A mixed bag

 

Well Dear Reader the Spring finally sprang (or is it sprung?). The sun shone muchly on Saturday and the Small People and I sallied forth into the garden for a spot of doing. I wish I could bottle them at exactly the ages that they are now (doubtless the Other Child would not agree) because they are just such fun to be around and they so enjoy the simplest things in life.

We did some digging

And they did quite a lot of watering – mostly themselves if I’m honest. Observe the Smallest Baby Boy who has thumb firmly inserted throughout all operations….

Madam has a pink watering can – natch

They really enjoyed being outside after the endless Winter and went home rosy cheeked and knackered after one of Pops’s legendary strawberry and raspberry milkshakes (as I cleaned the mess up in the kitchen I wondered just who is the child in this scenario…).

Hypnotised by a large flower / contemplating how it works / sucking thumb

We had such a lovely time and I shall miss seeing them this weekend when I am on the high seas on the way to St Malo for a hen weekend….yes you DID read that correctly. Watch this space for later details and probably quite a lot of pictures of French windows – well you know how I can get…

I also managed to get my sewing machine out and turned a £1 tweed jacket into these little lovelies

I have plans to make some more if I ever get around to it….

On a different note we were really upset to hear that our very favourite dog Molli Folly had died unexpectedly and suddenly on Saturday night. We had taken her for a lovely walk on Easter Sunday and she really was the gentlest soul. We will miss her and I know that the Folliers are missing her very much. I am not a dog person at all and am in fact allergic to most of them but even I made an exception in her case. See you Mols.

And so that is it! There has been more but I’ll save it for another time. Whatever the weather – enjoy life Dear Reader and think of me on the high seas on Friday evening, glass in hand, pink wig on head……..I can see your mind boggling already!

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Out of the mouths of babes. Part 4

So there we were in the garden, the small people and I, planting bulbs.

The Eldest Baby Girl can be just the teeniest(!) bit argumentative and I am not entirely sure where some of the bulbs have been planted and if they are in the ground the right way up…. But we persevered and eventually we were done.

The following conversation took place between the EBG and TG.

TG: “So what have you been planting then?”

EBG: “Bulbs Pops.”

TG: “Oh, they’ll look nice when they come up in the Spring won’t they?”

EBG: “Nanny says they’ll look really pretty.”

TG: “So what sort of bulbs are they?”

EBG: *Summoning her most withering look*  “Lightbulbs of course Pops. You ARE silly”.

Hmmmmm. We shall watch with interest in the Spring

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Repatriation

TG has been returned to us early which is marvellous. The six weeks that should have been six months hung very heavily for us both for various reasons and when I picked him up from the ferry I could see his relief at being home. We are getting to an  age I think when six months seems far too long not to be together. Maybe it’s because we have spent so much time together in the last year what with one thing and another or maybe it’s because after 16 years  we’ve finally got our act together! Who knows.

Elsewhere at Amber Towers there have been variously an extremely chicken poxy small boy who, despite the brazillions of spots, was in fine form hurtling around the house tripping over just about everything. We had an afternoon of telly and stories as it was slinging it down with rain and for the jet lagged TG that was also just what the doctor ordered. There has also been an amount of gardening (or mud wading as I prefer to think of it at the moment) and I have been cutting all the poor bedraggled roses and poppies and bringing them indoors to enjoy.

In a couple of weeks we will have the photo shoot for our Calendar Girls calendar (yes really!) which I am looking forward to and dreading in pretty much equal measure. It will be available to buy from September with all proceeds going to leukemia and lymphoma research. Sadly I have completely failed in my bid to be 8 stone and looking 25 and am currently (no pun intended) looking for the biggest buns available! The rehearsals are coming on apace as well, the set is up although not painted and we are gathering props and costumes. All of which means that we’ll actually have to do it…..yikes!

So there you go Dear Reader – a small update for those of you who are interested in such things. It’s just started to rain here again on the soggy Isle. Will it ever stop? Will we have a Summer this year? Is this it forever? Discuss.

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May all your bank holidays be sunny ones….

I came across this quote in my travels:

“By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months.  All is at last in balance and all is serene.  The gardener is usually dead, of course.” -  Henry Mitchell, The Essential Earthman 

And it made me chuckle. Thinking ahead to the bank holiday weekend, gardening is top of the agenda. Everything in the greenhouse is getting very leggy and needs planting out, but with the suggestion of frost in the air, I’m feeling a bit nervous. I have managed to get a load of horse poo from up the drive for the ravenous beans and there is digging, weeding and planting to be done. The Smallest Baby Girl’s seeds have sprouted (she’ll be so pleased!) and so we may do a little transplanting and there will be AT LEAST 500 questions as to the whys and wherefores of seed growing (must remember not to mention wrinkles!).

As the lovely Mr Titchmarsh says – whatever the weather, enjoy your garden (and have a lovely long weekend…)

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Out of the mouths of babes. Part 2

So there we were Dear Reader. Me, The SBG and her smaller brother planting seeds in the greenhouse on Saturday. Having had a steward’s enquiry as to why some seeds are smaller / bigger than others (harder to explain to a 3 year old than you might think) and having removed a very well sucked stone from the small boy’s mouth we got down to the nitty gritty of planting. In the midst of the compost, pots and me removing all sharp objects from reach of small people, the following conversation took place:

SBG: (holding up a rather old runner bean seed) “I don’t think this is a very good seed Nanny”

Me: “No it’s a bit wrinkly isn’t it? Maybe we should throw that one away.”

*Long pause*

SBG: (Looking at me in a considered fashion) “YOU’RE a bit wrinkly aren’t you Nanny?”

Me: (Noncommittally) “Er, well, a bit I suppose”.

*Another long pause*

SBG: “Well you are VERY old Nanny”.

 

Note to self: do not in future get into ANY conversations with small children regarding age, wrinkles or any other subject that can be turned into a conversation about age or wrinkles.

**For the record I am 45. That is NOT old. And I’m not sure that crow’s feet really count as wrinkles!

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Spring forward weekend

The clocks go forward this weekend Dear Reader and apart from feeling duty bound to walk to work, I shall not be sorry to see the back of the dark mornings and chilly evenings. I love the feeling of new beginnings, of freshness, the smell of newly mown grass, freshly turned earth and of getting back out into the garden properly. My broad beans are just beginning to appear in the greenhouse as are the artichokes and the potatoes are chitting nicely. There is something very special about growing things – from seed to seedling to plant to plate and although there is never really enough for more than a few meals, it’s always nice to grow your own. There are sunflowers too for the small people and I shall get the SBG to help me plant out when the time comes.

So let’s Spring forward with gusto and whatever the weather and wherever you are Dear Reader, have a splendid weekend.

**The above quote shamelessly stolen from Age Old Tree – see blogroll

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Meanwhile…

With all the events of the last week or so, at the weekend I craved some sort of normality. I think that there is only so much bad news that one can take and I was completely knackered by Friday evening with the emotion of it all.

Sunday was a beautiful day and TG and I took ourselves off into the garden to clear and tidy and put the garden to bed for the Winter. I say Winter, but you’d have been forgiven for thinking that yesterday was more like early Autumn. There is so much still out

And the morning light was cold but lovely

We had some friends to keep us company too

Scurrying about their business

The day didn’t change anything – my Dad is still seriously ill and now is being treated for pneumonia, but it did lessen the heaviness that I have been carrying in my heart all week. Dad was a great gardener in his day and I felt that it was the right place to be. TG and I came indoors with cold cheeks and aching limbs and had the ACL round for our usual Sunday roast and results. We shall have to wait and see what this week brings but at least I feel somewhat renewed and less jaded and that’s got to be good.

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On Bluebell woods and Easter chicks

Well Dear Reader, how lovely super smashing to have had four whole days off. I considered for a nano second being totally idle for all four days but then the gardening guilt took over and so on Friday and most of Saturday I gardened myself to a standstill, the net result of which was that I had somewhere lovely to sit and read awhile today.

Down at the bottom of the garden, my stolen  acquired copse is in full bluebell bloom

I do love a Bluebell – they are to me quintessentially English flowers and their delicate scent wafts up from the garden on the warm breeze during the evening.

But it wasn’t all work and no play this weekend. The ACL and I always cook on Easter Sunday – a ginormous roast regardless of whether it’s just the two of us or a cast of thousands. This year we invited a couple of friends from work and one of their boyfriends and we had late lunch in the garden and then sat and chatted and drank far too much wine (me) until late on in the evening. It was a lovely day and I really felt (despite slaving over a hot stove) that I’ve really had some proper time off.

Meanwhile across the drive at Chicken Towers there have been some additions to the flock.

They are ever so cute and needless to say, The ACL is completely besotted with them to the point at which I have to remind her that they are in fact chicken and not human…..

So that’s about it from here on the (very) sunny Isle. I have had a very nice weekend doing nothing much. Have got the garden whipped into shape and even planted some veg in the raised beds. Back to work tomorrow *sigh* but just for the three days and then we get to do it all all over again! Woo hoo!!!

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Nothing of any great consequence…

I have nothing, Dear Reader, of any great consequence to tell you. Now, this is a bit of a worry really because when I read back over some of my past posts, I seemed to have quite a lot to say on quite a few different subjects, but now it seems there is nothing much to say about anything.

Having thought about this for a bit I have come to the following conclusions:

A. I have become a boring cow too busy to think about anything much – or

B. My hermit like existence since the enforced separation of TG and I has taken over….and I’ve got quite used to it.

Now, Dear Reader, neither of these situations is ideal particularly Option B (Option A is somewhat unavoidable) because that could well be leading to the slippery slope of wanting to stay in bed all day and do nothingdom. However, I need to shake myself out of this ennui because TG will be returning in a few weeks time and I don’t want to be feeling like this then. So I am resolved to do the following:

GET OUT MORE.

On this lovely Isle of ours there is plenty to do and see. There are friends to contact and be sociable with and there are small people to spoil. On the home front there is Spring cleaning (boring but cathartic when it’s done), new cushions for my revamped sitting room to be finished and a red velvet sofa to order (finally). And outside there is the endless Forth Bridge that is the garden which, with the good weather that we’ve been having has burst forth into bloom. There are two lots of long weekends coming up and the ACL and I are cooking for friends on Easter Sunday as we do every year and on the following Sunday I and my good friend and thesp Mrs G are performing two one act plays for a charity do in Shanklin (I REALLY must learn those lines..). We attended a rehearsal for the finale of this ghastly gala yesterday having not learned the words to ‘All that Jazz’ and discovering on arrival that we are expected to do actions to the song as well. Thankfully we have managed to wangle  a space right at the back where we are confident that no one will notice that we don’t know the words very well and aren’t entirely sure of the actions…..as long as no one sits in the balcony!

So that’s about it Dear Reader. I can give you no opinion on the state of the universe, politics, football, the Grand Prix or any other current affairs. Instead I leave you with some pictures taken in the garden yesterday. It has been transformed from a sea of yellow to a coat of many colours and very nice it looks too. I’ll leave them with you to maybe brighten your day a bit.

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They call it mellow yellow…..

 

What a difference a bit of sunshine makes eh, Dear Reader. Thankfully it hasn’t got quite warm enough for the football shirt / shorts / socks and sandals brigade to be out just yet – but I fear it won’t be long!

I had a lovely (if tiring) weekend with family. My brother arrived on Saturday afternoon with his children, the Other Child and husband and two small people also arrived for dinner so there were 9 of us in all which was lovely. The two smallest people had a sleepover a Nanny’s so that the parents could have a bit of a night out. I have forgotten how nerve wracking it is to be responsible for someone who is only 8 weeks old and I must have got up 50 times in the night to make sure he was still alive! Eventually I decided that him being in bed with my was by far the best option as then I would know by the wriggling and snuffly small animal noises that he was, in fact, perfectly fine. Perfect for him and completely knackering for me…I looked 105 on Sunday but it was wonderful to have them both and small people hugs are still the best by far.

There was an amount of gardening achieved on Sunday and I did the first lawn cut of the year which instantly transformed the garden from a damp miserable space to something that looked infinitely smarter. The only flowers that are out currently are yellow ones. Nothing else, just yellow. From the egg yolk of the Forsythia to the pale Primroses and the many yellow hued daffs there is nothing else of any other colour at all. The Bluebells and Forget me Nots will be along shortly but until then, yellow it is. I have tried, Dear Reader, over the years  to introduce other colours but the garden just seems to consume and kill anything new, so after 10 years I’ve stopped wasting money and I just do a few pots instead of interfering with the shrubbery! But despite all this (mono) colour, there are still no leaves on the trees…

So, I fell into bed last night exhausted but pleasantly so. TG and I are nearly 3 months into our enforced 5 month separation and I’m looking forward to him coming back to share it all. It’s all well and good having these lovely weekends, but no fun when there’s no one to share them with on a Sunday evening over a glass of wine.

And what of the week ahead? A milestone that’s what! The Child turns 18 tomorrow and I’m dreading it and the accompanying hangover that he will no doubt have on Wednesday……think of me Dear Reader, think of me.

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