High Tide

Yesterday evening, being a nice sunny evening, I took my Mother for a ride to Blakeney, to sit by the water there for a while.

As we approached the quay, I said to her `I think the tide`s going to be in` as I could see as we went down the narrow hill into the village the water in the distance, which last night looked to be have something disticitively different about the view.    (Usually the tide nearly always seems to be out whenever we go there).   As we reached the car park, it was still quite full of cars, and driving on we could see why - the tide was in, and very high, but we managed to find just one parking space left away from the water`s edge.

I got my camera and got out of the car to take some pictures of the sights before us.

And, along with the vessels normally in the water was......

  Obviously parked too near the tideline when the tide was out, and the occupants gone off for a walk.  Quite a crowd of people gathered watching it as the tide continued to edge higher
.

Plucking up Courage

A week today I`ll be heading off for a holiday in North Yorkshire.   The first holiday I`ve had away for three and a half years. 

But.... before that, I`ve got to pluck up the courage to tell my Mother that I`m going away. 

I didn`t tell her when I booked it months ago, as I know she`d try to put all kinds of obstacles in the way and get wound up and worried.    I know she`ll still do that, but at least for a lot less time, only 7 day instead of weeks and weeks.   She always imagines that something is going to happen to me, like an accident if I`m driving anywhere (not that I`m a careless driver, but it`s all the others on the road she says! yet she loves getting the car and going out with me).    
I`m sure it`s more a case that she`s thinking of herself and what she`s do if anything did happen to me, she keeps saying I`m all she`s got.   Which is so possessive and selfish.  Where she lives she has carers on hand 24 hours a day so she`s well looked after.

I`ve never found it easy to tell my mother anything, and I`ve been trying to analyse why.   It makes me now wonder if I`m actually afraid of her, and always have been in some way.  Not that she`ll physically hurt me, although as a child she was the one who would hit me at times if she thought I`d done something wrong, I can never remember my Dad hitting me. 

I know envy is wrong, but I do so envy those daughters who have such a good relationship with their mums.  I`ve never had that. 

So, wish me luck as I pluck up courage today, or tomorrow, or the next day......

First Harvest

At last I`ve got my first Harvest of the year.   As I wrote in an earlier post all I`ve managed to grow this year is a really, really good crop of weeds, but yesterday my patience was rewarded and I got my first vegetables from the garden for this year......

Yes...just 4 runner beans!


but there are others forming on the plant - but I guess they`ll all be ready to eat on the week I go away on holiday - so I`ll miss out again.  

Floral sea

Today was Sea Sunday at our church, and yesterday was my turn to do the flowers for the weekend, so of course out came the crab pot and net from our storage shed.

On starting to unroll the net (an authentic fishing net from years ago), in front of the pulpit, I suddenly looked down at the floor, and there marching across the carpet were a whole army of woodlice!.... they`d obviously got into the net whilst it had been in the shed.   So what to do about them before they got loose and invaded all the church, I could just picture them creeping on everyone during the service!  The quickest solution  was to stamp on them.  Anyone looking in the church must have thought I was doing a war dance!    

Thankfully, I remembered that the caretaker was on the premises cleaning, so he came through with his hoover and helped me unroll the rest of the net and hoovered them all up.  I kept my eye about whilst completing the flower arrangement, and during service this evening, but thankfully didn`t spot, or feel(!) any.

Here is the arrangement, I don`t think you can see any woodlice there!

Hunt the vegetables!

Earlier this year, full of the feeling of spring I set to work on my vegetable patch and set carrot and beetroot seeds and some onion sets, looking forward to being able to enjoy home grown produce during the summer.  A few weeks later, there were tiny green seedlings beginning to appear.  Something I always marvel to see.   As the weeks went on I realised that the tiny green stems and leaves which were appearing weren`t my vegetables but were weeds.    So, a dilemna, do I pull them out and risk loosening any baby vegetable seedlings which may be starting to grow, or do I leave them until I can see what is what.    I decided to leave them.  After a few weeks still no carrots had appeared, but the beetroot had.   So I very carefully, on my hands and knees, picked out all the weeds. 

But, after a few days I looked again and the weeds were back twice as big as before, but the beetroot had got no bigger, and still no carrots, and the onion sets weren`t showing much signs of life either apart from about half a dozen of them.     I again went to work on the weeds and removed them.

After the third or fourth time of doing this, I got so disheartened that my veg weren`t growing that I gave up - so here is my veg (weed) patch!    At least the runner beans which I started off in pots and set out later seem now to be doing and have some flowers on them, so hopefully I`ll at least get a crop of them.

Somewhere in among there, should be a few onions and a few beetroot - anyone want to come and find them?!

The patch is fenced in to keep neighbourhood cats out, because they caused damage last year to my vegetables by scapping and leaving `little messages`, the fencing has kept them out but -  how do I keep weeds out??

Earliest cooking memories

I`ve a friend staying for a few days, so I did a batch of baking on Saturday, something I`ve not done for quite a while. But I found myself really enjoying getting into it again.  I made some sultana scones, a cherry cake and an apple pie, the apple pie we had for lunch yesterday.

Eating the scones and some of the cake for tea tonight, we got round to discussing our earliest memories of getting involved with baking and cooking.   And I found myself remembering when I was very little (and that`s many, many years ago now!)  how when my Mum made pastry, she would always give me a little piece of it to roll out with my little rolling pin, then I had a tiny (I think it was a silver thimble) to use to cut out little rounds, and place on a tiny tart tin, then put a minute amount of jam in them and she would bake them.  When my Dad used to come home from work I used to give him the little tarts I`d made for his tea.   Only as I grew older did I discover that he didn`t really like jam tarts!

I wonder what any readers first memories are of cooking/baking?   

 

Building space

What a difference a few bricks make.  My front garden wall and fence over the past months has been getting worse and worse.  Pieces of the fence were beginning to come loose and fall off, depite me trying to knock them back in, the bricks were flaking along the top.   So the time had come to do something about it.

Having measured up the wall, I ventured into the unknown (the local builders merchants, feeling very unsure of myself) to buy some bricks and coping stones.  A very helpful salesman there helped find what I needed, and the materials were duly delivered.

Last week my special builder, Dave, arrived, and set to work to remove the fence, the old bricks and rebuild me a smart new wall with a pillar at the end to finish it off nicely.   What a difference it makes.

As I drove my car into the drive the next day, something seemed strange..... No, I didn`t drive into the wall !.....  I seemed to have a much wider entrance.   It`s not physically possible to be any bigger because the wall and pillar are in exactly the same place, but it does seem a bigger entrance, so it must somehow be an optical illusion.  

I`m really pleased with the new look it gives as one comes along the road to my house too.   A job very well done.

Bird watching

Sitting in the car on a cliff top carpark having a picnic tea the other day, I spotted a flash of colour as a small bird sped past the car window and settled on a branch of the straggly bushes infront of it.   I quickly realised that it was a bird I don`t see many of about here, so out came my camera.   It was a goldfinch.  Such pretty little birds.    But, I think quite camera shy, as this one sat facing the sea, so all I could get was sight of the back of him.

 But eventually my patience was rewarded and he turned to look at me

It makes me admire and realise the many, many, many hours of patience and time that the cameramen for nature programmes must spend, to get some of the wonderful pictures and films which they do.

Back again

I guess it`s time I started to keep my blog up again, somehow I got so inundated with jobs both before and after a large Flower Festival that I`ve not had time to post anything - so just to start it off again, here`s a couple of pictures of what kept me so occupied for most of July.

The overall theme was "A World of Colour"

and this is depicting the "The Colour of Stained Glass".

A murder has been committed

Looking out of my back room window after tea yesterday evening I was very sad and very angry. Why? There on the grass (I can`t call it a lawn there`s more weeds than grass in it!) were a large scattering of grey feathers and at the top of the garden I glimpsed a cat.

I ran out, but the cat (as usual) must have heard me and had dived over the fence. The feathers obviously came from a pigeon, but there was no sign of the body. So whether the pigeon had managed to get away from the cat and these were just a few feathers from the struggle, or whether the cat had taken the bird, I don`t know. But it`s so sad. I think that`s why I don`t really like cats.

Now, sitting here, looking out of the same window, I`ve become aware of some starlings pecking around the grass where the feathers are. I thought they were looking for food, but no, they`re picking up beakfuls of the feathers and flying off with them. Their chicks are going to have nice soft nests!! I wonder if they realise they come from other birds?


Phone update.....As promised, a BT engineer rang me early yesterday afternoon to say he was coming to sort out my telephone fault.... and a quarter of an hour later....he did! and within minutes my phone was working again. So well done BT, but why did it have to take 3 days?!

Ring, ring ????

I`ve now got another problem!....
My internet connection had been cutting in and out all morning and went off completely. I was waiting for a phone call as I had a friend coming to stay for a few days and they were going to let me know about what time they`d be here. So as I hadn`t heard by dinner time, I picked the phone up to try it and and found no dialling tone.

I tried all the phones in the house incase one hadn`t been replaced correctly, but nothing. Looking at the Phone book for a number to ring BT I followed first their instructions to disconnect every phone from the socket and then replace them one by one starting with the main phone socket. Still nothing.

So I rang the number, got the message saying it was expensive to ring from a mobile - great help that, what else could one do if the landline phone wasn`t working! I hung on and then the automated voice said from a mobile ring a different number and gave the number, so I dutifully rang that. But that then repeated almost the same and gave yet another different number to ring if one was ringing from a mobile. I obediently did it.

Again it was answered by a machine and gave options, I pressed 1, then more options, 1 again, and again, and again, in the end it informed me that they were very busy and I was in a queue. I could either remain in the queue (and I thought it was going to say ring back later) but, to give them their due it said one could give them another number including a mobile number to ring me back on, within an hour. So I did that.

They rang fairly quickly, more questions and then they checked the line and found there is a fault on the network. They will get the engineers to work on it and it should be done by 3 working days!. That means Friday. But, to be helpful they could divert my calls to my mobile if I wished. I said yes please and gave them the relevant number.

I`ve just got my Mum to try it, as I`d had no calls, and.... it didn`t divert to my mobile! My home phone gave a couple of feeble dings and stopped and nothing else happened. So, I made another phone call to them, followed all the same automated steps, and fairly quickly a person rang me back, checked all the info they`d got, tried to set up the Call Divert and found that the type of problem with the line is preventing them being able to set it up! She`s going to try a different way in the morning and ring me then. I wait to see!

But, funny enough after the first phone call to them, the Broadband connection has come back and I`ve had a connection all the rest of the day and evening...

Plucking up courage

Well, I`ve plucked up the courage, and I`ve done it.

After weeks,

....no, after months

.......well, to be truthful after a couple of years really

I`ve done it!


Well, I`ve done really the easiest part, I`ve still got the most difficult part to come and I`m not looking forward to that.

What on earth am I talking about, you`re probably saying to yourselves.....


Actually probably nothing out of the ordinary to the majority of you, but to me a big thing.....

.... I`ve booked myself a holiday away for September! Oh, not abroad, I`ve no wish to go abroad, but up to Yorkshire.

I`ve not been away for a holiday for the last three years. We used to have a regular annual holiday, until my mother went into where she currently lives - but she is the big problem - she doesn`t like and doesn`t want me going anywhere. Doesn`t even like it when I go to the city just 26 miles away occasionally for work. Yet she`s perfectly well looked after where she is, with people on hand 24/7 to care for her.

So after all this time of agonising with feeling I wanted to go away and have a break, but knowing how she`d react I haven`t done anything about it. Now, I`ve decided enough is enough and I`m going this year. And, I`m going to do something we`ve never done, and that is go Self-catering, which I think will suit me better.

But..... I`ve yet to tell her, but I won`t do that until much nearer the time....and doing that is something I`m dreading.

Amazing perfume

My favourite flowers are now in flower in the garden - Lilies of the Valley.

I took my scissors and cut a small bunch of them to bring indoors to enjoy. It always amazes me the strength of perfume that comes from one very delicate stem of such beautiful tiny white flowers.

And one this small vase of them, - yes, ever since a child I`ve cut small bunches of them and put in this little green glass vase - fills the whole room with perfume, its quite amazing.
Another of the wonders of God`s world and creation.

Confused viewing

I wonder if anyone else experienced the same confusion as I did last night?...... I began to think I was going a bit strange and hearing things.

It was about 5.45 p.m. and whilst sitting eating my jacket potato with lashings of butter, I was idly watching the tv for company.  It had got to the break in the programme on ITV for adverts when suddenly I thought, those words and jingles seem strange with those pictures.   I watched more closely, yes, they were definitely advertising the delights of a certain slimming breakfast cereal, but the picture was showing a cat eating a bowl of cat food and then the tin with the brand name on.   (I`d better not advertise here, had I?).   I continued to watch and all through the adverts the sound was different to the pictures!  

Then it was back the last quarter of the programme I`d been watching, and the peoples mouths weren`t moving in time to the words they were speaking.    Was it me, was it my eyesight??

As the programme finished and before the next adverts I heard - at least I thought I heard them say, showing the Anglia news desk, `and next the news from `Calendar`.    Did I hear that right, I wondered.

The adverts did exactly the same as before totally different pictures to sound.  Quite amusing at times!!

The local news started - on the screen were the words of Anglia News and the presenters in the studio, but the commentary speaking just didn`t belong.   The voice was saying, "here I am standing on the docks at Grimsby", but the picture was showing a chap at a sports stadium.    

Yes, I was watching Anglia pictures and hearing Yorkshire news.   Was it my TV I wondered.    So, I rang my mother, a few miles away, she put her tv on and got exactly the same!    That was a relief, it wasn`t my set.   I then decided to try something else - tried the other channels they were all ok.  Then I switched it from the Analogue aerial to my Sky dish for the ITV..... and..... no problem! the sound and picture matched and were Anglia region. - switched back again to the other and the problem still went on.

Very odd.

It`s Easter

Happy Easter

A crab on the beach

Walking along the promenade in the sunshine yesterday afternoon, I suddenly came across the most enormous crab I`d ever seen on our beach.......

and there facing it, looking ready for action was an equally large lobster....

Yes, the stone artist had been at work again, piling up beach stones to make these wonderful sculptures using just the beach stones artistically gathered and stacked, with nothing else to hold them in place.   Just using the uniqueness of each stone`s shape and colour to form these art works.

Isn`t that a bit like how God, can use us? - all individual and different yet all having a place in his world for his purpose

A Cross in the Sky

Opening my curtains this morning, I looked up at the beautiful blue sky, and there saw a Cross.

It seemed to be saying to me, God is with you, he is all around you.

So I just had to grab up my camera, run out into the garden (yes still in my dressing gown - what any neighbours thought if they saw me I don`t know!) and take some pictures of it to share.

Horror!

I`ve just got out of the shower, and whilst I was towelling myself dry I noticed a black mark on the pink towel I was using. How did that get there I wondered and what was it.

At first glance it looked like an ink spot. But I`d not had ink or paint in the bathroom, I`d not used marker pens there for anything. What was it? Where had it come from? Looking closer, I discovered that it was a spider! It was nestling among the fluffy fibres of the towel. And I can`t bear spiders! To think that I`d had that towel wrapped all around me and been rubbing myself dry with it, with the spider that near to me...ugghhhhh.

Eeek!... still perhaps it`s dead I thought, but on a closer look from a distance I saw it`s legs move. What to do?.... I tried shaking the towel in the shower away from me to try and dislodge and get rid of it, but no it wouldn`t fall off. I couldn`t touch it.

In the end I dropped the towel into the shower tray and got the hand towel from the rail to finish drying on. The bath towel with spider will have to go in the washing machine as it is, and hopefully that will get rid of the beastie.

What a start to a Sunday morning!

Rock Band

Walking along the prom here in the sun this afternoon, I came across an unusual art form.

I`ve seen sand art before on the beach before,where characters and scenes are made totally of sand.  But I`d  not come across Stone Art, until today.  (Click on the pictures to see them larger)

There, on our beach is a rock band with audience, all made of beach pebbles.  They are not stuck or cemented together, but just cleverly stacked and their natural shapes, markings and colourings giving inspiration to the young man to build these works of art.

The drummer....

...the pianist...

;
Talking with the young man doing these, we discovered that he`s homeless, but has been walking all round the coast of the country doing these works of stone art, starting at Brighton, going up the West Coast of Englad, all round the coast of Scotland and is now coming down the East Coast. He is aiming to raise money from this and from writing a book about it, to help other homeless people.  To read more about this chap, click here 

It will certainly make me look more carefully at the pebbles when I walk on the beach and realise they are all individual - just like us!

The last farewell

 Yes, our shop closed for good last Sunday, and the last couple of days the staff have been empyting shelves, loading goods into huge cages, which now stand in the deserted shop awaiting transport to other branches.


I`ve just come back from a little farewell do that our "boss" kindly had for the staff,  including a fish & chip supper, gathered together in the middle of the stop.  Memories of times and people were laughinghly shared, and then.... it was all over and we left to go our separate ways.   Ok, I know that in a town like this we will still come across one another from time to time, but I`m feeling sad at the moment on having walked out of there for the last time, after over forty-one years, and more so in a sense the loss of a “family”,  we`ve always been there for each other, through good times and bad.