Tag Archives: family

A day of mixed fortunes

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Turned over, got up late, drove to Peterborough, saw a buzzard and a red kite on the way (both good sightings), helped sister, saw father, drove long way home, another good kite sighting, shopping at TESCO in Corby…

That was when it became slightly surreal when I decide to buy three of their 35 pence carrier bags.. They are security tagged. Yes, security tagged 35p bags. It seems they aren’t the only ones though.

Got home – Number One son microwaved my evening meal – pie, potatoes, green beans and creamed spinach. Ate spinach, wiped beard, tried a bit of pie.

A microwaved pie, even after the delay whilst eating spinach, stays extremely hot. Hence the blisters…

Then I ate some sugared almonds and broke a tooth. Luckily it was the one I’d had repaired with some sort of resin a couple of weeks ago. It hadn’t seemed like a very durable repair at the time, so I’m unhappy but not exactly surprised.

A day of mixed fortunes indeed, and now I’m also getting grief from WordPress about using 91% of my capacity. Anyone think it’s worth paying for an upgrade or should I just start deleting old photos?

Me – sleeping, moaning and changing things

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I didn’t sleep well when we were away. Hot room, strange bed, hen party down the corridor…

However, I seem to have missed the last half hour, have a set of red marks on my face from the keyboard and have just had to edit the opening line of this post, which originally read “ro ro ro ro” for the first five and a half lines (I’ve edited it because it lost some of its novelty value after the first inch).

From this I deduce that I’ve got over my difficulty sleeping.

We’ve solved the mystery of the phantom gardeners – it was a local volunteer aided and abetted (not the first time they’ve heard a legal phrase) by the Community Payback Team. If you aren’t familiar with such teams they are the modern equivalent of the chain gang but without chains. Or a work ethic. I’m convinced that the ones who do come to work and rehabilitate themselves would have done anyway, and the ones who don’t want to work aren’t going to benefit from a day in the countryside wrecking a garden. It always seems to me that the difference between the two groups is the family support they get. Anyone can get into trouble – it’s something that can happen when you’re young (and I am making no claims or confessions here), but a supportive family is a big help when lining your life up again.

The volunteer in question has a record of despoiling the garden when left unsupervised and last time the Community Payback Team had a go with power tools they took the tops off all our fig tree cuttings and strimmed the leaves off a bed of leeks. There’s no difference in the result, but it’s a little easier to accept the results of ineptitude rather than malice.

Anyway, as a result of that I’ve come to a decision about blogging. This is supposed to be a blog about our group, though it’s a bit difficult, due to safeguarding legislation. I am therefore going to stop moaning on this one and only talk about the group, growing, sustainability and that sort of stuff. We will be making a few changes after talking to the parents of the group and you will be seeing more of them.

I am, however, not going to give up moaning entirely and intend restarting an old blog for moaning, travel and other things I do. I’m just going over to look at it now. It’s Sherwood Days at sherwooddays.com if you want to potter along and have a look.

I can’t see myself ever blogging 365 days in a year, or doubling my daily word count so we will have to see how it goes. Hope to see some of you over there.

 

 

Peaceful Sunday Afternoon

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It sounds like it should be a song from the 60s but it’s just a description of what I’m now experiencing. With just the sound of poultry and sheep in the background it’s very relaxing. Even the occassional outbreak of raucous guimeafowlery can’t break the mood.

If you’d asked me for a title half an hour ago, while I was still engaged in moving watering cans, I wouldn’t have been so mellow. I would probably have muttered something terse in the beginning, but by the time of the twentieth something quite rude would probably have resulted. Not only would I have been trudging along with my 20th can of water, I’d also have been annoyed by the snails attacking my horseradish, various degrees of sun shrivelled foliage and the fact that I have forgotten my card reader.

So, despite having photographs I am unable to load them onto the computer. The antique machine here in the farm office doesn’t have a card slot (though neither does mine at home, to be fair) so after forgetting the card reader I am powerless. I did try taking photos with my phone but it’s a new and mysterious phone, and I can’t find out where it hides the images after I take them.

It was also a society for young men before the Great War, as I recall. I don’t, of course, recall the 1913, but I do remember my grandmother telling me that her father had been a Sunday School teacher and member of a group called Peaceful Sunday Afternoon. I have a book of his somewhere at home, concealed in several thousand other assorted books, with a PSA book plate. I have never been able to find anything about them on the internet, which is strange when you think what is documented on there.

Ah well, I will leave it there. I’m off to visit Number two son in Sheffield when Julia finishes work, so probably won’t have time to load photos tonight. Sorry about that but it will probably have to remain a pictureless blog post.