Birthday Wishes

I wish for you a year of blue skies

where the only clouds are fluffy and fleeting. 

I wish you lingering cups of rooibos tea,

Sunday morning lie-ins with the sun streaming through the window 

and lots of opportunity to read for pleasure. 

I wish you long, lazy country drives 

and many happy hours in coffee shops 

with the Telegraph crossword. 

I wish for you
 Inspiration and creativity 

An excellent MA dissertation 

The chance to work on your book again 

Time to relax, time to dream.

I wish you space 

and peace, 

Fun and laughter, 

joy 

and love. 

I wish you a very Happy Birthday, Philip. 

I am so glad you were born. 

♥ 

April Parade of Adventures

April at last. Spring is here finally, despite that last weeks unseasonably warm weather turned rather chilly with the arrival of April this week.

The forsythia is looking beautiful, and I noticed a couple of days ago that the clematis which runs all the way along my fence is full of bud. When did that happen? I have been watching it for weeks, it seems that the moment I took my eye off it, it burst into bud. Looking forward to it coming into flower soon, the mass of little white flowers are quite lovely.

I am planning to enjoy April. I am really looking forward to next week's four day weekend. We have a 21st Birthday party to attend on the Saturday evening (Happy Birthday Coral!), which is fancy dress. Easy for us, out comes our Saxon kit, and we will go as a medieval thegn and his wife, or as I like to say, Thegn and Thegnetta (Do you remember Harry Enfield's programme? I expect I am dating myself there!) I like an excuse to wear it, it is so comfortable. The rest of the weekend is free, though I think the Prof is planning to study, and we have some major decluttering to do in the loft. We might also fit in a day trip to Saffron Walden, we visited there briefly a few weeks ago and would like to go back. The Prof's birthday is later this month, and so is our first wedding anniversary, on St George's Day, the 23rd. We are going away for a few days to celebrate the latter a little later in May, but on the day itself the Prof has booked a day off work so we can celebrate.

There are a few other things I would like to do this month. When I do these lists, there is always a very fine line between writing down everything I would like to do, and overwhelming myself, so I am just choosing a few things. Here is my proposed parade of adventures for April.

• Go out for lunch with the Young Philosopher. We are often in the house together, but he usually seems to be asleep, as he works shifts. When he is up and about it is often the middle of the night, and I am asleep. It is really nice when we do manage to spend a few hours together.

• Make a blanket bag. I am a chilly mortal and have recently started keeping a blanket in the car, an old one that my Auntie knitted for my son's cot, in fact. As I leave it in the car all the time I am concerned the sun will bleach the colours, so I want to make a fabric bag, maybe a kind of pillowcase-style thing to keep the blanket in. No idea how, but I do have some fabric I could use so I'd like to try and work something out.

• Try a few new vegetable dishes. We have a weekly organic vegetable box and I have invested in two new books from Amazon this week, River Cottage Veg Every Day, and Less Meat, More Veg and they both look quite inspiring. 

• Make a cake. I haven't made a cake since my son's third birthday, he is now 20, and I haven't made pastry since school! I enjoy cooking, but have never really got into baking. I would like to change that, and I think I will start with a cake. I need to find a recipe, and then buy the necessary paraphernalia. I don't even have a cake tin, or a sieve....I don't even know what other things I might need. 

• Buy some new jeans. I possess two pairs these days, a horrible baggy black pair in which I feel like a builder, and a pair with Lycra in that look nice but are uncomfortable and make me itch. It's always the same with stretch jeans, I hate them. However, after much searching, I have conceded defeat and given up my mission to find non-stretch jeans in my size, and am at the point where any jeans will do!

• Do some badly needed decluttering of the loft. It's full up! (and I MEAN full up. I am surprised the bedroom ceiling doesn't fall in)

• Write four letters. Feeling very inspired by Kim's project. Kim wrote a letter every day in February, including one to me. I am starting small, one a week this month. 

That's enough for one month, I think. Now I am off to cut some of that gorgeous forsythia to put in a jug on the kitchen windowsill.

10 things

I always paint my toenails, even in the winter when they are hidden in socks and boots. It makes me smile to have pink/green/blue nails, even if I am the only one who sees them most of the time.

My favourite comfort food is eggy mash - soft boiled eggs mashed in with potato. I think it's unique to my family, I never heard of anyone else having it, and when I talk about it to other people they look at me strangely...

I have a love/hate relationship with blogging. Mostly I really enjoy it, but lately an insidious lack of inspiration and can't be bothered-ness (are they the same thing?) has been creeping over me. Sometimes my life doesn't seem worth writing about... 2012 is proving a bit of a challenge, so far.

I was married last year to the man I wish I had met twenty years earlier.

I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is a constant challenge. I have to consider my energy levels in everything I do, and mostly I can't do very much. I have been pleased recently as I do seem to be improving slowly over time, but recently it was suggested to me by a doctor that it may just be that I have the impression I am getting better because I am managing to pace myself energy-wise. Thanks for that, doc.

I home educated my son from the age of eleven onwards. it was a wonderful experience and if I could go back I probably wouldn't even send him to school in the first place. 

I can wiggle my ears. Not sure how useful that is, except for amusing small children. 

I don't believe in evolution. Or the Bible version of events, for that matter. Not sure where that leaves me, I am still figuring it out, but there is no way I am related to a monkey ;) 


I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. 

My hair is very grey. It started before I was 30, and my roots now are mostly white. One day I am going to embrace the grey and be one of those wonderful white haired older women - just not quite yet......  

The Truth

The tumble drier has broken, the expensive bird table I bought doesn't fit together properly, a combination of high winds and the weight of next door's huge ginger tom cat destroyed my new mini greenhouse so bang go my vegetable growing plans, our gas fire isn't safe to use any more, the central heating packed up, the car has acquired yet another dent, another puncture and a broken headlight, my left knee is playing up, I am having pains in my right leg and hip that require constant ibuprofen (not that they are getting it, as the tablets upset my stomach), the skin on my face has decided dry and flaky is its permanent new look. I have white roots so bad I resemble a skunk, and we had no internet for almost a month.

I don't know where the first three months of this year have gone. I spent January and February feeling fed up and generally blah for no apparent reason, then in March the Gods decided to give me something to really be pissed off about (see above: that all happened this month!) Lately it's been easy to get so caught up in just coping with day to day events and catastrophes that I am starting to feel like my life is kind of whizzing by unnoticed. I have been thinking about why I started this blog. I wanted somewhere to write about the places we visit, the things I do, the random thoughts that are on my mind from day to day. I am far too lazy to be bothered keeping a regular diary or making a scrapbook, so a blog seemed ideal, but this year I haven't written much at all. Not much blogworthy stuff was happening, I thought. Not a lot of sunshine and flowers. 

There will never be some wonderful day when all the chores are done, everything is fixed and working perfectly at once, the house is nicely decorated and tidy and the sun is shining. But for now, the central heating and the internet are fixed. The car soon will be, the tumble drier and the gas fire, eventually. I will colour my hair this week and feel better. The bird table will remain wonky, the birds won't care. My little yard won't have those vegetables this year, but for now I have hyacinths and daffodils. 


These are the days of my life.

Out and About in Essex: the forgotten gardens of Easton Lodge

On Sunday we went out for the day with my parents. On Saturday afternoon it had been wet and gloomy here which made me a little concerned about our plans for the next day, but Sunday dawned bright and sunny with beautiful blue skies, and we drove out into Essex to the Forgotten Gardens of Easton Lodge, where the gardens were open for one of their two snowdrop days this year. 

We spent a very pleasant hour or two wandering about, in some areas it was quite hard not to tread on any snowdrops. There were various things to look at as we walked around, including a tree that had been carved, a memorial, a kind of topiary sundial and a dilapidated Italian sunken garden which would be wonderful if it could be restored. There was mistletoe in some of the trees, it fascinates me the way it grows in host trees. I have always wanted to bring some fresh mistletoe indoors at Christmas, but I know the berries are poisonous and our labrador eats everything. She ate another sock last week. 

There is another snowdrop day next Sunday 26th February, be warned before you go that the 'tea room' is outdoors. it also had a long queue. Tea and cake would have been lovely, but not enough to queue and then to sit in the cold and have it. We ended up in a McDonalds, after finding the local pub had stopped doing food at 2pm. I think next time I will pack sandwiches and flask of tea.

At the plant stall by the entrance there were various plants for sale, including snowdrops 'in the green', you can even order them in advance in large clumps on the website.  I wish I had room in my garden for lots of bulbs. I settled for a couple of hyacinths and a little snowdrop in a pot which is now sitting happily on my garden table. 

Current time: Friday afternoon, 1.20pm

In my mug: coffee

In my belly: nothing. CFS is rearing its ugly head at the moment, I slept 12 hours last night, have only been up an hour and feel exhausted. Toast and strawberry jam shortly. 

In my ears: Adele. I got 21 for Christmas, and have recently treated myself to 19. We're listening to her a lot in the car. 
 
Out the window: watery sunshine and a little snow here and there. The snow from last week hasn't entirely melted yet, and we had a bit more last night, too.

On the editor: nothing. Photography Mojo has run away with Blogging Mojo. They disappeared together at the beginning of the year. Occasionally they send me a postcard, but I'm not sure when they will be back. 

Last watched: Spamalot, at the theatre last night.

Feeling good about: the latest copy of Mollie Makes magazine, which I am going to enjoy with my coffee in a moment.

Feeling bad about:  my health, and it getting in the way of what I want to do. Someone said to me once having CFS is like standing on the river bank and watching everyone else's life go sailing by. I'd go along with that. 

By my bedside: Stephen King, 11.22.63, which is dauntingly enormous, and You Don't Need Another Self Help Book, a book of poems by Sarah Salway. 

Making me think: sometimes I find it's better not to.

Snow!

This was our little back garden on Saturday night at about 11pm. I do love snow, and the way it makes everything look so pretty! My washing lines, next door's huge out of control ceonothus bush tree, the fence that is on the way to falling down, my badly-painted bench - everything looks lovely

Poor Star, our labrador, is very reluctant to go outside in the snow, she only goes out when practically forced to and wanders around sniffing at the ground very suspiciously. Last year, the Young Philosopher would throw a snowball as if it was a ball and she would run after it and then when it hit the ground and shattered, would stand there all bewildered, trying to work out where the ball had gone.

I am not leaving the house if I can help it, though we did make a short trip to charity shop and tip on Saturday (still decluttering!) The temperatures outside have been freezing, I have been having hot water bottles, sometimes even on my lap during the evening, not just in bed! The fluffy socks I got for Christmas have come in very handy, and I have been wearing my purple fluffy dressing gown over my clothes too, but then I am always a chilly mortal, and worse at the moment as I have a cold. I am definitely in hibernation mode. I do love the snow, but I will be so glad to see Spring.