This is the most common view for writing a blog. Out of screen are a cup of tea, a notebook, a pile of clean washing, a Filofax ( oh yes I said Filofax ) and a lap top. All fairly normal dining room table flotsam and jetsam in a world that features working from home, Zoom meetings and family that live thousands of miles away. We are in mid April now and ten months into living in a house with a yard and not a garden. Container gardening is our new way of creating a green space. In the dark months of winter the plants in this view are decorated with fairy lights in an attempt to bring light into our lives through the french windows. Container growing has been largely a success, one moving casualty and one new plant that didnt make it through the winter. This morning I was struck by the random colour pairings that container planting creates. I had a bit of a spring move around earlier in the week. We have been much more succesful growing tulips in containers. Purple Sage and fancy tulips are not something we would have planned, but this pairing is lovely.
I can only assume that our yard has less wildlife than our country garden. One of our autumn pumpkins has just about survived the winter, in our garden pumpkins were devoured before firework night most years. A beautiful, almost black tulip bent forward after heavy rain causing this wonderful colour combination. Yardening is going to suit us very well.
Our hearts and minds bend towards supporting independent businesses wherever possible, even on long car journeys. Our bladders however have no idea about sticking to independent trading. All was well initially, yesterday, and we made it to Teals Farm, a fabulous independent stop on a busy road, the A303. Bladders, heads and hearts all satisfied with the destination.
Our breakfast needy stomachs were not so satisfied, we arrived just 4 minutes after breakfasts stopped being served. So we had to be happy with take out, and looking at the farm shop goodies. I picked out the eponymous teal coloured items for the pictures above. We were only, actually, prompted to spend money on blood oranges, which were delicious and colourful, better for us than the delicious and colourful chocolate that we managed to swerve.
The trouble is that one stop inevitably leads to another and when the coffee had worked its magic on our bladders there was no independent company on the A303 horizon. Starbucks could, however, confirm to the slight colour theme of this blog.
Bladders happy, if not our moral compass we set off for the shortish journey home. Two huge cups of tea in hand. All well and good you might think but fate had other ideas. Two badly behaved dogs had escaped onto the A38 causing traffic to stop for a very long time. Tea like coffee has only one place to go eventually, causing another big chain business stop, once we were eventually on the move again.
The moral of this blog is that we might like to think we choose to use independent companies whenever possible but it is our bladders that call the shots and they have no qualms about using big business. What is a body to do?
Still following a pair of brown and white bottoms but considerably larger than the brown and white bottoms of Hugo and Lola. Who, this morning, were taking sleep very seriously.
Unlike yesterday all our adventures are rural, traipsing the Commons and sampling the pubs of Wimbledon and Putney. This Mandarin duck was an early highlight.
We also took some time out to explore Putney Vale Cemetery. One of London’s ‘ great’ cemeteries. This time the highlight was not the great, gothic, architecture but actually the current burial grounds. The last resting place of multicultural Londoners, has a joyous mix of the ways people of different ethnicities, religions or heritages mark the passing of loved ones. Out of respect I took no photos but if you are ever in London the huge 19 th Century cemeteries are strangely life affirming, and the twenty first century areas are every bit as interesting as the old bits. So much love shared in a public space
There was a small drama to our day, a lost pair of reading glasses. With diligence and back tracking they were found at the very beginning of the days adventure. Wimbledon Windmill.
Serendipity plays a huge part in these daily blogs. Serendipity gave us some free time on Saturday when we were close to our London home villages of Dulwich Village and Crystal Palace. Proper journalists are writing about Crystal Palace this weekend because it has been voted the best place in London to live. We do not disagree, and for us Dulwich Village is a close second. Below are two links to proper writers singing the praises of CP.
The funny thing is that the dogs love being back ‘home’ too. So this blog is a little bit about a dogs view and a little bit about things the journalists didn’t mention.
Starting with Dulwich. Morning is not morning without coffee and a cheese straw from Gails.
The cheese straw is a snack for dogs and humans. It gives us all strength and energy for visiting interiors shops.
Before a walk to the Dulwich Picture Gallery where the dogs can really appreciate Contemporary sculpture from Peter Randall-Page, titled Walking the Dog. The dogs and us have a good bit of history with this place the dogs love the sniffs and @theoldmortuary has exhibited here too.
Hugo with an artistic poo.Lola with an artistic poo
On our way out we found a lovely complicated image.
Painted scaffolding boards behind an over wintering Beech hedge.
Next stop Crystal Palace.
More interiors shopping, Crystal Palace is known for its Independent imaginative shops and a thriving antiques and second hand trading vibe. We found some antique ceramic finger plates and some lovely coat hooks that look like Tom Daley executing a perfect Olympic dive. All for a fraction of the cost if we bought new or from on-line retailers. The pictures below are fancy glass in bright sunshine.
Second interiors shop of the day and both dogs were still enthusiastic.
Crystal Palace shopping was fueled by a Roti Brothers Vegetarian burger and their signature Rosemary Chips. Sitting beneath some fabulous street art.
Hugo and Lola basked while humans refuelled.
Our whistle stop tour of old haunts over, there was just enough time to collect some Portuguese baked goods and continue on with our journey
But not before recognising that the original village still makes a mark in this street names of this South London suburb.
HMS Portland sailed past some bobbers yesterday, the crew and the bobbers waved excitedly because for some reason it seems rude not to acknowledge one another in relatively close proximity. It was a very chilly swim, but it was probably quite cold standing on deck and waving, so both sides may have welcomed the extra exercise.
Our winter eyebrow growth was removed yesterday all wandering upper facial hair either removed or gathered tidily into graceful arches which can be risen or lowered as situations require. Who could have guessed that ten minutes after this pastoral scene the eyebrows were raised because of the weather.
We were on the A303 near Stonehenge and there was the usual traffic queue, so we took a usual detour via Shrewton to avoid the standstill. Just as we approached the Stonehenge car park black clouds descended and snow was dumped on us.
Not what we expected at all. Newly coiffed eyebrows were raised. Getting that cold twice in one day is not acceptable in April. Traffic jam avoided we carried on our journey. Returning to sunshine remarkably quickly.
Planning a bob got a little easier last night. Miss Spearmint the over friendly seal was transported away from Plymouth Sound. Unusually for a seal she craved human company. The Bobbers knew not to swim if she was spotted anywhere near our chosen swimming beach. Checking her whereabouts on a local WhatsApp group became the fourth thing to check when a bob was called.
Tide✓ Weather✓Daylight✓ Seal✓
We were really diligent but despite our best efforts we sometimes had to abandon a bob when she casually swam up and joined us. Other people despite plenty of information locally were not so thoughtful and deliberately interacted with her or fed her, something she seemed to love but that was not good for her.
Earlier this week she took her love of humans to a new level and pulled herself into a small village and chose to take her daily nap under a lorry. For her own safety she will be relocated, again. We can only imagine her reaction when she was told.
Bobbers are going to miss her. Had we known she was going, she could have had one of our special waves.
Every picture tells a story. This picture however tells two stories, one a simple story of making and the other, the story of the consequence.
For some time I have tried to be more sustainable in my painting and creating world. I no longer buy new canvasses to paint on but rely on finding donated canvasses at charity shops. Where possible I buy my paints from independent manufacturers. Similarly I like to get all my fabric and haberdashery requirements from our local Scrap Store where all sorts of things are directed away from landfill and sold at very very low prices for upcycling or repurposing projects.
The picture above is of some rustic bunting that I have wanted to make for a little while. This is the second attempt. Last week I picked up some fabric from the Scrap store, it appeared to have a plastic backing which seemed a good idea for bunting. This is the second story.
I always wash anything I get from the scrap store, where possible. A plastic backing did not seem a reason not to wash the fabric.
Towards the end of the wash cycle the washing machine had an error code that suggested the washing machine was failing to drain. Youtube told me how to clear the problem. Nothing I did, though, could undo the machines filter. More YouTubing took me to places way beyond my strength or competency so I rang a local washing machine repair company who gave me an appointment in a few days time. Once more on YouTube I learned how to drain the water out of the machine and open the door to get the fabric out. In horror I discovered that the plastic backing of my recycled fabric had in fact been a complex and glossy paper backing which was now a glorious gloop of papier maché in the bottom of my washing machine. I feared the worst and felt quite sweaty about the cost implications of washing exceedingly beautiful but cheap fabric in the best washing machine German engineering can provide.
Complete honesty was the only way to approach the engineer and his apprentice on their arrival. They seemed a little surprised but not particularly concerned. Twenty minutes later they emerged with a tiny quantity of papier maché and a bent and tarnished twenty pence piece. The machine was well on its way through a normal cycle.
German engineering can cope with papier mache but not, it seems with a twenty pence coin trapped in the filter.
Finding the twenty pence piece cost me £45. I still have to wash all those pieces of fabric to remove the thousands of particles of paper off them. This time by hand, I have no wish to see error E18 again even if the machine has proved it can cope. My bunting is made with unwashed fabric, another hand washing project for later in the week.
I’ve saved nearly three kilogrammes of fabric from landfill in a week. This does not feel as virtuous as it should! So far even the twenty pence is out to vex me. Every parking machine, so far has rejected it, and handing it over in a shop will just look as if I am trying to pass over an archaeological find rather than legal tender.
For the last few weeks I have been involved in a Wordle Whatsapp group. It involves a group of people connected with a fiftieth birthday party that I went to in Pangbourne. It must be a sign of age that the only significant thing I don’t remember from the party is talking about Wordle. Perhaps even more important is that it appears to be an early morning WordleWhatsapp so I wake up already under pressure from the really early birds.
Now my early mornings have so many possible starts. Dog Walk? Blog? Wordle? Shower? Breakfast? Book? Staying awake beyond midnight gives me the chance to Wordle or Blog before most people are about, but me and midnight are not as well acquainted as we used to be since I swapped NHS life for that of Museums and Art.
All the interiors or fashion magazines mention Wordle Green as a key colour this year.
I’m not convinced, myself, that I could wear Wordle Green or live with too much of it. But some of my favourite colours are greens. When the sun is out in April it makes greens especially vivid. So taking my queue from recent style magazines I’m going to feature some almost Wordle Greens for the end of this pondering
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Plymouth to Gunnislake railway journey. Bright shafts of sunlight hit overgrown hedges along the track . April 2021Inherited 1970’s coloured glass tumblers sitting in the sun waiting to be packed for a house move. April 2021Easter painting from our Grandchild in Hong Kong . April 2021Seaweed in the tidal pool at Firestone Bay. April 2021Old door near the Cremyl Ferry. Stonehouse Peninsular. April 2021
All the dates on these pictures predate Wordle Green by a year. If only I were published by the New York Times, the hot new colour on the block could have been…
Some days should be celebrated for their ‘ normalness’. Lola has returned to her pre-surgery, happy, self so the dog world, in our house, has returned to near normal. In the outside world, we had a day that was really very similar to pre-pandemic life. We said goodbye to some friends heading off for some prolonged travelling and I went to an in-person bookclub where 90% of the members attended with no-one away with Covid. The only person who couldn’t attend couldn’t come because she was too busy elsewhere. These may be really mundane observations on the activities of a day but the fact that they are so normal is spectacularly exciting. Near normal days have been almost impossible for more than two years. Normal is really rather lovely. A normal day ended with a beautiful, but normal for here, sunset. Pretty much a perfect day.
This blog owes its very existence to normal life, however dull that may be. Normal life is going on around me, but 5 weeks after getting a really nasty virus, that constantly tested negative for Covid, I am just about back to normal. But without any sense of taste or smell. Possibly a sign that I did actually have Covid but never actually trapped it on a Lateral Flow Test. Curiously this really does impact my life. Yesterday I spent ages at a food market with not a glimmer of greed for anything that was on offer. Who actually knew that taste and smell are such a huge part of how we judge our surroundings. I suppose this is a warning to you all that I may mention this subject more than once in these blogs. It looms larger in my life than you might imagine.The early weeks of my impediment were spent bullying my taste buds back into action with chilli, mustard and horseradish. It didnt really work on the taste buds, but my blocked sinuses are wonderfully clear now, beautiful echo chambers in my face. My sense of taste and smell can fleetingly return, but only for a few seconds,it isn’t always an accurate flavour of what I am eating either,but after thirty seconds of the same stimulation and all my sensors switch off and I am left enjoying, or not, the texture of what I am eating with nothing else going on. I have two main flavour sensations, everything else is hit or miss. The first called ‘Burning Galleon’ and illustrated by the drawing above of a wooden ship. Burning Galleon happens whenever there is smoke in the air. I love the smell of Burning Galleon, a gorgeous mix of woodsmoke and tar, but it is hugely indiscriminate and can cover a bonfire, barbeque, cigarette or spliff but for a few, brief, seconds my nose lifts into the breeze to capture the passing sensation. The other flavour sensation is “Lemon Disgusting’, so called because I use the flavours below at such intense levels that normal people would wince just having a tiny taste.
I am superbly fortunate that I only get one horrific flavour and that is the ripest manure imaginable. It occurs only where vegan cheese puts in an appearance anywhere near me.
5 weeks on I’m in an eating and drinking no mans land. Living for the first few seconds of food and drink, desperate for clashing textures. Aware that only the first few mouthfuls have any credibility or true value. Constantly leaving mugs of tea undrunk.
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