Oh, My Days!

  No, I haven’t gone crazy and started bee-keeping at the tail end of August. That would be the height of crazy behaviour. I have memories of trying to save a failing hive in August years ago, with frantic internet searching for a replacement Queen (which I found - phew!) who duly arrived in the post much to the trepidation of the delivery chap. I then had to enlist the help of my mum (whose party trick is to crush wasps to death with her bare hands) and put her in a waaaaaay too big bee suit so I could re-Queen the hive (it’s a two-person job) and it was all a bit frantic but it was done and the hive survived the Winter.  Nope, this hive is a piece of technology which will, apparently, make my life easier. It is a central heating hive which can be operated from my phone and/or i-Pad and will save me squinting in a confused way at the original boiler control panel in the laundry which, even after 6 years, continued to bemuse me what with it being totally incomprehensible....

 Here she is, all settled in her new moon-gazing home:  I’ve called her Robyn, in honour of  ‘da moonah’ loving Robin the Caveman from the highly entertaining and witty British sitcom ‘Ghosts.’ I think she makes an excellent addition to the garden and definitely worth the huffing and puffing effort to heave her out of the car and up the garden steps in a wheelbarrow that almost broke under her weight. 

 Well now, yesterday I discovered that when one receives a hospital letter with the word ‘Urgent’ stamped on it, the ‘Urgent’ refers to the speed at which the letter needs to be posted out to the patient and not to the medical situation itself. And that the waiting list time for my now apparently not that urgent biopsy is 10-12 weeks from the date on the urgently sent letter. According to the cancer care nurse I swapped emails with, they aiming for an appointment somewhere in the first half of October. Apparently. However, I AM still ‘High Priority’, whatever THAT means in a not-as-urgent-situation as I was first led to believe. I suppose I should be grateful I’m not ‘Low Priority’ because I’d probably still be sitting here this time next year grumbling about the whole hoo-ha. And the cynic in me thinks this is all about the government pretending to reduce waiting lists so they can look good: ‘Oh, she’s not actually on a waiting list. She has been urgently put on a not really urgen...

 Every now and again I toy with the idea of becoming vegan. Living where we do, in close proximity to three dairy farms, these moments tend to occur when I hear the bellows of the mother cows echoing across the fields, calling out as their calves are being forcibly taken away. It’s a horrible sound - heart-wrenching and guttural. And I think, ‘Those are mother creatures in anguish at the loss of their babies.’ And I feel a mix of intense sadness and guilt that this is happening because I, like millions of others, take milk in my tea, spread butter on my toast, and eat a bit of cheese.  I’ve been vegetarian for many years, and then a year ago I started eating fish again. Not often, but I did. And a couple of days ago I was thinking, this fish eating could be the start of a slippery slope. First a sardine, then chicken, then a bit of liver and bacon… …visions of a zombie me loomed on the horizon of my over-active mind, chewing on the bloody hind leg of an impala… …I managed to b...

 Sometimes a morning doesn’t work out exactly as planned. And this morning was one such occasion. This morning I thought would be a reading and baking morning. A polish my altar with beeswax morning (which, to be fair, I actually did do…bedobedo…). Instead, I found myself caught up in a bit of gardening rage. By 8 a.m I was up the garden throwing balls around for Nell before being distracted into cutting back the evening primrose which went wild this year and was beginning to block the courtyard steps. And then I thought, whilst I am wielding the secateurs I’ll pop to the front of the house and tidy up Starlight Express which was starting to attack the postal delivery person. And whilst I was at the front of the house, I thought, I’d better tidy up the pyracantha, which was also being a bit wild.  This is a pyracantha. Not our actually pyracantha, but a pretty close look-a-likey. Ours is, I mean, was about six feet high by five feet wide by two feet deep. It is (was) very spik...

 Bambino Bobble Wilson is a house cat. This is because, despite living in the middle of fields, the A road that passes through the fields is a horrid one. Its length and country lane feel encourages people to sometimes drive like maniacs. People have died on this road because of their devil-may-care driving yet still this knowledge makes no difference to some. And Bambino is the sort of casual cat who would wander out into the road, think, ‘This is a nice place to sprawl and sunbathe’ and get himself squished. Anyway, since we had the side gate and fencing installed last Summer for the Health and Safety of Nell the ‘Poo, Bambino has taken to venturing outside on rare occasions, though never further than the courtyard. Here he is, emerging from the laundry, having checked out the swallows’ accommodation… But this morning, whilst Nell was off on a walk with Lord Malarkey, Bambino ventured further up the garden… This perambulation was all done at a very regal and sedate pace. In fact,...

 When our boiler is serviced in the next couple of weeks or so, the Heating Engineer a.k.a My Little Brother, is going to install a Hive heating controller for us because after six years of being baffled by the boiler programmer in the laundry, it will be much easier to manage the heating system via our mobile phones/iPads. Apparently. What happens if the Internet dies I do not know. Back to sitting around a fire in the cave, I suppose.  Anyway, there has been some back and forth communications re: preparations for the installation of the Hive. How far was the wireless router from the boiler? I don’t know - I’m guessing 25-30 feet. Could I download the app and register? Yes, I could. Less than 30 feet in distance was received as ‘Good.’ Confirmation of download of app and appropriate registration also received positively.  But then I started thinking, is the distance ACTUALLY less than 30 feet, and when I measured using an actual tape measure rather than by stretching out...

 August always feels a little 'scrappy' to me. It's like it doesn't know what it wants to be. The calendar suggests it is the peak month of Summer, and yet Autumn feels just around the bend. Is August hanging on to that Summer vibe or is it giving up and cruising into Autumn because it can't be bothered to do anything else? The garden begins to lose its polished air and everything is looking a bit, well, frayed around the edges. I've never been a great fan of August. I am already itching to feel the change into Autumn especially as I have the start of my Diploma course to look forward to.  However, look at these little beauties!  Livingstone daisies, or as I have always known them, mesembryanthemums. They open up in the sun and close down with the fading light. I grew them from seed and they've been a joy but they are beginning to look, well, scrappy. The geraniums are doing well, though, and should continue to do so far into Autumn. As will the cosmos. I wa...

 As Virginia Woolf said, ‘When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?’  That’s what I’ve been doing. Considering the stars. And getting over myself and my petty worries. Still waiting for a biopsy appointment (good ole NHS - whip you into a frenzy then leave you dangling) but in the Grand Scheme of Life, the Universe and Everything In It I have decided there is nothing to waste time fretting about, so I shan’t. Que sera, sera and all that. Also, a good chat with my Auntie Pollie has helped enormously. We share a wavelength, she and I.  Today is Lord Malarkey and my 20th wedding anniversary. Twenty years! Flippin’ heck! So much change in those two decades - so much growth and lots of gains, way too many losses amongst those who celebrated our marriage with us, ups and downs, ins and outs, one great big Hokey Cokey dance of life - that’s what it’s all about. Hey?  Apparently, the 20th anniversary is marked with china bu...