Monthly Archives: June 2021

A Setback and a Brilliant Idea

At 9pm I was short on inspiration and full of pizza. I decided that Death in Paradise would fill an hour and still allow time to write the blog (which was up to 24 consecutive days). Unfortunately things didn’t go to plan and I am now back to Day 1 and have a bad back from sleeping in the chair for three hours. Even worse, I am now 100% awake in the middle of the night, when I should really be sleeping.

I was short on inspiration, but something always crops up. In this case, after suggesting a new item of cycling clothing to Tootlepedal ( a cycling suit that also acts as a sail) I remembered my previous idea – Soup Trousers. Basically it’s a set of winter weight trousers with a number of waterproof pockets containing soup. You pour hot soup in at the start of the walk and benefit from the extra warmth plus the ability to suck soup through a series of tubes and enjoy a warming snack without having to stop and unpack sandwiches.

Clearly, as early trials indicated, the soup selection is going to be limited, as you don’t want anything with too many bits in it. You also need something with nicely rounded pockets which don’t collect odds and ends in the corners.

So far, a number of leading manufacturers of outdoor clothing have shown no interest whatsoever, and several others have been even less keen. It is possible that I am a man with ideas before my time and people will look back on this blog, as they sip macchiato from their Coffee Culottes, and . . .

I have it! Change the name to Soup Salopettes and market them as ski-wear. What a simple solution. Re-purpose the others to become Tea Trousers and we move on from being mere beverage-based clothing to a life-style enhancing apparel collection. In my hands a cocktail dress is going to be radically different, and beer breeches are going to become reality. Wine Onesies anyone? The only limits (apart from alliteration) are going to be sobriety and self respect, and if you’ve seen some of the clothes people wear to shop in supermarkets, you will see that self-respect isn’t going to play a big part in the equation.

And that, I think, is enough sensitive commercial information information about my new project.

An Early Night

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Not sure where to start today. I missed a grim demonstration of nature in action this afternoon, but Julia reported it to me. A small brown bird was chirping in the gutter, clearly trying to entice its parents to come and feed it. Suddenly there was a flutter of black and white as a magpie landed, snatched the little bird up in its beak and flew off. It’s hard to imagine that there was a happy ending. I’m not sur whether I feel sorry for the fledgling or regret that I wasn’t able to film it. Sometimes I am not a very nice person.

I spent the first part of the morning struggling to get to work through multiple roadworks. This was very annoying. Then I struggled to get home as a lorry had broken down on the Ring Road. Some days you feel more like a commuter than others.

We seem to have had nothing but news of people dying recently. One of Julia’s ex-colleagues died a few weeks ago and we only just found out and a neighbour died yesterday. Neither were covid related.

I looked up the crematorium in Gedling and found that they offer a range of products containing the ashes of the deceased. I knew you could get ashes compressed into diamonds at great expense (£1,400 for an amber coloured quarter carat stone to £16.500 for a clear 2 carat stone – plus extra for cutting if you want a more ornate cut of stone), but I didn’t know you could get the ashes of a dead relative used as the design for a paperweight. In a world that has gone mad with big weddings and conspicuous mourning, I don’t suppose it should be a surprise.

The Georgians and Victorians were very big on putting hair into mourning jewellery. However, there was a certain amount of thought and design in earlier times, which you don’t seem to find in a paperweight or pair of cufflinks. I would hate to think bits of me would have an afterlife as a piece of tacky jewellery. I really don’t know whether I should despair or laugh.

We had twenty three poppies this morning, but yesterday, having failed to deadhead for two days, only got ten. I may have to drop my estimate a bit, or deadhead with more enthusiasm.

That’s about it. Covid rates are rising again, the Government is in turmoil, a holiday company is going to take the Government to court because they haven’t put enough holiday destinations on the Green List, and I’m complaining about traffic and bad taste mourning jewellery. That, as posterity will show, is a truer measure about the thoughts of ordinary people than anything you will read in the papers twenty years from now. Covid will pass, but bad taste is always with us.

I haven’t slept well for the last few days, so I am going to go to bed after finishing this post. I have to be up early tomorrow – another blood test.

Spanish Poppies

A Few Flowers

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Red Valerian

In response to a request, here is a picture of the red valerian in the front garden. If you look closely you should be able to pick out the two different reds, though I have difficulty getting a good shot of them. To the naked eye they are very different but the camera tends to average them out. It also comes in white. When we go to Matlock we pass an expanse of the white variety growing from the side of a railway embankment.

The link is to a blog I just found whilst looking for information on red valerian, she explains it far better than I can. The blog address is https://bugwomanlondon.com/ and from what I can see it is full of interesting stuff about plants and weeds.

Figs are doing nicely too – you grow them by cutting sticks from other figs and sticking them in a pot. Easy. My sort of gardening.

The rosemary behind the valerian has only recently stopped flowering. We had to buy the rosemary, but three pots have produced a forest. We really should take cuttings and cut all the woody stuff out, but you know me – a lazy non-interventionist gardener. They are both great additions to any garden – low water needs, difficult to kill (I never say impossible ;-)) floral and, useful. Red valerian feeds butterflies and hummingbird hawkmoths. Rosemary tastes good and the smell is supposed to drive mice away. We have certainly had no winter mouse intrusions while w have had that monster plant outside. This seems to be the only link I have to hummingbird hawkmoths in my own blog, you have to go down to the end for a poor quality picture of one. I’m sure I wrote more than one post with photos…

The other plant is Nottingham catchfly, a local plant and one I have never managed a good photo of yet. Other people seem to have the same problem.

Nottingham Catchfly

Wednesday – the New Saturday

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Didn’t set the alarm last night – slept until 8.30, which was nice. Felt rested when I got up, which was unusual.

Baked eggs for breakfast with bacon, spring onions, cheese and black pepper. We didn’t have a delivery last week as we were out on Thursday night, so we are living off what we have. Now that the panic buying is over, Brexit is done and there are no shortages, we are working our way through the tinned tomatoes and beans. Another week or two should see us nearly done, then I will start laying in a properly planned food and toilet roll reserve. After all, just because there is nothing on the horizon it doesn’t men that there won’t be a plague, zombie apocalypse or meteor strike tomorrow…One growing trend we see in the shop is people buying silver and gold, particularly silver, because they fear for future instability. To be fair, these are people who, in general, also believe that covid is a government plot, vaccination is bad and that Bitcoin is as good as real money.

My view is that gold is a good long term investment, silver is a good, but less stable, investment and that Bitcoin is made up and is similar to the Emperor’s new clothes – as soon as someone catches a cold and finds it is all made up, the whole thing will collapse. Some people will have made big money from the credulity of others and millions of people will have financed the 21st century equivalent of the South Sea Bubble.

Vaccination, covid and Government plots are topics for another time. It’s Wednesday, which is my equivalent of the weekend, and I have things to do, which include being cheerful, ordering groceries on the internet and, of course, submitting more poetry. But first I must do the washing up. Julia has gone to get her hair done and was quite clear on me not sitting at the computer all morning.

Poppies and Poems

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We had eighteen poppies this morning. Not as good as some recent days when we had over 20, but still quite good. If you say we average 15 a day (we have second, small, patch too) in Junes, July, August and September, that’s about 1,700 blooms. That’s a lot of effort in flowering and, to be honest, a lot of deadheading too. And all from two patches of poppies which grow from cracks in the concrete. When we move I must try to save seed.

I am using a more structured approach to the day. I did 10 haiku this morning after arriving at work and emailed them to myself. I made a few notes on a submission I am making this evening and then started work. I wrote and the shop benefited from me starting early so I like to think it is good for both of us.

Did I say I was doing a Buson 100 (100 days writing 10 haiku each day.)? I honestly forget what I write in my notes, what I write in the blog and what I mean to write in the blog. Yes, I see I have mentioned it. I’m just over half way in days, and have a few poems in hand, so things aren’t looking too bad, though it’s till touch and go, as I can easily get two or three days behind, and it takes a bit of catching up. This isn’t helped by losing a notebook with ten poems in it. However, as copy typing is very dull, half of me is happy to lose them and just write directly onto the screen. I’m finding it a lot easier to type haiku these days, instead of having to write them first. Typing is less stress on my hands too, so it’s all good.

Structure, planning, discipline. Bit by bit it seems to be working, though it’s mainly structure helping to develop good habits. Planning is OK, but could be better. Discipline seems to dissolve when I see an interesting link to follow and lose myself for an hour . . .

Marmalade Hoverfly

Less Hectic Than Saturday…

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It was a better day today. Last night’s test was negative, Julia’s regular test was negative and the boss, though wan and drawn, was (a) negative and (b) recovering.

His wife rang for a test on Friday night as he was exhibiting all the symptoms. They filled in the forms and were then told them were no available testing slots. His wife, being a forceful woman, got in the car, drove down to the local testing station and found the staff all sitting round with nobody to test. This is mainly how it is (I drive past several times a week and rarely see anyone there). It doesn’t fill you with confidence.

Anyway, his test result came back negative.

The temperature was slightly lower today, which is good for a man who spends his day in a room with no windows. It’s badly insulated and has a flat roof so it’s cold in winter, hot in summer, noisy when it rains and generally dull. However, conditions were passable. I would complain about working conditions but that might invite comparisons between me and the ideal shop assistant. I fail to measure up in a number of ways, including telling customers i know nothing about coins and don’t see any need to change, as I retire in three years. I feel honesty is important, and it also means less work for me. Customers come in and ask for mark or Eddie, but they rarely ask for me. It’s a bit like DIY and other jobs once you are married – mess it up the first time and you never get asked again.

Comments on Rejection

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I had a rejection email a couple of days ago, which was quite good as it had several notes with it. In general it gives me plenty of information about what the editor is thinking, though actual “improvements” are not quite so plentiful. I will act on the suggestions, as they took time and effort to produce, but like several other of my published pieces, I will also write the one i want to write and try again. Poems are, after all, only words and, as I have said before, I have plenty of words to write another one. It’s not like every poem published depletes the stock of words for the rest of us.

The three main points are that I should show, not tell. Last time I sent something to that magazine the comment was that I should have shown the house being built. There was, in the entire poem, no mention of a house being built, and in real life no house was built. The editor imagined it as a result of the poem. This is both good and bad, and after reading up I found that telling is sometimes necessary. It’s one of those things you find when you have contact with editors – inconsistency, grey areas and matters of opinion. Usually, I tell too much and gradually edit it out as I condense the poem. However, this can take months and I wrote the poem in question in three days. The problem wasn’t so much telling not showing – it was rushing things and not editing properly. I’ll hold my hand up to that one.

Then there was the question of certain phrases and whether they were “poetic” or necessary. One of them was a metaphor that linked with other things in the poem, but that wasn’t noted. I’m obviously too subtle. Another was a phrase that most of you would have recognise a my speaking voice. I tend to write as I speak and I don’t always sound like Shelly or Frost. This irks me slightly a it’s like I’m being edited out of my own poems. It’s happened with others too, so this isn’t unusual.

Finally, the suggestions seem to have reduced the poem to a short paragraph with a tanka at each side. Whether this is by accident or not, I’m not clear. Over the years haibun have become shorter. I presume the same is true for tanka prose, though I admit I didn’t pay much attention to them until I started to write them. It seems to be a particularly American thing – a few lines of prose and a quick poem, usually with a tangential connection to the prose, referred to as “link and shift“. What they don’t tell you is that there are other ways of connecting the two elements.

I will stop there, lest I go on to explore other areas where editors may have blind spots dictated by fashion. I’m very close to 500 words now, which is a long post on a subject that is mainly of interest only to me.

My Orange Parker Pen

Nightmare Saturday

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Things are not going well. I had a bad day on Thursday, aching in all my joints. Eventually I had to give in and give myself a good dose of painkillers before bed. Yes, including ibuprofen. It worked. I had a good night’s sleep, a complete run of five and a half hours without waking, and when I did wake I was pain free and felt years younger. Meanwhile my co-worker said he also felt undefinably ill that day. I put it down to something in the air. Then on Friday we found the boss, who had been doing paperwork and having a day off, on Thursday, had also felt ill on Thursday. On Friday he was still ill, and developed a harrowing dry cough, one of the classic covid symptoms. His wife made him take a lateral flow test on Thursday night and he was clear, but it was still a worry. I took a test on Friday night and was OK. The boss’s wife made him do a proper test (I forget the name) on Friday night and they sent it off.

As a result, with my co-worker away on Saturday and the boss being made to self-isolate by his mask-wearing wife, there was just me in today.

I had the door locked and did the eBay parcels. There were six of them, an advance on previous days. Then a customer arrived and I let him in. While he was in a family (grandparents and grandson) arrived. That took some time, but the lad is just starting out and needed some advice. I see advice for young collectors as an important thing so took my time over that.

By the time I had the shop to myself again more items had sold on eBay and several auctions had finished. I’d been told I could go at 1.00, but ended up going just after 3.00. It was still an early finish, but it’s surprising how a day’s work can expand, particularly now that all the foreign parcels need customs labels – thanks to leaving the EU. It’s one of the hidden costs. We spend a couple of hours a week doing them, I suppose. Not a huge figure, but 2 hours a wee is 100 hours, which is two weeks. Somebody has to pay fro that two weeks. I don’t remember seeing that written on the side of a bus…

It was also hot and stuffy as we have no air-conditioning and can’t hav ethe doors open when there is just one of us in the shop.

Hopefully, all the covid stuff is just a groundless worry, but watch this space.

An Evening Out

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Last night we went out, I was too tired to post when I returned and, this morning, sat down to write a post at work, which I emailed to myself. It was quick, but not elegant and I have spent so much time editing I may as well not have written it. On the other hand, as there was no work to do, what else was I going to do? I could have cleaned the toilet or blogged. Not a difficult choice.

I’m struggling with the idea of getting out and about after 15 months of various lockdowns and wasn’t entirely comfortable about going. Despite my misgivings, it went well. It’s not so much that I’m afraid of catching Covid, as I’m now fully vaccinated, but after spending all that time isolating I don’t want to see the world blow it because people can’t think things through. After all that time, and all the alterations we have made to our lifestyle, it would be a shame if we spoil it now. There is still, in my mind, very little difference between a foreign holiday and a super-spreader event.

The main difference between Harvester now and Harvester fifteen months ago is that I am not allowed in one on my own. I don’t have Track and Trace loaded on my phone and even if I did, I don’t have the thing on it that allows you to use those pixelated square things you see around the place. It seems that unless you are tech savvy or in the company of young people you are no longer required. This is OK by me as I am resigned to being on life’s scrapheap, but it seems a little rough that a whole generation is written off just like that. On the bright side, it will enable me to save money.

Bee on Spanish Poppy

The steak was dry, the garnish was grudging (a few peas, half a tomato and two mushrooms the size of my thumb nail) and the massive portion of chips was a clear attempt to disguise the paucity of the rest of the plateful. The free salad had to be served by a member of staff and the choice was limited, as was the portion size. A shy person would have been seriously short-changed on the salad. They were happy to offer bread rolls, in fact they were happy to offer two bread rolls – see my previous comment on disguising small portions.

They also had no choice of bottled water – it was just still water in a large bottle – no sparkling or small bottles. There was no horseradish sauce. There were no condiments on the table so no pepper or vinegar for me. Like so many of the economy measures we see, it’s a cost-saving exercise dressed up as a health precaution. They had, however, salted my chips without asking me. I don’t add salt to my food. I haven’t added salt for around 30 years. It took a bit of getting used to, but I don’t need it and I don’t see why it should be added without my permission.

Apart from that, it was OK, though I’m not going to be tempted back by the quality of the dining experience.

The actual socialising was more relaxing than I had expected. It was nice to see people and it was good to get out and to find that I could relax in a social setting despite my misgivings about mixing. Even so, I’m not planning on more mixing for a while. That’s the thing about lockdown, I wasn’t very sociable before lockdown so I’m not suddenly going to become a people person just because the government tells me I can go out.

A lot of people put themselves at risk so that I could stay happy and healthy in lockdown, including members of the NHS (though not dentists, who have not been doing much apart from counting their money), emergency services, dustmen, bus drivers, postmen and, of course, Julia. I was lucky enough to be able to just treat it as one long holiday.

All that will be in vain if we start to act stupidly now.

Similarly, we have had cleaner air recently. If we all jump on a flight to Portugal it won’t be long before we are back to normal.

Hoverfly on Spanish Poppy

I’m with David Attenborough on this one – “The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.”

Covid has changed my life, and my way of thinking. Even now it is nearly over, the changes continue. And briefly, for just one post, it has made me serious and philosophical. I will try to be more light-hearted next time.

We had 24 poppies out yesterday morning – all gone when we got home. They are Spanish Poppies according to Clare Pooley, and when you look them up on the internet it seems quite obvious. I’d never heard of them until today – another gap in my knowledge. Mine are singles, rather than the pom-pom flowers on the RHS website. Thank you Clare.

Marmalade Hoverfly

Governments, statistics and unreliable narratives

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I’m having to rush a bit because I just wrote 350 words which went nowhere. They were started by me seeing this on the internet whilst researching travel between the USA and UK – a train of thought sparked off by the sight of an elderly gent arriving in Cornwall this morning.

The U.S. State Department has issued a Level 3 Travel Health Notice for the United Kingdom: Reconsider travel to the United Kingdom due to COVID-19 and exercise increased caution due to terrorism.

I didn’t realise that we had that much terrorism. It certainly doesn’t seem as common as it was when I was growing up. At one time they used to search us before we were allowed in a pub. This was strange as I was searched more going into pubs than I was when I used to go to Ireland on business.

It’s also strange when you think that the intentional homicide rate in the UK is 1.2 per 100,000, where it is 5 per 100,000 in the USA. It looks to me like we should be warning UK citizens not to travel to the USA, and that your government advice would be to prepare for a nice restful holiday in the UK.

It just goes to show that Governments and statistics are what they call “unreliable narrators” in the world of writing.

I’m going out for a meal now, in an attempt to get back to normal. It doesn’t feel quite right but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it once I get there. As long as I can elude those pesky terrorists…

I will try to post something more interesting later, but in the meantime, don’t believe all you read..

quercuscommunity

Life after the Care Farm