Work in progress

We’d been hoping to get the cloakroom joinery and tiling finished last weekend, but unfortunately our man was not feeling well.  Waiting for news.  There’s still a month to get it finished before James the painter comes in.  Never stops, does it, this home maintenance?  Meanwhile, while I was was engaged in my hobby on Monday, Martyn did the long overdue sanding down of the threshold between the dining room and the sitooterie, and I slapped on a few coats of varnish yesterday.  Remains to brush in another dose of ant killer, just in case, and then run in some silicone mastic.  (I am full of admiration for the ant, inspired, I suppose, by scripture and La Fontaine, but they ain’t welcome in my living quarters.)

Things are moving forward in the garden.  Dwarf French beans are germinating at last, the runner beans are tentatively approaching their poles and the spuds are reaching the tops of their bags.  We’ll need a trip to the stores this weekend for more compost.  Someone once remarked that we probably spend more in growing medium than we would buying new spuds from the shop.  Doubtless true, but our charlottes taste better than anything shop-bought, and the spent compost improves the texture of our awful clay soil (even if this occasionally leads to an uninvited spud amongst the roses!)

In the flowering department, a few perennials and over-wintered annuals are starting to flower: cistus pulverulens and purpureus, eschscholzia californica, helianthemums and much else.  I sowed seeds yesterday of basil and pulsatilla vulgaris: the latter harvested a few days ago and dried on the sitooterie window ledge, the former bought from Fortnums.  We shall see: as we always say, they’ll do one thing or the other.  Despite sporadic bursts of planting, there remain hosts of bedding plants to put out.  Mañana.  Talvez.

We took a ride up to London on Tuesday for drinks with an institution that hopes to inherit from us.  Very interesting, candid, if opinionated speech from a former top diplomat (with whom we agreed) about the little local political difficulty.  But the walking involved was a bit much for a first outing since Martyn’s recent health event - particularly since he’d overdone the housework and DIY the day before while I was out to play at the hobby.  I am looking on eBay for a ball and chain.