A social life once more

We were lucky with the weather on Wednesday last, when we had a delightful afternoon with Chris and Jon in their beautiful garden.  (Chris is one of our little art group).  The walled corner of their garden with grape vines trellised over it makes the perfect place for a relaxed barbecue lunch on a summer afternoon.

On Thursday, ex-colleague David came round with two little pots of agapanthus seedlings.  (He is an ex-colleague twice over: initially at BTI and later at the hobby.)  The seedlings are now potted up - all seven of them - so we have great hopes that they’ll add some height to the back of the garden in years to come.  If I remember to look after them.  Our hospitality was a bit sporadic: while David was here we had two deliveries: a bed for my former study and the weekly Sainsbury’s delivery.  We still managed to have a good chat.

Pleasant afternoon with Martyn’s sister and her dynasty on Saturday.  We barbecued home-made burgers and various bangers and veggie burgers.  We bought some samosas, and Martyn did a tomato tart using most of this year’s rather dismal crop.  Big bowl of rice salad, some baby spuds with mint and chives from the garden. Big bowl of fruit salad and a raspberry pavlova.  So, yes: we over-catered as usual: the leftovers will keep us going for a day or two.  The weather was not with us: it was a touch chilly, with the occasional spot of rain, but we managed to be outside for much of the time.

We’ve just about finished the leftovers: leftover meat (and veggie burgers) went into a cottage pie, we had sausage sandwiches with leftover burger buns yesterday, smoothies at breakfast today with not quite the last of the fruit salad, and bruschette for lunch using leftover baguette slices.  We’ll finish the cottage pie tonight, I expect.  We feel good about using up leftovers, but would probably feel better if we got the catering right in the first place!

I mentioned earlier that we’d got a bed for my old study.  Though we got it from the same shop as our front bedroom bed, this one came with castors rather than feet.  As we’ve kept the laminate flooring, the bed is very mobile, so I’ve had to send for some cups.  Since we can no longer look to Margaret for a quilt, it was back to good old IKEA for a bedspread.  Anyway, mobility aside, the bed is very satisfactory: it has already done a couple of nights’ snoring refuge duty.  Less good news in the other back bedroom: we spent an age yesterday trying to drill the lintel to accept a venetian blind, but in vain: neither of our drills achieved more than holes in the plaster - and lungs full of dust.  Not sure where we go from here.

Our new room; our present world

 

We think we've got it cracked at last.  The replacement glazing panels almost line up, and as I've reported, the furniture removers came in last Friday to bring the sofa bed and Martyn's desk downstairs.  We've begun to populate the walls with favourite paintings and posters, and have moved the router to a better position in the room (the ironmongery in the sofa bed was not helping the signal to propagate round the house).  It would take a bit of furniture removing to allow us to deploy the sofa bed, but a week hence we'll have another double in my old study, and the sofa just about works as a single as is, so I think we've beds enough.

The story out in the garden is less good.  The potatoes are finished after a rather modest crop, my feeble bean frames have gone over, and the tomatoes have got blight.  We ought still to get a few, but not the bumper crop we'd hoped for.  Still, we are beginning to crop leeks, and the first two went into a couple of lasagnes I made for the visit of Martyn's niece and her family: I made a sauce of leeks, garlic, tomatoes, celery and carrots, then did green lentils in one pan and mince in another, and shared the veg sauce between them before assembling the dishes.  

Better pens than mine are commenting on the disastrous situation in Afghanistan, notably Polly Toynbee and the Grauniad leader writer, so I'll keep this brief.  My country has been far too ready to deploy its cannon fodder into hopeless campaigns over the centuries, and seems not to learn.  The intervention may have given Afghan women a brief respite, as well as twenty years of education and relative freedom, but the precipitate withdrawal of coalition forces looks like setting things back another century.  I do hope I'm wrong.

Back here in the land of the privileged, we'd a very enjoyable lunch in the county town today with our friends from further east.  Once again, I found the inside space unbearably noisy, with people shouting over the muzak, and ignoring the shrieks of their 'orrible sprogs.  Fortunately, it was fine enough to sit outside, where the aural surround was disco music from a flat opposite and collapsing masonry down the street.  Sitting outside also allowed us a privileged view of passers by, many of them young, morbidly obese, repulsively inked or, more frequently, all of the above.  Svelte I ain't by a long chalk, but I hate to think what some of these bladders of lard will look like when they're my age (though I doubt many of them will make such old bones). 

Talking of which, I'm sticking to the physio regime, and doing the occasional spell on the pedal exerciser (the packaging of which, incidentally, described it as a 'peddle exerciser').  Things vary from day to day, but the experience of the past fews days suggests that the regime is making things worse.  I'll have a chat with my physio guru on Friday, and we'll see what he has to suggest.  I walked more easily from the restaurant after lunch than I did to it before, so perhaps oenotherapy is the answer.

GSI, virtues of

Ten days or so into the physio régime, I'm finding it pretty hard going.  Each session takes about 35 minutes, and I think my legs are getting stronger.  It starts pretty easily with stretches and suchlike, but when it gets to the wall squats and single-leg balancing, my language gets somewhat....exercised.  I report on daily compliance on an iPad app, and but for a typing error, can report 100%.  I am not required to report my live commentary.

The chaps turned up this afternoon to move the heavy stuff downstairs, and judging by their dialogue, we made the right decision to Get Someone In.  As I write, I recline on the Habitat sofa-bed bought over 30 years ago for the front room in the old house, which only had two bedrooms.  I’m not sure how much furniture juggling we’d have to do before opening it out to make a small double bed, but it has worn well, and will be easy enough to make up as a single one, as and when.  But in any case, there’ll be another double bed upstairs by the end of the month.

Next task is to select stuff to hang on the walls: we’ll perhaps delay that until Martyn has decided how to furnish the desk.  We have quite a stack of paintings up in the loft, so may have to get ruthless.

Pleasant chat with neighbours this afternoon: they came round for tea and briefing on the builders we used, since they are hiring the same firm.  Really good to catch up: we’ve always been on good terms, but have not socialised much, and were glad to catch up with what's happening next door.

Lunch yesterday with Celia and Andy at a nearby hostelry: once more, a welcome sign of return, maybe, one day, to normality.  The place was quite well frequented, and once again I found the noisy environment quite stressful: for some years, I've noticed that my hearing is not wot it used to woz.  But it was a good chance to spend a moment with valued friends.  (I ate too much. As usual,)

More house stuff

It looks like we’re stuck with a non-matching front window: the trade evidently standardised its brown window frames on fake rosewood about three years ago.  This is a pain, since the previous owners of the house had gone for fake mahogany.  At least the phoney glazing bars now more or less line up.  (Had we had the original job done, it would have been honest white plastic inside and out, with no phoney leaded lights, but what the hell: it doesn’t look too bad.)  Yesterday, Martyn finally pinned down the removers we need to bring down the desk and the sofa bed, and having winced at the estimate, he has got a rather less eye-watering quote - for cash.  So that’s lined up for some time next Friday.  Even if there’s a few days’ slippage, my ex-study should be ready to receive the new bed when it comes at the end of the month.

Sparky Colin has been here today to fit a new outside lamp.  Since the forecast was for heavy showers, he rang first thing to suggest putting the job off.  In a rare moment of alertness I said ‘well, there is another job we need done indoors: we’d like an LED strip light in the kitchen to replace the buzzy fluorescent one, so we can keep your time earning whichever way the weather turns’.  In fact he has done both, so we’re ahead of the game.  He’s a good worker, really fussy about his work and good to have around the place, chattering away to himself as he decides how to tackle the job.  He did all the electrics when we had the kitchen rebuilt, and has since been our go-to man for any electrics we need done.  We keep a mental list, and call him in when it gets long enough.

We’d a pleasant evening here yesterday with an ex-colleague of mine and her husband.  We have now both retired from the hobby, and are not missing what it has become, with hearings conducted by video link and telephone.  We’re entertaining again tonight: Martyn has got the pudding ready, and I just have to make the béchamel and build a couple of lasagnes (for which the meat bzw. veggie components are done).  

We’ve had to cut down the remaining tattie shaws, more of which were breaking off each windy day.  The tomatoes are similarly battered, and we’re hoping enough of them will ripen before the plants are completely shredded.  Both of the bean wigwams have now collapsed, so I don’t think we’ll be doing a lot of blanching and freezing this year.  There are a few others, rather more securely fastened to the side fence, and they are holding up OK.  Stouter poles next year.