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They are not long, the days of wine and roses

I’m sure I’ve used that quote before, so I apologise if I’m being boring. Here’s the full poem for those of you who want to read the rest. Like the days of wine and roses, it is not long. The title, in contrast, is longer than most haiku.

When I was looking for quotes on the swift passing of time, I couldn’t find one that felt right, so it was back to the reliable Dowson yet again.

The subject was on my mind on the way home today as it was definitely shirt sleeve weather and spring was in the air.

We have a number of domestic projects to get through this summer and I am aware that one sixth of the year has nearly gone. It’s a worry because this has happened before. One day it’s February and the next time you think about it, it’s September and we still don’t have the upgraded heating system or the new kitchen we’ve been promising ourselves for years

Today absolutely flew by, with plenty going on – parcels to pack, coins to sort and customers to serve. It was one of my more enjoyable days in the shop, which has been a bit grim recently. It’s nothing to do with the shop – it’s just that I still haven’t really adjusted to not being my own boss. Or to working with someone who gradually accumulates, and defends, all the stationery in the shop.

I had arrived at the point where I wasn’t really enjoying work and was giving serious thought to employing some of the knowledge gained from decades of reading crime novels. I’m just about to start a new book on my Kindle…

Easy as a Monday Morning

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On Friday I experienced an uneasy feeling, which grew through Saturday as I realised that I probably had a blood test this morning. I say “probably” as I had neglected to make a note in my diary and I had mislaid the letter giving me the next date.

Eventually I found the letter (which also counted towards my decluttering quota) and confirmed that I did indeed have a blood test this morning.

In the manner of these things, the plan suffered a set-back. I woke at 6.15, summoned by my bladder and then went back to my nice warm bed bed. That meant that instead of leaping into action at 6.30 I hauled myself out at 6.45 and the whole day started slower and later than intended.

There wasn’t much of a queue and the phlebotomist hit the vein first time. I bled well after they removed the needle and I’ve had no panicky phone calls so I’m presuming all has gone well.

As I left the hospital I noticed that the day was much lighter than it had been three weeks ago for my last test. Spring is definitely on the way.

I’ll leave out the boring bits – parcels, swearing at other drivers, TV – the normal stuff that makes up my life.

Tonight we had the beef stew I’d meant to cook last night. (We ended up with frozen veggie burgers due to time constraints). It turned out reasonably well despite my normal cooking technique of chucking stuff in and seeing what happens. I keep meaning to learn how to cook properly, but I never get round to it.

It’s cottage pie tomorrow. I made it while I was doing the stew. It’s good to be a day ahead.

That’s about it for today. Nothing interesting happened and I have 23 minutes left to post.

The Plans Slot into Place

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The plans were –

Publish the post I meant to do last night
Sleep
Write
Shop
Pick Julia up from work

It’s actually difficult for that to go wrong.

Tonight I will do some decluttering and some cooking.Not much, just enough to say I have carried out the last two elements on my list.

Nobody needs to know I intended to clear the dining room table or cook four meals in advance. A carrier bag of books will suffice, as will a simple beef stew. It was going to be venison (it’s healthier and everybody likes Bambi) but they didn’t have any in the supermarket. They had some last week, which is what gave me the idea. Typical.

Cookery isn’t so bad when you think of the alternative – watching the depressing news on TV, watching equally depressing non-news or watching poor quality repeats.

Ah well, where are those onions…

Crocus at Nottingham

Snowdrops at Ruddington

Some Spring photos, hopefully the first of many.

Writer’s Log Jam

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The last few days have been crowded with subjects to write about. The trouble is that there is just too much, I am feeling quite tetchy about a lot of it and it’s hard to write a post in those circumstances. It’s the opposite of writer’s block in many ways – plenty to write about, plenty of words coming through, but just so much to say I can’t process it all.

I went to the random subject generator to help me concentrate, and this is what it came back with –

Write about your relationship with food.

You know it isn’t your day when even the random subject generator is having a pop at you.

I carry, as you may have gathered over the years, a few extra pounds. I say “a few” – it might be a bit more than that. In fact I could probably do with losing weight equivalent to the bodyweight of an average jockey.

However, this is supposed to be about my relationship with food, not my relationship with small people who ride horses. I like jockeys, but couldn’t eat a whole one…

I don’t really have much of a relationship with food; it’s never around long enough for me to get to know it.

When I gave up smoking I did so by telling myself how disgusting it was every time I smelt cigarette smoke. It seems to have worked as, twenty years later, I am still off cigarettes.

I’m not sure it would work as well with food. I’m worried that if I made myself think of food as disgusting I might end up with an eating disorder. To be fair, it would take a few years before the weight loss became a problem, but you have to be careful about these things.

To avoid buying new clothes I could buy braces to keep my trousers up, which is something I’ve been considering anyway – it’s a middle-aged man thing. (That’s suspenders to you Americans, though suspenders are something different to us.) Very different.

I do love the way English differs from one side of the Atlantic to the other. The mental picture of middle-aged American men wearing suspenders is both amusing and horrifying.

I think I’ll leave it there and add some pictures of food.

Oatcakes – Stoke on TrentOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Cheese Scone at the Barn Garden Centre

Scones and Jam – John Lewis

Between writing “pictures of food” and actually posting the pictures I managed to fall asleep and wake up just after midnight to find I’d missed a day posting. Just as I thought I was doing so well…

Random Subject – Swimming

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I thought I’d try a random subject today, and the subject of swimming came up.

Unfortunately I know nothing about swimming, but if I ignore the prompt there’s no point in generating it.

I haven’t been swimming for around forty years, and unless I find myself on a sinking ship I have no intention of swimming again. It’s like skydiving – unless the aeroplane is on fire I’m not going to jump out of it.

I’ve probably forgotten how to swim by now anyway.

Even if I haven’t forgotten how to swim, and assuming I wanted some gentle exercise, I’m not going to expose myself to ridicule and the possibility of an attempted rescue by Greenpeace.

It’s also time to remove most of the swimming from the Olympics. In 2020 there will be 35 swimming events in the pool. If you are good at swimming you can easily end up with half a dozen medals. If you are good at riding a bike it will take a couple of Olympics to get that many. And if you are a rower it will take 16 years to get five medals.

Somehow it doesn’t seem fair.

Sir Steve Redgrave has five golds for rowing in five consecutive Olympics, and is only our fourth most successful Olympian – beaten by Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny and Sir Bradley Wiggins. He had to win one every four years, and couldn’t have a bad day. The last three are all cyclists, in case you didn’t know. They won multiple medals for pedalling quickly round a track on something my mother used to use for going shopping on.

I’d be more impressed if they did their events with a basket on the and a load of shopping piled up in it. Rowers could also take a fishing rod.

So, to summarise. Swimming. Too many Olympic events. Cut them all back so athletes are operating on a level playing field. Redesign the cycling and rowing events, and introduce a pursuit category to the swimming.

It would be like a normal swimming event but just after the swimmers dive in…

…you release the shark.

Day 102!

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After failing in my challenge to write 100 posts in 100 days I decided to keep quiet about my new challenge, which was to write 100 posts in 100 days.

I’m consistent, if nothing else.

I’m also better at writing than I am at counting. When I checked to see if it was 100 days yet, I found it was actually 102 days since the first post of the run.

It doesn’t really matter – I’ve managed 100 consecutive days. Now I can relax.

To celebrate I’m going to have a nice cup of tea and chuck in a gratuitous robin picture.

We had the talk on framework knitters last night, the one I nearly went to last week. I’m going to visit within the coming month, and check out the tea room, so watch this space!

Stitches, Cloves and a Happy Ending

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Thursday started with a visit to the dentist. Again. The stitches were supposed to dissolve, but one set didn’t. They just sat there and refused to budge. I tried pulling them but the only result was a sore gum. They began to irritate my gum and cheek.

Eventually, as the pain became constant, and it started to feel like an abcess, I decided to contact the dentist. I’ve had dealings with abcesses before. I’ve also had dealings with stitches before, though that was in my pre-blogging days.

I once had a set of stitches dissolve too quickly after a biopsy. It took two hours to stop the bleeding. Another time I had a set heal into my eyelid. That stung a bit when they came out. And then…

Well, let’s just say that I don’t do well with stitches.

After a bit of tugging and squeaking we got the stitches out (they were non-dissolving despite what I’d been told) and packed the socket with something that had a complicated scientific name.

It tasted bad and smelt like oil of cloves. It did, however, fix the infection – everything feels good now.

We had a good day today at work too – one of the customers brought us Cadbury Creme Eggs.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be back with more scone news in the next few days.

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Life after the Care Farm