I’ve always though that raspberries are too good a fruit to waste on making into jam BUT with yesterday’s picking coming in at a smidge over 4 lbs, I am going wild today and making some raspberry jam. There is no way Lord Malarkey and I can keep up with eating them, not without any digestive upsets anyway, and there are still masses to come that I can put in the freezer for raspberry delights during the Winter months, so jam it is for this bowl.
The raspberries are having a triumphant year! Blackcurrants, blackberries, plums and apples are looking to follow suit. The rhubarb is struggling - again - and I am wondering if I might lift the crowns in Autumn and relocate them.
Mr and Mrs Swallow have been tidying up their nest ready for Brood Number Two. Their babies are fledged and flying well now, disappearing on their adventures for most of the day. Maybe they are looking for new homes for themselves to return to next year?
The shepherd’s hut build has been confirmed for October so I SHALL have it in time for my sixtieth birthday!
A few days ago, I had my long hair chopped in favour of a messy, layered bob. I am very pleased with it.
Whilst I was raspberry picking yesterday, I could hear my neighbours over the hedge chatting away in their garden with a couple of their friends. I marvelled at how all four of them could speak at exactly the same time and still manage to hear each other and sustain a comprehensible conversation. A skill that comes with age, maybe?
The Hive heating controller - which runs on internet connection, the über-efficient and trés 21st century way of doing things - decided to stop working yesterday. I discovered this when I was having a shower, and hot water there was none. I don’t care what anyone says, a cold shower is neither bracing nor invigorating. It is a soulless and miserable experience. Anyway, I duly started tinkering about with the controller, following various instructions on the Hive app - changing batteries, switching things on and off again etc etc blah blah blah - and more than an hour later, as the thing was STILL trying to connect to the internet, I gave up, went into the laundry and pressed the Hot Water button on the boiler instead. See, that’s what you need. A button to press and then things work. Modern technology? Pah!
I passed the technology baton to Lord Malarkey and he also failed to make it reconnect, which made me feel a tad better. We shall have another go today and contact the Hive chat on WhatsApp to see if they can enlighten us and solve the issue. Internet technology is SUCH a time saving and efficient way to run one’s heating system, isn’t it?? Heaven forfend we should reduce ourselves to the simple act of pressing a button, like we did in the old days. Sigh…rolls eyes…thinks wistfully of the 1970s…
On Thursday, I emailed my MP - a Liberal Democrat called Helen Morgan - regarding the introduction of a closed season for hunting hares. I don’t see why hares should be hunted at all, but they are currently the only game species in England that aren’t protected by a closed hunting season. This means that pregnant and lactating hares are often killed (with their orphaned leverets consequently starving to death) and local populations reduce by up to 60% every year. And then people wonder why such species become endangered? Sheesh. Anyway, the Hare Preservation Trust, of which I am a supporting member, has asked members to write to their MPs in support of the legislation to be passed, and I was happy to lend that support. I’m not usually inclined towards political activism, but when it comes to the protection of wildlife, I can be pretty vociferous. I sent a fairly lengthy email and by the end of the day I’d received a reply in support of my petitioning. Fingers crossed other people are pestering their MPs, too, and the Bill might be passed on its third time of asking, giving hares the same protection as every other game species in the country. My MP said she would keep me updated.
The current BBC series of ‘Race Around the World’ finished on Wednesday evening. It’s been an entertaining programme and I’ve not been irritated once by this year’s competing couples which meant I did not mind who won. However, as the four remaining couples set off on the final leg of their journey and a prize of £20,000, I felt myself rooting for mother and son pairing Caroline and Tom, and the teenage couple Finn and Sionned. It was very satisfying, then, to see Caroline and Tom be the first to sign the arrivals book at the finishing post. Finn and Sionedd came in third. The couples were all interviewed at the end of the programme, all saying how life-changing the experience had been for them, and their relationships with others and themselves. Caroline, who is 60, said that before the race, she felt like she’d reached an age where she had no further purpose in life and had lost the confidence of her youth, but the race had taught her she had more courage and resilience than she thought, and that her life didn’t need to fade into meaningless oblivion just because she was 60.
I knew where she was coming from. She’s been an inspiration.
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KJ
KJ