Bye-bye MMXI

Not planning to take stock of the past year - scroll back to November for the unprinted Christmas card insert.  We're just about done with the festive hostilities (actually, some pleasant times with Martyn's family, and quiet days to ourselves).

I've potted up another batch of New Guinea cuttings, and even picked some flowers from the garden - rudbeckias and some rather confused wallflowers are still showing colour, as are a few pansies.  The hippeastrum that Elizabeth and Peter brought us when they came to lunch is now flowering like mad, and there are still flowers on the orchid that Sue and Robbie brought us ages back

Nice day on Wednesday with Marion, John and Dorothy, with whom we made short work of a little smoked gammon joint supported by carrot, onion and potato mash; haricots verts and curly kale.  And followed by apple crumble. 

Today's post brought a bread recipe book from Annie: I now see why my pains aux raisins didn't quite work: Mr Hollywood calls for 500g of butter to 625 g of flour.  Well, mine needed toasting to be palatable: his seem guaranteed to narrow the coronary arteries.

à la recherche du temps perdu, one way and another....

Great day out on Saturday: Celia and Andy picked us up early if not bright, and off we went to join the train at our semi-homophonous neighbouring town.  The new-build Thompson A1 Pacific pulled in on time leading a rake of 13 coaches, in one of which we proceeded to eat our way to Bath and back.  I’d forgotten how leisurely the departure is behind a steam locomotive: but it did give us a chance to admire the frosty countryside: we were provided with a cloth with which to wipe the condensation off the 1950s windows.  Interestingly, our neighbourhood sheep, well used to electric multiple units, were quite spooked by the steam locomotive, and fled from the trackside.   

We hacked round the South London suburbs and across the river, joining God’s Wonderful Railway somewhere near Willesden, where we had to pause for 20 minutes for the engine to take on a tender of water.  We’d forgotten how steam engines used to replenish their water tanks from supply troughs between the rails: since there is no call for such devices these days, we’d to stop once again on the way out, and twice also on the way back in the evening.  Interestingly enough, the water was supplied from fire engines.  Now, firemen in these parts are said to be great moonlighters, serving their shifts for the most part asleep at the fire station, then earning a second salary as painters and decorators, motor mechanics, roofers or what you will.  An allegation to which I wouldn't for a moment wish to lend credibility.  (A good few serve as Magistrates, I’m bound to say, but that’s a different matter, absent remuneration…)  We speculated jokily on the mechanisms by which money might have changed hands for the refilling of a mainline steam engine.  Whatever, the saps-pomps kept us steamily on our way.   

Bath was lovely.  We had a few drops of rain, and it was damned cold: though we got some fine breaks of sunshine as we went round, we had to spend the last hour in department stores and coffee shops to keep the blood fluid.  We were a bit late out of Bath, and I have an idea that the engine did a whisker over its permitted maximum of 75 mph on the way back east.  Not a bad meal, with a half-bottle of M. Duboeuf's worst (yet drinkable) vin de table per diner.  The Orient Express it ain't, I have to say, but it was a fun day out.

I think you can safely add a further 40 miles to the estimated distance reported in the last posting. We got up on Saturday morning to find an email saying that they’d tried to deliver my parcel on Friday evening (when we were in) and found us out (which we weren’t) and left a card (which was nowhere to be found), and suggesting that we call the courier (I left a text message on Sunday morning – no reply). Rang on Monday morning and left a message. Monday afternoon, door bell rang: a kid in a beat up Suzuki with his child in the front seat: parcel for Mr Bishop. ‘Thanks: got one for me, then?’. Quick rummage in the boot and up popped the item I’d ordered two weeks ago. Phew.

Oh, and as an aside, I've been trying to read Proust, admittedly in translation, which can't help.  But sentences that last a whole page aren't my kind of reading for pleasure, and I found my mind wandering in a manner all too reminiscent of when I had to read a piece by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff back in undergraduate days. 

Modern Times

Since we're treating each other to a fancy train ride to Bath and back tomorrow, Christmas shopping at Forges-L'Evêque this year is confined to stocking fillers.  I ordered one for Management on line on the 4th, and the suppliers (name on application) managed to release it to the arguably helvetically musical delivery company only three days later.  At that point it positively whizzed round the country, from Exeter to Wednesbury to Hailsham in something like fifteen hours.  It then sat in the Hailsham Depot for four and a half days, and then rattled around in the van for another three days.  It then went back into hurtle mode again, leaving Hailsham yesterday afternoon, being re-sealed (ominous...) at Hatfield shortly after midnight, and is now supposedly with a Maidstone courier.  The problem seems to have been that I put in an extra '3' when I was typing in the postcode - or in any case, the file acquired the superfluous digit at some stage.  Odd that no-one actually read the address during the 7 days it was rattling around East Sussex.  Distance from Exeter to Forges-L'Evêque: 206 miles.  Distance actually travelled: 539, plus whatever distance it covered before someone read the address label.  It'll be interesting to see what state it's in when (and if) it gets here.  I read that it went out with a courier 18 minutes ago, so we'll see how long the last 20 miles takes.  It's fascinating that lasers, computers and the bar code on the label let us keep up to date in something approaching real time on the whereabouts of our stocking fillers.  It's a shame they don't use a spot of Mark I eyeball and intelligence as well.  Same might be said of my data input, of course....

Getting wintry

No snow here yet, but the frost didn't lift fully yesterday, despite bright sunshine.  And yet the New Guineas in the hanging baskets are clinging to life: I might even get a few more cuttings from them.  Today it's wet and dreich, with a wind that makes it feel colder than it really is.  I hoovered up a couple of bags of wet leaves from the front yesterday - not a job I relish, but less crippling than doing the job with a rake.

We're chipping away at the Christmas shopping, though with little enthusiasm.  The cards are all away save for those destined for a few art class absentees.  The sitting room is starting to look cheerful, with a festoon of Christmas greetings already round the double door frame.  The Christmas tree seems to have survived in its builder's bucket outside: we plan to turn it out and re-pot it in fresh compost before we bring it back inside. 

Not sure what to make of events in Brussels this week.  It all rather echoes my experience of the UK's relationship with the EU: as a Greek MEP put it years ago, we in the North argue and grizzle about proposed EU law, but once it's in place, we enforce it.  In the south they say yes and sign anything, and then systematically ignore the obligations that they've taken on.  No doubt grossly exaggerated, but I'd be surprised if this difference of attitudes wasn't at the root of the current problems.  But the fact remains that the credit ratings of France and Germany remain (for the moment) higher than that of the USA.

We had a day of takeaways on Friday.  Since we'd  been invited to dinner, hence expected to eat later than we normally do, we had fish and chips from the local chippie at lunch time.  On arriving at our hosts' place, it transpired that they'd completely forgotten they'd invited us, so we (all of us) finished up having a Bangladeshi takeaway from the place near where we used to live.  And the evening was just fine!  Said friends have taken on a vast pile overlooking farm land near the junction of the Hastings and Lewes roads.  It needs huge amounts of work: rather them than us.

A few small achievements lately.  We got the top gutters cleared and repaired for a very sensible price from the chap we collared at the garden shop: particularly since he had to scour three neighbouring towns for a replacement for a broken section of downpipe.  I managed to slither across the grass with the mower one last time, after the majority of the leaves had fallen, so our outlook through the winter will be a little better than it has been in years past. 

We've done some re-planting of containers with good old winter pansies, and will see how they get on.  There are a few last flowers on the rudbeckias and penstemons, but both are closing down for the winter.  The mild weather, though, has prompted some crocuses and daffodils into growth.  Penstemon cuttings seem healthy in the cold frames: perhaps I'd better pot them up before the weather turns naarsty.  Some of the New Guinea impatiens are struggling on outside, but I've taken as many cuttings as I can now, and a lot of those that rooted in water are now potted up in compost and adapting well. 

We had an enjoyable lunch last week here with Elizabeth and Peter.  He has had a rotten time this year, his health having landed him in the Kent & Snuffit Hospital for a long spell.  It was good to see him back on form and taking a spot of nourishment.  We bumped into an art class friend in a local hostelry a few days later.  Obviously still enjoying life and a good lunch, but no longer recognising people or really communicating.  Such a dreadful affliction, Alzheimer's. 

A propos art class, Miss's 'Threads of Feeling' theme is so far failing to inspire me, so on Thursday I belted out a quick sketch of a Cathar castle, and may develop it.  I was using an acrylic pad I bought a while back from the fellow who comes to our class to flog his stuff, and hated it.  I think the last time I used acrylics on paper, I used watercolour paper without difficulty.  You live and learn.  I guess I need to get used to the greater absorption rate of paper compared with a well-gessoed canvas.