Sunday 31st May

Week Ten

Hello......  
What has everyone been up to?

The weeks and days pass........ to me they are normal except I have have more hours in each day, that's because I don't have to go anywhere.  No appointments, no meeting with friends for coffee in town.  I do meet with friends but they live five minutes away.  I've had picnics and just cuppas in the garden either at friends or they come to me.  Being on my own  if I don't see another human I will go crazy!

I'm sure Boris and friends have not really thought out what they say.  

We can visit in personal gardens but we cannot drink much because what goes in has to come out........ I'm desperate to see my grandchildren but cannot because I would have to spend the day without a drink and I do like a cuppa when I arrive after a long journey, but saying that I think we can use the bathroom as long as we wash our hand thoroughly and clean the facilities after use.

I live in a seaside town, we also have one of those large holiday camps too which isn't open but when it does I dread to think what may happen. Our public loos are not open and quite honestly you only use those in a dyer emergency!

I have been gardening but not much making indoors.  Yesterday I mowed the lawns.  I did it quite early, well early-ish before the the day got too hot.  I garden early too I don't do the heat very well.

I neglected my gardens for two years so a restoration is needed.  

I am amazed that things are flowering

I put this rose in the garden thirty years ago.  Every year it gets pruned to virtual ground level and every year it flowers!  I thought it was called Handel but not so so sure? 
If anyone can help please say.

I got fed up with the hanging basket.  Well I like hanging baskets but things never survive in mine despite of the twice a day watering.  So this year I decided to just put pots in and as the flowers die off I can just replace them.

This is my Christmas tree which seems to have growth.  
It came from here last year.

I will tell more about this rose another day........

Sunday 24th May

Week Nine

Well another week has passed with this lockdown.  Monday I had lunch with my friend Sue.  She brought her lunch with her and we sat together in the garden.  She lives in a flat.  Tuesday afternoon had a cuppa with Janice and Thursday elevenses with Denise all in the front garden but now avoiding the Laburnum Tree as the petals are shedding and the tree is turning green............

click on picture to enlarge

This week I have done other things as well as the usual gardening.  Decided the only way to keep the weeds at bay was to go out most days.  Yesterday morning I was out in the garden at 7am.  I even held a conversation to a friend who was going for a walk.  She wanted to see if her friend was OK.  When she got back we had coffee in the front garden.

On Tuesday was my friend Jane's birthday.  I made her a cake and made a shopping bag.  I forgot to photo the bag because of my eager to wrap the present.  The cake part is vegan.  

Recipe

I also gave another friend one of my Lap Quilts.

click on picture to enlarge

I was inspired by Helen Philips' quilts.  

There are thirty six different coloured fabric in the quilt.

I made cheesy chips with some left-over fish and chip supper I had.   I was inspired by this recipe but I only used cheese and ground pepper but I made a small amount of the sauce mix.  The cheesy chips were quite delicious and lovely for a treat!

This picture was emailed to me by a friend.  

I thought is quite funny!

click on picture to enlarge

Sunday 17th May

Week Eight

Who came up with this one?

I can go to the park and meet a friend but I cannot go into her garden.  Well my friend has a side gate and I for one and her are carrying on as we were. (I'm a bit of a rebel on the quiet!)  I also have friends in my garden but front only because you cannot access my back because you do have to go through the house or garage.

I had a phone call from NHSCoronavirus asking/checking up on me.... 

Had I had a letter? No!  

Is anyone doing my shopping? Yes! 

How is my mental health and before I had time to answer she said goodbye!  

Apparently I'm vulnerable...... it's a bit late now!  

Good job I've been self isolating!!!

Rant Over

I been gardening, my kind friend Val has given me loads of plants from her garden so I try and put them in straight away!

All the above I put in last summer

After last weeks sharp winds I found the yellow tulip had been sheared off.

The shorter tulips are now coming into bloom. 

Saw Gardeners World the other week, Monty Don re-planting tulips in the garden after they have gone over.

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I didn't write this, I found it on facebook last week

I think I’ve worked it out....  

* 4 year olds can go to school but university students who have paid for their tuition and the accommodation that they aren’t living in, can’t go back to university.

* I can go to school with many 4 year olds that I’m not related to but can’t see one 4 year old that I am related to.

* I can sit in a park, but not tomorrow or Tuesday but by Wednesday that’ll be fine.

* I can meet one person from another household for a chat or to sunbathe but not two people so if I know two people from another household I have to pick my favourite. Hopefully, I’m also their favourite person from my household or this could be awkward. But possibly I’m not. In fact, thinking about it, I definitely wouldn’t be. But as I can’t go closer than 2m to the one I choose anyway so you wouldn’t think having the other one sat next to them would matter - unless two people would restrict my eyeline too much and prevent me from being alert.

* I can work all day with my colleagues but I can’t sit in their garden for a chat after work.

* I can now do unlimited exercise when quite frankly just doing an hour a day felt like I was some kind of fitness guru. I can think of lots of things that I would like to be unlimited but exercise definitely isn’t one of them.

* I can drive to other destinations although which destinations is unclear. I was supposed to be in Brighton this weekend. Can I drive there? It’s hundreds of miles away but no one has said that’s wrong.

* The buses are still running past my house but I shouldn’t get on one. We should just let empty buses drive around so bus drivers aren’t doing nothing.

* It will soon be time to quarantine people coming into the country by air... but not yet. It’s too soon. And not ever if you’re coming from France because... well, I don’t know why, actually. Because the French version of coronavirus wouldn’t come to the UK maybe.

* Our youngest children go back to school first because... they are notoriously good at not touching things they shouldn’t, maintain personal space at all times and never randomly lick you.

* We are somewhere in between 3.5 and 4.5 on a five point scale where 5 is all of the virus and 1 is none of the virus but 2,3 and 4 can be anything you’d like it to be really. Some of the virus? A bit of the virus? Just enough virus to see off those over 70s who were told to self isolate but now we’ve realised that they’ve done that a bit too well?

* The slogan isn’t stay at home any more.So we don’t have to say at home. Except we do. Unless we can’t. In which case we should go out. But there will be fines if we break the rules. So don’t do that.

Don’t forget...

Stay alert... which Robert Jenrick has explained actually means Stay home as much as possible. Obviously.

Control the virus. Well, I can’t even control my dogs and I can actually see them. Plus I know a bit about dogs and very little about controlling viruses.

Save lives. Always preferable to not saving lives, I’d say, so I’ll try my best with that

one, although hopefully I don’t need telling to do that. I know I’m bragging now but not NOT saving lives is something I do every day.

So there you are. If you’re the weirdo wanting unlimited exercise then enjoy. But not until Wednesday. Obviously.

Sunday 10th May

Week Seven

Well how was your week?  

I have to be honest I lost the days, I thought yesterday was Sunday for a while.

I have done some gardening.  I put in a newly purchased rose from David Austin Roses in.  A bit of an extravagant purchase but there was a reason why.  I have two really lovely friends who help me by shopping or help me with my accounts.  I buy them flowers and bake cakes for them every so often and have made things like bags and quilts.  This time |I thought a rose might be nice.  Val had The Ancient Mariner.  Her and her husband Mark have a dinghy which they sail off Porlock but haven't been out in it since last year, it is also a  poem local to us as Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived on Exmoor.  Jane had Ballerina, I couldn't get belly dancer as that is her hobby!  I had Fairy because that's where faeries live don't they, at the bottom of the garden!

my pretty "posh" tulips still going strong

frog/toad in Val's pond

I went for a walk into town  with Jane last week.  

Note to self don't mow two lawns then walk into town the next day...........

Lat's just say I had a very restful day on Friday

I take photos of Weather Vanes.  

This one was seen on the walk to town.

Jane and I also spotted this Arum lily growing on the bank of the local stream

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All weekend this is the song everyone seems to be singing.  

Looking forward to seeing my family so much so I dedicate it to them also to the friends I had arranged to meet up with before the lockdown

We'll meet again

Don't know where

Don't know when

But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

Keep smiling through

Just like you always do

'Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

So will you please say hello

To the folks that I know

Tell them I won't be long

They'll be happy to know

That as you saw me go

I was singing this song

We'll meet again

Don't know where

Don't know when

But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

We'll meet again

Don't know where

Don't know when

But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

Keep smiling through

Just like you always do

'Til the blue skies

Drive the dark clouds far away

So will you please say hello

To the folks that I know

Tell them it won't be long

They'll be happy to know

That as you saw me go

I was singin' this song

We'll meet again

Don't know where

Don't know when

But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

Sunday 3rd May

Week Six

A week when I didn't feel like doing anything. a week when I couldn't get motivated. 
It was the week my darling husband passed away last year from a brain tumour. 
A verse from this poem was read at his funeral.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

 W. H. Auden

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Everybody who has a garden I'm sure has been gardening, planted flowers to watch grow.  
The lawns are being mowed regularly looking neat.
My garden is looking quite bare after two years of neglect. I've been pulling weeds, and these weeds were not flowers just in the wrong place!

The Three Cornered Leek was bullying and taking over the garden so I may enjoy the garden next year but I did buy some "posh" Tulips from the flower show at Taunton last year.

I am concentrating on the front garden as that is the part everyone see first.

I went for a walk in the fine rain Wednesday morning. 
Saw these pretty flowers in the hedgerow on my walk

Lady's Smock in the hedgerow

Lady's Smock in the hedgerow

English Country Garden

How many kinds of sweet flowers grow

In an English country garden?

We'll tell you now of some that we know

Those we miss you'll surely pardon

Daffodils, heart's ease and flox

Meadowsweet and lady smocks

Gentain, lupine and tall hollihocks

Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, blue forget-me-nots

In an English country garden

How many insects come here and go

In an English country garden?

We'll tell you now of some that we know

Those we miss you'll surely pardon

Fireflies, moths, gnats and bees

Spiders climbing in the trees

Butterflies drift in the gentle breeze

There are snakes, ants that sting

And other creeping things

In an English country garden

How many songbirds fly to and fro

In an English country garden?

We'll tell you now of some that we know

Those we miss you'll surely pardon

Bobolink, cuckoo and quail

Tanager and cardinal

Bluebird, lark, thrush and nightingale

There is joy in the spring

When the birds begin to sing

In an English country garden

(Some of the birds and insects are not English but we will forgive that......won't we....?)