Sticking my neck out I would suggest that Spring has arrived on the Stonehouse Peninsula. Three days of sunshine but the temperature and wind are nothing like Springy enough yet.
The strong breeze certainly took my Giraffe off his feet for every one of his morning poses.
This one had him tumbling into a rockpool. But in clambering down to retrieve him I found a sheltered sun trap, where we could bask and harvest vitamin D for a few minutes.
Sticking my neck out predicting the arrival of actual Spring might come back to bite me on the bum tomorrow. The current ten day forecast has not a single drop of rain illustrated. So for now that is good enough
Drinking a cup of tea in the place where the tea was grown and harvested was a unique experience yesterday.
Tea Drinkers at Tregothnan
Tregothnan tea used to be a treat when we lived in London. Swanky afternoon teas were sometimes unavoidable. Some swanky places served shockingly bad afternoon teas and some swanky places were shockingly bad at serving good afternoon teas. But if the actual tea served was Tregothnan then the tea at least was of a fabulous standard.*
Odd then that it took us until yesterday to visit the Tregothnan Estate to drink a cup of tea with zero air miles. 11,000 steps in a beautiful Spring Garden in Springlike weather felt like just the right level of exercise to work up a thirst.
In the Pink
*Today’s ponder,triggered by a good cup of tea, ponders the oddest afternoon tea ever. We were at a hotel opposite the BBC’s headquarters in Langam Place, London on a very dull winter Saturday. We were there to celebrate two birthdays with some new friends. Close to where two of us worked. Afternoon Tea service was in full swing, maybe even exceptional full swing. We had ordered Tregothnan Tea, but that was about as fancy as our order got. Our waiter was rather too attentive, but not fully concentrating. My work colleague, Mark, was twinkling a little. An enormous Birthday Cake was circling the room, the room swelling, with that somewhat difficult to sing birthday melody. The cake circled the room twice, nobody owned up to the birthday or the cake. In a flourish our waiter called the cake over to our table, we had birthday cards opened. So he came up with a plan. The cake was delivered to our table, we were told to pretend it was for us. Four slices were served and apparently we then generously donated the rest to other diners who might want to share it.
When we went to pay our bill we pointed out again that the cake was not ours. Apparently it had been sent out during the wrong afternoon tea session. The whole room benefited from the error, Mark’s twinkling had just alerted the staff to birthday cards on our table where the cake could be delivered, masking the error. What happened at the session when the cake should have been delivered is anybody’s guess. It was not the sort of cake that could be whisked up in a moment or any number of moments. It was not Colin the Caterpillar.
Yesterday I was seeking some quiet perfection at the Tennis Club. Quiet perfection was not available. The club was overrun by feral children and some minor but sensible rules were being broken. But as I left, this beautiful Calla Arum Lily caught my eye.
On top of the feral children and minor rule breaking there had also been some mansplaining, which can irritate the tits off most women.
So not only was I not particularly relaxed but I was mentally very flat chested.
The day was not lost though, I discovered a new- to-me word.
In fact, as luck would have it, the father of some of the feral children had adopted a braggadocious tone when I remonstrated with one of the children who was climbing on the roof of the clubhouse.
” Oh don’t worry about that” he said braggadociously.
“They do far more dangerous things elsewhere”
Perfection
Perfection is not always what you seek but what is delivered to you.
I suspect my face may have not hidden all of my thoughts on his comment.
Moments later he offered me a cold slice of his left over Pizza.
Another greige day and an early morning soaking for me and Lola.
Greige weather and chores/ domestic admin does not a wholly exciting day make.
A series of rearranged appointments gave me a schedule that a Kardashian might be proud of. Kardashians exist in the periphery of my knowledge base. I am sure they are many interesting things but High Maintenance Women would be #1 in my fact list about then.
Yesterday all my chores required me to be entirely present.
Mindful of my speed awareness course* last week I knew that only optimal time management could enable me to be in the right place at the right time for the three time sensitive appointments of the day.
The first one was already on rocky ground after the early morning soaking which required a change of clothes.
*By identifying the cause of my speeding as squeezing too much into a day.
Let me be honest, a manicure, lung function tests and a haircut all within a 6 mile radius are not exactly the stuff of great jeopardy. But I really dislike being late or missing appointments.
I imagine a Kardashian might have a driver and a PA who could mitigate the rush involved with a cluster of appointments.
Mine just clustered, and until last week and a hundred pounds fine, I wouldn’t have worried over much.
As it happened all went like clockwork.
But I was somewhat late for the lung function test. 50 years late!
Digital record keeping and Digital native medical staff have everything actually at their finger tips.
Analogue records are a little more archaic.
In asking who prescribed my Asthma inhaler you might expect a fairly swift response. But I was trawling the names of a lifetime of G.P’s.
The selection of timescale tick boxes also didn’t stretch to 50 years .
Most importantly though I didn’t speed to catch up.
But there is something in common with my asthma diagnosis and last weeks Speed awareness course. It was also 50 years since I have actually read the Highway code.
I have a bit of catching up to do. Within the speed limit of course.
What a greige day! Greige Day activities are damp dog walks, mindless domestica , working from home admin. Reading a good chunk of the freshly collected bookclub book and a little photo manipulation to the above image. Despite the greigeness of the day Firestone Bay near to the tidal pool was filled with the joyful sounds of a Sri Lankan New Year party carrying on nearby with no concern for the glumness of the weather.
If I add the joyful sounds and happiness floating over the pool the whole image takes on a different atmosphere.
However if I add the feeling of the absolute drama of the drenching that Lola and I endured on our second walk of the day then things look different again.
Greige, it is not what it is but what you make of it.
Bluebells this morning just because. Today is post book club. 2026 has been a year for challenging book club reading. Not that reading always has to be easy, but grey winter months need some light and book club reading has not provided that this year. However challenging books create great book club conversations, which is exactly what we had yesterday. But this morning just the first chapter of the new book makes me feel very optimistic that I am in for a really enjoyable read in April. Which is fabulous because all my ordered library books are on a waiting list and my Christmas book pile has just been exhausted.
First world problems in a problematic world. But books are where I escape. Bluebells are good for that too.
One of our favourite walks is around the Mount Batten Peninsula. Although the humans love a cafe stop, Lola is obsessed by them. Our walks at Mount Batten are timed to fit in with life, chores and the weather. In winter the cafe that Lola favours operates on restricted opening hours. But Easter has come and gone and they have increased their opening hours. For the first time in months our walk and the cafe being open coincided. In this photo Lola has taken full possession of a dog blanket and has the look of a woman who will not be leaving any time soon. She appears to have forgotten that the title of the event is actually a dog walk.
Purely for vanity I am sharing one of last summers hybrid photographs from Mount Batten. A sailing ship moored up just beyond the camper van.
View from Mount Batten
Lola may think she is hard done by if the cafe is closed but she is never without some degree of comfort on her trips to Mount Batten.
Yesterday did not go to plan, our proposed destination was packed with holiday makers and festival goers squeezing the last moments out of the school Easter Holidays.
Luckily a chance conversation with a patient earlier in the week took us to a nearby beach that was much quieter.But also deeply surreal as the sea had turned the colour of red wine and was stormily bubbling like a cauldren. An earlier clifffall had turned the sea into a mass of red water with pink surf. If staring out to sea is mesmeric at the best of times then yesterday it was 10 times more spellbinding.
Nothing felt quite as it should. Funny how a colour change was quite so discombobulating. Especially when the sun was shining brightly.
It was however freezing. Even water like wine could not keep us long on the beach but even the Otter river estuary kept up the other worldliness. Particularly the remnants of old Lime Kilns tumbling into or being isolated by the flow of the river.
Possibly the most bonkers tulips we have ever grown. A squirming and outrageous cousin to the prim creatures of my still life studies.
In a week where Spring has tentatively sprung these tulips have been slow to reveal their quirk.
But every phase has kept me interested. I realise these tulips would not be to everyone’s taste but I love their unpredictability and resilience. They have survived the wettest winter on record on Stonehouse Peninsular. They are slightly Rhubarbian in colour which also pleases me. In a fantasy planting scheme they could peek out through early rhubarb leaves.
Not in their current location however as the Parrot Tulips are growing in a prime spot on our street for larger dogs to wee on them. These are strictly look but don’t touch blooms.
The blog I should have written yesterday. I have been an urban bad person, driving 24mph in a 20mph zone. Unknowingly until a brown letter dropped through my door. £100 fine and either mandatory attendance at a Speed Awareness Course or 2 points on my licence.
I accepted the course either on-line or in person. On-line bookings were not being accepted so I opted to attend a city hotel 5 miles away. The booking that appeared when I clicked Plymouth, was a remote golf club in Launceston, a small Cornish town more than an hour away.
And then the chicken story of yesterday got in the way. The ear worm of The Janner Song became my in car entertainment as I drove through miles of beautiful Cornish Countryside in glorious sunshine.
West Country accents shift and change as the geography of Devon and Cornwall change.
As I sat in the front of the classroom I could easily pick up the distinctive Plymouth accent from quite a few course attenders who, like me had been relocated ” down Cornwall”
Every time a “Proper Job” Plymothian spoke my head played a few seconds of the Janner Song.
Well, in England’s South West is the
county that’s best,
full of rolling green hills and a coast
that’s been blessed.
And inside of the Sound lie the three
Plymouth towns,
where everyone’s known as a Janner.
Janners, Janners,
down in Plymouth we’re all known as
Janners.
And our own footballteam Plymouth Argyle
supreme
are the finest this beautiful county has
seen.
Every player of every nationality,
when they pull the green they’re all
Janners.
Janners, Janners,
down in Plymouth we’re all known as
Janners.
So, there was our song, we didn’t keep you
too long,
now you all know just one word of
West-Country slang.
And while there’s meat on me bones, I hope
I’ll always be known
as a typical Plymouth grown Janner.
Janners, Janners,
down in Plymouth we’re all known as
Janners.
Janners, Janners,
down in Plymouth we’re all known as
Janners.
The Janner Song by the Sensational Baret Brothers.
I blame the chickens.
There was an irony to attending a speed awareness course in deepest Cornwall when, for many of us, our misdeeds took place within Jannerland City Limits.
These were two of the roads I drove down to get home.
Not a chance of reoffending.
Cornwall Road on the South Bank of the Thames, London
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