We've had lots of rain, lots of warmth, and plenty of sunshine, all of which have combined to create a perfect growing medium for the wildflower seeds Steve scattered on the rough 'rockery' patch.
It was always going to be somewhat hit or miss as to whether it turned out to look good or not, we didn't know what would grow (if anything), or, as the soil there is really poor, whether we'd just be looking at a bare patch with a few tired weeds.
As it happens, we have the most spectacular patch of green, with stunning oranges, reds, occasional purples and blues, and judging by all the buds as yet unopened, the best is yet to come.
The apple tree is still going great guns too, as you can see in the background.
This tiny little scrap of fluff is one of the baby bluetits I mentioned the other day. Since then, they have gained in confidence and ability, and are leaving the nest very regularly. They're still not very big, but what they lack in size, they more than make up for in cheekiness.
This little fellow was hanging from the nut bag in the magnolia when I got back from shopping yesterday, and flew right across in front of me when I pottered up the path.
Many thanks to Steve for the photo.
Almost six months ago, to the day, I got up in the morning, went out to my car, and discovered that some mindless soul had smashed the front passenger window, and stolen some bits and pieces from my car. Today, I went out to the car to take Becki's friend to the station and to collect Emma from her friend's house, and discovered that virtually the same thing had happened again, although it's a quarterlight this time.
It's hard not to cry with impotence and rage when it happens the first time, the second time it's even harder, and one starts to feel as if there's a vendetta being waged. Add to this scenario the black paint sprayed along the side, and the smashed rear lights and wing mirror, and I am really wondering who I've irritated.
The police have generously given me a crime reference number each time, and today I was told to put the car in the garage (which is impossible, as I don't have one), or at least park it off road (again, impossible, as I have no off road space). When I mentioned that there were a number of things that had been touched, the glove compartment had been opened, and my document wallet opened, I was told that if I wanted to, I could take the care to the CSI surgery in Southmead. I did, not because I held out a great deal of hope, but because I wanted to feel as if I was doing something, anything. It was a wasted trek in the end, there were plenty of smudges, but nothing useful. Had I not taken the car, no-one would even have looked at it.
Car crime is, I am reliably informed, going down. I suspect that in truth, the reporting of car crime is going down, because people are losing faith in ever getting anything done about the problem.
The full window cost £86 to repair, the quarterlight is £152.76. If I claim on the insurance, I only pay the £60 excess, but I pay heavily next year, as I lose my no claims bonus. Either way, I am screwed because someone else decided to damage my property.
I trust the vandals/thieves will enjoy my Blood Brothers, Aspects of Love, Meatloaf, and Rock Anthems cassettes.
Well, after a bit of a gap, due to aching shoulders, I have restarted the quilt project.
When the pieces are all laid out on the bed, they cover a decent area now, and I think they look rather good. Terrible photos, I'm afraid, one is too dark, the other doesn't show all of the bits, but they do show how it's coming on.
I'm still very much enamoured of the colours, all I have to do now is figure out how to join them all together. I also need to find a fabric to back the quilt.
Isn't it bizarre how the politicians believe in democracy, and yet the people seem not to. A wave of apathy seems to be sweeping through the democratic nations, as voters stay away from the polls in their droves, and yet politicians are still foisting the notion of democracy on nation after miserable nation.
We allegedly all have the ability to change things, to make 'our votes count', yet without proportional representation, our votes make no difference. In the last 21 years, since I moved to Bristol, I have voted at every single election. I have not missed voting, whether at a local, general or european election, and not once has the person I voted for been elected. It's a soul-destroying fact, and the only thing that keeps me trudging to the polls, is that people fought for me to have the right to make my presence felt. Not one of the friends I asked, bothers to vote any longer, disillusionment has set in.
Politicians have amazingly blinkered vision. They constantly tell us how much better things are under their leadership. I should be grateful for the taxing of foster-care allowance, even though the money is not a wage, but something to cover the daily living costs (indeed, the council even stipulates what proportion is to be used for what purpose). I should be delighted at the massive improvements in the health service, even though it took two and a half years to get a wheelchair adjusted. I suppose I should also be thrilled at the number of young adults leaving school with few or no qualifications, and presumably also for the withdrawal of Government Assisted Places. Here in Bristol, we seem to have one of the poorest education systems. Seven Bristol primary schools are in the bottom 200, and as a whole, primary schools sit 16th from the bottom in the tables. The secondary schools here are failing our children even more - they are 8th from the bottom in the league tables, yet we are living in one of the richer cities.The new City Academy has a pass rate of 18% at GCSE! Is it any wonder that we have so many private schools in the area, or that they are so well subscribed?
Ah, but silly me, the money is being spent on knocking down the city centre and rebuilding it. A new and very expensive monument to avarice and the new Gods, Money and Greed.
Now, we have the 'joys' of an unelected Prime Minister to look forward to. Unchallenged, this controlling and potentially dangerous man has moved into the position he craved for the last ten years, and now heaven help us all.
Wow!
WOW!
I saw Blood Brothers again on Monday night, and am still thrilled from it.
It's a show I've seen on stage several times, in different theatres, with various different casts, and this latest performance probably tops all of them. My ticket was a thankyou present, for helping my parents move house a couple of months ago, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford to go.
The first time I saw it, Kiki Dee and Con O'Neill were the stars, they were both stunning. Kiki's voice was fabulous, and yet she was very able to play the downtrodden mum convincingly, and Con played Mickey with enthusiasm and energy, making the childhood part utterly believable, yet able to carry the depressed adult part with conviction too. I honestly didn't think that pairing could be matched and until Monday, they hadn't been.
The show has been tampered with, since the last time I saw it. There are a number of additions to the musical numbers, and a change in the way the affair, and the 'secret', are finally outed. Some of these additions work really well, others are not quite as positive.
Stephen Palfreman plays Mickey. He isn't someone I've ever heard of before, but he was brilliant. The idea of having a hulking great adult playing a seven (nearly eight) year old child, sounds ridiculous, but it works wonderfully well. The mannerisms, the way of standing, the speech, all create the illusion of a young boy. There's no thought of the adult playing a role, there's just a group of young kids playing kids games. Linda Nolan is Mrs Johnstone this time, her voice is wonderful, and she too, is very convincing.
It's a very emotional show, laughter throughout the first act, and through the first part of the second act too, and then the seriousness of reality, life on the dole, etc. By the end, most of the audience were in tears, and what made it all the more amazing, was that most of the cast were too. 'Mrs Johnstone' joined the two brothers' hands in death, and was quite literally sobbing, no pretence or acting.
My 'baby' is 14½ years old, and as I have already mentioned, growing more mature almost daily. This week she hasn't been at school, but on work experience, and, as she's been working in the chemist Becki works at, Emma has been living with Becki as well.
I've missed her terribly, she's a lively (for lively, read noisy), cheeky, bouncy, bright and sparky girl who fills the house with her presence, and it's been like a morgue without her. She returned tonight, and talked solidly for hours, telling me everything she'd been doing, her feelings, crossnesses, and her triumphs. It was wonderful!
Actually, it's been a strange week altogether, Steve's up in Birmingham, staying with his family since Sunday. His dad has been very unwell over the past little while, finally ending up on dialysis, and as his birthday was on Monday, I suggested Steve should go and spend some time with his parents. With Becki living on her own already, and Emma staying with her for the week, it's been quite lonely here. It's also been an almost entirely coffee-free zone - I make a dreadful cup of coffee.
That said, I've rather enjoyed the 'me' time once Nani was in bed, while she's up, she's my focus, but once the baby monitor is on, I know she's safe in bed, and I can relax.
I pottered down to Salisbury yesterday, to see if I could sell some of my cards to the owner of a cattery. A simple enough task for most people, but I'm allergic to cats! I took an antihistamine before I left, but was looked after very well, and needn't have worried. We sat on the lawn, in the bright sunshine, being plied with coffees and chatting for hours. I ended up leaving with a sunburnt nose, having sold 75, a stunning result!
I haven't blogged for a while, I've had rather too much life getting in the way. However, today has been rather precious, and I want to note it down so I don't forget.
The garden has suddenly burst into flower, but not always in expected ways.
The cornflowers I mentioned previously are tall and in full bloom. Last year, they were all very solid blue, but this year, perhaps because they have self-seeded, some are white and some are a very delicate shade of blue. The amazing thing about the mixture of colours, is that they seem to be multicoloured on the same plant.
Steve moved the Hydranga from the back garden to the front this year, and it seems to have made a vast difference to the way it's growing. I'm well aware of the 'plant some copper under it and it'll grow blue, iron, and it'll grow pink' idea, but I didn't ever put any faith in it. Looks as if I should have done. Last year, the flowers were the most intense blue you can imagine.
This was my first intimation that things were going to be different this time around...
...and this is what it looks like now the flowers are all properly open..
As sure as God made little green apples, it's no longer blue!
Speaking of apples, the apple tree is incredibly heavily laden this year. Steve has done a rough count, and thinks we have about 120 apples set. Not bad for a tree that stands only four or five feet tall.
The most exciting thing of all, is the fledging of a number of tiny bluetits. I've been watching a large number of adults playing in the magnolia tree over the past few months, but when I went out today, I found two tiny, baby bluetits on the ramp down to the front gate. Mum and Dad were darting about, encouraging them to flutter back up to their nest in the ventilation doodah, but neither baby was finding things all that simple.
I quickly went back inside the porch to save any further agitation on the behalf of the parents, and sneakily watched the tiny creatures as they hopped and jumped about, trying to get airborne again. After a few minutes, one did manage to get sorted, and flapped untidily back to the nest. The other took almost half an hour to pull it off, with the adults chirruping and dancing around it.
I've never seen anything like that close-up before, it was just stunning
A friend of mine dropped by for coffee this morning - nothing too unusual in that, you might think and nothing worth blogging about...
He'd been doing a crossword puzzle and had been unable to finish it as he didn't know what the collective noun for goldfinches was. He mentioned it very casually, obviously not thinking I'd know the answer, but bizarrely, I did!
That got us to thinking about the various collective nouns we could think of, why for example, is it a smack of jellyfish? Is it the noise they make when a number of them hit the hull of your boat? An exultation of larks seems quite obvious, they must sound as though they're praising their Maker when a group start singing, but why is it a watch of nightingales? A raft of otter seems a fair term, as does a float of crocodiles and a paddling of ducks, all watery anyway, and as for a quiver of cobra - well, I'd certainly be quivering, faced by a bunch of those!
We're all used to the idea of a herd of goats, elephants, deer, elk, cows, etc., but a herd of chinchillas? I have a bit of a problem seeing them galloping across the plains.
I'm a great fan of a murmuration of starlings, a rhumba of rattlesnakes, an ostentation of peacocks and an implausibility of gnus, myself.
As for the goldfinches, they can be a charm, a troubling, or a drum, among others.
My in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary is approaching - well ok, it's in October - and I have decided to make them something special for the occasion. I'm making a patchwork quilt, but one with a difference. Instead of sewing together pieces of various shop-bought materials, I am making all the individual pieces of fabric myself, by making felt.
It's jolly hard work. I learned the techniques decades ago, when I was a student on the Steiner teacher training course. Mind you, I was young, and a lot less tired then, so it all seemed relatively easy.
It's always a little nervewracking to give a gift made specially. Creating something, no matter what it is, means putting a piece of yourself into it. This leads to so many anxieties and insecurities in giving something so very personal, so much a piece of myself, that when it's finished, I may not have the courage to actually hand it over. They might hate it, the colours that I find so vibrant and joyous, they may find angry or intimidating, it might clash horribly with other things in the bedroom....
