Coming up for air

“At last, six hours undisturbed sleep and I feel myself rising from the deep to draw breath. Astonishing the difference it makes. I am feeling, incongruously, rather like Bambi, wobbly in the legs but with a mind to skip.” So I typed deliriously on the sunny morning after Keith’s birthday bash. Alas, events intruded andContinue reading “Coming up for air”

Someone left the cake out in the rain

The drear mirk continues, with intermittent flashes of sun. This, combined with a rather crippling and persistent bout of insomnia, has me distinctly frayed at the edges. Life rolls on much as ever, the vicissitudes and irritations are neither better nor worse than usual, but the energy to shrug things off and scope to deflectContinue reading “Someone left the cake out in the rain”

Mad March

I’ve been tied up with all manner of “stuff” of late and somehow March has slipped through my fingers. A catch up is well overdue and a combination of truly miserable weather and the blissful peace of an empty house (I have been largely deserted for various holidays, meetings, lectures and what have you) meansContinue reading “Mad March”

CARPE DIEM

Today I confronted mortality at close range. I had positively creaked out of bed with every muscle thrumming most unpleasantly, the inexorable after effect of two days of compost barrowing. Thinking that a few gentle pilates stretches would likely do the business I did the hamstring thing and limbered up to see if there wasContinue reading “CARPE DIEM”

Perking up

The last few days have brought a speck of sun and it has driven the weeks of mud right out of my head. I look around at the green spears of emerging buds and tiny pulmonaria flowers straining up to enjoy a little warmth and wonder why on earth I’ve not weeded all the bordersContinue reading “Perking up”

Hunkering Down

The weather is raw today and, basking in the virtuous glow of having got up early and gone to pilates in the village with Mum, I am now hunkered down in the library, log burner stoked, for the foreseeable. There have been rather too many similar days of late for my liking, and my moral fibreContinue reading “Hunkering Down”

And so it begins..

Gardening proper has started. Just a little bit, but definitely started. Keith and Mum have taken on the orchard pruning. It is like a scene from the operating theatre in General Hospital. Dr Keith surveys the patient then decisively calls out “Loppers”. Nurse Granny passes them up and stands by to mop up twigs. I would be a most unsatisfactory standContinue reading “And so it begins..”

Softly Softly

To my drilled nose (healing nicely thank you – really not that bad at all, just a lingering sore throat and strange “dangly” sensation like a tonsil trying to escape) we must add Keith’s extracted tooth. It is now incumbent on Mum to bite her tongue whilst Lachlan pokes a finger in his eye for theContinue reading “Softly Softly”

A Christmas bouquet

Well Christmas is done and dusted and I am now firmly in harness for the New Year celebrations. We had two, delightful, “leftover days” when the denizens of Ruthven had to fend for themselves and I lolled on the sofa with an audio book and a plate of bijou snacks but those days of hedonism areContinue reading “A Christmas bouquet”

The Zen of the Last Post

With the passing of the last sensible posting date and the annual Christmas party (when a few by-hands can be made) there comes, a brief period of seasonal zen. What could be done has been done and what could not be done can always be added to the list of interesting projects for next year. The finalContinue reading “The Zen of the Last Post”