An Apple a Day

The Much Malarkey Manor apple tree has done itself proud this year. Now in its fourth year of growth, it has shot both upwards and outwards and is positively groaning under the weight of fruit. I skip into the garden ever other day and fill up the fruit bowl. I'm going to need a ladder soon, so skipping will probably become inappropriate, dangerous and a Health and Safety issue, and quite frankly I can't be doing with all the paperwork so please don't mention this to the authorities.

Now, Mrs Pumphrey has discovered that if she stands on the fence surrounding the herb garden, she can fling herself with sufficient force at the tree and knock an apple or two from the branches to the ground where Mrs Slocombe is waiting to grab the spoils and rush off for a spot of apple chomping. This is bad.

'Well, we're fed up with courgettes,' they say. I suppose I can't blame them - I'm getting pretty fed up with courgettes, too. But they need to stand back from the apple tree. Or there will be trouble.

So, not only do I find myself rushing into the garden waving tea-towels at the pigoens to stop them pinching the chicken food, I give an extra tea-towel wave at Mrs P to get her off the fence and away from the apple tree. If only, I think, the chickens would eat the chicken food. Then the pigeons wouldn't go after it and the hens wouldn't go after the apples. If only it were that simple.

Chickens are such life-enhancing creatures.

Today I am hiding. The house is silent. There is a cat curled up asleep either side of me and I am losing myself in the writing of a short story that I started early yesterday morning and is proving to be a load of tosh. (I am trying to detosh myself by having a blogging break, but find myself aimlessly rambling instead.) I am also fiddling with my Kindle and going, 'Cor, look what it can do,' a lot. I've finished 'Northanger Abbey' and am on a mission to download as many freebie books from Amazon as I can. One of them is 'Diary of a Nobody' which is proving very entertaining ; Pooter is in the process of painting everything in his house with red enamel paint. And I am wondering at what point in the plot his wife is going to leave him, because I'd have been out the door by page 8.

Later, I may go into the garden and do some weeding. This is only because I now have in my possession a green waste wheelie bin from the council which is going to cost £30 per annum for the privilege of using, and I feel obliged to fill it up for collection every fortnight in order to get my money's worth. Luckily, the buddleia is coming to the end of its flowering and is in need of drastic pruning. And there are some pretty ropey-looking lupins in the front borders that need dealing with, too.

And I have just remembered that I have a £15 gift certificate to spend on Amazon so should I develop a sudden consumer urge I can satisfy it with some random purchase. Today, I am mostly feeling like randomly purchasing a copy of Puccini's Madame Butterfly, or the latest Paul Torday novel, or a new key ring, or a gastric band.

A man has been out this week to assess the replacement of a couple of roof tiles, and the sorting out of the boiler. He is a multi-tasker. He is also bi-polar, though I'm not sure how that helps in roofing or boilering nor why he felt the need to tell me in the first place. He is going to get back to me vis a vis costs and dates which I sometimes think is tradesman talk for 'I can't be bothered to deal with such a trivial job.' Still, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, the country being in economic straits and all so surely no job can be too small, and await his getting back to me with eager anticipation - well, okay, mild interest.

I have been assessing our finances (because we are taking out a new mortgage deal and such activities forces one into assessing one's finances) and have decided that we can at last get the upstairs shower-room done properly. And by 'properly' I mean 'professionally' and not 'bodgily' by which I mean by me and Andy, because although we are a very good vet and a very good teacher between us, we are rubbish with plumbing, tiles, lights and showers. Therefore, a bathroom man has also been out, and has said he will provide us with a quote in a week's time. I'd rather he provide us with a new shower room, but if he feels he needs to kick off with a quote or two I hope it's Oscar Wilde or Shakespeare. Or Dorothy Parker. She's always good for a laugh. Ahahahahahaha!!

The bathroom man did provide a verbal quote before he went, which didn't scare me too much, so I expect we shall go ahead anyway.

Right, back to the short story tosh. Have a good tosh-free day!

Fluff 'n' frou-frou 'n' flounces 'n' frills

For a wedding that is almost two years away yet, Chris and Leane are careering ahead with the plans as if time is of the essence. The venue for the ceremony and the reception are sorted - windmill and cute little barn - and if Leane had had her way, then I think today she would have bought her dress and it would be taking up space in my loft until the Big Day!

Yes, today we have trawled the bridal shops of the town - we have been sucked into the mysterious world of princess line and fishtail and ballgown, of taffeta, silk and lace, of cathedral veils and tiaras and ice white and ivory and oyster. And now I feel drained of all energy, both physical and emotional, and want to go for a lie-down except there is a Thai curry waiting to be cooked for dinner and if I go and lie on the floor then Pandora will sit very close to my head and STARE at me and freak me out big time.

Leane has strong ideas about what she doesn't want in a wedding gown. 'I don't want anything that makes me look like a fish, or anything that is too pouffy,' she said. But because she is tall and slim, she actually looks wonderful in fishtail dresses AND pouffy dresses, which means she has the choice of pretty much any dress there is on the market, unlike me who tried on all sorts of gowns and managed to use all the adjectives from 'good' to 'okay' to 'hideous' in one fitting appointment alone.

There wasn't one dress that Leane tried on today that she didn't look fab in. Varying degrees of fabness, yes, but all fab none the same. There was one that was super-fab, though. It is what I call a 'proper wedding dress' and when she came out of the changing room I actually gasped and Kayleigh, who had begun to develop wedding-dress fatigue two shops previously, stood and stared and then sat on the floor with a 'flump' and stared as though she was looking at a real life fairy-tale princess.

And for a brief moment, I thought I caught the look of a looter in Leane's eye. A look that said, 'If I run for it, wearing this dress, they'll never catch me, and I'll get away with it because everyone else seems to be at the moment.'

Luckily, Leane has stronger moral fibre than a looter, thus saving me the embarrassment of having to rugby-tackle her in public and drag her kicking and screaming from the dress of her dreams.

Unfortunately, the dress of her dreams comes with a pretty hefty price tag, and Andy and I are already paying for the venue.

More thinking and praying to do, I believe. Something will come up though. I'm sure it will.

Ashamed and Outraged

Today, I feel ashamed to be English. Rioting and looting going on in the name of 'justice'? Wild, and misguided youngsters stealing and committing acts of violence against their communities in cities of which we are supposed to be proud? Law-abiding citizens seeing their businesses go up in smoke, their property being destroyed, their livelihoods and lives threatened? To say that these yobs are behaving like animals is an insult to animals.

And some of them mere children, too? As a teacher, I always feel a sense of responsiblity that my job isn't only about teaching the structures of complex and compound sentences. or exploring the historical and cultural contexts of a society that produced our literary classics. It's about trying to instil some sense of moral and social code in youngsters who don't have that guidance from their own parents (and believe me, there are lots of them out there.) It's about trying to show this new generation that there is more to life than owning the latest mobile phone or gaming system, than watching reality TV shows that promise fame and fortune for everyone, than living their friendships through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter or their ambitions through DVD games like Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft. But it's difficult - are they prepared to listen to an old fogey who keeps hens and bees, grows her own veg, reads books and likes making cakes and growing a few flowers? And who doesn't even know her own mobile phone number and cancelled her Facebook account after 6 months because she could see the aggravation it was causing?

It's not easy to say...

No, it is not okay to take someone else's property just because you want it and can't be bothered to save for it yourself, or earn your own money because that will take time and you want it NOW.

No, it is not okay to verbally abuse someone because it is 'funny', because it 'amuses' you, because you lack the empathy to understand the distress you are causing someone else.

No, it is not okay to taunt someone to the verge of tears, because you are bored and want a bit of excitement in your life, because you enjoy winding someone up for revenge or whatever other petty and pathetic excuse you can come up with to justify your behaviour.

No, it is not okay to blame someone else for your revolting behaviour just because you can't be bothered to put in the effort to learn how to behave in a civilised manner towards your fellow human beings.

No, it is not okay to spread gossip and rumours about each other because she said that he said that she said that someone else told them that someone else said that she said that because he said that.

Teachers spend almost as much time sorting out the arguments and poor behaviour of a minority of their students as they do trying to teach their subject to the majority. I would be lying if I said this situation wasn't demoralising.

Of course, the majority of our students are well-behaved. They want to learn. They know how to be courteous, they know the value of education, and whilst some may not in possession of the greatest brains in the world, they will always try their best and that's all that can be asked.

But it doesn't take many to spoil the endeavours of the majority. For I think that the majority of British citizens are law-abiding and respectful, that we go about our daily lives working hard, paying bills and taxes, caring for our environments, policing our lives so as not to upset and inconvenience anyone else. And it's us that will be paying for this vile behaviour of the few. We'll be lumbered with rising insurance costs and council tax bills. We'll be clearing up the physical mess if we inadvertently get caught up in some yob's path of destruction. And these yobs are the parents of the next generation.

I'm lucky, really. I have a good family, good friends, a job and a brain. I have a nice little house on the edge of a town (although I woudln't want to be in the middle of that town in the wee small hours at a weekend.)

What can I do for this country that I love? Keep teaching? Keep praying? Switch off Radio 4 and confine listening to the comedy stations?

I don't know.

God Bless England. I think, at the moment, she needs it.

Saved!

Two things...

...the piano. Yes, a waste company said; they would come and collect the remains of our dead piano. It would cost me £50 for the privilege but hey, it would get rid of it from the driveway and negate the risk of it falling onto my car and smashing the lovely metallic blue paintwork to smithereens in a high wind. The company would collect late afternoon, possibly tomorrow. So, mid-afternoon there was a knock on the door. A small and smiley and muscley man was on the door step.

'I see you've got the insides of a piano on your drive,' he said.

'Are you from the waste company?' I said.

'No,' he said. 'But if you want to get rid of it, I'll take it now. No charge.' And he showed me his official card that proved him to be a properly licensed scrap merchant and not some shyster who would dump what he didn't want in some Kentish beauty spot somewhere. Not that there are many Kentish beauty spots left, not since John Prescott started concreting over the county, but I digress....

So what are the chances of something like that happening? Mr Small - Smiley- Muscley loaded the piano innards onto his lorry using the dinkiest crane I've ever seen, I refilled his squash bottle for him, and he went off happy with his spoils leaving me happy at saving £50.

...the bees in the roof. Which turned out NOT to be bees after all, but WASPS!! What a relief! Not for the wasps, obviously, who are now in the process of becoming ex-wasps, but ooooh the angst I've been suffering thinking I was going to be party to a bee massacre. You spend the whole season nurturing your numbers up to an excess of a quarter of a million, then you commit an act of deliberate murder.

The Wasp Man came out and stared at the roof for a while. 'Are you sure they are bees?' said he.

'No, 'said I, 'it's an assumption based on my being a bee-keeper and the fact we've got a full-to-bursting top-bar hive at the bottom of the garden.'

Wasp Man hummed, got out his binoculars and stared at the roof a bit more. 'Definitely wasps,' he declared. 'That's a relief, isn't it?' he added. Obviously he had picked up on my bee-ocide guilt.

So he got out his cannister of insectijollop and had a good old squirt around and declared his job done.

I apologised for not being able to tell a wasp from a bee at 45 feet.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'It amazes me the number of people who think that bumble bees are wasps. I knew what a bumblebee looked like when I was two.'

I thought that was very impressive. My only memory from when I was two is walking around the back garden with a yellow bucket on my head and banging into the fence.

Two good things to end this stressy week, then. I'm keeping everything crossed that more stresses on my list will meet with equal efficiency next week.

You May Have Noticed...

...that yesterday I was feeling quite narksome with the world. So much so that I have created a new word - 'narksome' - in order to describe the feeling of 'WHY IS THE WORLD CONSPIRING 'GAINST ME?? WHY, WHY, WHY???? (wails, stamps feet, beats bosom, howls at the moon, tries to resist urge to comfort eat and fails dismally).

But today I feel better and I have been getting on with the task of dealing with the list of narksome stresses.

So far I have a) engaged the services of someone to sort out bees in roof b) engaged someone to take away dead piano c) found a reliable sort of chap to deal with loose roof tiles and boiler.

I have contacted, and am awaiting reply from, someone to sort out dodgy bathroom window.

I have found a possible and affordable wedding venue - a WINDMILL! How cool would that be? Literally!!

I have stood in back garden and conversed with the chickens using very mild expletives regarding the constant banging and drilling coming from next-door-but-one that continues today.

'Mild expletives?' says Mrs Slocombe. 'My Great Uncle Norbert the Naughty Navvy would have been proud and slightly pink of cheek to hear what Denise said this morning.'

My letter of appointment was apparently 'written yesterday' and 'should arrive by the end of the week'. But I shall believe that one when I see it.

I have been helped in this sudden burst of grabbing-the-problems-by-their-horns-and-staring-them-in-their-beady-eyes by the arrival in my life (via lovely Andy who is ever sensitive to my needs) of a Kindle! I have already downloaded for free 'Northanger Abbey' by Jane Austen which is highly entertaining, and I have a list of other books I intend to get (mostly for free) this afternoon. I'm also listening to an adaptation of 'Cold Comfort Farm' on Radio 4 Extra, which is one of my favourite books and, consequently, am thinking that no matter how bad things get, Aunt Ada Doom and her 'something nasty in the woodshed' will probably always be worse off than me, especially as we don't have a woodshed for anything nasty to hide in.

I have also decided to abandon Capt. Corelli and his Banjomandoukele.

And so I continue onwards and upwards, like some mad Revolutionary from a tear-jerking French novel. It's Wednesday, Mr Mybug is in equal mad pursuit of Flora, Mrs Pumphrey is back in lay, there's a vast quantity of apples that need picking from the tree in the back garden and it's just about cool enough today to bake a cake.

Plan 'Get on With Your Life You Miserable Bat and Stop Whinging' is back on track!

Crisis

... with bees in the roof space
... with boilers on the blink
... with daughters and their boyfriends
... with sons and their weddings
... with pianos and their innards
... with mortgages and their rates
... with incompetent lawyers who make assumptions
... with having to go places you don't want to be seen dead in

... with dodgy bathroom windows
... with awful books to teach (esp. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - eurghhh!)
... with friends who aren't very well and worry you
... with allotments overgrown with weeds
... with days too hot for baking
... with a mind fed up with it all
... with the sudden onset of bingo wings
... with a school that STILL hasn't sent a letter of appointment even though its nearly eight weeks since the interview

... with gangs of spitting, swearing youths roaming the road with their idiot haircuts and penchant for lager for elevenses
... with the people next-door-but-one who have been BANGING and DRILLING non-stop for 4 days now
... with trying to think of what to cook for dinner tonight after more than 25 years of thinking what to cook for dinner tonight
... with too many expectations to be Wonder Woman... and all that jazz... you know what I think? I think I might just pack a bag and RUN AWAY FROM IT ALL NOW...

Hive Five

You remember at the beginning of the year we had uno hive? A thankfully healthy hive, having come safely though a horribly long and cold winter. And then at the beginning of May we had dos hives, because we THOUGHT we were one step ahead in the outsmarting of Queen Philibert by performing an artificial swarm.

And then at the end of May we had quatros hive, because we actually weren't ahead of the Minxy Philibert who sent out two casts which we caught and set up in a wild and frantic fashion in two more hives. On checking this morning, Queen Philibert's hive was full and needs a second super and cast hive two (the smallest) was three-quarters full and should be okay for Winter.

Well. Yesterday, I went into town to take the grand-daughter shoe shopping, and whilst we we there, Andy, who had stayed home to do some 'computer learning' as he calls it (he is currently learning some intricate computer programming d00-dah in order to develop some phone apps that will become highly profitable and make us a fortune) appeared and said, 'I have two pieces of good news, except one of them may have a possible piece of bad news attached.'

'Okay,' I said. 'What's the good news?'

'One,' said Andy, 'is this rather lovely tax rebate cheque from the Inland Revenue.'

And it was.

'And the second,' said Andy, 'is that we appear to have a bee colony in the roof.'

And thus is looks. There are honeybees flying in and out 'neath a roof tile near the chimney stack. And if you stand in the room at that corner of the house, you can hear a very teeny-tiny scrit-scrit-scritty sound.

These are the theories:

1) That the top-bar hive (cast hive one) at the bottom of the garden, which is full to overspill, has sent off a swarm which has been drawn to the eau-de-lemongrass bait we put on the flat roof and thought, 'Hmmm, this smells nice, let's stay here.'

2) That when Philibert's hive swarmed it sent off not two, but three casts, and one of them decided to evade capture by heading for the chimney.

3) That last year's original Queen, who vanished (hence the late-in-the-season purchase of Queen Philibert) didn't actually vanish at all, she just chose to move next door and up a bit to the penthouse suite.

4) That a random passing swarm has sniffed the eau-de-lemongrass and thought, 'Hmmm...this smells nice, let's stay here.'

Whichever way, we now have a fifth bee colony living in the roof. Even if it's quite likely very small and totally inaccessible.

I don't mind. It's quite nice seeing bees dip in and out of the eaves. It's like they have recognised as as bee-friendly people who have the wherewithall to look after them.

I may have overdone the 'Prayers for Happy Bees' this season, though. Just a tad.