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Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Clematis Cottage...

regular readers will know the problems I had walking this cast iron grille home, it weighed a frigging ton.  A wag of a friend described it as crowd control for the masses at a Victorian football ground!  Bloody cheek!  Right,  but  hurtful for all that!



When I spied it this was maybe at the back of my mind as to a possible use for it?  Far better than those naff cheapo metal arches that were a feature of this otherwise pretty little garden.  They bit the dust in short order, I’m nothing if not decisive?  Anyway what to put in their place?
The obelisks... obv!


This clematis is loving its new home as is the one adorning Clematis Cottage.  This is Ellie’s go to hidey-hole when she remembers she is a nervous collie, thankfully not often these days.  Now she retires to her bijou cottage to have a break from these tiresome human beings.


The Wrenery where the frenetic gathering of seeds, nuts and mealworms goes on at a pace as the birds have chicks to feed.


This is taken looking down from beside the greenhouse in the garden.  All terribly confusing!


This last photo is from my armchair.  The Wrenery was the thing that sold me on the cottage, an outside space, but not?
The tree fern loves it in there, I have two pots of Wiltshire ripple sweet peas, just about to get cracking, pots of palms and ferns all of whom seem to find it to their liking.  The birds feel safe, although not the pigeon who strolled in as we were having supper last night.  SAS-like I slithered across the floor from the kitchen through the jungle of the Orangery, popping up making a helluva hullabaloo and quite gave it a fright.  It bounced off the glass ceiling then flew off with I am sure a hangover?   I make no excuses... yes I am prejudiced!

A passing hedgehog called last year to hoover up the fallen seeds   so with the exception of flaming pigeons a nature reserve to equal any that the gaming John Aspinall had to offer!

Tuesday, 28 April 2020

‘Best we get...

up, we haven’t got all day you know!’
I wondered why he fell out of bed laughing?
Just a flavour of the start of our lockdown day.
It’s tipping with rain today:
my plans of sorting out my clothes are now very firmly in the frame, put another way...
no blooming excuse now not to.
Whether that means that it will get done is a moot point. (It’s the end of another ‘busy’ day and the clothes still haven’t been done!)  I do seem to have made an art form of appearing dynamical and doing absolutely nowt!  I have been too busy even to meditate, which let’s face it would be the ideal thing to calm and soothe.

We have just spent an hour this morning talking about the next improvement to our forever home.  We have been living in Ludlow a year now and still lots of dreams and schemes rattle through my head.
The next plan is to turn what we call Ellie’s bedroom into a kitchen/snug with a gas fired Rayburn.  The one thing that cries out for a Rayburn is this collapsed fireplace which in its day had an old cast iron range.  


Whether it is still there is hard to work out without taking the boarding at the front off.   The chimney we know has been knobbled, so no open fires there then, and certainly no flue for a stove.

This room as you can see is a suppository, yes, I know it should repository, however I think suppository suits it better because everything gets bunged in here!

The one thing I have decided is that all future plans will be well thought through.  If anything the ghastly/costly bathroom has taught us is to not listen to the experts; have what YOU want not want they recommend unless it suits your particular needs.
A definite time for reflection and no flying by the seat of my big pink bloomers which over the years I have perfected into a LL speciality!

Monday, 27 April 2020

Plastic bottles eat...

your heart out.
This is the way forward for you to  make a mark on the world other than in a turtle’s tummy!


The writing is on the wall for you to make a useful contribution to the world instead of gracing the appendages of gym bunnies, then the waste bin after your single turn in the limelight.

You can now hold your head high when this is what with a little forethought you can morph into.
A soft washable kilim, already Ellie has given it the paws up!

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!  Or on second thoughts best not as then you are buggering up the planet in another way.



Sunday, 26 April 2020

A baby boomer...

brush!?!


Wot?  
The lass has finally lost the plot, now we always had a 
tinsy-winsy idea t’old lass was definitely losing it, this confirms it!
Let me introduce you to this paragon of virtue of a pan brush...
Roll of drums...pleeze!  

Simon my man who I have mentioned here, died in 2000 so that sort of gives me a ballpark figure as we bought it together on a trip to Rye in East Sussex.  I am a retired cheffette, so kitchen shops hold me in a thrall... sad, but there you are!  For many years one of my first ports of call was this lovely shop, sadly gone and is it any wonder after selling items that last this long?

Just this morning I said to the husband this brush is over twenty years old... like you do!?!
A few years ago now, I even bought a slinky leopard print replacement, let’s sexily slink up the washing up I thought... like you do!?!  I am nothing if not a forward hussy... err planner, I mean!

The ghastly things that come to mind now are
a.) is the blooming  brush going to outlive me?
b.) will the leopard change its spots and outlive the original 
and 
b.)  the most serious of all...
have I totally lost the plot writing a whole blog post on a  bloody brush?
Don’t bother with answers on a postcard, because we all know!

Saturday, 25 April 2020

As we walked out of...

the forest and through the soon to be emerging bracken I was reminded of a time years ago in the Highlands.  The memory came flooding back of the melt down, the heat, the panic.  After struggling down the hillside with a hessian sacks on my shoulders full of peats, my job then was to fill the barrow and push it along the track through the bracken.  The day I remembered vividly was very hot, so was I!  As I brushed past the fronds overhanging the path clouds of midges swarmed up and homed in on me.  I am ashamed to say I had a total and utter meltdown... luckily no one was there to see, or come to that hear me.  I was tired, hot and had had enough, as Andy couldn’t drive it was my job to drive the loads home the eight miles along single track roads, past sheer drops into the sea and on getting home unload the sacks!
A chapter of a bygone era still there bubbling way, gone but not forgotten.  Recounting this tale of woe I then went on to say is  it any wonder folk think I am making these stories up?  Husband’s reply was straight to the point...
‘Most people have led a fairly conventional life, unlike you!’
I suppose he had a point.

Friday, 24 April 2020

It really is...

tough being a dog in this strange lock-down world. 


Mum keeps moving things, although this latest idea of putting my cheapo Aldi bed on top of my other (first of two)
off-the-cold-floor-bed, is I ought to say a master stroke.  And to think he wasn’t convinced I’d like it... how wrong he was! I ought to explain the other
off-the-floor-bed is in my bedroom, it’s called my night bed as opposed to this my day bed.
I heard dad chuntering on about all the stuff being moved, they think I don’t understand, that is a huge mistake!  Mum is a hard woman, she often gets us doing things we don’t want to.  We look at each other and agree not in so many word obv...what have we done to deserve this?  With me she brooks no bending of the rules, to give you a for instance just now I barked. I thought I heard the postman, who incidentally I like not merely for the fact he has given me treats to win me over.  He also doesn’t know I have sussed him out!  I am an intelligent collie, I just wish they wouldn’t keep forgetting!  Barking here is a complete no-no and usually I don’t mind as I much prefer a little light yodelling crossed with a low-fat wolves howl.  For some strange reason they smile as even though I say it myself it is a very melodic sound, not at all common like yapping!  Anyway, I digress I barked and as dad went to investigate I went to follow, however she had other ideas and called me back into the garden.  I sort of went halfway back a few times, which I thought was at the very least paying lip service to her wishes.  She wasn’t having any of it making me sit beside her with the immortal words...
‘I’m top dog around here!’
What could I say?  Well obviously nothing because it case you have forgotten I’m only a dog!

Thursday, 23 April 2020

I climbed into my...

Austin Seven and drove away!
You have heard of the straw that broke the camel’s back, I am sure?
This wasn’t so much a straw as a socking great piece of railway sleeper!  A story for another day... maybe?

My memory was jogged about the farming chapter of my life by Elaine (see Tales from Parsonage Cottage on my sidebar)
Hares.
In our fields we had lots of hares which I delighted in watching especially the boxing matches.
The joy for them and for me was one of life’s simple pleasures. 
We had a huge top field alongside the back lane.  One morning walking the plot with the farmer, we saw in the distance just in from the hedge what looked like a man with a goat on a lead.  Leaving the farmer husband way behind I strode forward indignation in every step.
‘I say, there is no public footpath through here!’ 
my dulcet tones reverberated across the Vale of York!  At the sound of my voice and probably the sight of me hoving to at speed, made him turn on his heels and run clambering through the gap in the hedge dragging the goat (on closer inspection a greyhound) with him.
What we found out after that was our field had been used for hare coursing, all the while with us completely unsuspecting!
The police were informed and we kept a very keen eye on the top field, which being well away from the house wasn’t easy along with all the other chores of a dairy farm.


Wednesday, 22 April 2020

With a face like...

a smacked arse himself has been helping me today.
The reason for the most reasonable of men to be crabby is... I have taken a Pickford’s pill and have the strong desire to move.  Only furniture, mind!
Now if there’s one thing in my experience men don’t tend to like it’s a rearrangement of their world.
Now it is a well known fact I am not known for my skills as queen of clean.  I sit and try not to notice the vesuvian layers of dust  as they slowly grow ever higher. My idleness grows in direct proportion.  I notice the right hand curtains are just a few cms longer than the left, just a matter of hopping up and moving the hooks a tad.  Do I do it? 
Oh dear No!  The dog hair blows through like tumbleweed down the  high street of Deadwood after the gold rush has gone. 
Well until today!  I climbed out of bed with purpose.  What shall I do for badness today?  I know, a little light rearrangement of furniture sounds like a cunning plan!  Now himself knows only too well that this involves him far more than me!  I am the chief he is the Indian.  I am the ideas, he is a bloke who likes a quiet ordered life without change or disruption... come to think of it what feller doesn’t?  So off we go, his scowl could polish pots far better than Brillo.  With every fibre I try not to notice,  maintaining a bright upbeat... 
we can do this sort of persona.
We sit in the Orangery which looks so much bigger waiting for our newly order kilim made from... wait for it... recycled bottles.  He still has a air of glum and I am glowing with gleam of having been given a good seeing 
 to by Mr Muscle.  I am happy!  Give it a day or two and he will be saying how much better the room looks.  





Monday, 20 April 2020

All this talk of...

flour (or lack of) has reminded me  of our weekend in Bruges.
We decided to hire bicycles and cycle to Holland, like you do?



We were with the wicked stepdaughter and her man, so a lot of fun was had, not least at my expense!
Along the canal path we passed a working windmill, a detour was called to give the oldies a chance to get their wind back?  We clambered up the different levels viewing the quern stones doing their stuff.  As I crested the top floor my eyes locked onto the size 14 feet, with each ascending step... legs clad in rough hewn linen trews came into view.  Next his accruement area, his hands the size of sides of dutch ham, his chest clad in a smock of what looked like the material of the sails.  All of this topped off with a mop of blond hair and a beard.
My heart started doing the most amazing of flips, I went weak at the knees. The unkind amongst you might think well looking at the size of her backside on that bike I’m not surprised!?!
I knew different: I knew right down to the souls of my boots my libido was alive and well!
Nothing to do with the 326 steep steps we had crampon-assisted puffed up... well only a 
tweeny-weeny bit!

The others were quickly sated of the miller and his tale.  Me, well it won’t surprise you to learn I was fascinated by each word of broken english that issued out of his lips?  Eventually I peeled myself out of his orbit and glanced out of the window to see the three of them cycling off further into Holland. Like the News of the World reporter I made my excuses and left.  
With stout legs pumping I managed to catch them up.  It doesn’t take much imagination to realise the ribbing I got?

Sunday, 19 April 2020

‘All I really, really want is...

a bath I can lay in reading my book and topping up the hot as the water cools!’


‘That won’t be a problem, there will also be a shelf at the end for a glass of wine if the occasion demands!’
I visibly brightened.
Not to put too fine a point on it I am a bit of a short arse, super model elevations I don’t have?
As long as the ‘nice young man’ had a handle on my requirements I was happy to let the bathroom people do their stuff!  They are doing this 24/7 I trust their judgement.  That was my fatal error!
After lots of mistakes, i.e. the shower screen wasn’t large enough to stop one drip of water from cascading onto the lovely cork floor. A major leak where one of the partners had completely failed to solder a joint on the shower, discovered after the whole bath area was tiled! I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt as to their competence!?!
After all the ‘minor’ hiccups were corrected I decided the time at come for the inaugural soak in the tub.  In I clambered... err... where could I put my book, the bath was such a tight fit in the space the edges were minimal.  I laid back only to find the bath was far too long for me to lay in and still have my head above the plimsoll line.  Added to which the control for the water was half way up the frigging wall so that meant I had to clamber up out of the bath, not easy without ample room to heave yourself up by bracing your arms on the sides.  My request for a short bath had completely gone by the way.
I now have a wonderful looking bathroom which is totally and utterly useless.
The bath is used as a rather large and very expensive shower tray.
Why didn’t we complain and get it sorted?  A question I ask myself frequently when all I really wanted was a good old fashioned soak in a tub!  On the occasions when I am feeling poorly and or decadent I do love a bath.
As it is far too much hassle sadly it never happens.
Looking on the bright side I am saving water!


Saturday, 18 April 2020

Ever so slowly the...

wheels are coming off!
Without really noticing it I have stopped waving the magic mascara wand over the old eyelashes.  I throw on any old combo of clothes always clean though.  In the past I have thought about the coming day’s ensemble and what the day has to offer and where my bird of paradise preening presence will fall out of the sky like an bird of prey locking on to an unsuspecting innocent!
You have to laugh at this old trout who until recently thought she was the epitome of well not exactly good taste.  An acquired taste sort of taste!?!
Now I am on the cusp of not even moisturising my neck for heaven’s sake.
One piece of advice I was given by a man who was told by his aunt your neck gives away your age quicker than all the rest put together!  The man bit the dust long ago, his aunt’s advice stays forever with me!

I suppose as I have a very distinct yen to be a bag lady this is a the first of many steps along the way to my goal.  Next will be not washing, no tiresome plucking of stray hairs on my chin.
Have you let standards slip, or am I the only one?
***
The obelisks arrived yesterday and before anyone thinks I shouldn’t have ordered them at this time, they were ordered long before this ghastly pandemic took hold.  The email arrived to say they were made and could Dave bring them on Friday.  He lives in Wiltshire, when I queried about him coming all this way he said he always delivered the obelisks himself.  He said he would naturally keep the regulation 2 metre distance.  My feeding gene was severely tested as I knew I couldn’t feed the man.  My usual MO is to bake and make tasty food for all comers.  He is a one man outfit who works in his workshop beside his home so his business carries on.  
The first one is in situ, the second one will be done when this 
tipping rain stops!



A year has gone by...

and the sourdough saga continues, nothing much changes, apart maybe my level of frustration at my tarnished bread making skills of a ferment...