Lumpen mass

We've had a busy few weeks here. Despite neither of us working full-time any more, we seem to have less free time now than we did when we were both oppressed drones in the giant capitalist machine.

I won't bore you all with details of the summer heat (the HEAT, oh lordy, it was terrifying, over 35 degrees for several days in a row etcetera etcetera etcetera) but suffice to say that when I bought the dog a cool mat for her bed I seriously considered buying a few more for the human bed too. 

When we weren't panting in darkened rooms, fanning ourselves and praying for a breeze, we had some jolly nice garden parties, some walks by the river, a village fete, and the Queen's Jubilee celebrations.

More recently, of course, it was the much more sombre Royal Funeral, which I watched with fascination. The proceedings were enlivened by the addition of Ma-in-Law, over from France, and youngest sister and her partner who called in and watched it with us. It felt a bit like Christmas, as we had a toast to Her Maj over lunch.

I tried to think of an appropriate commemorative dish, along the same lines as Coronation Chicken, but was not able to come up with anything which didn't sound both hilarious AND disrespectful, so we had a cold collation instead.

There's been a bit of anxiety just lately over the dog. She's 10 now, which means she's becoming an old lady, and has developed one or two "fatty lumps" under the skin. These are very common in Labradors;  the vet reassured us that they were not a problem, so we left them alone. However, recently, I found another lump in one of her mammary glands, so took her in to the vet for a checkup. The vet's opinion was that it was probably another harmless lipoma (or "fatty lump" - stop me if I get a bit technical) but due to the location it could be something more serious.

Anyhoo, we decided that the safest course of action was for the vet to remove the lump, so if it did turn out to be cancerous we'd have done the right thing as quickly as possible. Biopsy results are due in a week or two.

The dog is now a few days post-op, and has been lying quietly in her bed, occasionally emerging with a big stretch to eat poached chicken, have a cuddle, and go for a short slow walk. Basically, she has the life I've always dreamed of. 

In contrast, I have been going to the gym several times a week, and having a damn sight less delicious chicken than the dog.

It's been an expensive month so far. The vet (thankfully) is mostly covered by pet insurance, but we've also had to pay the balance on the new wooden shutters in the sitting room (very smart, despite a minor irritating difference in size/fitting/alignment on one of them) two lots of car tax, new front tyres on my car, and some unexpected dental work for Mr WithaY. 

We are fortunate to have some reserves to allow us to pay the bills. And, a delightful unexpected bonus, when the bloke was replacing my tyres he showed me that the brake pads are worn down, so I need new brakes on all four wheels. Yay. Still, I've had that car almost 3 years and it hasn't needed anything doing to it really, other than wiper blades and oil changes, so I don't begrudge it.

Also, I understand that properly-functioning brakes are quite important. 

We went to a friend's funeral a week or two ago - he had a terrible fall from which he wasn't able to recover, so it was a dreadful shock to everyone. Due to a technical hitch, the carefully-curated music couldn't be played, so the vicar said "We'll sing without music," and led the charge, belting out the hymns in a splendid full voice. I have NEVER heard such singing from a congregation - it was a marvellous thing.

I mentioned that Ma-in-Law was here. She has travelled over from France, via family in Dorset, to us, then on to family in Cambridge, and is due back to us in a few days, from whence she will travel back to France. She's 87, and is indomitable. I just hope she avoids catching Covid on the many planes, buses, coaches and trains she has been using. 

You'll be delighted to know that the Civil Service came through and I now receive my pension. Yay me being a pensioner. 

I have been idly reviewing local job websites, but haven't seen anything yet which I fancy, other than one job which I applied for and never heard back from. Bastards.

I did very much enjoy these two adverts. 

We have BOTH kinds of jobs here in Wiltshire!

There has been some discussion amongst our friendship group that Mr WithaY is qualified to do both jobs, possibly at the same time, which would be a sight to see,

It reminds me of the Futurama episodes with the terrifying robot Santa.

Oh! We've been going to the cinema a bit too - I can highly recommend Three Thousand Years of Longing. Idris Elba as a magical genie, what's not to love? 

See How They Run was less entertaining, but it was intriguing that two other groups of people in the audience (an older couple and three little white-haired ladies) giggled and at times guffawed throughout. Almost every line of dialogue elicited an audible "hee hee hee" from them all, and left Mr WithaY and I looking at each other in bewilderment. What were we missing?

We decided that they were all pissed.

One of the very real joys of not working traditional hours is that we can take ourselves off to the pictures on a Monday afternoon if we feel like it. Or go out for lunch on a school day. Or stay up late on a Sunday night. Mr WithaY has started his Autumn calendar of work commitments, so most of his weekends will be taken up with that, but we can still go out and about in the week, and I love it. 

My creative mojo has made a welcome return, and I have been dressmaking. I made a jacket: 

I used an existing edge-to-edge jacket as the pattern, and added the 1950s-ish collar. I like it, and have worn it over my many, many plain linen summer dresses. 

Currently working on a tunic top with grown-on sleeves, which I think will look nice when it's finished. The pattern has no pockets, so I am considering adding some, but can't decide if I'll just add simple patch pockets, or some slightly more complicated inseam pockets.

So, keeping busy. Hoping for good news about the dog's biopsy. Enjoying life. Trying to ignore the terrifying massive bin fire going on *gestures* everywhere.

Time Consuming

 Still waiting for a sack of cash from the Civil Service pensions people, but hopefully that will turn up in the next few weeks. If not, I may have to resort to busking on the streets of West Wiltshire to keep body and soul together.

It's been a whirl of creativity here for the last couple of weeks. Mr WithaY and I decided to go along to a Regency picnic at Stourhead, which we'd seen advertised on social media. A couple of re-enactment mates were also planning to go, so we met up with them and had a splendid day in the boiling sunshine. There were about 20-ish people taking part, but it was hard to tell as we were all scattered around the house and grounds, so I never counted heads.

The picnic was a great success; the weather was spectacular and we all looked marvellous. Well, to be fair, I looked like a red-faced, slightly overheated middle-aged woman in a bonnet, but that was pretty much the look I was going for. 

The "around the grounds" walk after lunch took ages, and boy, is it a long way round the lake! Fortunately the scenery is exquisite, and there was loads of shade, but I felt it the next day. I shall definitely do more Regency events if they involve sitting on the grass eating pie, and then sauntering about in a big hat. 

The village held a Jubilee picnic last Sunday to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee. It was lovely to see so many of our neighbours after the last 2 years, and to meet some of the new people who've moved in over lockdown. Mostly from that there London. 

There was a Grand Jubilee Pudding Contest, with a Mystery Prize*, so of course I submitted an entry. I made a chocolate mousse cake, artfully decorated with Smarties in a rainbow motif. I didn't win, but it was all eaten (and not just by me) so that was a top result. 

The rain held off until late in the afternoon so everyone had a chance to chat, eat, listen to the band, and enjoy the novelty of being in a public space with almost the whole village again. 

I'm still going to the gym regularly, and enjoying it very much. I am also planning to re-kindle my very ancient tennis skills and start playing with a friend from the village. We are both Ladies of a Certain Age (although I am a bit older!) and I think it will be fun to get together and see exactly how eroded our techniques have become. 

Inspired by the recent Regency dressmaking, I have been doing a fair bit of research, and am planning to make some more historical kit so that we can attend events in future. 

I feel a trip to the excellent fabric warehouse coming on. 

*A John Lewis giftcard! I don't know the value, but I'd have LOVED it. 

Hay and other fevers

Our brush with DOOOOOOOM* seems to have passed fairly quickly, compared to some people. I still have no sense of taste and very little sense of smell, and we are both still far more exhausted and achy than usual - even at our advanced ages.

Despite this, or maybe because of it, I am trying to get stuff done every day so that I can at least feel like I am being reasonably productive. Admittedly, sometimes that stuff consists of "an hour doing my jigsaw puzzle" but hey, it's SOMETHING.  

Whilst in the throes of plague I wasn't able to concentrate or focus, so anything creative was out. I have a couple of embroidery projects on the go (one has been "on the go" for at least 5 years) but lacked either the eye-focus or inclination to make any progress. I have a couple of new dressmaking projects in mind, and it's only been this weekend that I've given any real consideration to starting them.

Today I have baked a loaf of bread, and had a go at making gnocchi for the first time, using leftover baked potatoes I made a couple of days ago. The gnocchi had a splendid texture, and I am reliably informed that they tasted of "mostly potato." Result. 

I boiled them for 3 minutes, then pan-fried them in sage butter till crispy on the outside. Served piping hot with grated parmesan cheese and (because we're BEASTS) tomato ketchup. I am quietly confident that if Stanley Tucci made my house a destination on one of his TV shows, he would not be disappointed by the food. 

Appalled by the leering middle-aged woman serving it to him, possibly. 

It was Mr WithaY's birthday yesterday, and we had been invited to lunch with some of the lovely neighbours. The sun shone, we sat outside and drank the finest wines known to humanity (I couldn't taste them, so it was a waste of fine-ness) and had a truly memorable meal.

I took along a coffee and walnut birthday cake for dessert, and some jaunty unicorn and rainbow candles, which were all eventually lit at the same time - it was breezy in the garden. 

When it was time to go, I boxed up the remains of the cake (I did check with the gracious hostess if that was ok) and took it out into the garden. 

As we were saying our farewells, the boxed cake was left on a low wall. Within reach, it turned out, of at least one of the resident black Labradors.

 It seems dogs like cake. Who knew?

Anyhoo, we had a slice of it today (not from the dog-nibbled side) and it was still delicious. Apparently. 

All I could smell/taste was a faint whiff of coffee.  The texture was good though.

I'll be glad when my senses are back to normal, and I can actually enjoy food again. And no, I'm not getting thinner as a result of not being able to taste anything, which is annoying.

Today is a Bank Holiday, although I suppose every Monday could be viewed as a holiday from now on. 

I'm starting to half-heartedly look at job websites, but haven't seen anything I fancy yet. I definitely don't want a full-time job, and I don't fancy working at weekends, so my options are limited. 

I might just become a lady of leisure, and swan about wearing a big hat and a flowery frock all day. Or become a village busybody, in the style of Miss Marple, delving into everyone's business, whilst solving murders and drinking tea with locals of note.

Early days.  

*Covid. It was shite. 

Pond life

 So how's your 2020 going so far? Yeah, same here. 

Thankfully I have been able to continue working throughout lockdown(s) but Mr WithaY has had pretty much everything he does cancelled since February. On the plus side, the dog gets longer walks and the garden has had loads of work done on it.

We have a pond now. Get us. 

We built it last year just in time for our 25th wedding anniversary party, and peopled it (fished it?) with five little koi carp, each about 3 inches long.  

They seemed happy, as much as you can ever tell with fish. Ate their food, swam about, sometimes did acrobatic leaps out of the water for no apparent reason. 

And then, one day, the pond was much less peopled (fished?)  Only one of the five was visible, and he seemed nervous. As if some huge winged predator has swooped in and eaten all his mates. We kept a close eye on things for a week or so, until we had to accept that some bastard bird had been at the fish.

The four missing fish were replaced - the replacements were all about 5 inches long.  The remaining survivor had grown and we didn't want him to bully the newcomers.

All was well. The new fish settled in, the old fish joined in all their antics* and we enjoyed seeing them at feeding time, when they all poked their little noses out of the water for food.

There was an exciting event one hot afternoon when Mr WithaY glanced out of a window to see what he thought was a scrap of plastic flapping about on the gravel around the pond. 

He realised after a few moments that it was not plastic at all, but one of the fish, who'd jumped about in a frolicking manner and fucked it up so badly that he'd landed completely out of the water. 

He** was scooped up and dropped back into the water, apparently unharmed and with a good story to tell his mates.

The original water fountain thing we installed has been replaced with a much larger waterfall, attached to a filter and UV light source to keep the water clean, so we can now see the fish much more clearly.

Unfortunately, so can the herons who live on the nearby river.

A juvenile heron started hanging about, landing on the edge of the pond one day until chased away by Mr WithaY, who immediately found all the fruit netting that used to protect the raspberry bushes from next-door's chickens*** and covered the pond with it. He then found sticks and string to build a complex anti-heron system guaranteed to prevent any fish stealing.

I ordered two large fake herons online (I love the Internet) which stand guard around the pond, probably traumatising the fish every time they look up.

Herons are surprisingly large, and seemingly fearless. If it landed on the back fence, the better to eye up fish for snacking purposes, I would open the back door and try to chase it away. 

It would look at me, clearly thinking "Oh yeah? Come on then, Spartacus," and not move until I was within 3 feet of it. Then it would flap its giant pterodactyl wings and bugger off a few yards into a nearby tree to watch from there. 

This went on for about two weeks, Mr WithaY and I taking turns to "chase" the heron off the fence. The dog refused point blank to go near it, obviously realising that her small soft snout was no match for a massive dagger of a bastard bird beak. 

Finally, having rejigged the pond netting and moved the fake herons around several times, the thing which put it off coming back seems to be the rotary clothesline. I think maybe it takes up valuable flapping space, or limits the amount of landing space or something.

Anyway, the heron seems to have moved to a neighbour's garden (and pond) where he avoids limited space issues by landing on the land outside and sauntering in through their gate.

Other news: Still enjoying my job, still buying far more books than anyone realistically needs.

Our planned road trip to France to visit mother-in-law WithaY had to be cancelled, so we're going to try and arrange something next year instead. All dependent on The Situation, of course.

I've been able to see my lovely sisters a couple of times over the summer but pretty much only in the garden, or in very very small groups, so no family get-togethers, which is sad. Yes, I know that the curtailing of family social events is a very small price to pay, and if that's the worst I have to deal with, then yay, but even so. I miss seeing everyone.

Dog walks have been remarkably sociable, because when you run into a neighbour walking their dog in a field you can stand two metres apart and have a conversation. 

The village pub has been doing its best to stay open, but we haven't ventured in. In fact, apart from work, I think the only places I've been since February are the hairdresser (once), the supermarket, and a fabric shop in Salisbury (once).  I found that so stressful that I've been buying dressmaking supplies online. 

And the petrol station, but only about once a month instead of every two weeks or so.

Life is odd. However, Mr WithaY are both healthy, as are all our families, so we are counting our blessings.

I'm very aware that I am in a slightly higher-risk category due to age, fatness and being female, so I have been perhaps more cautious than some. The winter will be interesting.

I have mastered the fine art of dough cookery! I can now make bread, Chelsea buns and Lardy cake. Hurrah. Also Chinese steamed buns, and wontons, although I bought the wonton wrappers for those.  

Chin up, best foot forward, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel etcetera etcetera etcetera.

Oh, and today (or tomorrow) hopefully the US election results will be announced and (fingers crossed) at least one part of 2020 will start to feel more positive. 

*swimming, mostly

**The fish. Mr WithaY is too big to scoop.

***No, it really didn't.

Dinked

Events of note at work so far this week:

• Group of Japanese tourists arriving at 7am, buying fuel for their car, and then photographing each other outside the shop, collapsing in helpless, excited laughter at our coal bunkers.  

• Man buying coffee from the coffee machine and then demanding I add more coffee, as it wasn't coffee-y enough.  I was tempted to chew up a mouthful of coffee beans and spit them into his drink, but I managed to refrain, and merely made him a fresh cup, which was apparently "fine."

• Being handed a crumpled five pound note with wet cowshit on it.  This happens far more often than is acceptable.

• Man buying a pasty, then remaining at the till to harangue me (and other customers) about the terrible recent case of a young girl who was found dead after a row with her family. He was bellowing "She was hanged!  There's more to that than we're being told!" at a polite man trying to pay for his diesel for quite a long time.  

• Being asked many technical questions about putting oil in a car by someone who has no idea whether their car is a petrol or a diesel, and aren't even sure if it needs oil, but "a light has come on so it probably does."  All this while a long, impatient queue of people builds up behind them, while they ponder what they actually want at their leisure.

• Woman wanting a gas canister, then wanting to do complicated stuff about changing from one canister size to another, which only our managers are allowed to authorise, and then getting hugely annoyed when told how much the canister she asked for in the first place costs.  There was a degree of huffing and flouncing, which made the man in the queue behind her roll his eyes expressively at me.

• Woman running into the shop and asking me "Did I just put petrol in my car??" When I said no, she said "I've been swimming in the sea, it's messed with my head!"

Ah, people.

In other news, Mr WithaY and I (and the dog) went to visit some very dear friends down in deepest Sussex earlier this week.  They live in a cottage on a rather excellent country estate, so we went for several dog-walks through the meadows and woods.  Their dog is a charmer, and he and ours played together most endearingly.  Our dog retired to her basket when we got home, and slept for about 18 hours solidly.  She can't party like she used to.

I wanted to take photos of The Big House there, because it is a beautiful (possibly) Elizabethan manor house with a Horsham stone roof, but I felt that  might be a bit intrusive and gawky, so you will just have to imagine it.

We travelled down in Mr WithaY's new truck, which is far more comfortable than the LandRover was, and much more practical. It's a double-cab pick-up with a roof on the pick-up bit at the back, so there;s room for 5 people and tons of stuff too.  He's very pleased with it.

But what happened to the LandRover, I hear you ask?

Well.

Several months ago, Mr WithaY was off to the woods to work, where he planned to be for a long weekend.  He packed all his kit into his car, said a fond farewell to me and the dog, and headed off.  Some hours later, I was at work, and he came into the shop to ask if he could borrow my car.

"What happened to yours?" I enquired.

"Crashed it," he replied somewhat tersely.  I gave him my car keys, with a stern injunction not to crash mine too.  He disappeared again, returning several days later with a sad tale of bouncing off a woodland track at 10 miles an hour and hitting a tree.

Unfortunately, the age of the vehicle, and the substantial nature of the damage inflicted - lights smashed, bonnet crumpled, side panel dented, bumper broken - meant that the insurance company wrote it off, hence the need for a new truck.  The tree, you will be pleased to hear, was undamaged, not even getting a dent in the thick moss covering the trunk.

Oh, and Mr WithaY was fine too.

While Mr WithaY was away over that long weekend, we had a new fence put up.  It replaced the horrible tatty broken fence which ran along the side of the gardens, front and back.  A team of charming young landscape gardeners came to erect it* and worked like Trojans from morn** till night***, pausing only briefly for cups of tea.

On the eventful Friday afternoon when Mr WithaY had broken his car, I was in the house, having been at work all morning.  There was a knock on the front door.  One of the gardeners stood there, looking anxious.  If he'd had a flat cap on, he'd have been tugging nervously at the peak.

"Hello," I said.  Have you finished already?"

"No," he replied.  "We've dug a hole for the last fencepost, but it's full of water."

"Oh, never mind about that! Our water table round here is really high. I bet it'll be fine."

He agreed with me, and said they had some finishing off to do, and could sort out the last bit of fence in an hour or so, once the water level had dropped again.

An hour or so later, there was another knock on the door.  He looked positively anguished.  The flat cap would have been clutched in nerveless hands, wrung with despair.

"Come and look at this," he said.  That's never good.  I followed him around to the side of the house where the fencepost hole was brimming with water, and a stream had formed running down onto the back lawn.

"Fuck."  I said.

He nodded sadly.

To cut a (very) long story slightly shorter, it turned out that our water main runs down that side of the house, and in digging the hole, they had managed to somehow disturb the pipe and cause a massive leak.  Several hours of panicking, phoning plumbers, phoning Wessex Water and trying to build makeshift dams with breeze blocks followed.

Thankfully, Wessex Water were able to come out the following day and fix the problem, but they suggested that if we ever win the Lottery we might consider having all our external water pipes replaced.  Cheers for that.

It is traditional for some domestic disaster to occur when Mr WithaY is away, so I'm pretty used to it now.  I ought to make a Domestic Disaster Bingo Card, and keep myself amused guessing what will happen next.











*Sorry.

**About 8am-ish
***About teatime

I Spy

An overheard game of I Spy in the shop yesterday, between a boy of about 4 and his slightly older brother.

Younger boy:  I spy with my little eye....um......something that's .....um....begins with...BLUE!

Older boy:  Is it this?  (Holding up a small bag of Skittles, bright red in colour.)

Younger boy:  No.

Older boy:  Is it this?  (Holding up a caramel Freddo bar, definitely not blue.)

Younger boy:  No!

Older boy:  Is it this?  (Pointing at a bag of beef crisps.)

Younger boy:  (by now hugely excited) NO!

Older boy then wandered away, tiring of the sport.

Younger boy:  I'll help you!

Older boy:  Ok.

Younger boy:  It's somewhere in Space!

In other news:  Mr WithaY and I have bitten a large, expensive bullet and booked the holiday of a lifetime.  We are going to Japan next Spring.  This is a long-held wish, and we decided that if we wait until we can afford it, we'll never go.  So we went and booked it at the weekend, and now it's really happening.

The catalyst for the trip was this:

Forgive the dreadful quality picture, I stupidly scanned it, rather than just taking a photo, like a sensible person would.

I bought this book in 1985 in Winchester, as it was required reading for my degree, used it throughout the course, and it has lived quietly in one of the many WithaY bookcases ever since.

For no reason, a few weeks ago whilst idly browsing eBay, I thought "I wonder if anyone else has one of those weird Bell Jar books for sale?" and searched for it.  Nothing on eBay, so I Googled it.

Readers, I found out a couple of interesting things about my old book.

1)  It's jolly rare.  According to a Sylvia Plath website - this one - there are only 8 copies known to exist. I don't know if that means mine is Number 9, or one of the existing 8.

2)  The last time one was sold in the UK, it went for quite a lot of money.

Well, what would you do?  I sat there for a few minutes, looking at the Bonhams photo of the cover of the book, which was almost exactly the same as mine, and then went in to Mr WithaY's study, where he sat researching Neolithic sporrans, or some such arcanery.

Me:  Look at this picture.

Mr W:  Oh yes.  A book.

Me:  Look how much it sold for.

Mr W:  Heavens!

Me:  Yes.  I've got one of those.

Mr W:  What?

Me:  I've got that same book. Upstairs.

I ran upstairs, located the book, ran (carefully - with my track record) back downstairs and showed Mr WithaY.  We both looked from my book to the Bonhams website, and back again.

Me:  I'm ringing Bonhams in the morning.

I rang Bonhams, where I spoke to a charming chap in their books department.  I told him that I had found their auction page about the Bell Jar uncorrected proof.

"Oh yes?" he said, politely.  I got the impression he was lounging negligently in a fine quality leather club chair, possibly smoking an untipped cigarette in an amber holder.

"Yes.  Well, the thing is, I've got one of those, and I'd like to sell it please."

In my head, he sat up abruptly at this point, dropping his cigarette onto the green leather of his desktop.*

Anyhoo, the upshot was, that he told me they had a sale coming up in June, and that if I could get the book to them for evaluation in the next day or two, they could include it, assuming it was what I thought it was.

I posted it to them that afternoon, they telephoned me the following morning to say it had arrived, and that they were happy to include it in the sale, and so, with much excitement, I waited for the sale catalogue to be published.

And here it is:   https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22714/lot/289/

Ta-daa!

So, if there are any avid Sylvia Plath collectors who read this, or you know anyone who has loads of money and a suitably-shaped hole in their library, please tell them to bid.  It's funding my holiday to Japan, at least in part.








*Yes, yes, yes, I'm well aware he was probably doing nothing of the sort, but I don't get to London much these days, and it's all morphed into a Bertie Wooster/Mapp and Lucia fantasyland now in my imagination.

Socks

We get all sorts of people in the shop.

When I am working a late shift, it's remarkable to see the number of customers who dash in for last-minute emergency beer or wine before we shut for the night. On sunny afternoons we get quite a few people calling in for booze for impromptu barbecues on their way home from work.  There are one or two who come in for small bottles of cheap vodka, and who I suspect are not going anywhere to drink it.

The one who stands out for me this week though, is the Drunk Socks Man.

He came in for the first time mid-afternoon, buying a four-pack of chilled cans of cider. Fair enough. It was a sunny afternoon, and sitting under a tree with a cold cider would be very pleasant.

Two hours later he came back and bought another four-pack.  Ah. Maybe he has some mates there too, and they're all enjoying a cold drink together.

Another two hours passed. By this time I was on my own in the shop.  He reappeared, this time drunk. Very, very drunk.

"Hello my petal!" he said cheerfully. I said hello back, ignoring the over-familiarity. Well, you have to sometimes.

He selected a single bottle of beer and brought it up to the counter, then dug into a pocket for cash.  I told him how much it cost, and he squinted at the handful of change, old receipts and oddments he was waving about in front of me.

"Have I got enough there, darling?" he asked.  I told him no, he didn't.

"Well can you do me a deal then? Can I have it for *rapid counting of the coins he held* £1.28?"

I said no sorry, we wouldn't do that.

"What have you got that's cheaper, then?"

By now, I had realised just how drunk he was, and was beginning to wonder how I was going to get him out of the shop if he got stroppy when he discovered that I wasn't going to sell him any more drink.   Cunningly taking the bottle of beer back to the fridge on the pretext of looking for something cheaper, I was able to convince him that we didn't sell anything alcoholic that he could afford just then.

"How about if I give you a cuddle? Can I have a deal then?"

Oh fantastic.  The "drunk bloke is irresistible to women" stage has been reached. I declined the cuddle and got back behind the counter, wondering how much longer this was going to continue.  He stood there, swaying a bit, then had an idea.

"What if I give you my socks?"

"What?"

"Look.  Here.  You can have my socks."  He tried to hand me a pair of balled-up socks which he pulled from another pocket.

I declined politely.

After a few minutes of loudly telling the next customer who came in how terrible it is to be an alcoholic - the customer agreed politely whilst paying for his diesel - the drunk left, staggering over to the pub.  He did tell me "I'm always around if you need me, darling," before he left.  How reassuring.

I waited with some interest, and a little anxiety in case he came back to the shop.  A police van then drove onto the forecourt and parked up, I waited for the police driver to come in and buy sweeties. They're buggers for sweeties, police.  However, the driver simply stayed in his van.

The drunk left the pub very soon afterwards, and started making his way up the road towards town.   The police van immediately pulled out into the main road, the driver got out and spoke to the drunk. I watched, interested, as they had a long chat, the drunk smoking a cigarette.   A short time later a police car arrived, and took the drunk away.

You don't get that in the Civil Service.

Communicado

Ah, technology.

Once more I am able to converse on the telephone. Once more, I can surf the myriad wonderful shores of the Internet. Once more I can dick about on Facebook.  Once more, we discover that life is not like Star Trek.

Last Saturday, about teatime, I was sitting on the comfy sofa, dealing with some mindless nonsense on my iPad, eBay, possibly, when the gloomy message "You are not connected to the Internet" popped up in the middle of my screen.  I tried refreshing the screen.

Nope.

I went into Settings and tried to reconnect to the relevant WiFi thingy.

Nope.

I turned it off and on again.   The last resort.

Nope.  Well, bollocks.

On further investigation (going upstairs and glaring at the blue lights on the BT Homehub box) it was clear that my Internet connection was broken.  Mr WithaY emerged from his study, blinking in the light, and asked if there was a problem with the phone, as his Internet wasn't working.  A second investigation revealed that the OTHER BT Homehub box (yes, yes, yes, we have two, long story, probably going to get rid of one this year) wasn't working either.

The handset on the phone in the hall displayed the message "Check Line Cord" which we know from experience means Serious Issues With The Phone.  As we live in the Village Of No Mobile Reception, we couldn't ring BT to let them know, so left it till the next day, hoping that the phone line might have magically sorted itself out overnight.

I went to work on Sunday morning, and was not particularly surprised when a neighbour from further up the road called in to ask if our phone worked.  The shop phone did, but I told him our home phone was out of order.

"So's ours! And all the neighbours' on either side! AND the phone box!" he told me.  He'd already been on the (mobile) phone to BT to report the fault, which meant finding a spot at the top of the hill by the church where there's intermittent reception, and then spending almost £10 on his emergency pay as you go mobile whilst BT kept him on hold. He wasn't happy.

One of the more endearing quirks of reporting a fault to BT is their insistence that you listen to their instructions about resolving faults at your end.  They ought to call it It's All Your Faults.  They insist that you check that your phone isn't unplugged, or the dog hasn't eaten your WiFi box, or the house hasn't burned down while you weren't concentrating, and only then will they agree to send out an engineer.  Even then, you have to agree to pay a huge fee (almost £200!) if they find that it's Your Fault.

Anyhoo, the fault had been raised with BT, so I rang them as well, told them that our phones were also affected, and agreed to hand over a huge sack of cash if it turned out not to be their problem.  On leaving work, I spotted a BT engineer doing something at the base of the telephone pole on the corner. I wandered over to see.

Me:  Hello.  Have you come to fix all our phones?

Engineer:  Hello.  Yes.

Me:  So what's the problem?

Engineer:  Well.  Look.

The engineer gestured at the thick black cable that runs up the length of the phone pole.  It had been neatly cut in half about a foot from the ground.  A myriad of small wires poked out of the two severed ends.

Me:  Ah.

Engineer: (wearily) Yep, this is me for the next couple of hours.

He declined the offer of a cup of tea, so I left him to it.  By the time it was dark, his van had gone, and so had he, and the broken cable was all patched back up.  However, the phones still weren't working.

I went to work on Monday morning.  To my non-astonishment, a neighbour came in to ask if our phone worked.  I told her it did, and asked if her's was out of order.

"Not exactly," she told me.  "My number is now in Jean's house.  And Jean's number is ringing in my house."

Ah.

As more people came into the shop, it became clear that a terrible, terrible thing had happened to our phones.  We all had each others' numbers, but nobody knew who had which, or where they were calling.  I tried calling both our numbers from the shop phone but they just rang endlessly so I gave up.

Once again, BT were called.  Once again I had to agree to give them all my money if the fault was mine.  I explained that at least 12 houses were affected, and that it was most likely that the problem rested with the massive severed cable that had been sellotaped back together inaccurately.

Early on Monday morning, a BT engineer appeared at my house.  I explained the situation at length.

Me:  BT have run line tests and said my phone is fine, but look - there's no dial tone."  My voice might have gone a bit squeaky as I waved the dead handset about.

Engineer:  (backing away slightly) Ok...so...your phone is dead.  And yet we have a good line signal.  (He looked at his electronic handset thingy, then back at my dead phone.)

Me:  YES.  My phone number works, just not in my house!

Engineer: Ok.  I'll get on with this then.  (More fiddling with his tricorder) Ah, your phone is ringing at a Mr Sanders' house.  Do you know him?

Me: (coldly) No.

(He went back out to his van, possibly to have an aspirin.)

An hour or so later, both our phones were working, and we had Internet access once more.  Hurrah.  The engineer stood on the doorstep chatting cheerfully as we said our goodbyes.

Me: And will you be going to all the other houses now to sort them out too?

Engineer:  Um.  What other houses?

I told him about all the neighbours' phone issues, and the phone box.  He was appalled.

Engineer:  I only have two call-outs for today, and neither of them are in this village!

Me:  Well, there are at least a dozen houses with this problem.  And the phone box.

Engineer:  So why haven't they reported them?

Me: No phones! No Internet!  No mobile reception!

When I went to work that afternoon, there was a huge BT cherrypicker truck with a bloke deedily reattaching wires at the top of the phone pole.  It was there quite a while.

In other news, I am now working full-time in the village shop.  I really like it.  There's a shift pattern which suits me well, as you do four days on, two days off, so your days off vary from week to week, and even on the days you work you either have a morning or an afternoon to yourself.

The first couple of late shifts I did were nerve-racking, as you have to lock everything and set alarms and so on, but once I got the hang of it, it was fine.  It's sociable and friendly, and apart from my feet hurting at the end of a shift - there's nowhere to sit for most of the time - I like it very much.  I daresay my feet will adapt.

A customer came in the other day, bought a few bits and pieces, and then gave me a handful of change to pay for it.  As he dropped the money into my hand I realised it was sticky. Very, very sticky.

Me:  Ewww! What's all over this money? Why is it so sticky?

Customer: (who was very, very Welsh)  Oh, sorry love,  That's just orange juice.

Me:  Really.

Customer:  Yeah. Had a bit of an accident in my cab, see.  Sorry about that.

Me:  Orange juice.  Hmmm.

Customer:  Yeah, it is, honest.  Go on! Smell it!

Pleuk.

Oil me up

I was hoping that by now I could be posting photos of the burgeoning Springtime, trees in early leaf, blossoms, tweeting birdies, flowers in the dell, all that stuff.  Instead, it is grey, cold and blowy outside. Also, dear readers, it is cold and grey (but less blowy) inside.

Why?

Because we have managed to run out of oil.  For those of you who live in towns and cities where things are all piped into your homes and you never have to worry about them (except paying the bills) allow me to explain.

Where we live, there are not a lot of mains services.  We have electricity  which does tend to fail at times, plunging the entire village into the Fourteenth Century.  We have running water, although that too has issues sometimes.  We have telephones, and therefore the Internet, thank goodness.  Other than that, we're on our own.

Thus our cooker runs on bottled gas, bought at huge expense, and our central heating and hot water run on oil, also bought at vast expense, stored in a tank in the garden.  When we had the oil tank installed about 12 years ago, we had a sensor fitted.  A little radio/wireless thingy that transmitted to a readout in the kitchen, telling us how much oil was in there. When it got to one bar (much like a mobile phone battery life indicator) you knew it was time to order more oil.  When the one bar started flashing and little icon of an oil pump lit up, you knew it was really time to order more oil, or to start panicking that the oil you had already ordered hadn't arrived yet.

There's always quite a wait. Sometimes three weeks, depending on the oil supplier, the time of year and whether the tanker driver can be arsed to come to our village.  Of course, to add to the complicated nature of this system, you have to shop around, as the price of oil varies considerably from supplier to supplier, so you seldom use the same supplier twice.

Oh, if you're bored with this story, imagine how it feels to have to LIVE it.

Anyhoo.  The oil tank sensor thingy failed last year sometime - the batteries ran out and you have to replace the whole thing, as apparently it's dangerous to dick about with batteries in a tank full of oil.  Cuh.  Lightweights. So, we bought a new one, exactly the same as the old one, and Mr WithaY installed it in the tank.

Fine.

The sensor in the tank worked ok; it told us we had oil.  However, the receiver unit in the kitchen didn't do what it was supposed to.  It flashed up a random and annoying set of bars and icons, and then defiantly went blank.  On referral to the Internet, which as we know is never wrong, it seemed that the unit wasn't set up quite correctly.  Several months of tweaking, resetting and giving up in exasperation followed, leaving us with a receiver unit in the kitchen that was left permanently turned off in disgust, and a sensor in the oil tank which Mr WithaY went to check every so often.

Just before Easter I said "How much oil have we got?"  Mr WithaY went out to check the sensor, and came in to report that we were down to the last bar.  Time to order more.  The tiresome research was done, and the cheapest oil price was obtained, and we placed our order.  They told us it would probably take "up to two weeks" which was fine. We knew from experience that we had enough oil to last a few weeks, as we were only on the last bar, not the flashing "get more oil NOW" icon.

However.  On the Tuesday after Easter, Mr WithaY announced that the boiler had locked up. He went out and checked the tank - physically dipping it, rather than looking at the sensor - and it was empty. The sensor still showed one bar.  Arse.

Since Tuesday last week, therefore, we have had no heating or hot water, as we are still waiting for the oil delivery.  They've taken the money for it - over £500 - but of course we are still at the mercy of their delivery schedules, and they told us how long it was likely to take when we placed the order.

Brrr.

On the plus side, we have an open fire and plenty of logs, so are able to keep the house warm. The dishwasher and washing machine still work perfectly well, it's just getting ourselves washed which is inconvenient.  Thankfully, we have lovely neighbours* who have kindly invited us over to use their shower when we need to.  

Last week also saw the visit of Middle Nephew, who was unphased by the lack of showering facilities, merely complaining that he couldn't do his hair properly.  He declined the offer of a shower at the neighbour's, saying that he'd wait till he got home.  Ah, teenage boys.

Mr WithaY took Middle Nephew out in the Landrover one afternoon.  They managed to get stuck in the mud, and had to walk miles in the snow to a v posh house at the edge of the woods to ask for help.  Fortunately, as so often seems to be the case, the locals were friendly and willing to help; some of them towed the Landrover out of the mud, and they all went to the pub afterwards.  Middle Nephew was unimpressed by this, and decided not to go out in the woods again.

I went to see my lovely Mum at the weekend, as I took Middle Nephew home too, and was able to chill out, have a bath and enjoy a very relaxing visit.  We went out for a drive on Sunday, up onto the Trundle, home of Goodwood Racecourse, where I almost managed to drop my car down a steep incline after misjudging the angle of approach to a car park entrance.  A swift change of plan and a backwards hill-start onto the main road (not recommended, kids!) meant we escaped unscathed  but it was a little alarming.

Oh, that reminds me. There was an impressive car accident in the village the other week.  The road outside our house is remarkably lively, not least because there is a popular pub, a very busy petrol station, and several minor roads all joining it within about quarter of a mile.

One afternoon, a car came trundling down one of these minor roads, and the driver - newly qualified, apparently - didn't realise she was approaching a junction with a major road. She failed to stop, and sailed out into the path of a huge oncoming lorry.  The lorry hit the car, flipped it across the road, through a set of railings and down the pathway into the side of the pub.  Incredibly, nobody was hurt, although apparently the lady in the pub who was sitting on the other side of the wall which the car smashed into didn't stop screaming for some time.

Other news:  Dog still lovely.  Weather still shite, but improving slightly, although that might be my metabolism getting used to the cold, what with the "no heating" thing.  Mr WithaY has been working up at Old Sarum, constructing Neolithic roundhouses as part of an experimental archaeology project.  More on this anon.   Catering stuff still plodding along slowly but surely.  Work still going well.

How are things with you?





*Hello Sarah!

Do Not Press

I've been on Blogiday.

It's like a holiday, but just from blogging.  Obviously all the other many and various on-line communication systems I use were being hammered regularly, but I never quite got round to feeling like writing anything on here.  I blame Twitter.  If it takes more than 140 characters I can't manage it these days.  Attention span of oooh look!  A squirrel!

Anyway. How is everyone? Not been swept away in the floods, or the gale force winds, or the rains of ash and blood we've been having this summer?  Not yet, at least, I hope.

We've been very busy here at WithaY Acres.  Once all the horrible, complicated but not TOO* expensive plumbing issues were finally resolved we were able to get the back garden into some semblance of order again.  There's still a stack of stuff out there which needs to be found a home, but we're definitely winning.  Mr WithaY's new workshop was completed this week, with some very smart custom-made work benches in there, and all the electric sockets any man could ever need, including a massive "don't you touch that red button now, Father Dougal" for his lathe.

Every time I go in there it draws my eye, compelling me to step closer, to reach out one finger and just have a little go. I will press it one day, I just know it.  It's big and red and looks EXACTLY like something from an old sci-fi movie to stop the launch of a spaceship with bare moments to spare.

In my head.

The other end of the garage is now a proper rain-, bird- and mouse-proof pantry, complete with freezer and ample storage for cooking stuff, pots, pans, jars and so on.  It even has a little double-glazed window, which makes it feel like a Wendy house.  We still need to finalise the "moving stuff around and optimising the space" thing - I want all the giant vices and boxes of carpentry tools out, for a start - but we're very nearly there.

Just as well, as I have a visit from the Environmental Health lady from the Council next week.

She's coming to inspect the kitchen, which has recently been registered as somewhere that will be producing food for commercial use - i.e. cooking for other people for money - and as a result our downstairs doors have blossomed with dog-proof gates in the last week.  I've washed the floor more often than ever before, and all the corners that previously housed collections of esoteric kitchenware have been emptied and cleaned out thoroughly.

I've also started my new part time job, which I am enjoying very much indeed.  It fits very handily around the rest of my life, there's a four minute commute (by foot) and the people I work with are lovely.  So, a fine result.

Can I just say that a four-minute commute on foot is about a billion times nicer than a three-hour one involving a car, a train, a bus and the London rush hour?

If I can find another local part-time job (about 15-20 hours per week) I'll be made up.  Until then, I am enjoying having lots of time to spend with Mr WithaY and the dog.

This morning we all went for a long walk.

I took some photos:

Walking up the hill to the woods, admiring the impressive sky.  Hello trees,  Hello clouds.

The woods themselves were dark and pretty muddy. The dog loved it.  She's very good off the lead, and comes back when we call her, which is more than our last one did most of the time.  Someone told me "Labradors are born half-trained, Spaniels die half-trained" which I rather like.

The river, looking just lovely in the sunshine.  There were some swans but they got a bit lairy when they saw me staring at them, so I thought I'd better not try and get a photo in case they broke my iPhone with a single blow of their wing.  They hate the Paparazzi, do swans.

Mr WithaY insisted - INSISTED - that this was a path.  Yes, yes, yes, it really is.  Stop moaning.  Crawl under that log, then just scramble over this bramble thicket, then through the bog and nettle patch.  It's very straightforward.

He and the dog nimbly hopped and pranced off through the greenwood, I lumbered after them, mud dragging at my wellies, nettles lashing my face, brambles snagging my clothes. It was great.

We're so outdoorsy.

He's off for another weekend of Bushcrafting, I am going to work, and to a party, and will chill with the dog. I might even get some sewing started. I bought a load of fabric and patterns the other week, but have yet to cut anything out.  It's my least favourite part of a sewing project, cutting out, especially if I have to cut the pattern out too.  Once it's all cut out I love to get on and sew it all together, but the start of it puts me off.

Plus I will have to make sure the dog can't wander in and lay down to sleep on top of whatever I am doing. She does like to sleep on top of things - my feet, Mr WithaY's feet, a heap of freshly-ironed clothes on the bedroom floor, a carelessly dropped towel - if it's on the floor it will end up with a small black dog snoozing atop it.

The hoover is earning its keep these days, I can tell you.



*Under £500, thankfully.  And they did a good job of tidying up afterwards, too.

Feastival Time

May?  Already?  Gosh, is it really?  I've been so busy with, um, stuff, that I didn't notice.

Ah, I can't lie to you.  It's not true.  I haven't been particularly busy, at least not with anything interesting, or semi-interesting, or even mildly amusing.  My life has evolved into a slow, steady pattern of daily domesticity and occasional semi-inspired creativity in the sewing arena.

Actually, the Sewing Arena sounds like the world's crappiest full-contact game show idea.  Like Gladiators, but with thimbles and rouleau loop hooks.  And an ironing board.  Maybe I'll pitch that idea to Channel 5.

So. What have I been doing to fill my time, other than making frilly flouncy stuff out of fabric?

Well, I have been making a lot of chutney.  That's not a euphemism.  I went to the farmers market again last week, and bought another huge box of tomatoes for a fiver, went halves on a huge box of gorgeous red peppers for another fiver, picked up a dozen brilliantly red chilli peppers for three quid, and bore the whole lot home in a state of high excitement.

I made two more batches of terrifyingly spicy tomato chutney.  Apparently you aren't supposed to eat it for two months after you make it.  We're shovelling it down before it's cold in the jar.  Mr WithaY took some away with him to his bushcraft course last week, and the people there were asking if they could buy it.  Excellent.  He said that things turned ugly and there were almost blows exchanged for the last spoonful in the jar.  He may have been exaggerating, but even so.  Yay me.

I also made Hugh Fearnley-Whatever's recipe for sweet chilli jelly.  Unfortunately, I didn't have proper jam sugar, so it hasn't set into a jelly.  I swore a bit, considered the issue, regrouped, and decanted it into the empty vinegar bottles (washed, of course.)  Hey presto!  Sweet chilli dipping sauce!  And, dear readers, it is delicious.

Yesterday I went to the Shaftesbury Feastival.  Yes, there's a FEAST right there in the name.

I drove out with a mate* to an industrial estate on the edge of Shaftesbury, from whence we took the teeny park and ride bus.  We went via every single municipal car park in North Dorset before finally being disgorged into the marketplace, where this glorious scene greeted us.  Imagine it with a blue sky, and less of a biting wind.  That's not how it was, but it might make you feel more spring-like.

There was an impressive balloon arch, courtesy of the local dairy, who had also provided a life size model cow with real squirting teats that children were being encouraged to milk.  They didn't seem keen, and frankly I can't blame them.

Look children!  It's leaking water into that bucket!  Go and grab it by the rubber udder and have a good old squeeze!

Nuh-uh.

There was a Maypole, complete with white-frocked little girls with flowers in their hair.  It was charming.  They stood there in the Siberian gale, fierce concentration on their faces, clutching the ribbons grimly.  A bloke with a mandolin played folk music, and they skipped around in complex patterns, weaving a pole-long plait.  And then they did it in reverse and un-weaved it, which I found even more impressive.

The thing that appealed to me most was the fact that Shaftesbury has a special Maypole Slot in the street, usually covered with a manhole cover.  Fantastic.  How many other towns have year-round Maypole access when required, eh?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Shaftesbury, there is a gorgeous walkway along the edge of the Abbey walls, with a view across half of Dorset, and that's where the majority of the food stands were sited.

This is the start of the Parade O' Food, and this is the view across the valley in between the stalls.

There was bread, from several local bakeries, but I liked the look of this stall best.  The owner was being very cheeky, offering us his "small soft Italian." I told him I prefer mine larger and firmer, and he said "I get told that every week..."

There was a giant paella...

A whole roast pig....

 Chillies, olives, peppers, capers, garlic and all manner of savoury nibbles......

We saw posters for the upcoming Dorset Knob Throwing contest, which made us laugh immoderately.

In the craft stall area, along the main road, there was this rather excellent hearse, full of vintage handbags.

The local junior schools were selling teas and snacks in the town hall, and as we were walking back through the town to head home, several small children had obviously decided to increase their marketing area, and were standing in the middle of the thoroughfare with trays of food, holding up the crowds, asking people "Wanna buy a sandwich?" which I thought was very entrepreneurial.

So.  A grand day out.  I shall definitely be going along next year.

Other news:  It's been raining almost endlessly for what seems like a month.  My garden is battered flat, but there are strawberries starting to grow in my newly-planted tubs.

I have also applied for a part time job locally, as I am starting to go a bit mental from not being busy enough.  Fingers crossed, eh.





*Hello Jo!

Playing Chicken

I went to my first ever village planning meeting the other week.  Well, I say planning.  It wasn't really.

It was a consultation exercise, chaired (I use the term very guardedly) by the Parish Council, to discuss the planning impact of a proposed new agricultural development a mile or two down the road.  There's a disused chicken  farm, which has been disused for at least four or five years, maybe more; the owners now want to redevelop the land to put a new all-singing, all-dancing chicken farm there.

When I say "all-singing, all-dancing" I don't think that'll be the chickens themselves.  I may be wrong, of course.

Anyway.  The plans said that there would be a large number of lorries travelling through the village (narrow roads, few pavements, already awkward to get through when there are large vehicles coming the other way) which was hotly contested by the increasingly furious village people at the meeting.  There were also concerns around the removal/disposal of "foul waste" - chicken shit, I guess - and presumably dead chickens that failed the assault course and swimwear sections of the final rounds of their training.

The meeting was loud, poorly-managed and grumpy.  Things were not improved by the arrival of the local pretend police at the start of the meeting, sauntering in casually in their stab vests.  Nice touch.  Nothing like some not-really-police-officers arriving in uniform to reassure the disgruntled attendees that things will all be lovely.

So. The upshot of all the ill-tempered arguing was that the people who own the current chicken farm are pretty much adamant that they will be developing their property, and it will be a huge battery "broiler chicken" farm before much longer.

At one point the chap representing the developer said "Well, it's all very well to protest about it, but you all like this sort of chicken!" to which there was a loud, sustained roar of "No we don't!" from the audience.  It was like the world's most middle-class pantomime ever.

I'm not vegetarian, or anything like a vegetarian, but I do buy eggs and meat that are British, free range and locally-reared, preferably from one of the independent butchers we have in town.  I am aware that I am fortunate in being able to make choices based on my personal ethical preferences, rather than price.  It was, however, very amusing to see the look of dismay on the chicken farm owner bloke's face when he realised that most of the people glaring at him were not his target market for two-for-a-fiver chickens.

In other news, I went to the market this morning.  No lemons this time, sadly, but there were bargain tomatoes.  A huge boxful for a fiver, which have been transformed into nine large bags of chopped tomatoes (stashed in the freezer) and four jars of extremely spicy chutney.  I followed a recipe which was called "Spicy Tomato Chutney", but would more accurately be called "Suicidally Hot Tomato Sauce, Eat In Very Small Doses, It Would Help If You Like Mexican Food."

They were lovely, and not one was blemished.  This is about a third of the box.

I also bought a large lump of fresh root ginger and four huge aubergines (for another fiver) which I plan to turn into (respectively) apple and ginger jelly, and a moussaka.

Maybe two moussaka.

Moussaki?

Moussakas?

The weather continues to be shit, with torrential rain and hail at regular intervals.  Today it's windy as well, just for some exciting variety.

Last week, while Mr WithaY was away, I went through a bit of a miserable episode, mostly my own fault for not going out and doing stuff.  I was busy with some sewing work - proper for-someone-else sewing - and thus ended up not leaving the house (or garden) for about three days, and by the time I realised why I was miserable, I was really miserable.  I self-medicated with chocolate and Futurama, and made a full recovery, you'll be glad to hear.

I also made a determined effort to get on with some of the boring housekeeping jobs which I have been putting off for ages.  I have a voice in my head which says "You might as well do the ironing, you're already grumpy," and I tend to listen to it.

So, with a zesty spring in my step, and my sleeves rolled up purposefully, I took the arm caps off the big sofa and handwashed them.  This was by way of a test, as they have labels saying "Dry Clean Only", but I wanted to find out if they would fall apart, bleed colour or shrink to buggery if they were immersed in water.

You'll be relieved to know that they didn't collapse into threads, lose all their colour or turn into jaunty egg cosies, so I stepped things up and put the actual sofa covers into the washing machine, with a devil-may-care attitude.

That's how I roll.  Like a 1930s housewife, with a bad-ass attitude and a Dyson.

Wrestling the covers back onto the cushions took longer than it should have, and would probably have been a prizewinning video clip on You've Been Framed, had I had the foresight to film myself doing it.

Which reminds me.  The other week, before the weather went all shitty, I was out in the back garden, pegging out some washing.  In a bizarre Norman-Wisdom-esque sequence of events, I managed to get my glasses caught on the rotary washing line as I was turning it round, half dragging me along, before flicking my specs into the currant bushes.

You couldn't make it up.

Contains nuts

We're in the middle of a spell of glorious Spring weather here, sunshine, clear blue skies, chilly evenings which make the warm day feel even better.  Marvellous.  It's lovely to sit in the garden with a cup of tea, watching the bees and butterflies doing their thing in among the flowers.

hello tree. hello sky. hello clouds.  all are full of joy in the springtime.

This is my little herb garden where I sit in the afternoons and drink tea.  It's very pretty, in a "things in pots" kind of way, I think.  The sad squished looking things in the smallest pot are oriental poppies which I am trying to grow from seeds which I saved from the one that flowers in the garden already.  They don't seem very happy.

This weekend we planted more stuff - I know, I know - including some sage plants, half a dozen sweet pea plants, a new climbing rose bush and a dozen little lavender plants.  I have decided that I will try to do more rose and lavender flower-drying this summer, weather permitting.

Also at the weekend, it was the grand Cake and Craft and All Kinds of Other Stuff Event in the village hall.  There were a few of us there with stalls, ready to sell our various wares to the clamouring public. There was a HUGE cake sale, with dozens of different cakes available, as well as cakes you could buy just a slice of to have with a cup of tea and a chat with your neighbours.  I'd like to point out that my coffee and walnut sponge cake went very quickly.  Yes, it was THAT popular.

Unlike my Clementine and almond cupcakes which paled into insignificance next to the gorgeously glittery decorated cupcake offerings of the village yummy mummies.

The event was very successful.  Dozens and dozens of people came along, everyone seemed to be either eating cake or carrying round cakes to eat later, and we raised a good chunk of money for Sport Relief, which was the aim of the exercise after all.

The village hall looked very cheerful and festive with all the bunting.  I took this before the start, hence the lack of people.

And, best of all (for me, anyway) I sold a few things from my little craft stall.  I chatted to people, I saw neighbours I haven't seen in ages, and I picked up one or two commissions for later on in the Spring, so a good afternoon all round.

Mr WithaY and I celebrated that evening by buying a Chinese takeaway with my profits.  We'll never be rich, but we will be full of Chinese food.

Oh, and I won the raffle.  Twice!  I have been taken to task* for accepting two raffle prizes, but my reasoning is that if I have bought 25 tickets, statistically I am likely to win more than once.  I therefore feel justified in accepting two prizes.

Had I won a third time, I would have been gracious and said "No, no, no, please...put my ticket in the bin and let someone else have a turn."  But two prizes? All mine.

Mwahahahahahaaaaaa.

Anyway, one of the prizes was a big box of chocolates.  Like I'd have abandoned that.

Is there a formal laid-down raffle prize etiquette anywhere?

One of the other raffle prizes was this:

A Gruffalo cake!  Brilliant.

In other news, at the garden centre where I bought my new climbing rose and the lavender plants, they had some slightly mental moss rabbits for sale.

Look at the eyes of the one on the right!  He's clearly crazed and dangerous.  He'd be carving his way out of the garden with a trowel before you knew what had hit you, I reckon.  Brrr.

I do like the garden centre.  You can get pretty much anything you want, as long as what you want is deranged.

A giant metal cockerel, standing 6 feet high?  Check.

Paving slabs with artistic interpretations of fish embedded within them? Check.

A statue of Atlas, supporting the world on his mighty stone shoulders?  Check.

Frantic whirling plastic solar-driven butterflies, to strike terror into the heart of any pet? Check.

A solemn Aslan-type stone lion, looking mournfully at you from across the yard?  Check.

Dozens of ornaments made from cutlery?  Check.

Plus they have an aquatic centre where you can buy tropical fish, or marine fish, or snakes, or this...a rain forest in a box.

There's a tiny pond at the base with fish swimming, and then above that there's steamy, foggy mini-jungle with little frogs in.  Brilliant.

In other, other news, I had a go at making peanut butter last week. Why, dear readers, did I decide to do that?  Fucked if I know.

For some reason it seemed like a good idea, and we all know how those ideas generally work out, don't we?  I bought several pounds of shelled (but not skinned, crucially) peanuts and searched out some recipes on the Internet, which, as we also know, never lies.

I roasted the peanuts, and then realised with a cold horror that I had to get all the red skin off them.  Fuck.  That took three hours, and left me with blisters on my thumbs.  Then it was time to put the shelled and skinned peanuts into the food processor.  Well, in fact, as I discovered when I re-checked the recipe, you are supposed to put them into the blender.  I, however, failed to clarify this small but telling detail, and spent 45 minutes watching a pale yellow concrete-like substance forming with painful slowness.

I added peanut oil, as some of the recipes suggested, which didn't seem to help.  I re-checked the original recipe I had used and realised I ought to be using the blender.

Coaxing the thick, gritty, warm peanut-crete out of the food processor and into the blender with a flexible spatula is a memory which will stay with me a while.

Once I started it blending, however, the texture changed quickly to something almost peanut-buttery, and I was greatly cheered.  I tested it, added a dash of salt and a spoonful of honey, an then whizzed it for a bit longer.  It was clumping together around the blades at the bottom of the goblet, so I poked it with my spatula and then turned the blender all the way up to eleven.

Readers, it did its best.  It tried.  It really did.

There was a sudden strong smell of burning, then smoke poured out of the motor.  I turned it off at the wall socket and removed the blender goblet.  Mr WithaY (who had been popping into the kitchen at hourly intervals to ask "how's it going?" before laughing uproariously at my crap peanut butter-making) manfully carried it out into the garden in case it went up in flames.

We left it out there for an hour to think about what it had done.

I decanted the peanut butter into jars.  It's paler than the shop-bought stuff but actually tastes rather good.

I won't be making it again, I think, though.







*Hello Laurie!

Sacked

It's been a busy day here.  In preparation for the Grand Cake Etcetera Sale tomorrow I have been baking.  I made a shitload of clementine and chocolate cupcakes (yes, that is the correct unit of measurement, ask a baker) and a coffee and walnut sandwich sponge which looks rather good.

I have also been finishing off the bits and pieces I will be offering for sale to a discerning public.

Look:

They are (pics from top to bottom)
1) Small, medium and large hearts filled with dried rose petals that I harvested from the garden and dried last summer.
2) Cushions. 2 matching, one individual.
3) Bunting.  Bloody yards of it.
4) More fabric hearts, these ones stuffed with, well, stuffing.

I have also made some pretty mini memo boards, along the lines of the ones I made earlier, but much smaller, designed to stand on a mantelpiece or shelf.

Oh, and some bookmarks, which I really like.

In other news, I looked out of the window into the back garden this afternoon and this is the sight that greeted me:

Our apple tree, festooned in hessian sacks.

I looked at it for a while, my jaw sagging open unappealing, then went to find Mr WithaY.

The scene:  A domestic garage, lit by bright afternoon sunshine.

Me:  Just.....why?

Mr WithaY: (without even looking up from his manly garage-sorting task) To dry them out.

Fin.