Tag Archives: neighbours

Another Relaxing Day

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I’ve done very little but sit down, read and eat today.

Julia cooked an excellent roast lamb dinner with a multiplicity of vegetables (potatoes, beans, brussels, carrots and celariac) and we had chocolate cake for dessert. I’m digesting that as I write.

The young couple next door (as I persist in calling them, in an elderly sort of way) brought us simnel cake cup cakes. I like them. And I like simnel cake too, just to avoid ambiguity.

I also wrote a sonnet. It’s a proper one, fourteen lines, iambic pentameters, a rhyme scheme and a volta. It took me twenty minutes and actually makes reasonable sense. Despite this, it still isn’t particularly good, but it’s a start. It just goes to show how constant practice makes it easier to write.

Now I just need a way of improving the quality.

I may search the internet for “How to Write Like Shakespeare”. I found this article. It’s not a great help, being geared more towards plays than poetry. I then found this article when adding “sonnet” to the search.

I also found a random sonnet generator, but I won’t post a link because it isn’t very good.

Six minutes to midnight – time to press the button.

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Simnel Cake and Easter Chick

 

A Painted Lady Comes to Call

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I’ve had a few problems with WordPress today, including the complete loss of a post. This was annoying as I’d spent a significant amount of time looking for links and photos.

Julia picked plums in the early afternoon and saw a Painted Lady in the garden – another first for the garden. Added to the Small Copper and Hummingbird Hawk Moth we saw earlier in the year it’s all coming together nicely.

Small Copper on castor oil plant
Hummingbird Hawk Moth

When we left home to do some errands this afternoon we spent a few minutes watching the front garden and were rewarded by two small brown butterflies hustling past in the swirling wind, then a larger one, which proved to be a Painted Lady. It took some photographing, as it was quite skittish and there was a stiffish breeze once it left cover.

Painted Lady – Sherwood, Notts
Painted Lady on Red Valerian

We’re not doing too badly for butterflies in the garden, partly due to looking a bit more than usual and partly due to a good showing of Red Valerian. We’ve also had Mint Moths on the marigolds, which is a first, as I’ve always seen them on mint or oregano before.

As for the plums, Julia has picked over 200. As usual, it’s a case of picking them when ripe and then using them quickly before they start to go over. We’ve given some to Angela Across the Road, who gave us figs and tomatoes in return. We’ve also given some to the Young Couple Next Door, because they give us cake.

I’m going to make sure we feed the tree properly next year, and ensure the pruning is done properly. I’ve been a bit slapdash with pruning recently and it’s turning into a biennial bearer. This is my fault, not the tree’s. If the feeding works it should fruit moderately next year, which will take some of the vigour out of it for the year after. If not, it looks like I’ll have to remove fruit buds two years from now.

I think this all started about six years ago when we had a bad spring that killed all the blossom. The next year was a bumper year due to all the stored energy and the one after that we didn’t harvest any fruit at all. I should have got on top of it when we had the first bumper year, instead I added neglect to the problem by letting the pruning slip by.

We are having Plum and Apple Crumble for tea.

All in all this has been a good day.

Random Act of Kindness

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Our new neighbours just brought some home-made muffins round. It’s the nicest and most surprising thing that’s happened to me for years. In fact, in years to come this may be be recorded as the moment that a miserable cynic regained his faith in human nature.

There are two flavours – lemon and poppyseed and lemon drizzle. I like lemon and poppyseed, but let’s face it, lemon drizzle is the peak of perfection.

So, unexpected cake and excellent flavour choices – what a day!

I’m hoping this is the start of a new phase in my life.