Talk about idyllic

The level crossing at Thatcham was closed this afternoon (Why, on a bank holiday weekend on Saturday I can't imagine) so I had to detour widely on my way home. Passed a local farm park and got a treat. Full evening sunlight and all.
It would seem that the latest lounging gear for deer includes a rook and a pigeon. Or maybe it's massage and manicure day.

A bit of armchair philosophy on vengeance, love and truth.

Brung up, as I was, a good (though often puzzled and resentful) Roman Catholic, and having since eschewed religion as being rather silly really (though a great comfort to many believers), there are one or two things I was taught which still seem to make sense in the real world.

1. Vengeance is mine said the lord. To start with, this has a splendid ring about it and is therefore easy to remember. And though I don’t believe in the lord, I’m quite certain vengeance isn’t mine. In fact I don’t hold with it at all. I think vengeance leads to feuds and star-crossed lovers and broken friendships and destroyed families. Sad confused children. Bitter, lonely, old people. And of course war. So it’s a bad thing. An eye for an eye sounds nice and simple but seems to lead inevitably to the loss of more eyes than the human race can stand to lose, and to very little gain.

2. Love thy neighbour as thyself. Since myself is a creature I sometimes quite like and sometime loathe and despise this is easy.
Obviously this means something along the lines of providing tea, lifts and a friendly ear as required as well as Aid, helicopters and refuge. But also it seems to me to mean exercise tolerance, root out bigotry and stamp on prejudice….no no no, not theirs - mine, yours, ours. Something about digging out the mote in your own eye first.
3. Truth. (I can’t remember any suitably ringing biblical quotes on this one but it’s a good, strong, word anyway)
I don’t say we should always tell it but I think we should always know if we are telling it or whether we are in fact embroidering a bit. Whether we missed a bit out. Whether we coloured it to show a slightly different picture than we really saw. Should try and know what we are trying to do with it.
We should be really careful of saying this is how it really was because frankly, people aren’t very good at remembering how it really was. They aren’t good at counting the number of people they saw or recognising the faces they saw. They get colours wrong and if they see two things moving in opposite directions they don’t always know which one was going faster so they choose on the basis of what they think will fit and any optical illusions that happen to have been in the way at the time.
We are not accurate.
Which is fine as long as we don’t say he hit her I saw it all!!!! When in fact she hit him but we didn’t think that could be right. Or, the big one threw the little one down and beat him up, when in fact the little one nutted the big one in the balls and then the big one fell over on top of the little one, squashing him flat. Or (in my case), Mummy, Daddy, it was an enormous spider with a hundred legs (scream) when in fact it was a tiny mouse with four legs (and a tail which I missed completely).

Truth is an absolute requirement for digging motes out of prejudiced eyes and once motes have been dug out, vengeance may look less appealing. Of course it all could work in reverse if you dig randomly at motes without being truthful. Or, if the truth is so awful that it leads to instant undying prejudice and a burning desire for vengeance.

I can’t for the life of me remember why I started on this one but I’ve enjoyed it. It has some of the best qualities of a really satisfying horoscope, being quite non-specific but applicable to all kinds of situations and at the same time having bits which people can pick out and say Oh yes or Oh no and provide interesting specific reasons why they think that.

Another kind of owl. I wish I could have an embroidered silk shirt made of this one.
I once read an article in which a respected photographer pointed out that to ignore the trappings of civilisation in photos of the countryside is to try and impose a sentimental view of unspoilt nature on the true image. Photographer (as artist) might do better to make the photo describe and express reality than to try and brush reality under the darkroom carpet.
This can be difficult..Our wonderful views are all neatly bisected by wires and cables which are not elegantly disposed to enhance the picture. But for once I thought these wires did their cat's cradle thing rather well and the lamp posts even arranged themselves nicely for me.
Last week's blossom

Something must be wrong!

I just posted five comments in a row, word ver accepted first time.
*looking round nervously*

I've just wasted ages

writing a long, involved and meandering post which travelled bewilderingly from blogs to prejudice via religion and ended up at the compost heap.
I'll maybe try and reform it tomorrow.

NO!

This is not a cry of despair nor is it directed at any of you. It's on a piece of paper which I keep near the computer so I can put it on top of the mouse when my PDA is connected. This is to discourage Barney from checking his email while said PDA is connected as it doesn't like him logging off. Or maybe it doesn't like him switching users. Anyway I've lost the piece of paper. Considering the number of pieces of paper I regularly throw away (in the recycling box) densely covered with scribbles and upside down notes and stuff it's odd that I should feel so uncomfortable about rewriting this one.
I'm posting while cooking. Expect the odd splash of fat or wine. Possibly a smattering of violently mashed potato and you might hear the odd glug in the background. Cook's priviledge type glug.
So. Owls. There were 8 on show in the Shopping Centre in Lancaster. All having been injured in some way in a previous life. I really got the impression that they were quite undisturbed by being there. There was a good deal of head reversing so that unblinking alien stares could be directed with marvellous frigidness at a new object. Also one kestrel. A much more strokable looking bird. Though they all seemed to like being stroked and did a good deal of preening and fluffing.

Did I mention aliens?




The people were quite fun too.



And this has to be a little owl. He was certainly little but he had a big pair of eyes to make up for it.

Apparently someone shot the kestrel through the eye with an arrow. Which is why he has this endearingly lopsided face.
I do find it hard to forgive whatever kind of mindless idiot did that to him.

Dribbling

The freezer that is.
We defrosted it today and I just put all the strange little packages and about 20 different tubs of stock and soup back in. during the day we had to climb over strange blanket-covered mounds which hid washing baskets full of newspaper-wrapped, frozen stuff.
It occurs to me, thinking about photos and stock tubs and handbags, that I tend to do things in large numbers. Saucepans and lovingly saved plastic containers too, now I think some more. And it's best not to mention the silk shirts. Or scarves. Or chenille tops. Earrings.
Or the fact that I like to have at least one handcream tube in almost every room in case I can't access another room for some reason. And that makes me wonder if I might start collecting chamber pots for when I get very old. Though up to now 2 loos has been sufficient.
Books. Must be upward of 1,000 stuffed into shelves and bookcases around the house. Oh I forgot the music room. Add another 2 or 3 hundred. Not to mention the select few in front of me now.
Music. well when I was borrowing Fran's car and it was broken into I claimed back 30 odd CDs on the insurance and that was a very select few. (nearly all classical and not in their cases so I can't imagine what the thieves thought they were going to do with them).
And, of course, 7 fiddles, 2 violas and a piano. But I do play all the fiddles except the one that Youngest has in case she wants to play again. And one of them's been in dock for nearly a year waiting for the advent of a new and wonderful tool which will cut the cost and the repair time by half as well as doing a better job. I shall be chasing Boss for that with a vengeance as soon as I'm not working for him any more! (Oh and I don't actually play the two tiny ones that Adam and fran played when they were tiny)
People like me should possibly not live in towns with 5 charity shops.

White, and red and black

The Ashton Memorial sits on top of the Williamson park and overlooks Lancaster and some 40 miles of surrounding countryside. You can see it from the fells near Clitheroe and since you can see Morecambe bay and the mountains in Cumbria from it, I guess you can see it from them. round the back is a victorian glass house full of butterflies.



And fish

I've spent the day being grouchy and banging doors and making mental notes on what I'm going to say to Boss on Monday. Also going to my Saturday afternoon music group and being unusually asertive about the bits us first fiddles were playing execrably badly. But I was arriving at the beginning of the right bars more often than the other two. Although I think they played more notes right than I did.
I discovered a pleasing quote by Sir Thomas Beecham last night. "the English may not like music but they absolutely love the noise it makes".
Did the washing and thought grumpy thoughts about having plenty of time to sort out the house when I leave work. And slightly (well very) anxious thoughts about would I like to put a sign up in the village shop saying 'book-keeping, chaotic accounts a speciality'! even more anxious thoughts about going to the recruitment agency next door to work and saying 'yes I'm good with sage and I keep books quite well. Oh and I can play around with pictures a bit. And I used to be quite good with Excel. No I haven't any qualifications, well my last boss sacked me actually...you know, him next door'
Funny thing is, boss's accounts have sometimes been a bit of a burden. And I don't feel even slightly relieved of it.
Oh and I told Barney my news and he said Oh dear. Well you'd better start looking for another job then. Er, commiserations I suppose. Now that did make me angry! But then he cooked a very nice dinner tonight so I'd better forgive him I suppose.
Then I read a whole book (The Iron Tree by Cecilia Dart Thornton, very faery and folky and having star crossed lovers dying of a curse in spite of being jolly decent and revoltingly goodlooking chaps. Good bit of slush.)

The Williamson Park in Lancaster is really very beautiful.



Butterflies and Owls tomorrow and now I'm going to bed. I may spend tomorrow tidying EVERYTHING and playing my fiddle.
And composing something for Boss to think about.

Light Music and Heavy Stuff

Actually just one or five of the band. I love the reflections in the brass/silver.


Did he play a wrong note? Or is she trying to work out what she should be doing by watching him?

And I'd love to know what these two are saying to each other.

The thing about these chaps is they are most definitely not poncey middle class revivalists. Solid, chunky, working class blokes have been doing this every Easter since some time around the 18th/19th century when (possibly) some Moorish miners (?) left the dying Cornish mining industry and joined the burgeoning Lancashire mining industry. Presumably the Moors arrived in Cornwall as slaves.

Well that's enough of slightly ancient British traditions. I've had a shock today and I'm still not sure whether it's serious or not. (well actually I think it is but we'll see how well I bounce in the next week or so).
I've spent the last two years at work, wrestling my boss's accounts into a form which will fit the mighty Sage accounting programme. This hasn't been easy because Sage isn't really a walk in and try a few buttons sort of programme. And there were things in my boss's accounts and paperwork which aren't dreamt of in Sage's philosophy.
Whatever. We couldn't make sense of the end of year figures (and I'm pretty sure this is because of an unsorted confusion from last year) and boss has finally decided he needs someone who can really understand sage and can also hand him something he understands at the end of each month. Not me!
Frankly, I'm gutted. I enjoyed the job because I'm good at the book-keeping part and the irony is that I really have got that part of it turning over quite neatly. It's just what happens to my nice tidy figures inside the programme that defeats me. And I'm going to make a sneaky prediction here, that whoever takes over will have a hell of a time getting used to boss's paperwork and will have an even worse time sorting out whatever is going on inside sage, between the chart of accounts and the end of month/year reports.
I can't blame him. And soddit, buggrit and dammit all to hell, I can't really be pissed off with him either because I can see his problem perfectly. And I'm fond of him, we've been friends for a long time. And it's as much my fault as his, that we didn't discuss this earlier.

So I'm not feeing like posting serene reflections and pastel posies. No problem. I can make pictures to share my filthy mood with you.





Well, I feel slightly better for that!

The Britannia Coconut dancers

In all their glory.



Some more imtimate shots





Don't you just love them?

And tomorrow I shall give you *The Band*

Even not very well laid plans sometimes go astray.

I had some for this evening. Along the lines of defrosting the freezer (a bit desperate that, the ice is bulging), downloading a few hundred photos from the DVD (Peter brought his portable DVD reader to dinner) and later having a quick flip through them before settling down to a peaceful hour catching up on blogs.
Well it seems that somehow, Adam's Apple (mini mac) had written everything to the DVD twice, once as small jpegs and once again as large ones. Also it seems to have turned all the little movies into little jpegs. I just hope he's still got all the butterfly movies on his mini mac....if at all!
So I had to go through upward of a thousand photos, sorting out the little ones from the big ones and trying to see if they were all duplicates. My brain has RSI. Thank heavens for Picasa's cataloguing system.

I'm afraid this means you don't get to see strange things on motorways or blurred trees and canals. Or butterflies and owls. Or even funny men with black faces and skirts.
For all of which you were waiting with bated breath I'm sure.
Ah well. there's Adam and Jude in the bird sanctuary.




and I'm going to go and see if the freezer has actually started dribbling yet.

Haven't we all been busy!

I just thought I'd have a quick look at all you other people's blogs! Well after a couple of hours of non-stop hysteria I'm exhausted so I've marked them all as read and said nothing. Tomorrow I'll revisit. Going away for a few days certainly makes for a good read on returning though :)

Sanctuary

Acres of reed bed in an estuary with stunted willows and constant bird calls. Grey windswept skies and rippling reflections everywhere.

Oh, and nice food in the cafe too.

Returning prodigals

That's us. I don't think we were really especially prodigal but we're back!
I have lots of photos on a DVD. Unfortunately I wasn't sure but Adam was, that my computer reads DVDs. It doesn't. So most of the photos will have to wait until I find someone who will be able to transfer them for me. Meanwhile, fortunately, there wasn't time to download the last card so I can post one or two from our trip to an RSPB bird sanctuary which was great.

I must say I do like watching birds from hides. It's sort of like spying but in a friendly way. And there's a lot of low voiced commentary from other bird watchers with occasional sotto voce outbursts "there's a heron" "Oh the Harrier!" "look the mergansers are er, something or other" Followed by a good deal of heavy booted tiptoing around the hide as people rush to see whatever it is. And swivelling of telescopes. All very cosy :)
I believe I saw the Marsh Harrier swooping and vanishing out of the corner of my eye while taking pictures of the heron.

The merganser appears to have no eyes but I think that's because his eyes are red!





This is a plover of some sort. I think


And this is clearly a goose. (Barnacle?)

Well, we got to Lancaster and it only took 9 and 1/2 hours. We heard more traffic news yesterday than we needed and it was all the same news. The M6 was blocked solid from junction 29/8/7 to 33 (Which is where we needed to get off) As we got closer to the optimum escape junction, the tailback got nearer to us. It was a race against time but we made it just before the tailback came to meet us. Just in time to join the rush hour traffic in Preston. So the last 40 miles of the journey actually took longer than the total journey usually takes (aabout 5 hours) and we were entertained on the way by hearing emails and phone calls from people villifying us for blocking up their local routes. It was all great fun. And when we finally got to a clear bit of road, I was able to take several blurred pictures of the scenery rushing past in the fantastic evening light. It'll be very interesting to see what turns up.
Otherwise, after a nice meal and a few drinks, it was great to be here and I've taken a hundred pics of Adam and Jude's fantastic roof top view and even better, I know what Barney is going to do while I trawl the charity shops of Lancaster and take pics of the city.
Adam and Barney are going to build a herb wall/ garden which will keep them both busy all day. excellent. I do like the men to have something to keep them busy.
So tomorrow at dawn (7.30) we are off to see funny men with black faces and skirts, dancing in the streeets of Britannia. And the herb garden/wall construction went very well and so did the city excursion. And there were owls in the shopping centre! About eight, all injured in some way and now rescued and sitting around the centre of a square, eyeing the gawping crowds with impassive faces. I wish I knew more about apple or I'd post a picture now! Beautiful birds.

Nice rice

I'm doing curry and rice again. We eat a lot of curry possibly because it was the first thing Barney learnt to cook when he left home. Any way the curry is stewing away to itself gently and the rice is doing it's thing so I have time to blog, briefly.
Now I am going to tell you how I cook rice. It's one of my few reliable accomplishments and it's really quite nice. Well actually it's delicious.
Ingredients:
32 fluid oz stock
1lb basmati rice
2 oz butter or ghee
(these are the absolutely essential ingredients and the liquid and rice must be in these proportions...you can scale up a bit or down to half but it doesn't work well if you increase the quantities a lot. You probably could use oil but I think the wateriness of the butter is important. And I suppose the onions add a bit of moisture)
1 onion, sliced
6 cloves, 3 cardamons and 1 inch of cinnamon (or lots more if you like but unless you like encountering whole cloves and cardamons in your dinner it's a good idea to remember how many you've used . I have experimented with lemongrass, garlic and ginger....up to you. I don't recommend pieces of lemon peel though)
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder (or some saffron, soaked 30 mins beforehand in hot water and included in the 16 fluid oz water).
Salt to taste if the stock is not salty already.

Melt the butter in a saucepan (which has a tight fitting lid) and gently fry the spices for a minute or two and then add the onion and cook till transparent..or browned...however you like them.
Add the rice and stir and fry until well coated in butter (the original recipe said to wash the rice but I never do). Add the stock (mine is usually hot and made with a stock cube so there's a lot of fizzling and spitting of bright yellow turmeric coloured water...watch out for your favourite shirt). As soon as it begins to simmer, turn it down to the lowest possible heat, cover tightly and LEAVE UNOPENED for 15 to 20 minutes. (I guess 20 minutes if you started with cold liquid) Don't be tempted to uncover and check or stir! It'll be fine as long as the heat is very low. OK? got that? good. go and blog or something.
After 15 minutes, you can look! the rice will be all neat and flat and cooked and the spices and onions all sitting on the top. Remove spices with a fork, fluff the rice gently with the fork lifting from the bottom of the pan. Ready to eat but it will keep warm in a low oven for quite a while if necessary.
I am forever in debt to Charmaine and Reuben Solomon for this recipe after years of assorted puddings and grit!

Extra pictures today as we're off to Lancaster tomorrow to visit Eldest and to see the Britannia Coconut Dancers. Barney is deeply enamoured of them. I will post pictures when we get back and you will see why I think they are funny. It might even be worth trying to upload a small film of them.
Eldest has all kinds of computer stuff and internet so I may be able to post while I'm away or I may simply be too distracted.

Dog's eye view. Also what I can see when I'm crawling around the dining room floor trying to find something I know I put just there. Just a minute ago.

Have a great weekend everyone, enjoy the Easter feasting and have fun.
Oh, I forgot, 1lb of rice serves 4 - 6...greedy or bird like. But it reheats ok ish. Fries up nicely. Freezes ok.

In lieu of having anything at all interesting to say

here are a few things I have scribbled on bits of paper and diligently clipped together so I won't forget them.

• Dog and car renewals (that would be booster innoculations and tax; we are not getting either a new dog or a new car)
  
• Groundnut oil, indian bread, dinners (weds, thurs and Fri...guess we'd already had Sat to Tues)
  
• Get a Phone!!! (done it!...got one that works in a power cut, it's in its box under my desk)
  
• Fry onions w. 5 spice, cook rice as usual
  
• Springs, ponds and frogs (I think this must have been intended as a blog post)
  
• Int1=call upstairs from down.Int2=call downstairs from up (yes, well I forget things I don't do very often and the excercise is good for me)
  
• Big blue frame (No idea)
  
• Error 718. The connection was terminated because the remote computer did not respond in a timely way (grrrrrr)
  
• Galaxy Audio, core PA 5x140 (one day Barney will have a small amp to take to gigs instead of the current monster but I think this one was the wrong kind)
  
• Change the damn link heading (yeah yeah, one day)
  
• Barney, has the dog been out today? (bit late for that now!)
  
• A4=21 x 29.7 (another thing I forget)
  

There are also; a comprehensive set of instructions (including pictures of icons) telling Barney how to look up things on Ebay, a similar set of instructions for checking email and another for the washing machine and the dishwasher, various passwords and usernames (but no indication of which site they might be for), lots of error messages from the last time my email broke and, scattered throughout, word verifications and nameless phone numbers and other numbers that look like dimensions of things and are probably sizes of spaces where furniture should go.

Not to mention dozens of email addresses and web URLs, the names of books, music and other things I forgot to put on my christmas/birthday lists, mysterious instructions in code? shorthand? Latvian? (No matter. I can't read them any more), serial numbers for things I may or may not still have.
On the shelf, is a box with some more very important pieces of paper with very important information on them. I wonder what it is? Oh I know, some of it is usernames and stuff for email accounts we no longer have and some of it is for current ones. I wonder which way round they are. I wonder if I've put the same stuff for the B&B website there or in another heap.

Spring is here (I think?) and the blossom is rioting but the trees aren't dressed for it yet. This is a rather elegant pair in black and white winter garb.
And this is also black and white with a tantalising dash of colour.
That's it! I'm done. Can't think of another coherant thing to say.
Good night.

Blossom

It's that time of year again

So I expect there will be a lot of it around here for a few days.

The wedding was good. there was a great deal of pinkness at our table (it's odd being relegated to the children's area again). GB made friends with the bride's great grand-daughter and they ate a lot of pink ice cream. (that's my guinness at the front of the table and also my tobacco pouch and half rolled cig. I was waiting for Barney to finish his so I could escape for a quick one. Oh and my lens cap and hood :)

Pussy-Willow

See?
*


I've discovered a new thing about Word verification. It nearly always refuses the first attempt...and I know some of them are correct. so I type almost randomly (and sometimes don't even bother or forget), hit return and it accepts the second attempt.
Funny that.
Everyone's going over to wordpress. Even Barney's thatch site is on wordpress. I may have to move as I am fed up with 'waiting for blogger.com'.

We're going to a wedding tomorrow, an old friend of ours, finally happy after years of worry and a divorce. It's great! We are also taking Gorgeous Babe since it's our weekend to have her staying. She's very excited about the party! It's years since we took a very small person anywhere...I'm quite scared. Will we remember all the things you need to keep small people happy in strange places? What are they even? Oh well I suppose we'll cope. More worrying, I don't think I've got round to deciding what to wear! In fact I don't think I've got anything to wear except an assortment of things I once thought would do for a 'smart' occasion, but which almost certainly won't. If I can find them. If I do find anything, it won't be warm enough!!! Probably won't fit either.
Have to go and empty cupboards in search of clothes now.
Have a great weekend everyone.

*don't you love her furry trousers?

Two minutes

is all I have before the pinger tells me the Naan is ready.
Hmm.
Well the naan is ready but the curry hasn't reduced by half so I've got a few more minutes. Not quite sure what to do with them though.
My end of year panic at work is almost over. Tomorrow I should be able to do the last clearings up and tidyings away and then there will only be the mammoth task of filing all the old paperwork and hiding lots of back-ups in safe places so that no one will inadvertantly record over them (or ever be able to find them again).
Notice the confidence with which I said that, even though my boss has to look through the customer and supplier lists and mark the ones to be deleted, tonight.
Whatever. The plan is to get the EoY finished and then very very quickly do the End of last month (that's March) so that I can go away for Easter with an unburdened conscience and come back just in time to start panicking about the end of this month! Hmm again.

I don't think I've had time to have any provocative or profound thoughts recently but last night we went to the Pot Kiln for a meal. Greeted by youngest who said she wasn't giving us a menu as we weren't going to be allowed to order. ???
It turned out we were getting a taster menu which was great fun and all very good. Thumbs up to the new head chef. We had a lovely wine which was so good I can't remember what it was. And then it transpired that not only were we not allowed to order but the meal was compliments of the Maitre'de. (I hope she got a special deal :) What a darling!
Fact is, youngest works all the hours God sends and spends the rest of her time ferrying her daughter. She charms the pants off the customers, rules her waiting staff with a rod of iron and a good laugh (and an occasional round of chocolates with the morning coffee) and sells a phenomenal amount of expensive wine. Her red hair features in at least two media write-ups ('redhead pulling a slow pint' was one and the 'cerise haired Maitresse d'hotel' is possibly our favourite) and all this plus occasional forays into the kitchen to help out with salads or starters in emergencies comes at a really laughable salary.
Well I'm biased. But I think they ought to pay her more. Because she's looking more and more tired and seems to be working harder and losing more and more of her time off because other staff aren't there. It doesn't seem fair.

Here's a couple of bits of house that sneaked into the pictures. I like these little snips of something different from the main view.


Now I'm going to go and collapse in a heap somewhere and read.

Rain

I was sitting in the car waiting for friend to turn up so we could swim together. too wet to go out with the camera.
but there was this wet window on one side,

The sun came out for ten seconds and revealed the Tuesday walkers in all their glory
And on the other side this car, decorated with reflections and raindrops.

All rather pleasing.

Leafy bunny sort of a post with errors

The computer keeps telling me "TypeError: title_n.First child has no properties".
I wonder what it means.
Maybe it means the computer has caught whatever the dog had.


When I was making dinner this evening I found a little heap of dried leafy stuff at the back of the fridge. I've no idea what they used to be but they smelt nice, so I used them in the dinner and they were really nice and herby. I recommend freeze drying herbs in the fridge! All you have to do is leave them on one of the shelves with no wrapping. After an unknown period of time they turn into dried herbs.
These leaves, however, were not they. Them. You know, I think 'they' is correct but it does sound odd!




And here is a rather small, blurry bunny for starbender :)

M25 rocks. If someone else is driving.

We had a good visit. Frangelita and HF came for dinner and Barney's brother was there too. We took the dog who became besotted by BiL (possibly because BiL took him out for 3 walks). It seemed to be mutual.
The skies were WONDERFUL all the way to and from Braintree...all vast clouds and huge shadows and brilliant sun. Lots of showers. The M25 is undoubtedly a blot on the landscape but it does do some marvellous skies. And all along the motorways, blackthorn was in flower. White froth on black lace. I tried not to think about all the pictures I would have been taking at home.
I get town-house fever (as in gaol) when we're staying in Braintree...there just isn't enough room to move about and you can hear everyone breathing at night (which means I might wake them up when I am going to bed an hour later than they do)...Except when Barney is snoring. I am just not a town person. And when you look out of the window, all you can see is another house full of breathing people. no world!!!!
Barney's Mum's garden is lovely though. This is approxiamtely the first anniversary of her death and nearly the date of her birthday. she loved her garden. It occurs to me that my mother died on the first of April. (I'm really not good at dates, but you couldn't forget that). She loved her garden too. But in a different way. She would have let it grow wild and would have loved wandering in long grasses and trees. Barney's mum nurtured and weeded and planted. There was something very similar about the way they brought up their children too. Not much pruning though :)

And she loved to watch the birds feeding outside the window. These are African Ring Doves. Very common in England. Funny, sharp, mindless eyes they've got.

I finished the Time Traveller's Wife. It's wonderful. Original (what a delight), clever, a love story and a time travel story like no other I've ever read. Heartbreaking.
Today we went to Freeport (retail outlet), me and the three men. I abandoned them immediately saying blithely, you've got my mob number haven't you?
Well yes but Barney left his mob behind, Dad switched his off and I haven't got BiL's number on my mob.
But they did look sweet trailing off together like a group of (somewhat aged) schoolboys!
So after I'd had a short but productive gallop round the site, I was spotted by a lost husband (mine). Tried to phone his Dad to say I'd found one of his children lost and wandering around Freeport on his own. Left a message. Tried to phone BiL to say his brother wanted to go home now...hadn't got the number. Meanwhile, Dad had tried to phone Barney. Upshot being, instead of a cup of coffee, I got to sit on a cold bench watching out for BiL and Dad while Barney looked at some shoes. And it turned out Dad was in Coffee Nation like two feet away from here I was sitting!
when we got back, Nutmeg was sitting up on an arnchair with his front feet over the back so he could look out of the window.

And on the way home I took pictures (in spite of comments aboout snap happiness). These are two of them, pasted together.

But just to be going on with

Since I've discovered 3 new ways of using filters I used them all at once and am drinking a glass of wine (which will help the tooth situation not at all but I'm due for some more paracetamol soon so what the hell) and I have done half my packing.
So :)

I do miss Urban Chick and Surly Girl though, don't you?