Holiday highlights

Home is beginning to look loved: the house is vacuumed where it shows and the garden is deadheaded and mowed; there is still room for improvement.

There are spiders’ webs everywhere, in every corner of the house and across every path in the garden. I must be upsetting them, constantly walking through as they attempt to repair my previous work. I am followed as I work cutting down our long grass by a young robin who clearly thinks I’m doing it for him. He’s quite happy just a couple of feet from me grabbing insects and seeds, but he doesn’t like me to speak so I have given up trying to engage him in conversation.



Corfe Castle



Dorset was lovely as ever, a few new things to do and lots of revisiting.
A different view of Corfe walking 'home'.

the Red Arrows - really!

View from the pub



Pythouse Kitchen Garden for a coffee

The Red Arrows performing in Bournemouth but flying over the cottage and our Corfe walk – they’re the spec if you blow up the photo!

Corfe from the garden of the Scott Arms in Kingston

Supper with friends at The Grannary





Mapperton



Mapperton, a beautiful private garden and setting for Far From the Madding Crowd which started production work there the day we visited – Youngest very disappointed to discover they were looking for not tall girls with long hair, no modern cuts or dye, no tattoos and natural eyebrows (just like her), but you had to be local…

(If anyone has a suggestion as to why I'm unable to make my posting page type/compose easily I'd be most grateful - this has taken me hours and still doesn't look as I planned, but I've lost the will to persist!) 



AWOL

I’m sorry I’ve not been to visit here, and failed to visit everybody else, but I have been busy ‘doing’.

Father’s chair is complete and will be delivered this weekend. Friendwithmatchinggirls’ curtains are all altered for her new house and will be delivered tomorrow. I have been out lifting and dividing perennials in my garden where spring has finally sprung: there is frogspawn in the pond and daffodils, pulmonaria and primroses flowering in every direction. The washing's gone out on the line at last. The hall and landings are being decorated so we're living in a certain amount of chaos, but it will be lighter and brighter - and cleaner!

Now, have you been watching The Great British Sewing Bee? (And yes, I thought they were spelling bees, I’m not sure about sewing ones.) It’s Bake Off with sewing. Thing is, I’m definitely part of the target audience as both a seamstress and a keen viewer of many cooking programmes, and I know it’s early days, but it’s not right yet… I want more information about the tasks and how they should look, I want closer detail of the stitching they’ve done so that I can better understand what’s right/wrong about it, and I want a better rapport between the three presenters. Did Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood get it right at the start? I don’t know as I didn’t watch the first series, but they give down to earth feedback without it seeming as though they are trying not to be scathing – I feel the nice lady from the WI and the smart tailor don’t even have a passion for sewing in common. Claudia’s cute but a bit too random in her comments, without the humour that is Mel and Sue. Episode three of four is tonight on BBC2; I hope it gets another series, but with amendments. Watching Paul Hollywood making bread last night affirmed how beautifully food is now photographed at all stages; it would make all the difference if they could do the same for stitching.

Easter break

The chair is restored to its fifties beginnings.


We are visiting the in-laws for lunch tomorrow and I have baked a Simnel cake to take with us for tea. And we’re next door for curry tonight so my culinary duties are not required ‘til Monday, when I shall make Nigella’s Chocolate Egg Cake – we can’t have Easter without one!

The sun is shining between snow flurries so I am off to play in the garden. Spring may not have arrived but the garden is awake and in need of work.

Happy Easter, whatever you're doing!

A cold garden

I'm getting over a cold. Husband's getting over a cold. Visited home: Father has a cold. Youngest goes back to school tomorrow, she's had a particularly exciting half-term!

The sun is shining today so I've had some fresh air and done some gardening. The garden is waking up: all sorts of things are in bud and some are flowering.

Little news



The picture that wouldn't load.



New term, new project: a chair for Father.



Some completions

We have at last added the topsoil to our garden works and seeded the lawn and put in the stake for the washing line. Since it's done almost nothing but rain since we finished (a bit of sunshine and hail) we are hoping the grass will sprout soon.

In other news, I have finished my little nursing chair at last:

Gardening in the sun

I have made Marmalade at last this week - the Seville oranges have been waiting patiently in the fridge while I avoided noticing them.
Having failed as usual to give anything up for Lent I'm attempting to give up idleness! I suspect playing on the internet falls into that category, so I shall be brief. I'm busy gardening: it's a beautiful day and there are things afoot!

Displacement!

I’m sure I’m not the only one who resorts to displacement activities: today, instead of tidying and cleaning the house, making a food plan for Sunday's birthday lunch (or, more specifically, a Pavlova for Sunday’s pudding and a birthday cake for Sunday tea) wrapping the Christmas presents I’ve bought so far, getting on with making the Christmas cards, or even writing one or two, I have been making Apple Chutney.

It's a lovely sunny day so I've taken a couple of shots to update the building work that's now complete in the garden  - though not yet the planting, it'll have to wait for the spring. I can't help thinking an 'apre ski' style party on the patio might be fun. Hmm!



And for my next distraction I’ve updated my blog! Oh well: there’s always tomorrow…

What are you up to?

I have no time for posting so I don’t know what I think I’m doing here!

The builders have been in making alterations to our garden. The plan was pretty much made when we moved in, but it has only just reached the top of the list of ‘things to do when we’ve saved some cash’. They started two weeks ago and have now done their bit of it though we await the delivery of some iron railings to replace the wall, and a greenhouse, which Husband is going to put up… I am thinking of, but not rushing into, planting plans. Part of me thinks it would be nice to have a flat piece of grass: the whole garden slopes down to the house; it’s not a major slope as we had in a quarter once, but nevertheless it presents challenges. There’ll be plants to move and places to beautify even if we do go for lawn.

And look what I’ve made!

Very pleased with this revived chair: it is functional rather than beautiful, but always useful to have an extra chair to hand and it will sit happily in our bedroom draped with clothes in the meantime.

I hosted the village coffee morning on Wednesday (mentioned last week). It provides a vital push to make me clean and tidy the house (or at least the bits that show) and we’ve got visitors for Sunday lunch too so it needed doing.
Produce from the plot is slowing down, but the apples on our tree are still coming down faster than we can pick them, never mind use them: I really must make some chutney!
And half-term starts tonight for the girls; Husband has to wait another week.

Just idle

It is my last day at home alone until September and I have failed to decide what to do with it.
There are, of course, many useful chores I could do around the house and garden but that seems rather a waste of the day. I could tidy up, but since they'll all be on holiday from the end of today the house will no doubt be a mess again by bedtime. I could do the laundry, but that multiplies daily, so tomorrow would do. The front patio needs weeding, it's pots dead-heading and the pyracantha pruning, but I could do that over the weekend when I need to escape the house. There's work to do in the back garden too, but I probably won't get to it today. My list of rooms that need decorating hasn't got shorter this (academic) year, so there's no point starting that now. And my re-upholstering of the dining-room chairs has come to a halt for no reason other than that I'm being lazy. A nice man cleaned my windows yesterday (at vast expense) so it would be sensible to do the insides, but I'm rubbish at windows... The trouble with hausfrau tasks is that they rarely have a permanent solution: they always need doing again!
Husband still has a piece of written work to complete before Bath University can sign him off as a newly qualified teacher, and Eldest is helping run a summer school at her ballet school all next week, so Youngest and I will be able to have some time together shopping for the other twos' birthdays. So no need to shop today.
I may just idle around the blogosphere, listening to Radio 4... I'll need another coffee, and I expect there's a chocolate chip muffin somewhere.

Rain altered plans

I’ve little to report from my corner of Wiltshire, busy but not blog-inspiring.

The village fete was a great fundraiser but not quite the party it usually is – apparently the first time it had rained on the night in 30 years! Since then I’ve been sorting leftovers and thanking helpers and trying to make headway in the house- and garden-tidying stakes: both somewhat neglected in favour of fete business, and I had friends coming to supper on the patio on Saturday evening.
I like planning ‘proper’ food. It’s not that I don’t make from scratch for the family, it’s that they all have their own particular likes and dislikes so that the variety of cooking required (or that I can be bothered with) is dull… I like thinking about what’s in season, what I can serve for free from the allotment, and what will go together nicely without anyone feeling hungry or over-stuffed at the end of the evening. Cooking for the family is also seasonal, but by the time Youngest's objected to vegetables, Husband to lack of joined up meat and Eldest to sauce that isn't ketchup....
We went with Plan B since, as last weekend, it rained. We ate indoors surrounded by still dripping flowers retrieved from the garden. It was fun!


So, in the absence of words I bring you highlights from My Garden:

Froggy Love

There was a neglected corner in our garden.

 Husband designed a pond, some men built it, and I planted it up. All this happened in 2008. It has been a joy and a focus point in the garden. We imported a bucketful of water from a friend’s pond to introduce some bugs, as recommended in the gardening books.

We bought some plants from a garden centre, and were given some oxygenating plants from the pond mentioned before. The plants and creatures have thrived. Then later we imported some frogspawn from the same pond (before we heard on The Today Programme that this wasn’t recommended.

Two summers ago we watched in horror as the tadpoles were picked off by the diving beetle larvae. They were so greedy we feared there’d never be any frogs.

Last year, we saw frogs in our pond, sunbathing on the pebbles or hanging out amongst the marginals and disappearing into the Hornwort if they noticed us. But on Sunday we suddenly realised that they were not only in evidence, but hanging out in a very amorous fashion: there is a positive orgy going on outside my window! There is frogspawn! We will have an added reason to pop into the garden or gaze out of the window: there will be new life developing in our pond.





Catching up

The birthdays were both deemed successful; the camping, fun.

Eurostar and the TGV to Lyon were brilliant. We had a busy trip, eating too well and all managing to speak a little French: it’s amazing what you can manage if everyone has to order their own food or go without.

Eldest got nine A* and an A.
My trainee teacher has started work.
My girls have gone back to school.


I AM ALONE IN THE HOUSE.


I may take the day off; eat chocolate with a good book; think in the sewing room; play in the garden… or perhaps just take delivery from Sainsbury, do the washing, tidy the sitting-room and catch up on what’s been going on on the blogosphere, all while listening to Radio 4 with no chance of anyone turning it off.

Busy bee

I’ve been doing quite a bit of sewing lately. Last seen delivering prom dresses, more recently I've been measuring up for some outdoor seat cushions and being asked whether I’d consider making cushions for someone to sell on E-Bay, or perhaps sell something for myself. (I still don’t think I could command the money needed to make it interesting to be making the same thing over and over.) As Likeminded friend-from-round-the-corner discovered when she came to play with me: I’m not always capable of finishing projects I’ve got bored with. She and I talked about our collection of sewing machines and compared presser feet, we considered patterns, fabric and embroidery. It was all very pleasurable!

I’m getting very little time to myself. I’m still not used to having Husband round the house, and now I have Eldest as well. I love them both of course, but my routine is shot! I’m keeping on top of the washing but the cleaning and gardening are never really planned as such: I tend to do the thing that shows most in the hope that it will demonstrate that I have done some useful work rather than idle about in a novel or the Blogosphere. In fact I’ve barely been here of late, and probably won’t make it again until after Eldest’s birthday, family visits, Youngest’s Guide camp, Husband’s birthday and a holiday travelling along the Rhone.
If I don't make it back, have a great summer!

holidays

We’ve had a good time in Dorset and staggeringly fair weather, but it’s nice to be home. We walked every day, read lots of books, ate out several times and went to the pictures twice. Alice in Wonderland was wonderful – even Husband enjoyed it – and How to Train Your Dragon was OK. Youngest had a friend to visit and has come home exhausted from too much chat and too little sleep... she’ll learn one day that beauty sleep is essential.

Poor Husband is busy taking exams, two last week and five more this. He’s been swatting hard and I’m crossing my fingers as he’s anything but confident – most unusual for him. If nothing else he’s setting a very good example to our GCSE student!
I’ve had a lovely weekend catching up with all the laundry and pottering in the garden. There’s something very satisfying about piles of freshly laundered clothing – not ironed of course, just smoothed when folded - and it's amazing what a week of warm weather has done to the plants. All the excitement of the dentist and shoe shopping this week to look forward to. I wonder if the girls will get up today?

Spring

I am ridiculously excited watching little flower heads popping up all over the garden, buds budding on the trees and birds house hunting, but please could it stay warmer and stop raining? I can’t make a plan from one day to the next and, ‘though Youngest needs some room decoration (if only she could keep it tidy), the house always needs more tlc than I can be bothered with and I’m supposed to be making a prom dress, I’d rather be gardening.

And what do you do?

I'm reading a novel with that title, and it was particularly relevant last week as I attended a works do with Husband. Being a 'wife of' is something I'm used to, and throughout Husband's career has simply been part of military life: lots of military wives don't have paid work. We spend alot of time moving house and needing to establish the family wherever we end up. Some people manage it, but they seem to take manual type jobs, or they do something everyone needs: teachers, doctors, nurses.. the sort of thing that can be relatively easily transferred - 'though I still think they must be tremendously organised to get their families up and running AND work. But last night, because of the current job, there were lots of civilians, and they generally seem to lead much more settled lives, and not working is distinctly odd...

It's not that I don't do any work! We have a house, garden and alotment to maintain. I am not particularly house proud, but I do try to keep on top of the worst of the family's mess and to do minor repairs or organise to get a man in when neccessary. The alotments is Husband's project really, but produce doesn't know he can only do weekends, so when things are growing they need regular picking too, and that means me. Gardening is one of my favorite activities, but it is a guilty pleasure in that I have always preferred it to housework. Our two children get themselves to school and back on a bus, but they both have a number of after school clubs and commitments that require a taxi service 4 nights a week. Clearly it is my job to keep everyone in clean and mended clothes, and to know where everything they lose is. In my spare time I'm a school governor and I've been Chair for 2 years. I am on call throughout the week for the Headteacher, or anyone else with a school issue. I wonder how the world will continue to run when all the people who volunteer for things have proper jobs instead?


And I'm giving that one up: I've collected too many t-shirts and am getting more and more annoyed by the ammount of work the goverment thinks it can put in the way of schools. But I'm not going to ruin my mood by going there! I was just wondering what I'll say now to provide a suitable answer to the dreaded question...