Top Bar, Top Guy!

Look at this!! LOOK AT THIS!!!! No, it's not a coffin...there have been no murders at Much Malarkey Manor. It's a top bar hive! Andy made it. This weekend. Once he got going, he was like a craftsman possessed. He made it properly. From wood 'n' stuff. With your actually measuring and cutting and planing and swearing like a real carpenter.

And here is Andy, brow furrowed in concentration. I took this photo surrepticiously through the kitchen window whilst he wasn't looking, because if I'd said, 'Andy, pose like you're really, REALLY concentrating on your work,' he'd have pulled a face like Rik Mayall, or done a bizarre impression of Ronnie Corbett.

And here are the Malarkey Bees, headed by Queen Mildred herself, busy bee-ing in and busy bee-ing out at 3.30 on Sunday afternoon. 3.30 seems to be an optimum time for bee returns on a sunny day. I think it's because the sun is shining fully on the hive at this time, and the extra warmth gets 'em going big time.

It was late yesterday evening before I realised I hadn't watched any TV at the weekend. We were so busy! Building hives, gardening, planting up the pots at the front of the Manor with more bee friendly plants, starting off more herbs, giving the hens a good clean out. And then we had a friend to dinner on Saturday, and family to dinner on Sunday, so there was much baking and entertaining to be done on both days. Including a very nice lemon tart, if I do say so myself.

It was great! But then there was nothing on TV over the weekend anyway. Football, did I hear you say? Really? What football would that be then?

Around fifteen children said to me today, 'Did you see the football on Saturday, ma'am?'

'No,' I said. 'I have no interest in football whatsoever. In fact, I didn't watch TV at all this weekend.'

Children stared at me, agog.

'What were you doing then?' they wanted to know.

'Living my life,' I said.

There was the News

Three weeks ago I decided to stop buying a daily newspaper. I was getting fed up of the scare stories, the war stories, the doom and gloom stories, the MP scandal stories and the sex 'n' celebrity stories. I thought, if I want to know what the World has been up to outside the Much Malarkey Manor bubble I can listen to the bulletins on the radio, or catch one of the main news programmes.

All well and good, you might think, except these sources of news have produced exactly the same crop of mental aggravation I'd been seeking to avoid only without the added panacea of multi-level Sudoku and other assorted number and word puzzles to mess with your mind. And I quite missed Garfield, too.

But slowly I have become used to doing without my daily fix of Daily Anger. Experts say it takes three weeks to break a habit. I would question this research when applied to things like cake and watching 'How Clean Is Your House?' 9and whoo-hoo Gok Wah is back on telly tonight telling all us lovely girls how to look even lovelier) but they may be onto something when it comes to cracking potentially destructive or time-wasting habits.

Is it wrong, though, to make a concerted effort to avoid the issues that are affecting our world? Is it socially irresponsible to say 'What concern is this to me?' Is ignoring the news of the day and all its associated politics and social and moral concerns a neglect of our human responsibilities? And am I sounding too much like Gordon Brown?

Of course I care about global warming and the effect it is having on our environment. That is why I recycle and compost, grow my own veg and energy save wherever I can. Of course I care about animal welfare - that is why I keep hens and buy free-range meat from local sources and for half the week I cook vegetarian. Of course I care about people - that is why I became a teacher, and why my friends know I will sit and listen to them for hours on end if it helps them find release from their problems, and that I will be there with practical support to the best of my ability even though I have recently been badly let down by one such friend. And of course I care that half the world seems intent on fighting the other half, hiding behind the name of their God, or their Belief, or their own set of rules and laws and for them I try and find a space in every day for quiet meditation and to send out prayerful thoughts to the innocents caught up in these awful situations.

But sometimes it is good to cushion ourselves from the outside world and take an introspective holiday from war and scandal and immorality. Not for so long that we become disassociated with our environment because that would lead to a sad and lonely isolation which is good for neither body or soul; what I mean is that as long as we know in our hearts that we are doing our best in our own situations, then taking time out is a good thing to do to restore and rebalance ourselves so we can take up the banner of Life with renewed energy and vigour.

I have been waiting all day long for a source of inspiration for today's blog. I'm not sure where this one came from, but it is here now and here I shall let it rest.

I'm glad the inspiration did eventually come, at what is quite late in the blogging day for me. Otherwise you'd have ended up reading some drivel about me wearing my new swimming cap in the pool this morning and looking like a drowning Malteser.

And there but for the Grace of God and a spot of Daily Anger go we all...

Child's Play

Yesterday we toddled off to Windsor Great Park to meet up with some good friends that we don't see very often as they live over that side of England and we live over this side of England. Windsor Great Park is roughly betwixt and between our respective residencies and as none of us has been there before, it seemed a good place to go.

Andy and I arrived first. The only traffic jams we encountered were 1) in a petrol station and 2) at the entrance of the Black Nest car park where the car in front of us hesitated at the barrier because it had two bicycles strapped to its roof.

'They won't get under the barrier with those bikes on their roof,' I said.
'No, they won't,' said Andy.

The female passenger in the car got out and assessed the bicycle/ barrier clearance potential. She shook her head at her male companion who was driving. But he seemed determined to give it a go, so fed £2.50 into the meter and charged at the barrier.

Of course, men usually have to discover things for themselves before they realise that their female partners are actually right about something, so on discovering that his car plus 2 bicycles on the roof would not indeed fit 'neath the barrier, he had to reverse, get out of the car, remove the bicycles and place them over the car park fence into the car park, then put another £2.50 into the meter before this time gaining successful access through the barrier. We were most admiring of his lady companion that she remained calm in the face of his distrust and dismissing of her original assessment. Still, plenty of woodland in which to bury a body later, when it was dark...

Andy and I played frisbee whilst waiting for our friends to arrive. It brought back memories of playing frisbee at our wedding. We had a frantic call from our friends when they tried to park in the Guard's Polo Club a stone's throw up the road and an officious parking attendant had tried to charge them £20 for the privilege. £20???!!!!!!! How the other half live, eh?

We set off through the park, armed with picnic hampers and kites and blankets and our friends' small daughter who is called Taryn. Taryn is nearly four years old and is probably the most intelligent and verbally accomplished nearly 4 year old I've ever come across. We set about collecting forest treasures, using the inverted frisbee as a collection plate. We gathered acorns and beech nuts, moss and bark, leaves in various states of autumnal colour, sycamore keys, pine cones, an assortment of tiny yellow flowers and tiny purple flowers and then Taryn's mum trumped us all by discovering the skull of a rabbit. In its skeletal form, I hasten to add; we didn't lug a decapitated bunny head around with us on a frisbee for the rest of the day.

We explored trees looking for fairies and overgrown woodland for Herne the Hunter who is supposed to haunt the woodland here and then we found a nice spot for our picnic.

After picnicking, Taryn and I left the grown ups to talk and went for a mini-explore up a hill and around a corner. We found a bench made from a tree trunk and I showed Taryn how to count the rings of bark to determine the age of the tree.
'Let's go and tell Mummy, Daddy and Uncle Andy about the tree bench,' I said.
'We could shout for them to come and look at it,' said Taryn.
'I think it would be better if we went to fetch them,' I said.
'Why?' said Taryn.
'Because it would be nicer to go and tell them rather than yell at them down the hill,' I said.
'Why?' said Taryn.
'It's better manners,' I said. 'Shouting in public is common.'
'I'd rather shout,' said Taryn.
'Well, I think we should go and find them,' I persisted.
'Okay,' said Taryn. 'I'll stay here.'
'No, you have to come with me,' I said.
'Why?' said Taryn.
'Because Mummy and Daddy will be cross with me if I leave you on your own,' I said.
'But what if someone else sits on our bench?' said Taryn.
'They won't,' I said.
'Why?' said Taryn.

I had forgotten the 'why' phase of growing up. Still, it's good to have an inquisitive mind.

We set off back down the hill.

'MUMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYY, DADDDDDDDDYYYYYYYYYY, UNCLE ANDDDYYYYYYYY,' Taryn yelled as she bowled down the hill full tilt. 'WE'VEFOUNDABENCHMADEOUTOFOTREETRUCKCOMEANDSEEITNOW!!!'

So the picnic was packed away, and we trooped back up the hill with assorted hampers, kites, rugs and a frisbee full of forest treasures and a rabbit skull. Taryn had maintained her hold on the collection of acorns and beech nuts we had gathered clearly not trusting them to my frisbee plate. As we climbed the hill, Taryn sang, 'The Grand Old Duke of York' to us. As we reached the bench, Andy requested she sing 'Pop Goes the Weasel.'
'I don't know that one,' said Taryn, climbing onto the bench and placing her handful of acorns and beech nuts carefully at her side.
'I'll teach you,' said Andy, sitting beside her.

And he began to sing.

'Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle.
That's the way the money goes,
'POP! Goes the weasel.'

Taryn fixed him with a steely glare.

'You're sitting on my nuts,' she said.

Tumble World

Yesterday was a day that just didn't stop. It was a tumble drier day, a day when life didn't let up, spinning and twirling and jumbling around. It's good to be busy, I kept reminding myself. It's good to be purposeful.

Guy the Builder arrived with Russell the Plasterer to do the six little jobs around the house that we'd arranged on Monday.
'We'll start with the roof and the patio,' said he. 'There's supposed to be rain later.'
I looked at the clear blue skies and allowed myself an internal snort of disbelief.

'I'll pop into town and get your money,' I said. I also needed to get some cocoa powder and bin bags so thought I could nip to Sainsbugs and use the cash machine there.

On the way back, I got soaked by a small but very wet shower of rain.

I made Guy and Russell a cup of tea and gave them some cake and biscuits.
'Have you got a pair of tweezers?' said Russell. 'Only I've got a splinter.'

I inspected the proffered finger. The splinter appeared to have gone into his finger at a 45 degree angle. Russell was looking a bit pale.

I located the tweezers. 'Can you take it out for me?' asked Russell, looking even paler.

So I set about splinter removal with a firm but kind manner. Russell did a lot of wincing and gasping. 'I think I'm going to go,' he said, now having reached ultra-pale on the human skin tone chart. I was thinking, for heaven's sake, it's only a splinter.

But when I pulled it out, and it put up a huge resistance before it finally gave way, I did feel a bit more sympathetic to poor Russell's plight. It was a whopper. Almost as big as a twig. But not quite.

My friend Maggie phoned. I told her about my impending Grannyhood, about Heather having graduated and about the house being up for sale.
'I'm expecting the surveyor at 11.30,' I said. 'He's coming to do the energy thingy for the HIP doo-dah.'

The surveyor arrived at 11. He looked alarmingly like Pierce Brosnan and was entranced by Pandora who stole his biro and his ruler. Anyway, he wandered around the house taking photos of things like the utility meters and the boiler. I thought, you really need to get out more. And then he asked me a few questions and we both tutted about the appalling waste of time and money that these HIPs are, and then he went.

The phone rang again. For the last two weeks a call centre in India has been trying to get me to participate in a survey that will only take ' a few minutes.' In my experience, they usually take considerably longer and once you've responded to one survey they'll keep coming back for more. I keep telling this call centre to remove our number from their dialling list. Obviously, I am not being clear enough in my request but I'm being very good and haven't yet resorted to screaming and swearing. However, if they persist in calling I am going to employ a selection of funny accents and characterisations, if only to make this daily disturbance more fun for me.

Guy and Russell were racing on with the jobs. I sat down to do the household accounts to make sure we'd be solvent at the end of the month. Chris appeared.
'How did Leane get on at the boot fair?' I asked.
Chris muttered something which sounded like English but didn't make a huge amount of sense. I caught the words 'nineteen pounds', 'sunburn' and 'tennis racquet' and that was about it.

Chris left and the phone went again. My friend Alison. Alison and I started school together. That means we've been friends for 39 years. She'd called to tell me that her daughter had got an 'A' grade in her English AS level. 'She wouldn't have got it without your tutoring,' said Alison. 'So would you carry on tutoring her when she continues with the A2?'
'Of course,' I said. I was thrilled for her daughter. She was fun to tutor and it just shows that all youngsters need is someone who is enthusiastic about their subject to give them confidence to be enthusiastic about it too. I thought, I ought to do more tutoring. So maybe I will.

Guy appeared. 'We're all done,' he said.
'Good grief,' I said. 'That was very efficient.' And I inspected the work, which was all excellent. I paid Guy for the work.
'And don't forget,' he said,' if you ever want any livestock - pigs, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, even a cow, give me a call and I'll put you in touch with my mum.' Guy's mum has a farm. I'd already showed Guy pictures of the house we have made an offer on. 'Plenty of room there for a couple of pigs, goats and more poultry,' he said.
'I agree,' I said, feeling suddenly very excited about this house. 'And bees.'
'Even a little orchard,' said Guy.

And then Andy came home. We had dinner, then went to the allotment. Now, a few weeks ago we planted a dozen or so tomato plants in the polytunnel. I thought, they're well enough apart, it'll be a doddle to pick the tomatoes, unlike last year when it was like beating your way through the jungle in our much smaller greenhouse.

The polytunnel looks like a jungle. I could see many ripe tomatoes, I just couldn't reach them very well. But I am a Tuesday's Child, so full of grace and light of foot. I tiptoed through the tomato jungle and collected the tomatoes. We also brought home beetroot, runner beans, French beans, raspberries, courgettes, spring onions, ordinary onions, rainbow chard, spinach and cauliflower. Several pumpkins stared ominously at me from the squash patch. 'Pick us if you dare,' they seemed to say. What am I going to do with you lot, I thought.

So a very busy day. A good day. A satisfying day. A hurrah to make me smile day!

From England to France...

Yesterday, I wrote 2 blogs, one of which was commented upon by Vera, mon amie en France. Now of the two blogs, I thought she'd be more likely to comment on the one about sitting bare bottomed on the ground in order to test soil temperature because that is the kind of thing I imagine she would rush out to try immediately - or at least send hubbie Lester out to try, if only to snap a few cheeky shots to post on her own blog.

But no, 'twas the worm one that brought forth the comment. Mostly because, as she digs her way heroically through her new small-holding at the base of the Pyrenees, she has found only two and a half worms. (What happened to the other half of the half worm? Was the half that Vera found still alive and wriggling? Is it still a functional worm??) And a lot of moles. Now, I haven't found any moles in my garden and I believe moles like worms (to eat, not to take to the cinema or anything) so I think les moles francais might need their knives and forks removing.

Often, as Vera and I travel towards various levels of self-sufficiency in our respective corners of the world, we find ourselves doing similar things at similar times. For example, we both bought willow trees on the same day a couple of weeks ago! And a few days ago, Vera wrote about her dearth of worms on the very same day that worms was my subject of choice. I have to say I felt marginally guilty about writing about worms. I'd been in the garden all day and discovered a worm planet in the compost bin. I was very excited. I thought, 'there's my blog subject for today.' So I came inside. late in the afternoon, cranked up the computer, logged on and read about Vera's digging and her discovery of a single worm and thought, 'I can't write about my mass of worms. It'll sound like I'm bragging.'

But then I thought, no, perhaps Vera will be encouraged that there are still worms on planet earth and they haven't all left for Neptune. And perhaps French worms are a bit more relaxed about making an appearance at the start of the growing season. After all, the bottom end of France has a longer growing season than the bottom end of England, so French worms have a little more time on their hands. I expect they are still sitting deep in their burrows, quaffing vin rouge and nibbling on the last Camembert of winter.

So, Vera tried to get Lester enthused about worms but he wasn't keen. But rest assured, Vera, Andy wasn't too excited, either. Last night I said 'Have you been on the Wormcity website?' and he said, 'Er...no. Not yet.' I said, 'We have to keep the wormery in a bin bag for the first three or four days because apparently the worms will try and escape their alien environment.' 'Really?' said Andy. 'But it will help if we put some of our garden soil into their wormery to help acclimatise them,' I continued doggedly. 'Hmmm?' said Andy.

At this point I gave up trying to get Andy excited about worms. So perhaps it's a man thing. I expect they spend so much time comparing worms when they are little boys that the novelty has worn off by the time they reach manhood. I, however, intend to fling myself enthusiastically into the whole wormery thing (not literally, it's only 72 litres in capacity and I think my capacity it considerably more than that) and I am looking forward to feeding my vegetables on nutrient rich compost and liquid plant food.

As I write this, I am holding a text conversation with Andy. We need some topsoil for our raised bed 'n' Plan Bee Garden and he has embarked on a spot of bartering with Gemma (a.k.a The Gemsta, Mrs Poo's Formula One Racing co-driver) because she has topsoil in her garden we can have in exchange for half a dozen eggs. I felt this was a bit mean so offered a cake into the bargain and the deal is done! Half a dozen eggs plus a chocolate chip 'n' banana cake (or carrot cake if I do those -yes I do) in exchange for several bags of topsoil!

Superstores? Who needs them?