With frogs as big...

as a fivepenny piece...

we've cut the wild meadow.

To call it by such a name is a tad OTT.
Many and various grasses, peppered by the odd wild flowers, clover, oxeye daisies and poppies.

Before the lawn mower was woken from its summer slumber, I carefully raked the long grass looking for baby frogs. Sweet and perfectly formed they hopped away into the hedge.  Their journey only just begun.

The first year we had the pond they got caught on the untreated coping.  The dry stone would suck the moisture from their little bodies, leaving them to frizzle in the sun.  Seeing this I suggested we treat the stone with silicone.  This did the trick and they have managed to conquer the first hurdle on their perilous journey.  How they survive is a miracle.  Our visiting hedgehog supplements his cat food and mealworm nightly supper with a tasty morsel of fresh meat, of that I am sure.

Next time I see my home grown amphibian chums they may be the size of a florin or even

half a crown...

There was I...

at 8.30 on a Sunday morning, still in my jim-jams reading the paper on my ipad.  Himself was snoozing soundly.  A special time when all is good with the world.  To appreciate how I had not a fart in a thunderstorms chance of avoiding the knock on the door you have to see where we live.  Okay it is smack in the middle of the village, tucked out of the way, up a very unappealing track... no one finds us... just as we like it! Our 300 year old cottage has an oak extension with a solar farm amount of glass.

As a consequence Norman saw me seconds before I knew he was there!

An old Kentish man of our village had walked round to show us his latest pup.

'I've carried her round because I knew you would love to see her!'

'Come in!'  I felt compelled to suggest.

In his arms was the most roughty-toughty scrap of a brillo pad pup I've ever seen.

His deep Kentish burr must have rattled the ancient timbers of our old cottage to reach high up to the slumbering giant in the eves, at least that's what I was hoping!

Norman's eyes travelled over my nightie-clad unleashed bosom, as luckily himself appeared from on high!  Now I am not for one minute implying my matronly modesty was about to be breached, however a bod. has never been more relieved than husband heaving to!

After polite oohs and aahs, Norman and Jet eventually went.  Oh the joys of living deep in the Kentish countryside...

It started with...

my knicker drawer!

After years of just flinging them in,

suddenly without warning it crept up and bit me on the bum!

From out of nowhere I now carefully fold the the newly washed ones and put them on the bottom! (Of the pile, silly!)

Why has this tidy gene shown itself after all these years?  

On opening the airing cupboard the towels and tea towels are in neatly folded piles.  The viper's nest of yore is a dim and distant  memory.  Where will it end?  Please, please don't let the only plus of reaching such a great age be...
I become a domestic goddess... the slut in me would never rest

'I have never seen...

you look so washed out, you really must learn the yogi breath!?!'

my 93 year old 'Mum' said...

'What?  I've never even heard of it!'

And to think I took her under my wing...

Happy days

Our eyes met...

I walked on by...

I stopped, he looked a decent man.

Back I tracked...

'What has bought you to this?'

'Is it alcoholic or illegal substances?'

All the while breathing the fumes of two glasses of wine drunk at a leisurely lunch over him.

'My marriage has broken up, my son...'

As I put money in his cardboard box I touched his bearded cheek.

'Spend it wisely!' I said...

What right had I to say that, I thought as I walked away?

Did he think 'Daft tart!'

You know something I don't care.

At the end of the day I would rather 

he thought that

than me walk on by!

Now there's a thing...

Back in the day I used to buy clothes from our lovely village shop.

With never a care I treated myself.  How things have changed with the passage of time, finances and the state of the world.

Out of the blue I begun to feel out of step, suddenly indulgence wasn't the name of my particular game.  It felt so wrong.  My latest M.O. is to trawl the town's charity shops looking for my particular style of clothes.

Today I strolled in to find a crumpled linen top lying on the floor, unnoticed and unloved.  As I stooped to pick it up and replace it on the hanger I couldn't help but notice the label, old habits die hard!  On closer inspection I thought I had a top just like this, wonder whatever happened to it?  Same colour, I think, I haven't seen it recently? I'll try it on for old times sake... it fitted... I bought it!

Is it mine, I don't know?

So much of my life is now recycled...

I like to thing it is!  For the princely sum of £4.50 it's come the eight miles home.

And I hate to think how much I paid for it the first time round?

I cook that's...

what I do.

It is a standing joke in the family, my daughter-in-law says

"Poppy never knowingly undercaters!" 

And I don't, one of the great joys in my life is sharing food with family, friends, nodding acquaintances, I have even been known to invite passing folk that I have never clapped eyes on in for tea.

Sitting around a table with even the simplest of fare is to me one of life's pleasures.

My son bought me a dish with the inscription around the edge...

'The company makes the feast'

It does... added to which my menu planning, shopping and cooking is all part of the fun.

Setting the scene is pivotal in my enjoyment...

don't get me wrong, it isn't cut crystal, matching bone china, Irish linen table cloth that you spend a day ironing and lose half a stone over the sweat of pressing to mirror smoothness.  Oh dear me No!

It is... mismatched china, a hodgepodge of bone handled knives, maybe the odd silver eating iron thrown in to up the anti!  The bread will be served in any one of a number of strange wooden boxes that I've accumulated over the years, a Cockburn Port box, trugs, orange boxes, whatever seems to fit the occasion.  I do always have napkins, not paper serviettes... snobbishness rearing its ugly head?  Perish the thought!  Candles in candelabra,  battered by everyday use... yes literally.  

The food... can be anything from a doorstop size chunk of Manchego and a bowl of local cherries instead of the ubiquitous cheese board our guests by then can't rise to. Leaving me the task of polishing off the many and various cheeses chosen by me, secure in the knowledge it will be me who eats the lot!  Is it any wonder that the scales don't reflect the slimmer lass of a bygone era?

Eyes shut...

feet sole to sole I recline in my old dears armchair. Beethoven's third piano concerto is streamed straight into my head via my Trekz Titanium headphones.  The First Night of the Proms... maybe growing old isn't so bad after all?

German engineering, my only real admission to an ageing bod... a superb recliner with an ultra modern look.  None of your old ladies knickers, lavender overlaid with wee here... cutting edge comfort.

German composer, New York state company AfterShokz Trekz Titanium bone conducting headphones.

Friday night without leaving the comfort of my armchair I have embraced the world. What a breeze!

As I look...

old in the eye I get to thinking...

All my life I've been an old man's darling, where do I go from there when in August I join their serried ranks?

Now don't hold it against...

me!

I honestly don't think we should feed the birds, at least to the degree that so many folk do. 

Why?  Is it purely to help them on their quest for food, or as I suspect to delight ourselves by having them in the garden?

They are here anyway looking for their natural diet, not a surfeit of peanuts, fat balls and the like.

Is man once again meddling with the balance of nature for his own selfish ends?

This abundance of plenty is attracting the likes of crows, rooks, pigeons, magpies and jays, many of whom scour the hedgerows on the lookout for nests, eggs, baby birds and fledglings.

The gatecrashers of the party sit on the chimney pots swooping down on the unsuspecting young... a little fresh meat to add to the very welcome but otherwise boring daily offerings.

Me, I get my exercise by flying up the garden, for all the world looking like a demented crow with school bell in one hand, football rattle, hooter anything that comes to hand.  The garden birds take not a blind bit of notice 'Oh get her, that funny old bird is doing her daily exercises! What strange creatures these two legged flightless, featherless giants are?'

For my efforts, with all the added exertion my trousers threaten to fall from my now slimmer waist.  Added to which we now have a no-fly crow zone over our house.

I have a serious...

yen to be a bag lady!

Yes really, what better in this troubled world to pack your possessions in a red tartan shopping trolley and take off?

The moth holes in my cashmere would add a little glamour to my stylish attire.  My tiara won at the village fete topping off the rather dashing bohemian look.  Stout walking boots a must, with the occasional strappy sandal to compliment the tiara, when invited for a drinks party at the local park bench.

My plan has always been to walk the length and breadth of the UK calling off at the many and various towns, cities, villages, hamlets and homesteads that have been home to me in my previous life.

My skills as a cook will not be necessary as I scratch about in litter bins. At the end of the day in market towns I will plunder the discarded boxes of misshapen fruit and veg.  Hamster-like I will fill my cheeks, stashing any excess away in my home on wheels.

 No need to wash, personal hygiene taking a back seat, have you ever seen a fragrant tramp?  No, either have I!  

Oh the joys of the open road...

Wild garden...

As I sit thigh-high in the swaying grass I get to thinking about the joys of gardening for wildlife.

It isn't all it's cracked up to be: in my dreams and schemes I pictured a bucolic scene lifted out of the pages of a Thomas Hardy novel.  Warm summer days. Wildflowers richly peppering the many and various grasses the food source of birds and insects.

Trouble is, the thug swards have elbowed out the flowers.  There are hollyhocks of every hue, sunflowers of skyscraper height, poppies aplenty-ish!  Not nearly enough though.  Mistakenly I thought it was just a matter of Bathsheba-like scattering wildflower seeds; men falling in my wake as I progressed for all the world like a nymph of the meadows... full of fecundity and promise of a roll in the hay.  The reality is a far cry from such idle fancies. It is blooming hard work.  Friends I proudly show my wild garden to, grimace with a wind pain smile as we take tea in the neglected garden.  The nightly visits from the hedgehog lifts the spirits and proves to me I am at least doing something right.

Tattoos... Why?

 The bare armed cheek!

Just stop and think about it...

fast forward twenty years and the once pert and taut skin is showing the signs of wear and tear and the ravages of time and pollution.  It is bad enough how the skin slackens and falls without the constant reminder of the ink bleeding. No longer representing the sentiment of a bygone era of profound mystical sayings and symbols... What was that all about... for the life of me I can't remember?

Fashion it's called, although some of the hideous crimes we've all committed in the name of fashion get left forlorn in the back of the wardrobe or carted off to the charity shop.  This particular faux par we carry with us for the rest of time...  

No names... no pack drill...

I make no excuse for what I write, the words are just my thoughts and feelings as they occur.

I have missed blogging, my reason for leaving was simple, I could no longer be part of the medium that published images of men in orange jumpsuits meeting a gory end.  The whole thing seemed to sum up the state of the world. I for one was out of there.  In the meantime things have got worse.  Me, I've stayed the same, I still have irreverent thoughts which in the past I always had the need to share.  This way, I can without I hope, people twigging exactly who I am?  Freeing me from applying a brake on my innermost take on things.

I'm in a happy place.  Comment if by chance you stumble upon me, if you don't I won't mind because this is for me.