13°C, grey.
Phone rings in the middle of the day- no-one I know & it’s a bank holiday:
“Are you the man of the house?
Me: say again.
Are you the man of the house?
Me: What does that mean?”
To this, she hung up. Man of the house? – I thought that phrase/concept died out in the 1970s. Still scratching my head.
I helped this little chap cross the road today.
13°C, grey & cool, CR:53 miles
Dear Bessie finished her story today. A story that spanned 14½ years.
She became ill just over a day ago while I was on my way to the Lake District. Mum called me back home because she knew it was serious this time, “I think she’s dying Mike”. Her last day was painless as her body failed and finished just before 11am by the vet.
She spent most of those years in this house and witnessed all the changes that occurred over those years. The first day when she was tentatively introduced to us, she ran, full of excitement in figure-8s in the garden. She had a bit of a silly poodle haircut, bouffant & bushes. I clipped off most puffy bits fairly quickly. She didn’t like too much physical contact, at first pulling away from a head stroke. She got used to us eventually.
Though she grew old and slowed dramatically in the last few years, she was always the gentlest soul. A good dog to have in a house of boisterous children. She took with her a story of change, human relations, growth and separation. The last four years the house became calm which coincided with her more restful pace. She has also taken the mysterious prologue- the time before she came into our lives. I know very little of this period in 1997. I do know, however, that she recovered from a bout of Parvo’s virus. Other than that, her time before Bessie’s dynasty is blank.
I’m trying to decide, from all the options, where to scatter her ashes.
12°C, rain
The Weather was correct last year- early June days reached 24°C, and summer half-term saw me wading into a mountain lake for a paddle while walking up Nantlle Ridge. This year, the air is cool & rain has formed a strip across England & Wales. This is not the correct weather for June. Weather sometimes errs.
To avoid this cold front, I may camp up in the Lake District instead of (my preferred) Snowdonia. Bank holiday weekend in the lakes is likely to be busy with English visitors. Getting away from this town is more urgent than usual this year. The local Bower fair has driven me away for the last six years at some cost. But to compound the repellance, England has gone Jubilee mad. Wales is probably a better escape from kitsch royal patriotism than Cumbria. I bet there is some daft sod with union-flag bunting on their tent as I write. Not so in a Welsh campsite I predict.
27°C, lighter winds
Walked in Lancashire lowland farmland. Fantastic what you can find only a mile from home. A hot day in May.
25°C, few clouds, little wind.
I have another temporary resident in my house. I arrived home earlier than usual to a house that is distinctly buzzing. There is a swarm up by the eaves, I guessed that they’re looking for a nest site. It can’t be that much of a problem can it? Maybe I won’t be able to open the bathroom window as often if I want to keep them outside.
Later: one got trapped in the back bedroom; good, because I can have a close look. I think they might be honey bees. The abdomen is not as bright yellow as a yellow-jacket wasp and the thorax is hairy. If this is right and they want to stay- I’d like to let them.
Last time I looked outside, it was quiet up there, but they haven’t gone. there is the odd bee going in or coming out of a circular hole where an overflow pipe used to be in the wall. They have probably gone inside the eves through a nice safe hole that is just the right size to keep predators out.
Perhaps if I put some kind of mesh over the bathroom window, then they won’t be able to cause me any problems inside the house.
Besides: why does the front room smell of fire? Okay, so I have been a slob and not cleaned the fireplace since last Friday, so why did it only start to smell of wood ash today?
The only thing to do is to sit quietly for a long time and think really really hard. Then I will know what to do.
22°C, Sun. CA:20
Oxalis has been waiting for a few weeks. today it opened itself to the sun, recent days have not been good enough. Now it’s warm enough to put the hammock up.
Oxalis Palmifrons
The Nation is getting excited by the Olympics. Roads have signs warning of closures when the torch relay will pass through. I’m still puzzling over that one. what will actually happen when they run with it up a road. Do all the locals come out and wave flags? If so, what do they actually get out of doing that? What is their motive?
There is a Royal Jubilee next week. Work changed the half-term to straddle the bank holiday, so no extra days holiday (unlike last year). I raise this because the jubilee seems to invoke a similar reaction in the British people. On the face of it, both Jubilee and Olympics have the same problem- the obscure motive of spectators. Okay, it’s one thing to enjoy watching the course of a sporting contest unfold, but another to watch some selected elite run along the road with a torch. It’s taken me a while to figure it all out. My conclusion- don’t be misled by the crapulence of these events, it’s not the events at stake. The core of this is the national unifying effect of patriotism.
Here I am, feeling like I’ve arrived just because I am sitting in my warm garden, by my (self dug) pond bathed in an almost ultraviolet light from this Ceanothus shrub. It’s having a good year, last season it was still sulking after I moved it to make way for the pond. Now it’s in full blue-indigo bloom.
27°C, windy
Gove: “He said: “To suggest that anti-Semitism can ever be explained, rather than be condemned, is insensitive and, frankly, bizarre. AQA needs to explain how and why this question was included in an exam paper.”
Aah, freedom of expression. Where do I be
Michael Gove speaking at the Conservative Party “Big Society” policy launch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
gin to explain why this is so very wrong. Gove has some responsibility to the nation for the education system. Maybe he wants a system that stifles free roaming thought, one that avoids an old, valid and effective technique to combat opponents= know your enemy”. The Anti-Semites are a standard opponent to post-war westerners. We speak of freedom of expression but the minister of education wants to prevent freedom of thought in this statement. Gove doesn’t want us to explain bigotry, he wants condemnation. Perhaps we are to think through our stance without discussing the issues. This is where he has gone so badly wrong. That is why I have reacted so much, even though he is a member of the much despised UK government. Sorry to say, I still haven’t found grounds to forgive their recent crimes against honesty and openness.
14°C, light gry skies, no wind. CK:53 miles
Weekend up North. Saturday was I tired or was I harbouring some latent poorliness? After Sunday’s ride, it was obvious that all those debilitating feelings the day before were exhaustion. The ride went well- it felt so natural to be back in the fixed-gear. Muscles ached towards the end but nothing that would have been mended by a cafe stop.
7°C, rain
Don’t like February, especially when it happens in May. Top temperature today, 7° which rose from a startling 6° this morning. Feb has returned four months on, it would appear. Since I had little teaching to do, I strode into town and bought socks. Stripy socks are back on the shelves so I got a bundle of 7 (pairs). That’s how exciting my day has been, oh and played with Scratch for an hour or so.
Scratch was quite engrossing I have to admit. I’m teaching it very soon, so ought to.
Time for a nap, I did get up before 5am today (before you say anything).
14°C, windy with sun
Could it be that I don’t, as previously thought, live alone? Could it be that these tiny pellets that I have found behind the fridge are left by visitors? Could it be that these visitors take the dog biscuits behind the fridge- where the dogs can’t possible get to, or put them? Do they go there just to eat the biscuits?
If that were so, those visitors could be mice. there certainly is a mousey smell there, or was until I washed it off with bleach. Mice that like dog biscuits enough to come into my house. There’s a thought.
Micycle 