Rip off!

Nothing like it! Now, I am not a rich lady but I do occasionally like to lunch and have a suitable flying elephant piggy bank to save for those such times. I had one recently, and delighted myself in prizing the bottom out of the elephant to claim my bounty. Not enough for the entire works but sufficient for a jolly. Just a pity that I, very carelessly, and indeed, stupidly left a £10 note on the bed.
As some of you know, we have a dog. A dog that likes to spend a few minutes of his day nosing through waste paper baskets and shredding the paper. ( Yep! You can see the punch line coming now!) SO! A crispy piece of paper was too good an opportunity but to do what he always does with paper...SHRED!
I should have learnt the first time round when he virtually ate my new tax disc. Oh, and my glasses. Oh, and I mustn't forget 2 pairs of slippers. It was when he was a puppy though so I forgave and moved on.
I wonder if the bank will replace it?

What alot of rhubarb!

Being prone to slightest nip, breeze or chill my plans for giving Sissinghurst gardens a run for its money as been laid bare. Instead I have done the daily "Tour of death" first thing where any f00l hardy slug that DARES to eat my delphiniums and asters is executed via pen knife. Probably the kindest death and free food for the blackbirds. I really don't enjoy the process even though I do hiss "Bastard!" every time I catch sight of one.
Once the killing field has taken place I inspect the veg patch. All a little slow, dear reader, but then as I said, so am I in this weather. What does abound with unfailing regularity(!) is the "Early Timberly" rhubarb. I'd quite like a dress in these colours. Not that I would garden in it, as Alys Fowler has a tendency to do. I tried it in the Easter holidays. Not intentionally. Merely became distracted and started pruning the cherry tree and there lay the snag- quite literally in my new cardigan's sleeve. I now have to resort back to my more comfortable, albeit, care in the community look!
I have taken refuge under the nursing home blanket and added 2 more flags to my crocheted bunting. Not every ones idea of a party but it does bring me deep satisfaction to work the wool and wooden needle together. It lulls me like a lullaby and restores what has become frayed throughout the week.
Wool marks my territory around the house and is found by the sofas, like a nest of small bidable animals. They all vary is size, colour and texture and when fully grown will become a permenant member of the fold. Oh, so many of these creations to make whole.

Legs!

Troll! This is now what I think about our local heron, who I have seen 3 times this week being chased off by some very angry seagulls and a crow. How interesting thought I. I wondered if he was responsible for the frog massacre I discovered by the pond last month. All terribly upsetting - enough to hex every local cat, as I, then, presumed before dissolving into a rather prolonged weeping session. (probably over-tired,as Mother would say, nodding sagely)

It was therefore a somewhat " Euw!" moment, when on Monday, as I toured the estate, I found a lone pair if frog's legs in the bird bath! A cat would not chose to eat a frog on top of a bird bath, and so I conclude, dear Watson, that the heron is responsible. I have called him Herod and put a net over the pond.

Sun Soaked!

These little girlies have been sun soaked over the past few days. Bea, the more plumpscious pig, lies replete, stuffed with spring grass and sunshine. Dora is more modest and is a trimmer and all together stream lined pig. I love it when they flump with their skinny ankles out-stretched in a pool of sun light.

The hound, yesterday, managed to find the sole swamp in the forest. ( Forever a retriever) and lay with the shining eyes of happiness of a basking hippo! I have become quietly resigned to his love of mud. One cannot be house proud with such a big,hairy dog. He, then dripping swamp, found a pile of leaves and rolled, delightedly, in them and ran tar and feathered! Fine if you are not going out immediately. Bad news if you are. So I kept him down-stairs and put the Dyson on the stairs to deter. He is scared, witless, of the Dyson...but not today! Came home and down shot the hound, rejoicing at my return, having been luxuriating on our bed. Curious at how the draw of ones bed can over come the utter fear of the scary Dyson! Oh fickle,fickle hound! And even today the shopping bags became a phantom in the ktichen not to be passed.

Sunk Deck!

Slightly un-nerved to breeze outside this morning to wonder why I felt like I was on a listing boat. That, or my left leg has dramatically shrunk! Such has been the force and extent of the rain the the deck has come away from its moorings. I know for sure that Big B made it very properly as he had help from our chippy friend. I've kept the text from him on the day that he was flying solo with it that told the story in laymans terms.
"Where are the plasters?"
Bless! I am emptying the butt but the garden really doesn't need watering. Sigh!

The Nuture Hut

My soul is restored having spent all day in the garden. I planted and potted and sewed and am left with the deep satisfaction of knowing that the veg garden lives once again and will profer up it's sacred offerings in the fulness of time. (Slugs permitting!)
I love my shed. I love the smell of warm wood and soil especially when my little green plants grow contentedly in their cots of compost. I read in there too. In fact I finished my book resting my feet on the bag of compost between digging the potato trenches. Warm and sun fillled I thought about my Nana's shed. It was small and only used for storing garden bits and pieces, and yet Nana hung up a pair of curtains at the solitary window and it became mine. All I could do was sit between the lawn mower and deck chairs but I was happy to be. Room to read. Room to entertain Charlie the garden gnome, Fifi, Nana's poodle nightie case and Heidi, the German doll to a tea party and good wholesome chat.
Along the outside of the shed grew runner beans along the zip wire of string. It was my job on our Friday lunches to pick enough for 3. I'm sure that Nana did cook other things but my lasting memory is of tiny lamb chops, new potatoes, the beans and mint sauce served in a crystal boat. And then, of course, there appeared the sponge flan filled with tinned fruit cocktail and orange jelly served with a pool of evapourated milk. I loved it.
The frog spawn has all virtually hatched and the pond shimmies with little quivering black commas. We have gained an extra newt too. I wonder if they eat the frog spawm as the amount that was the does not tally with the handful I can see. Tis life.
The blackbirds seem to have given up on their nest. Probally left in disgust at the nosey neighbour who watched un-abashed as they built and wove their home! The blue tits have, however, taken up the rented accomadation in both boxes which is quite lovely. The cost of seed and fat balls is monumental!
My day ends and I hope for another one as good and sun rich as today.

Easter Feast

As my friends will tell you, my reputation for cake making has never been up there in my top 10. Great bomb-craters. Fantastic creations risen to the size of a padded envelope! Rachel Allen can rest in her floral pinny that there is ABSOLUTELY no competition from this side of the Downs. I do,however, have one culinary ammunition to my name, and that is meringues. Crispy and yet deliciously chewy on the inside. Friends and I feasted to the point of having to be very quiet after lunch. There is nothing as pleasurable as eating good food with good friends.

I have come along way with my love of food. This I am forever in gratitude to my friends for taking me along a new path. For years I had a more than cranky relationship with it, opting for lesser things.

My dear friend and I are frequently seen eating breakfasts of bread and butter and hard boiled eggs somewhere on the Downs with the hounds. (Hard boiled eggs always remind me of Sizewell nuclear power station in shape!) To sit on a field roller and drink tea in the middle of a field is,well, just a taste of heaven as the larks "drop their silver chain of sound" around us.

I am finding the use of a keyboard more than frustrating as my voice on paper is formulated, but here it comes across as stilted and broken. Still, bear with me. I certainly will not be hoofing off for a job in a typing pool, that's for sure!

Sorry, Big B that you were not here to share it. Hope you like the picture instead! x

Shrug

I'm not too sure what happened but I appeared to have lost my blog for a couple of weeks, so this is really testing the waters.

This morning I took the hound around the lake and was treated to 2 herons standing in the reeds like umbrellas in umbrella pots. They are such pre-historic looking birds that unfurl themselves into tatty sheets of grey material as they launch low speed, low level.

Jaipur ran and ran,kicking up his heels like a spring lamb. I lost track of him and then clocked him swimming with olympian strength after a moorhen. What I spotted, and Jai didn't, was the male swan who drifted out of the reeds like the Amarda. (The nest was close by) It should never surprise any dog owner what a proffered gravy bone can do. I reckon that stroke was butterfly!

With Jai now dozing, I knit myself into a mild hypnotic state. This shrug initially reduced me to feeble tears of frustration. I couldn't even twitch and it would go wrong! 18 attempts later,we are up and running on part 2. Sooo satisfying. And a lesson to behold...do the prototype first!

Happy Easter!

Spring Thing

Oh Cooee! The eagle has landed. Yes, dear Reader, I have brushed aside the faithful quill and parchment to embrace the day. Ok, so negociating my way round this keyboard world has had a couple of "technical hitches" (Set up 2 blogs with REALLY obscure addresses) Winter is finally quivering it's last and spring is tip-toeing in. There is frog spawn in the freshly spruced up pond. My dear friend used to "take the waters" at her pond when she was a child! Must bottle her up some. The blackbird is weaving her nest in the cherry tree and all shall be well.

And now let us see whether I can rocket launch this into the webby world. (Holding my breath!)