Everything Changes...

Molly's best friend in the whole world has moved away. She has looked out of the window at their meeting times, gone up the road to their meeting place everyday since he went, it is really sad to see! But nothing lasts forever everything changes it is the one thing you can count on. Toby and Molly have been friends since day one an odd combination to be sure with him so very large and white and her so small and black but they rough and tumbled round the pear tree without a hiss or growl everyday for the last two and a half years. How strange it is to watch cats make such attachments, you would think it not possible and only meant for us but I can assure anyone that they truly have big hearts and true loyalties to each other. I hope Molly will find another really good friend soon because despite the cold now, summer will arrive and there will be hours of play coming for her and she does love a good game of hide and seek with a buddy. We have a new gardener on the estate and her cat comes with her perhaps, 'Sophie' will fit the fit bill or perhaps she will rediscover her friendships with Will and Elle C when they come out of hibernation. Henry and Ferret visit us everyday still for a wee smackerel so meantime they will just have to do. In fact as I write this Henry is banging on the catflap - it must be lunchtime, Ferret comes for the afternoon matinee. I hate change...

A Breath of Fresh Air

After two days of playing hunt the thimble with Molly, who had us worried to death in case she had swallowed it and watching her looking under almost every piece of furniture we own we were demented and ready for a breath of fresh air. Today seemed just right for a trip down the lottie. We have dug a bed and half over and spread it with a good layer of muck, ready. We chatted to Reg who has offered us some onions to plant. We gave him some of our very large parsnips and we brought the rest of the row home to make soup and roast. We caught up with Julie who has already got seedlings in her greenhouse, good stuff Julie! We came home, stiff and rosy cheeked but happy with our outing and ready for the next one. Molly I am glad to say has her beloved thimble back - it was upstairs under our bed, who'd have thought of looking there? Obviously not us... My good ol' brother bought her a new one yesterday which she has now abandoned for her old one, but it was so kind of him and we now have a spare just in case.

and what happened next...

I love a good book, and finding myself a new author has always been an adventure to me. This time I reckon I have hit the jackpot. ‘Where the Heart Is’ by Billie Letts has had me not wanting to put it down, wanting to read faster, but most of all worrying about the characters until I can get back to them. Now that is what I call a good read. Perhaps it's because Billie Letts herself has had such a colourful life as a roller skating waitress, a dish washer, a dance instructor and now teaching creative writing. I hope to goodness the ending is a great one! I have now been reckless enough to send for another of hers, 'The Honk and Holler Opening Soon' from Amazon and the dvd of the one I am reading so I can compare book and movie. I haven’t been using the library as much as I used to but in future I shall use it as a testing ground when I find ‘a new to me writer’. Just give me a cuppa, a good book, a blanket and I’m a happy bunny, I always told Bri I was a cheap date!

January Made Me Shiver...

....and today the weather man said that this January was officially the coldest for twenty years. When I woke up on Thursday morning, I found out why I was so cold on Wednesday and couldn't work when I went down the plot. I had succumbed to the dreaded lurgie, eyes running, sneezing, aching and all that went with it. Now I could either waste my time and wallow while I had to stay in to keep my germs to myself, or, use the energy I had got to plan this years crops, get on with my quilt big time, read a new author I had got from the library, cook comfort food, so I chose all of the latter and ended up having a very productive week. When I am fully recovered, I am now full of enthusiasm from my weeks planning to get down to our dear plot, give it a good digging over and start fresh. First up will be checking on all our seeds left from last year so that we don't waste any of them. Second will be to check our compost bin, after two years we should have a good haul. Oooh look at me, I'm ready to go, the flu must have done me good!

The Little Blue Bag

With my lunch today, I had a packet of Walkers ready salted crisps. This reminded me of when I was growing up and there was no such thing as ready salted crisps. Oh no, there weren't scores of different flavours either, the choice was plain or cheese and onion. The other thing about them was that they were do it yourself in the salt department. By that I mean that each packet had in it a little twist of blue waxed paper which contained the salt which you then had to sprinkle on and then give the bag a good shake to distribute the salt evenly over all of them. This was even more fun if you were sitting in the pictures and all the kids were shaking their bags so you could hardly hear what was going on on the screen. You may think that this was a lot of trouble to go to but you would be wrong. Firstly, there was no guarantee that there would be a little blue bag in the packet, peculiarly, whenever my Dad had a packet, he never had a blue bag in it and would go off ranting about it and secondly, sometimes there were two or even more blue bags as the machinery at the crisp factory had obviously not done its job properly. Some years ago, Smiths tried to reintroduce the little blue bag but it didn't catch on which is a pity because it added an element of excitement to opening a packet not knowing if the little blue bag would or would'nt be in there.

Non but the Brave

We left home full of enthusiasm thinking it was a bit chilly but never mind, we'll soon warm up when we get started, dig up a few parsnips to roast for supper, muck up a bit... well, we passed Julie and Chris on our way up to park the car and thought it can't be too bad out there, Julie and Chris are working away.
They are now our heroes. It was bl***y freezing out there on the Hill. We managed to dig up a giant parsnip and a couple more, and then we are ashamed to say, we quit. Bri had strained his back already and I had got so stiff I couldn't take my gloves off. We will try again when the temperature rises to oooh, say at least a good eight degrees. Until then its back to the quilting frame in front of the fire for me, and back to a warm study for Bri. Meanwhile Julie and Chris have all our admiration for carrying on the true spirit of allotmenteering.

Age Renew My ****!

This week I had to buy some new make up so I bought the one that promised to make fine lines disappear and it actually said ‘makes you look five years younger’. Well, it made me look thirty odd years younger, it gave me teenage spots to go with the fine lines. When it comes to feeling younger in an instant, it has to be the call of the wild, the open air. Yesterday was the first day that it hasn’t been freezing, raining, snowing for more than twelve hours and it must have struck hope into the heart of every gardener. It almost felt like Spring. Bri and I couldn’t resist a quick trip down the plot to check the shed (which needs tidying) and we was thinking Oh No! It will be an horrendous task to bring the plot back to life. No! it was a wonderful surprise yo us to see that there hadn’t been mayhem and destruction from the weather. There are still carrots leeks and parsnips to be had and obviously no weeds because of the cold. There’s plenty of muck to spread, oh what joy...Max Factor can keep their makeup full of empty promises. Forage renewal and feeling and looking younger, it’s fresh air and the plot all the way for me, Bri looked good to me on the way home too while we made plans for next weeks visit if the weather holds.

The Incredible Journey

When we first started our time travelling, we thought it would be fun to do, something to amuse us. How wrong can you be? This journey became obsessive and we really couldn't say why at the time except it was interesting, full of surprises, turned us into detectives, made us think outside the box and gave us a great deal of pleasure. The results have now made us realise how much the past creeps into the present. I, for one, have found out why my Dad always took me and my brother to Bacons End at the weekend to see the little piggies. We went every Sunday religiously without question because it was how we spent time together. I found out why I still have to look into every hedge that has a hole in it to find birds nests and can recognise their eggs and I can name most trees in Britain by their leaves. I know now why we walked down every lane looking for wild flowers, crab apples, oak apples, hedgehogs. water voles and harvest mice which we always seemed to find. I know why my brother and I are tree huggers it is because my whole family came from the country whether it be Shropshire, Etwall or Bedgelert, it was a natural way for them to spend their time. It is obviously built into our genes. We were also miners of either gold or slate and our nephew, the geologist, is still in the rocks, he looks for oil. The journey continues...
Brian, has found out why music is so important to his life. It has been in his genes since 1837, each generation has had something to do with entertainment and the theatre. He too can't pass a musical instrument without trying it out. He can't have a shower without singing, no matter how very early it is, believe me! Bri is also an urban cowboy through and through the only concession being the lotty, but not surprising when we found all of his roots in the centre of London or Paris. It is really sad coming to the end of all these discoveries, but we do know ourselves a little better for these forays into our pasts. For instance I know I would be really at home in Lark Rise, Bri on the other hand in Candleford.

The Shipping Forecast

Way back in the 1950's when I was a lad and dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, we didn't have television. (You poor soul, I hear you cry). However, we didn't worry because we had the wireless to listen to. We used to huddle around it as if it was a fire and would keep us warm the closer we got to it. (As it was full of valves and wires, it probably did) Now, as peculiar as this may seem, we used to love to listen to the shipping forecast which was given out at the end of the nightly news bulletins. This weeks obsession with the weather has reminded us of this. It was the names of places that we had never heard of and had no idea where they were such as Finistere, Dogger Bank, Cromaties, Fair Isle ( I thought that was a type of pullover) German Bight etc which fascinated us. What makes this even more strange, is that we live in the middle of the country therefore the shipping forecast had no relevance to us whatsoever, just far away places with strange sounding names.

Are We Stir Crazy Or What?

OK, what is everybody else up to this week who haven't had to struggle to work? We are sitting on our reupholstered settee watching snowy Christmas movies, eating Christmas chocolates and drinking lots of tea (sometimes with lebkuchen as well) We didn't even know what lebkuchen were exactly until Plum opened her new musical box, which was full of them. It plays Let It Snow! How prophetic is that? We haven't been entirely idle, however, we have now almost reached a point in time that we can't go any further back with our family trees unless we go on field trips to dig out parish records. We have got as far back as 1800 with each branch of our families. We are also finding little stories about many of them along the way. If only we could find photographs for all of them. We have spent this afternoon feeling guilty because we are not doing the jobs we should be doing down the plot but it must be like Siberia up on the Hill. We have watched the weather forecast and we have another five days holiday next week and so we suppose we will start on a jigsaw, maybe, play Boggle, maybe, quilt a little, play guitar a little, maybe, or just be as lazy as this week! Oh boy, do we love snow! But going out doesn't seem to be an option! This snowy weather is making us punchy, I think we may need rescuing... eventually.