Z is listening to a blackbird singing in the evening sunshine

 When Weeza was a little girl she would announce, at the end of a busy day, "I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and I'm tired." I thought that at lunchtime today, after more than three hours spent with china.  So I poached two bantam eggs and toasted a slice of bread for lunch and then, having gone too long without food, ate a chunk of cheese too.  I have a sizeable fillet of plaice in the fridge, that I bought from Paul the Fish this morning, but I'm not sure I can be bothered to cook it.  I'm trying to think of something healthy that I want to eat and I happen to have, instead.  It may be simpler to cook the fish.

Most of the time, I'm enthusiastic about cooking, but a few times a year, I become completely bored with it.  This time, it's been sparked by turning the Aga off - it had been far too hot to bear it for a week, then I've resisted any temptation with the memory of the last propane bill, for the fill-up just before the war started, since when prices have rocketed.  I'm making this last as long as possible.  I bowed to the trend for heated blankets in the winter and, in the last chilly days, it has saved me from turning on an electric fire.  I admit also to switching on the electric blanket at night, a couple of times, too.  This, only days after finding a summer duvet far too hot and just sleeping under a sheet.  English weather is endlessly entertaining.  Another heatwave is promised for later in the week.  Bring it on, darlings.  At least we've had plenty of rain.

The bantams are laying enthusiastically.  There are only eight of them, all either four or five years old.  But there were six eggs yesterday and another three today.  I am planning a good many egg-based dishes for Saturday - cakes, mousse and good old egg mayonnaise, at least.  Thank goodness no one is allergic to eggs.  With the obvious exception of vegans, vegetarians and committed meat enthusiasts (because the first two and the last don't fit easily)  I aim to serve food that everyone can eat, not to make anyone feel as if they have to be careful and ask.  Luckily, I can and do eat pretty well anything, but a lot of people can't or choose not to.

Anyway.  As ever, I start to write without knowing where I'll end up.  I'll go and cook that fish.  I've got a blood test booked by the way, for tomorrow.  I had a speedy response from the GP, which is slightly disconcerting.  I know how triage works.

Z's chatty morning

 I went to church this morning - we only have one service a month now, though an informal church group has a meeting every week.  From last month, we've combined forces.  I won't say that the very informal services really suit me - they use the Communion service with their coffee morning style - but it's very friendly and pleasant; just not really going to church.  But never mind that - as I was going in, I saw two friends I haven't seen for ages, literally not for several years.  Phil asked me delicately if I had a partner, it's that long.  He knew I'd married Tim, but not that he'd died, though Chris hastily corrected him.  I don't take any offence, of course.  Better to just ask.

Later, another old friend came and we sat together - she'd come for someone's 80th birthday party; he and his wife taught her at high school and they've been friends ever since - she's now in her early 50s.  After the service, we stayed and chatted for a long time and really connected - we've always liked each other, but we know more about why, now.  We think and react similarly about things - it's not about opinions, which we didn't discuss, but the way our minds work.

On the way out, Chris, Phil and I started talking again.  They've had a fairly rough year, with a major health issue and very aged parental problems.  Again, we just got on and had a very sympathetic conversation.  It was all rather lovely.

I had lots of vegetables for lunch, plus halloumi - I was just using things up out of the fridge.  I'd had steak for dinner last night and liver and onions this evening.  I don't really feel much like cooking and eating, but I need to put myself right.  I also had an afternoon nap rather than catalogue china, and have only done five pieces.  I need to get my arse in gear tomorrow morning.

Countdown to the blog party

 I just faffed around most of the day, not inclined to do anything at all.  I pulled myself together eventually as I really had to do the description of the last few pieces of china from weeks ago.  I picked up another 24 pieces last week, so I need to do them tomorrow.  Then I'll have to do the valuation with D on Monday and then write to the owners.

This leaves Tuesday free to get on with preparations for the blog party, which is a week today.  As usual, it started big and the numbers have diminished, but it'll be lovely to see everyone.  I'm out all Wednesday and Thursday, but we've made the momentous decision to drop our usual Friday morning event, so that I'll have the whole day free.  

I'm pushing myself to eat more.  I get too tired to eat in the evening, but I had steak tonight.  I should have had healthy greens to go with it, but I couldn't face that and added tomatoes and some sweetcorn, because that was the only vegetable in the freezer and I couldn't be bothered to roast the other vegetables I have.  But I ate it all anyway.  Ever since I turned the Aga off, I've not really felt like cooking - I hope that this week's effort will get me started again.  I do make bread every week.  I like my bread very much.  

I called on Rose, who lives in Norwich again, earlier in the week.  She'd originally planned to come on Saturday, but it's her daughter-in-law's birthday celebration, which was on one calendar, and the do here was on the phone diary, so she hadn't realised the clash to start with.  The weather is due to be hot.  That probably means that we will eat indoors.  

One of the excellent qualities of this house is that there's a room to suit any weather.  I move round the house with the sun.  The kitchen and study face east, so they are good in the morning.  The drawing room faces east, but doesn't get so much sun through that window, and west, as does the first dining room.  The bigger dining room faces west and north, though the latter windows are small - it's a darker room, always cool on a hot day.  I'm going to cut the shrubbery back quite a lot, once nesting season is over, because it's gradually grown far too much and isn't very lovely, to be frank.

The other thing I must do is find time to cut back grass in the tortoise run.  All this rain has encouraged it rather too much.  I need to leave them some shade, but there's so much undergrowth that they're discouraged from walking about very much.  It isn't a big job - actually, if I took them out onto the lawn for a while, it wouldn't take much time at all. 

Eh.  I used to write this blog to entertain, but now it's just a journal.  But I'm still here, at any rate.  I'll have a quick look to see if anyone else has written anything before sloping off for another early night (these are a bad habit to have got into, because I sleep and then am awake for hours).

Bloody hell, or blood down the well. Whatevs

 I have been donating blood for a long time.  It quietly matters to me, but I don't want to be thanked for it.  If I can, I should.  

In the past few years, it's been slightly harder - it's just age,  I've cut back from three times a year to two, which seems sensible.  I've also asked my sister to make dinner that evening and to feed the cats that afternoon, since I fainted at the top of the stairs a while ago and woke up at the bottom, luckily without injury.

Anyway, I failed the blood test this afternoon.  106, when they want 125+ and anything under 115 is anaemic.  I know myself and anything under 120 is anaemic.  No idea why it's failed, rather, since January.  I've phoned the GP  practice and, if I don't get blood tests then I'll pay for them.  Not that I care all that much, in one sense, but one has to take responsibility.  

In other news, I normally avoid alcohol and have an early night after a donation.  No obligation about any of that ridiculousness.  Party on, darlings.  

Bird talk

 Eloise cat has just come in through the cat flap.  She had asked to go out a couple of hours ago, via the side door.  She prefers personal service, on the whole.  Not long after she went out, rain bucketed down.  I went to the door and called, in case she was sheltering nearby but, wherever she was, it wasn't close enough for her to brave the downpour - she doesn't mind rain, but this was too much.  Anyway, I don't know where she's been, but she is pretty well dry, as the weather is now.

Nowadays, I get both bored and tired in the evenings.  I often go to bed early, not necessarily to sleep.  I've moved my bed so that I can see out of the west window, where there's a fabulous view of the sunset.  Last night, the clouds were mottled blue and pink, they didn't look real.  Although it's not raining now and the sun has shown its face, I'm not sure there will be a view of a sunset.  I'm still tempted by an early night, though.  

I've changed so much in the past couple of years.  I used to be an owl and now I'm not.  That doesn't make me a lark, however.  I still don't like early mornings.  I have a very narrow useful time band now, which is an awful nuisance.  

I have maintained for some time that feral cats only hunt for food.  They don't bother with anything that's too small to eat.  A couple of days ago, I went to give them their breakfast - there's a large, flat topped chicken coop that isn't used any more and I leave its door open.  On that day, a bird was in there and it panicked, of course, when I turned up.  It was the size and shape of a starling but brown, I suspect a juvenile blackbird.  It flapped at the wire on the other side of the door - and all five cats ignored it.  I was ready to rush forward, but there was no need.  I went round the other side of the coop, so that it would flap away from me and it found the open door.  The cats still took no notice.  I've proved my point, as far as I'm concerned.  Not that I'm saying that cats don't catch songbirds, but feral cats don't bother with anything smaller than a magpie or pigeon and they're welcome to them.

When did birdwatching/twitching become birding?  Is it supposed to sound less dull?  Like playing computer games has become gaming.

Shapes and patterns

 On the way home, I called in at a client's house to pick up porcelain for the next auction (and the one after, as it's more than I can put for one person in one sale).  He'd said that it was already packed in boxes, which pleased me as it would save a lot of time.  When I arrived, I saw the boxes.  They were enormous.  No chance of getting any in the boot.  I put the passenger seat as far forward as possible (two door car) and then tipped it forward and it was very hard for him to get two of them in.  The third went next to me, which was okay except that I couldn't see out of the wing mirror, which one uses a lot on the motorway, so I had to plan changes of lane very carefully.  Then I couldn't get the boxes out, when I arrived home and had to leave them overnight and then unpack the boxes in situ.

I had asked, hopefully, if he had a list.  No.  So I'm having to list them all myself.  To start with, it's all polychrome and there are 22 teapots with covers.  D came over to help unpack.  When I pack anything with a lid, I wrap both items in bubble wrap and then tuck the cover upside-down in the pot.  This hadn't been done.  So we spent some time trying to match up pots with covers, before realising that most of the pieces did have numbers on.  

Anyway, I should have spent a couple of hours typing every day this week.   I didn't.  Partly, this was because I spent Sunday and Monday with my artistic friend and partly because yesterday was hot and sunny and I couldn't be bothered.  Of course, I regretted it today.  I've not quite got halfway through them - I had to write full descriptions, especially of all those teapots and I checked them for damage too.  My eyes were protesting too much by 6.30.  I took vegetable curry out of the freezer and heated it in the microwave for dinner.

This year is the year of the migraine for me.  10 already, including 5 this month and 2 yesterday.  I'm pretty fed up with it.  Can't see things getting less stressful though.

Z goes, Z comes back

From last week... 

I'm in Pembrokeshire at the caravan this week.  It's not been easy to carve out a whole week, but there's no point in coming for much less time.  It's the best part of 400 miles and, including stopping to see friends in Reading on the way, the journey took me nearly 9 hours.  Tim and I used to stop at his house for the night on each leg and I sometimes stay with Publog John, near Leicester, if I go that way, but it gives me more time here if I just keep driving and get here in one day.

The weather is iffy, but one always expects that in Wales.  It rarely rains for the whole day and often rains at night, so I can always do what I want to.  What I'll want to do in the future about the caravan is something I need to think about.  Since I didn't have time to visit at all, last year, this week is a chance to resettle myself.  I'm hoping to come back twice more during the year.  I know it would be much more sensible to give it up.  Sell the caravan and let go of the lease.  I don't know if I'm ready yet.  I can't justify the expense, which has increased considerably, by 15% since last year, but it's somewhere that really matters to me.

However, that's the thought that's mulling away quietly at the back of my mind.  For now, I'm just sleeping a lot and enjoying the peace.  

Luckily, I had the good sense to ask Henry to get the caravan washed outside and the patio cleared of weeds.  Indoors, it's grubby.  I've bought rubber gloves and, this afternoon, I'll spend time washing everywhere.  Unfortunately, I can't persuade the water heater to get going - the spark isn't working.  So I suspect I'll have to get it looked at.  

This week, now I'm home again...

I did have to get the man in, who got the water heater going in no time, but I couldn't have done it myself.  I also have left the caravan very clean, including washing the carpet again, which I did two years ago and haven't dirtied myself.  Friends of friends used it twice (that is, different people each time), which they were welcome to, at no charge, but I think the last people snacked in front of the tv and were pretty casual about dropping greasy snacks.  They were equally casual about not washing the kitchen floor and not bothering to lift the seat when they cleaned the toilet, I discovered.  They don't even know me and it was a free holiday!

I had a really lovely break, all the same.  I slept amazingly well, walked quite a lot, didn't drink much (less than I do at home, that is) and I felt very relaxed.  I called on a friend for lunch on the way home, then stopped to pick up china for the auction.  The two delays meant that I hit traffic on the M25 - not literally, though one reason for slow progress was because of a collision ahead, which meant that two lanes were closed for several miles.  I arrived home about 7.20pm, dead tired, having left the caravan at 9.30.  Wink had dinner ready for me, though I couldn't eat as much as I'd have liked to and then went straight to bed.  

A friend called round for coffee, which turned into lunch too and we had a long chat about all sorts of things, predominately art.  She is an artist, which I'm not but our different, though complementary viewpoints, interested both of us.  It was great to have a fairly deep discussion and I think we both took quite a lot away from it.  It's almost made me want to take up drawing again - and I showed her my drawing of my hand and of the chair, which some of you may remember that I bravely posted, several years ago.