to go home. It was Hen Rietta or Hen Leigh, I can’t remember which is which. We opened the door of the run for her. She tried for some time to get through the wire, but eventually I poked a stick at her and guided her to the doorway. Not long afterwards, the heavens opened. Apparently, there were flash floods on the main roads round about. It bucketed down for an hour and I was very thankful that poor little Rietta (or Leigh) was safely indoors by that time.

I picked some swiss chard to go with the casserole for dinner. I noticed a black leafy thing on one of the leaves I’d picked. It was actually a butterfly, wings closed, that had sheltered from the rain. I picked it up and put it under a growing leaf, feeling very mean to have disturbed it.

Tomorrow, Wink is coming for breakfast, because Friday is Croissant Breakfast. I started ordering croissants from the milkman on a Friday because it didn’t seem fair to ask him to come all the way down the drive for one pint of milk, so I added butter, croissants and orange juice to the order. Now, the milkman no longer supplies croissants (and I now use a different milkman anyway, who doesn’t either, but that’s another story). So we buy them. I can see that the time will come when I make croissants, but it still seems a bit too much like work, so I don’t do it yet. But it’s still Croissant Friday.

Today, I just caught up with some necessaries. We put the borrowed tables and chairs into the car – well, cars, Tim took some of the chairs – and returned them to the church (the bier shed, in fact). I checked and took photos of the overgrown trees, which aren’t, along the lane, because the council had told me that the bin lorry couldn’t get past. I’ve written an utterly charming letter, assuring them that the hedge and trees will be cut back in the autumn once nesting and fruiting season is over, but in the meantime I’ll ensure that the trees on the other side of the road are trimmed. And then I wrote to the churchwarden offering to sort that out. I suspect it’s one problem branch. I took photos and sent them.

The new milkman left the milk in the wrong place, so didn’t spot the direct debit form I’d left out. I didn’t say it was the wrong place but emailed to send the dddetails. So that was all right. I settled back, thinking I’d done all the admin. No I hadn’t, I realised. I needed to make a phone call.

My phone phobia has never gone away. I panicked and pretended it wasn’t going to need to happen. But it did need to happen, things would only get worse if I left it. So I steeled myself – and had a very pleasant chat with a nice woman called Megan (I asked: I do ask people’s names nowadays and use them in a friendly way. I’m getting better, old as I am) and sorted out everything, did follow-up emails and all. The pandemic has done nothing for my people skillz. I know I’m not alone in preferring email and texting etc to speaking to people, but it’s still embarrassing.

All the same, owning up to it is a help. Tim already knew about my phone problem, but I told him (possibly I’ve told him before but he didn’t say) that, in years gone by, if we were going to ask people over, I made Russell make the phone calls. The reason went beyond a disinclination to pick up the phone. I thought people would want to come if he asked them and not want to if I did. I had no reason to believe that, except that everyone liked him. There it is, I’m over it. Choosing to believe I’m likeable is still the bravest and hardest thing I do and accepting some people don’t much like me and that’s all right is the next bravest. Approximately.

The porch was wonderfully clear and empty, apart from a freezer and a small fridge. We wanted to keep it that way, so I suggested bringing in a table, as well as the nice teak bench. It’s a lovely little room and we’re going to use it regularly for coffee and lunch, when it’s either too hot or not quite warm enough to eat outside, but bright enough to want to. My parents-in-law used it for morning coffee and afternoon tea, but then they had a back porch too, for wellies and suchlike and I don’t, because the space was incorporated into the study. It’s too easy to use it as a dumping ground and I need to resist that temptation.

Tomorrow, hmm. I don’t have much planned. I need to deliver back the bier shed keys to the churchwarden and I will pick up my vineyard wine club’s annual crate, which is included in the membership. We need to sort out the fridge. Otherwise, I’m footloose.

It was so good to see everyone after two long years. There were fourteen of us, I think, in the end. Rose wasn’t well enough to come, sadly, as a bad cold went to her sinuses. My sister suffers similarly and has said that the one good thing about lockdown is that she hasn’t had a cold in a year and a half. Rose’s other half has small children and they pass on everything, as little ones do.

The weather forecast got worse and worse but we were lucky in the end. The rain held off until just as people were leaving. Seeing black clouds at quarter to five, we hurried the last cushions and glasses indoors and it was just the Bears (Steve and Liz) and Fiona (Cottage Smallholder) who got wet on their way to their cars. Scout the dog insisted on going out in the rain, but that was just for fun.

Not having slept more than a couple of hours on Friday night, I made up for it last night and we’ve had a relaxing day. It’s a quiet week, too, so perhaps I’ll weed the flower beds at last.

Only joking.

The weather is chilly, though it should be warmer by the weekend. The forecast has been fine for Saturday for a week, but now they’re hedging their bets. It might rain.

I’m going to leave it to everyone to decide where to eat. There are two houses and four dining rooms and a gazebo outside. I’m just going to get the food and drink organised. Relaxedly. I don’t fuss about anything much any more, though i do want everyone to be comfortable and well fed.

I’ve been wondering if I explain things really badly, when I believe I’m being quite clear. I said exactly what I wanted for the chicken run and it wasn’t done quite as I’d said, which would have been fine if it had been better than my idea, but it really wasn’t. I’ve another idea for an extension to the run, because there’s some wasted grass (as a result of my plans not happening) and Wince looked worried when i explained the plan and said he’d think about it and maybe ask Richard. He was looking at the run when he said it, but nothing needs to happen to the run, just an extra tunnel (already constructed) to be put in to the greenhouse (which involves removing a big pane of glass and something else put in its place, which is already there and just needs to be fixed in). I talked to Tim about it and, even after showing him, it was a while before he cottoned on to what I meant. I evidently make no sense at all, even when I think I do. Anyway, we’re going to have a go at doing the job ourselves next week. I’m useless at woodwork, but good as the ‘boy’ to someone who knows what they’re doing. We’d both rather have it done as we want rather than someone else’s interpretation.

Not this side of the blog party though. I made two loaves of bread today, because I haven’t enough to take us over the weekend. I made a mistake in not setting an alarm to switch the oven on. I’m used to the Aga always being hot. In the twenty minutes I had to allow for it to heat up after I wanted to put the loaf in, it lost its elasticity. I should have reshaped it and left it to prove again, but I thought I could get away with it. It has a decidedly flat top. On the other hand, the sourdough loaf looks magnificent and has risen higher than the yeasted loaf. I’ve also discovered that it’s a good idea to put a loaf low in the tabletop oven, so that the bottom element cooks the base and then put it higher to brown the top. The tabletop oven is … adequate. The given temperature bears no relationship to the actual setting. A loaf that takes half an hour at most in the Aga takes twice as long at what purports to be the same temperature in this oven. This is all right as long as you know. I’ve got a piece of sirloin beef to roast tomorrow. That’ll be fun.

Puds are simple. Fresh fruit, lemon syllabub and chocolate mousse. I might bake some little cakes too, but that’s one of those things that’s put on the list and, if time runs out, quietly ignored. It would be nice, though.