After a rollicking from...

Rachel yesterday, I thought she’s got a point, so best I get a wiggle on and brighten myself up, even if only for the blog!  I can then grump around Ludlow to my heart’s content, without my chums in blogland knowing what a crosspatch I really am.  Although I’m not, so that last bit is a fib!  I was struggling to think of something  positive to say when I thought about the receptionist in the opticians yesterday who commented on my sunglasses.
‘I do love your sunnies!’ she said.
It got me thinking there are two things I wear that wherever I go I get comments on, one the sunglasses and the other are these earrings.  I thought that would be a sort-of positive blog post, so I tried to take a selfie of the aforesaid items without showing too much of the phizog!

As I was in the David Bailey zone the postman came bringing post for me!?!  Never getting any mail I heard himself chatting to our lovely postman and thought nothing of it.
In he came with a letter, it’s for you from Canada.
‘Canada?  I don’t know anyone in Canada, it must be for the people we bought the cottage from!’  I said in my best Lady Docker tones.
On closer inspection it was indeed for yours truly.  What a glorious surprise.  

not the best of photographers I do hope you can enlarge it to see?

Thank you Moni, the arrival of this beautiful card made with your own fair hands could not have come at a more appropriate moment.  To say it has cheered me up is the understatement.

Don’t you just love your blogging chums.  I know I do!

Shock horror...

I have with much soul searching

now where did I put that bit of me that I loosely call my soul? decided I really don’t like some people and how they behave. The pandemic made me come to this momentous decision after a full 300 frigging years of puppy-like squirming to be loved, gone in five or so short months.

Looking back over an action packed life of the great and the good, and all stations in between, the cold hard fact is I don’t like what I see. I need new specs that bit I do know, off to pick them up this morning,  The opthalmic howsyourfather said as I left his lair of pie charts, wall art squiggles and torture contraption of rest your chin here and peer through these Titanic potholes rescued from the bottom of the ocean type thing...

‘These glasses will be on a par with the ones you have!’

‘Wot?’  I stupidly thought as I coughed up 69 quid for a replacement lens that won’t do anymore than the cheapo ones I already have!

A monocle would be cheaper and far more stylist I thought as I drifted 69 quidlets poorer out of the shop!

It wasn’t only that though...

I am just that way out at the mo!

Dog training...

or should I say human training?

We have found the loveliest dog trainer Helen, who is a joy to work with.  She came to us for the second time yesterday and put us through our lead work.

The husband’s concentration and skill rival that of a dog sniffing the air to locate the nearest bitch on heat... focussed!

Me, well I was more the wriggly pup who only wanted to roll over and have her tum tickled!

When I struggle with something I revert to my usual mucking about persona, which let’s face it doesn’t help Ellie or me come to think about it?  
It didn’t go well!

 Not for me, anyroad!?!

Twinkle Toes Ted went to the top of the class.  Whereas me, here I sit facing the wall with a dunces hat on knocking out this.

Mind you with words, his prose is the clunking sort that only a police officer could knock out...

‘Hello, hello hello, what’s going on ‘ere?’ type of thing.

That doesn’t stop me hating him though, as he sparkles with doggy fairy dust!  Mincing about with well behaved dog in tow!

I shamble along with dog on a Zeebeedee spring bouncing beside!?!

On arrival home Helen obviously thought a little light homework was in order, strange how mine was three pages while his was three lines?

I can see my report...

‘Must try harder!’

Story of my life really, in one short sentence.

As a child with each...

step I grumbled!

‘Why do we have to trog to the far end of the beach?’  I would whine.

My father strode on listening to not one word of my grumbles.

We would find a lovely secluded section of the beach and settle happy away from the madding crowd.

I also did the same with Aaron who true to form grumped and groused at each and every step!

Looking at the crowds sitting cheek by jowl with each other on the 

Costa del Soulless, am I pleased that a crowded beach holds no appeal to me, thanks to Dad.

The tale of two hedgehogs...

Little and Large.

We feed the hedgehog in a box, we did that at Goudhurst when marauding cats would get there first and scoff the lot.

This system we introduced when the rat decided to get in on the bounty of food available for the birds.  The birds now for the summer have just water, this seems to have discouraged the rat, that and a liberal peppering of chilli powder where it used to pop through under the fence.

We put the light on in the Wrenery  and the other evening we watched in amazement the roof of the box gently lifting?  On investigation by quietly lifting the magazine on the top we saw two hedgehogs jockeying for position at the tray of mealworms.

It is fun to watch who gets here first and last night the little one of the two was the first to arrive.  After some not inconsiderable time in the box obviously eating enough for two, Little decided that a drink at the bunnikins bar was in order.  

Then off to the house tucked beside the water butt for a little snooze before the rest of the nights adventures.

Creeping out I decided that a top up outside was in order just so when Large showed up he would get some.  When he did show he was grazing happily the sprinkles when something spooked him and he shot off at speed behind the water butt. Would a third one show I idly wondered?  No, it was the small one back out, who then proceeded to, yes you’ve guessed it polish off the second lot. 

Better by far than the television.

David Attenborough eat your heart out... along with Little!

Now I would be...

the first to admit... 

I am a top-show sort of girl, 

you know the sort, not matching bra and knicks, clean, but sort of not clean.  It always amazes me how some people look at all times as if they have just stepped out of a grooming parlour, whereas I always look like I have just stepped out of an ice cream parlour.  Squeaky clean, from the top of their shiny hair to the soles of their well cared for shoes.  Whereas me, well I always have an aura of ‘she looks okay, just don’t get down-wind of her’ persona.  

Sad, but there you are!

Okay, okay,I get it, however where are you going with this little epistle LL?

Where I am going is inheriting a garden designer’s garden is a ruddy eye-opener.  All looks wonderful to begin with, bit like a stage set, you know the sort of thing, the inside of a miner’s terraced front room.  Trouble is as you watch the play unfold you notice that the walls quiver as the door is shut.  The standard lamp light doesn’t always come on the minute the actor has put his hand up under the shade to turn on the light.  It looks good however in your gut you have the feeling that all is not as it would appear?

This garden is a case in point, a show garden.  As you delve you discover the plants that were taken out of their pots and plonked in to the bare patches without thought of whether they would be happy there.  They have struggled, their pot-bound roots have hardly had the energy to break out, and why should they when they know this really isn’t the right spot.  I am being used here, you hear them cry, much like a starlet on a pervy producers arm... top show!?!

The garden, as the husband would say is being Letticed.  Out with the showgirl, all frou-frou and no drawers and in with the demure happy-to-help to the insects and wildlife shrinking violets that are the all giving no nonsense plants.

I am exorcising Angel’s garden.

The power has quite gone to my head, casting couch, anyone?

Hard core scrumping...

memo to self...

I must provide him with a bag with ‘Swag’ written on it.

When he gets his collar felt by the long arm of the law, I could easily run up a suit with arrows on and bake a cake with a file in it!

‘You’re nicked Sunshine!’

The tree in question is a wonderful greengage tree hanging over the wall from the allotments on the other side.  It seems only right and proper that we should show respect to the tree and enjoy the fruits of its labour.

Greengage jam will be made.

Home made free from all pesticides and nasties jam... what better?

A genteel snapshot of a morning’s 

pilfering in Ludlow...

My life is like...

a book.  

Well two to be exact,

Dorian Gray

and Silas Marner 

my favourite characters I feel I am morphing into.

As Audrey gets stronger and more ebullient I get greyer, more pale and wan, wrinkles chase across my face, my chops are falling away, my stoop is getting stooped with the weight of the worry I carry constantly in a rucksack on my aching back.

In the meantime Audrey (Mum) gets chirper, chipper and more cordon bleu every second. Cordon being the operative word as I will shortly be throwing one around her to rein her in.  When she hits the whiskey and the Kettle crisps I will know for sure she is big time back!  I on the other hand wither, fade and die.  

Peel me a grape someone!

Silas Marner sits and counts his pile of gold coins.  Much the same as I do as I rootle around in the back of the cupboard and make nourishing soup out of dead washing up cloths and furry bowls of who knows what hiding shyly in the depths of the fridge.  The savings you wouldn’t believe?

The potmeister i.e. me sleeps fitfully at night: dreams, heavy with the worry of my many Swiss numbered accounts drifting across my moon cratered face as I toss and turn and wonder how to spend the fruits of my culinary money saving labours?  I don’t mind admitting the idea of a world cruise with the piggy-back pennies isn’t an option. Or even climbing into a plane and jetting off somewhere exotic has lost its appeal.  Even the thought of a trip to the pub is strangely alien.

Oh woe is me!  I sadly and disconsolately think as I sit with the gold slipping smoothly through my grasping mitts.

‘Stuffed marrow...

 that’s what I am having for supper!’

I glanced at the clock...

Eight O the ruddy clock!

Every bone in my body was disgruntled... all the sodding time over the last few days I have thought you were dying, and now this!

‘That sounds delish!’

the actress in me replied thinking all the while shouldn’t we be talking shrouds?

‘Well, I do love marrow, you know I hate cooking but being given this I thought to make myself supper!’

Opening and closing my mouth like a ruddy goldfish gulping for air in a stagnant bowl of black water I weakly replied...

‘What did you stuff it with?’

‘Well’ she said getting into the zone ‘I had made a meat loaf, which wasn’t particularly successful, I crumbled that together with onions and those chilli flakes, breadcrumbs and egg!’

What about the constant diarrhoea, flitted Oh so gently through my addled brain... I don’t bloody believe this!?!

By this time Audrey was definitely in the all things cordon bleu!

I looked at the clock ten past ruddy eight!  A 96 year old bod having to digest this culinary extravaganza at that time of night?

Feebly I said 

‘Be sure not to let it burn, as you have so many times in the past with all this chatting on the phone!’

Was it that obvious, I wanted to end the call, I idly wondered?

‘Good idea, I’m just going to prod it with a knife!’

And off she went.

Falling back into the chair I said 

‘I don’t blooming believe it... Pass me the biscuits!’

Armageddon has safely arrived...

in Shrewsbury.

It seemed like a good idea to go, if you think about it most things do seem like a good idea as you step out on your next new adventure.  Time and jaded experience whisper a different tale in your ear.  Being deaf you don’t listen and besides you really do need to go to Lakeland and purchase yet more plastic to bugger up the ocean?

Now hindsight, that wonderful flash of inspiration you only really, really get when you have totally cocked up, comes into play...

Why go?  The oceans are already struggling at man’s attention without your two penn‘orth? 

It will be good for the dog to get socialised in a town she doesn’t know... 

What?  Double Wot??

I hang my head in shame!

We parked, she had a little wee on waste ground, we were good to go.

Her little wee was the best bit of the trip.

The town was heaving with carefully social distancing people all wearing masks and two metre wide sumo wrestler suits to ensure folk kept their distance. (As you might guess that bit is a stonking great fib?)

The roads were being dug up, scaffolding crept up the buildings  like a Quatermass growth not dissimilar from the Coronavirus.  Kids screamed, those mechanical pointed digger toothpicks gave throat in the hands of hairy chested tattooed monsters of the road.  Gangs of blokes seemed intent on crumbling the roads in harmony with our world that is falling in on itself.

‘All for social distancing innit!’

We pressed on, dog was not happy, neither were we.  Did we turn around and go home?  Oh dear no, we pressed on like the intrepid explorers we mistakenly thought we were.  All was calm in Lakeland, the shelves were oddly bare, looking for all the world as if the plastic eating locusts had graced the store with their gobbling presence?

We decided it would be good to round off an exciting day by getting some luncheon.  We found a  suitably caring of the planet caff serving organical food and sat outside on the road right by the bus stop where in the olden days buses would have stopped to offload their passengers.  We waited and waited and eventually our food arrived in a paper bag and drinks in plastic beakers?

My chops had just fallen greedily onto my roll when my nose sniffed the air... smoke!  Two women at the next table had just arrived ordered their food and decided while they waited to light up.

Ever so gently I could feel my inner Germaine Greer stir.  I got up and walked over and said

‘Excuse me, (alright not very Germaine, she would have dispensed with that gentle form of address) there is a sign that says no smoking or vaping is allowed!’

Disgruntled they screwed into the ground their rolled up pound notes  and grumbled to themselves about me.

A fitting end to a magical day.

Is it any wonder I flirt daily with becoming a recluse?

We  breathed a huge sigh of relief  as we drove away vowing never to return.

Not one of your better trips LL?

Ellie we have...

decided should be a gun dog.

Why?  Because she has a soft mouth, illustrated yesterday when after a kerfuffle and squeaking in a bush in the woods she appeared to the call with a mouthful of squirrel.  On instruction from he who demands to be obeyed, well at the very least by the dog, she dropped the squirrel.  Ordering her away, himself looked the squirrel over and stepped back a pace or two.  Still alive but in a state of shock the squirrel laid on the path.  Taking his eyes off the recumbent form to look for a stick to end the little ones life, he found a stick and on his return the squirrel had scarpered, thankfully!

Today we are off to Shrewsbury, to see what luck she has in...

you know what’s coming...

catching... shrews?

I’ve got what I can...

only describe as a crush.

Before you all groan and think

what unsuspecting man has LL in her sights this time?

Let me tell you it is a woman.  I know, I know, hard though it may be to imagine I have just seen a programme on...

Germaine Greer...

she has no idea at this time 

 yet she

is my newest, bestest, bestie!
What a woman, what an intellect, a winning killer way with words, sharp as a pin taking no prisoners.  What a stunning beauty she was in her time.

A few years ago a woman said to me you look just like Germaine Greer, I don’t mind admitting I was miffed as I peered into the mirror when I got home...

Now I’m taking it as a compliment!
How bloody shallow is that?

Today... I am all of...

a doo-dah!

Why?  Lots of different reasons.

The main one being I haven’t heard from Audrey and I have faithfully promised I wouldn’t hassle her on the telephone.  She is so strong and happy being in the driving seat of the journey both of us feel is approaching its end.

I do message her so if and when she picks up her iPad she sees I am thinking of her.  Until the last couple of days she has either sent an email or faceTimed me, when she feels strong enough.

We as I have said before talk freely of her death, she informs me she isn’t ready yet?  Her body might have different ideas?

She fortunately has three good friends who help her whenever she requests their attendance, not carers, you understand, perish the thought, thinks one so strong as Audrey!  When I do voice the faint worry that she might die alone, and I have said on occasions that I  hope one morning she just doesn’t wake up! Her tart reply is she fully intends to be awake so as to experience this once in a lifetime experience!  You have got to admit she has a point?

What a woman!

Death is the other reason I feel discombobulated as another friend is sat beside her husband dying in a hospice.  These strange times mean I can’t just do what I want to and hop in the car and go.

So many folk must be feeling the same and a whole lot worse as their worries are closer to home... family members.

Ellie training goes...

up a gear!
A day out, in readiness for our three day holiday in Wales in August.
We went to

Westonbury Water Gardens a magical garden just a 45 minute drive away from home.
The journey didn’t faze her, the dribbles were under control and on arrival she sat contentedly as we had a coffee before we walked sedately around the gardens all carefully keeping the regulation 2 metres apart.  
We had a lovely lunch sat outside in the sun, she happily sat under our table like the seasoned explorer of new climes Ellie obviously thought she was!
A little light reading and meditation and we were ready to go for Ellie’s part of the trip.  Let off the lead on Bircher Common it was her turn to open up the gas and go!  Which she obviously did, all the while like a good Sky Tours rep, doubling back to check we were still with her.
‘Keep up you oldies!’
A super day of fresh air, new places and fun for all.
Is it any wonder we all came home happy, content and tired?

With a cheesey smile...

I stepped out of the dentist!

I had lost part of a filling way back in the mists of lockdown.

I had an appointment for the back end of August.  I limped along only having my granite crusted sourdough bread in tiny squares in  order not to put too much pressure on my tombstone old pegs!

A call came through...

could I manage a 7 am appointment?

Could I what?

Are there two 7 o clocks in a day I idly wondered?

Telling myself it would be a novel experience to be decent, up and out of the house by 6.45am I agreed.  After she had told me of the conditions I needed to expect on my arrival, I told her mine! 

As they were struggling to fill the early appointments I would grace the surgery with my presence 

only if they could arrange for someone to bring me up a cup of tea in tea at 6am on the morning in question... sounds reasonable to me!  She laughed and neatly dropped the ball into the husband’s court.  

It was like an out of body experience being abroad

in Ludlow at such a strange time, I quite enjoyed it.  I even got there before the dentist.

I must say being approached by two

bright orange suited operators was   weird to say the least.

It felt not unlike being given a seeing to by two jaffas.

I came away pleased as punch: by way of celebration I donned my mask and swept into Aldi, sad that I couldn’t dazzle them there with my 

Colgate ring of confidence.

Sourdough crusts eat your heart out, LL’s choppers are coming to get you!

One minute I’m talking...

Welsh, the next the Gaelic and in the main the twaddle.

I am on a mission to get a holiday, first off just over the border into Wales for a bit of a break, and more importantly to see how Ellie gets on travelling to exotic climes?  She is not a good traveller in the car, she is improving as we find more exciting walks that little bit further afield, than the fields around here.  Sorry about that!  The town-training is okay going up to the town, walking to heel on the lead.  She gets stressed when either of us disappears into a shop and the minute we turn even vaguely for home, she flattens to the ground and pulls as if training for the Worlds Strongest Dog competition.

We go around the market and each time we are headed back towards home the same thing happens.  Turn away and everything is chilled and fairly relaxed.  What this is all about who knows.  How she will be in a strange town is the next exercise?  

Then later in the year I plan to go back to my old township and finally get the ruddy pressure cooker out of the box that I feel I have conned my neighbours 

into buying.  My three regular readers will remember how I sweet talked my way into getting my lovely ‘boys’ (old neighbours 83 & 81) into buying a all singing, all dancing pressure cooker in order to make more tasty and nutritious food for themselves.  Nobody was more surprised than me when 100 Scottish notes arrived in the post in order for me to purchase the contraption on their behalf!?!

The fact it is still in the box, not only the pressure cooker box, but the blooming box it was sent 

in, is of no surprise.  My feelings of horror that I have in effect conned them into buying... a what is, in their eyes a newfangled bomb in the guise of a cooker is a mere bagatelle!

I am determined to go up and demonstrate the finer points of this machine.  If cooking on Masterchef and daytime telly didn’t faze me I am sure showing two Highlanders how to use a all singing all dancing 

mean machine will be a doddle.

Whether as the husband says they will use it after I have gone is a question only time will tell?

The main thrust of my argument 

will be that even if Iain falls asleep after he has been on the hill gathering sheep all day, the food he has prepared and cooked won’t burn as he slumbers on counting even more sheep.  The reason being once cooked the thing bleeps and then slowly releases the pressure and then keeps the food warm...

What is there not to like after a hard days work?

My sledgehammer persuasion worked, they now have the gadget.

Can my skills as a teacher work to ensure they use it?  Only time will tell.

The old boiler’s...

days are numbered.

No, no on this occasion I am not referring to myself!

The thing of beauty and a joy for ever is going to the big steam-punk heaven in the sky, where it will make the acquaintance of past things of mind blowing beautification.  For example the 

Sinclair C5, the trains of the mid- west with the frilly cow catching fronts that oh so gently brushed the cows out of their paths as they steamed through the barren, arid lands.

The Segway.  

Dare I say the Reliant Robin and risk offending fans the world over who loved Derek Trotter Esq.

Twin-tub washing machines.

The mangle of yore that gave grannie arms the size of a Sumo wrestler.

Flat irons, tin baths. 

Crank handles for cars float by on a cloud jumbled together looking  ‘other worldly’ like a 

viper’s nest.  

Clippy’s ticket machines 

on the buses.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s cantilever experiments that never saw the light of day.

Feel free to add to this list in order for the old boiler not to feel totally unloved as it lurks behind the palm, trying with every nut and bolt of its being to blend into the background.

Goodbye cruel world it pants with gas fuelled gasps...

Like a thief in the...

afternoon Ellie crept out of the Orangery.  One leg lifted high and with care, she could have been starring in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The other paws followed in the same stealthful style.  She was good at this.  She crept up the steps then along the top to where Ratty so intent on gorging on the sunflower seeds was completely oblivious to the foe silently approaching.

With a mad scramble she shot along the flower border only to see the tail departing under the garden fence.

Mind you if she had of caught him she I am sure wouldn’t have known exactly what to do.

What makes me say that?

The other day after months and months of chasing she caught a squirrel, much to her amazement as well as ours.  She kept pawing it as it tried to get away, similar to a cat playing with their victim before the kill. We called her off and I sent the husband to investigate and to do the deed if necessary.  He couldn’t find it, so it was decided the best thing to do was to send her in to flush it out, which she did and luckily it got itself up the tree, looking dazed but seeming okay.  We were all glad, well apart from Ellie I suppose?  

I well remember me having to kill a squirrel that Letty had caught but not finished off.  I went up to check it was dead.  It was badly injured and I had the job of despatching it.  Not a task I would recommend to anyone.  The problem I had was I hadn’t taken the deep leaf mould into account and hitting it on the head, just pushed it further into the forest floor.  It took me a couple of goes, I remember the horror to this day!

As I sent the man off, coward that I am  I reminded him of my mistake and be sure not to do the same thing.

Meanwhile Ratty is getting ever more adventurous.

The tail of...

Ratty and the Wind in the Wrenery!

My aim was to make a wildlife garden to encourage creatures great and small, minus slugs obv! and on all counts I have succeeded.

Last night as we put Ellie out I turned on the lights and saw Hedge was here with a friend, not another prickly one this time but one with a long tail.  The kindness of strangers i.e. me was being extended to rats as well as hedgehogs.  Now where do you cross the line and say there’s wildlife and there’s well, wildlife with long furry tails.

‘Rats lives Matter’ 

might be a consideration?

Call me a softie I don’t care!

Alright, alright I am guilty of bowling a snail into the path of oncoming vehicles and poking a pigeon up the posterior, however I do try to love my fellow creatures.
These pictures show Saturday’s entertainment.

The rat was having a lovely time harvesting the sunflower seeds rushing off and stashing them away  just a short hop... where?
Backwards and forwards it went stopping for the occasional drink in the recently opened since lockdown was lifted bar...
‘The Shell Bowl’ 
to the right of the picture featuring the FT.
Being a novice wildlife photographer I missed the shot of the rat silhouetted on the top!
After a very interesting luncheon, ours not the rats, we decided to investigate.
Husband moved the logs where we were both sure the nest would be, last night we saw it disappear into there.  All, was clean as a  whistle.  Husband admitted he was relieved not to find a nest of ten babies because he would hate to kill them, I felt the same.  We decided the rat was nipping under the fence and so in a nutshell or more to the point, a sunflower seed kernel it wasn’t our problem.
So as of now we are live and let  live.  Sounds like a good plan to me, because after all if you are encouraging the wildlife you have to entertain the not so fragrant as well as the positively
gooey-wooey, cuddly-wubbly, don’t you agree?

I stood outside...

a shop looking for all the world like a tom looking for trade?

Yes, I had never heard the expression either until I met the husband.  Apparently ‘tom’ is the name for a lady member of the oldest profession in the world...

who knew, not me for one.  I’ve lived such a sheltered life... if you believe that you’ll believe anything!

Anyway, back to what happened yesterday on our shopping trip crossed with Ellie’s town training session.  So many people look at us and smile and remark to each other about Ellie.  She draws comments wherever we go.  Well you might imagine how that goes down with spoilt lump LL,  me being upstaged by a hairy heap!  In the end I’d had enough, I said to a couple saying exactly the same thing to each other...

‘Gone are the days when I got such admiring glances!’

Whether I did is a moot point?

She laughed and said maybe I was on the back burner?

‘On the back burner?  Banished to the blooming scullery, more like!’

I can feel a hissy fit coming on...

My lovely dad...

 was born on on the 3 July 1920

he would have been 100 years old today.  Sadly he died suddenly alone at home in 1990.

This is us on the beach in 

Le Touquet.  A holiday I shall never forget for two reasons, the first and most traumatic was me getting lost.  The beach had rows of the tents you can see in the photo of me looking very pleased with myself!

 I had wandered down to the sea and obviously unknowingly paddled along the seashore.  Coming back up the beach where I thought they were... they had gone?  I kept calm until I went up to a family and said 

‘I’m lost!’

Their reply in French obviously tipped me over the edge from being very, very brave to being very, very afraid.

I started to cry.

I was taken to the Life Guards hut on the beach and waited until my father rushed up looking as upset as I obviously was!

Safely reunited with my mum and dad, calm was restored.

 My other abiding memory of that day was the shame of mum making me wear a vest under my cozzie.  The swimsuit I remember so well it was a green knitted fabric which I hated with a passion...

even at five going on fifteen I classed myself as a style icon!?!

Dad with my grandmother and who the other lady clad in fur was, 

I have no idea?

Happy 100th birthday Dad!