A glance at the diary reveals visits to the optician, doctor, pharmacy, sleep study, x-rays, blood tests and the like. To be expected, I guess, now that we’re over the hill. Nothing too dramatic, though Martyn is struggling with a persistent gut bug.
Fortunately the weather is cooling down a bit after three heatwaves in the space of about three weeks. We’ve had a few good downpours, so we have plenty of rainwater for the tomatoes and flower containers. We are starting to enjoy home-grown potatoes, starting with the ones that got away last year, and shall soon be harvesting this year’s Charlottes. The tomatoes are setting nicely, so it won’t be too long before we’re enjoying them, diseases permitting. We had some blight last year, so are keeping fingers crossed. I sowed spinach the other day, and the seedlings are starting to come through.
Today I’ve hoiked up some polyanthus from pots on the terrace and replanted with antirrhinums grown from last year’s seed. The polyanthus are now in a raised bed, recently vacated by our freebie spuds. I’ll maybe ask Ben to plant them out in the autumn when the ground is less baked. Roses are for the most part between flushes, so I’ve been dead-heading assiduously in the hope of promoting more flowers. Two that we got last year from a huge shopping mall garden centre have been doing exceptionally well: Precious Gold and Precious Ruby. Of the old guard, Queen Elizabeth has put up some vigorous new shoots despite being planted in next to nothing next to the sink drain!
Though it’s cooler today, it’s really steamy, so a scant hour in the garden was enough. I hope the storms forecast for the coming few days bring a bit of relief. Meanwhile, I’m watering from the fullest of the water butts to make space for new rainfall! As you see, I live by the Yorkshire dictum: see all, hear all, say nowt. Eat all, sup all, pay nowt. And if tha does owt for nowt, do it for thissen.
Not that it’s much of an excuse, but we’ve had quite a busy month, with a fair few medical visits, a spot of entertaining, gardening and the inevitable home and vehicle admin.
We had a very pleasant lunch here with our friends Chris and Jon. Chris and I met at art classes, which gave way to largely unstructured Thursday morning meetings where we’d sometimes work to a theme and at other times just pleased ourselves. That all ended during the pandemic, alas, though the group has met once since then, but for tea and chat rather than painting. Anyway, Chris and Jon were on fine form, and we had a good catch-up. Another day we had tea and cake with our neighbour Annie, Martyn having baked a superb chocolate sponge cake - gluten-free: he has the knack of getting the texture perfect.
As to vehicles, Chris and Jon rolled up in a rather natty red Tesla. My Scenic was in dock for a couple of days on a recall to deal with a potentially troublesome fault in the battery cooling system. Martyn’s Fiat too has to go in on a recall: evidently there is work to do to ensure compliance with emission regulations. Er, hello? Aren’t EVs supposed to be emission free? All will doubtless be revealed in due course, and we’ll book it in for an overdue annual service at the same time.
Our other form of locomotion, Martyn’s bike, has also been in for some attention. Bike fettler Chris diagnosed it a couple of months ago, and sent us off to order up new brake and gear shift levers and cables. Chris does a monthly session at our village’s repair café, where you may remember we’ve had the clocks fixed in the past. Next month I’ll take some secateurs along for sharpening. Wonderful institution. While we were there I asked Chris whether he knew Nick (The Bike) Gritton, a keen competitive cyclist and bike fixer. Nick lived directly opposite me when I was in our nearby homophone town. He is now Chris’s next-door neighbour, just down the road from us. We’ve thus re-established contact, and hope to catch up soon. I’ve noticed before that, the older I get, the more frequent are the coincidences.
Driving hereabouts continues to be hellish. There are many road closures on account of the need to replace the crumbling network of iron gas mains. I had to go to the County Town on Friday to collect a sleep study test kit from the county diagnostic centre. Fortunately, I’d left enough time, since I had to reroute to avoid the very long queue at the local road works. It didn’t help that on the alternate route an absolute Arschloch in a Range Rover decided he didn’t want to wait while a car approached from the opposite direction down the single track stretch. He consequently had to reverse, and almost hit me. I had to sound the horn! A bit closer to my destination, I got stuck behind a tractor for five minutes or so. I was pretty shaky by the time I got there. Small wonder that I no longer enjoy driving. That said, I’m enjoying the silence and responsiveness of our EVs - ah: that reminds me to go and disconnect the Renault from the charger!
The thing with roses is that they need good pruning, regular dead-heading and the occasional feed, so I tickled in a handful of blood, fish and bone at pruning time. Even the miniature roses by the front door are doing well, since Ben put the last of last year’s muck round them. We’ve yet to replace the climber killed by the fencing people. Perhaps we’ll get a bare-root one later in the year.
The membrane and gravel at the front doesn’t really stop the weeds, but at least it makes them easier to pull up. I’ve pulled out dozens more verbena bonariensis today, as well as the usual suspects: dandelions, willowherb and grass.
A first lot of tomatoes are now in their final growing pots: the tall chrysanthemum pots we’ve used in years past. I’ve prepared some wider pots with the watering trays designed for growbags, so will harden off a few more tomatoes and try them with that method. We’re a bit late with the tomatoes this year, but ought to get something of a crop. The first sowings in a heated propagator failed almost completely. I might have to break down and get some decent seed compost next year - if I’m spared!
We all met in the cathedral, where Sandra gave a guided tour: she is one of the company of meet-and-greet volunteers there, so is well briefed. (She and the late Michael were married there, having met in the cathedral’s choral society, and Michael’s funeral took place there.) We repaired to the Royal George for lunch, then wandered round the castle grounds before going our separate ways.
Driving around here is dire. We’ve been over to mid- and north Kent twice of late, and the experience has been altogether dreadful. Decades of neglect have left the roads in a terrible state, and overdue gas main replacements are screwing things up still further. I wonder what our new far-right county council will do to remedy matters, and am not holding my breath.
We were Sandra’s guests yesterday for lunch and a show. The D-day Darlings did a show at the Hazlitt theatre in Maidstone. Great entertainers, and a whole lot of fun. As ever, though, the amplification was almost painfully overdone, which detracted a whole lot from our enjoyment. The traffic was about as bloody awful as usual - I really dislike driving these days. The centre of Maidstone is pretty much closed off, so we decided to head north and pick up the motorway. His Majesty’s armed forces, meanwhile, had managed to crash or break down at the motorway junction roundabout, so we had a long wait.
A simpler outing today. Martyn’s bike’s gear change shifters have seized up, so we took it down to our local repair café, where bike fettler Chris took a look at it. Following his diagnosis, and with his expert help, we have ordered the necessary spare parts, and will take them and the bike along in early July for him to do the necessary. Wonderful institution, the repair café. We’ve had a couple of clocks sorted there. Of course, I barked my knuckles getting the bike out of the boot, and hadn’t got the right size of plaster in the car. The repair café sewing desk kindly applied scissors to cut something suitable. And our neighbour Rosemary presided as ever over the kettle.
With the exception of one very unpleasant foul-mouthed neighbour (she is plainly no right in the heid) our environment is about all we could wish for. We don’t live in our neighbours’ pockets, but lend a hand when we can, and so do they. You need to like aeroplanes, of course, since we’re on the Gatwick approach when the wind’s coming from the west. We’re far enough from the main road not to be troubled with traffic noise much of the time. And the village provides most of what we need from day to day, and a decent cultural agenda too.
So things could be worse. I spent a while at hospital yesterday, preparing for planned surgery. (I first wrote ‘preparing the ground’, but don’t think we’re quite there yet!). All very professional, thorough and friendly. Since the hospital is so comfortable, I’m not dreading the experience.
We took a trip up to London last week for an evening reception for promised benefactors of a certain Scottish institution. They had organised a talk by their prof of international political theory on the subject of democracy in the USA. The learned prof put a lot of emphasis on norms of political behaviour as much as on the constitutional checks and balances, neither of which seems to be thriving under the current administration. Nice to have our own observations confirmed by someone who knows better than we.
The travelling was pretty awful. Our train arrived late, and ran short, requiring a change at London Bridge. I got a 25% rebate on the price of my ticket, but when Martyn undertook the same application, he was turned down, seemingly because both tickets were bought with the same card. Hardly a comfort when our lunch cost more than a similar meal would cost in Switzerland. Glad to report that the journey home went as advertised. I have to say I find London exhausting these days: one has endlessly to dodge people on the footways, and the constant noise is tiring. But we did take a few minutes to rest in Hyde Park before the reception, and enjoyed a walk in the rose garden.
A couple of days later we had a visit from friends Jackie and Nigel for a simple lunch at home: hummus, our usual pizzas, and a fruit salad. Most enjoyable catch-up.
Saturday brought a visit from Paul the plasterer, who has patched up the hall ceiling following the leak from the alarmingly young hot water cylinder - it lasted less than three years. Hoping for better from the stainless steel replacement. That evening we went to a screening of Conclave at our village hall. Excellent fillum: highly recommended: though the action was sometimes rather slow, the performances of Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini (who bears a startling resemblance to her late mother Ingrid Bergman) were superb. The only downside was the bum-paralysing chairs!
Travelling is hellish hereabouts. It’s bad enough getting out of the village at the moment while work continues on gas main replacement, but then the countless roadworks just add delay and frustration. Years of neglect have left our roads in an appalling state, and the gas mains seem to need replacing just about everywhere.
Our ride over to Rochester today was just about as awful, but, thanks to various diversions we at least kept moving much of the time, unlike the poor souls on the M2: as we crossed it we could see all three lanes stationary: evidently there’s a fault on the Medway bridge. Worth the journey, though: it was the first time we’d seen Martyn’s niece Fiona and Alexander in their new house. Copious sandwich lunch: I fear I may have overdone it. Egg mayonnaise and coronation chicken sandwiches are the sure way to my heart. And to my belly, alas.
A good German conversation meeting on Tuesday. Our host Dave had found a couple of texts from Deutsche Welle about (1) German reinforcement of the Lithuanian army and (2) the doubtful legality of sending away immigrants and asylum seekers at the country’s Schengen area borders. A small group this time, just us four blokes, but it went well nevertheless. An amusing incident afterwards: I had parked the far side of the railway bridge next to Dave’s house, and as it was raining I had the umbrella up. A woman on a horse was coming the other way, and evidently the umbrella scared the horse: ‘would you mind taking your umbrella down: I can feel his heart really pounding!’ One gladly complied.
