Still here

Martyn’s far from out of the woods with shingles, but with new medication started yesterday, he seems a bit brighter, and in marginally less pain.  Just to complicate things, my joints are being more than usually bolshy.  But we’re both still the right side of the grass, eh?

The bathroom refit is about to move into week six.  The basin and bidet taps supplied are bloody useless, delivering at best an enuretic dribble: they will be replaced, but goodness knows when.  There is still remedial work to be done on the tiling, and the threshold, due for fitting this week, is still missing.  I would normally be willing to make stage payments, but since the twins aren’t asking for any, we ain’t volunteering any.  All that said, we’re content with the sparky’s work (though less so with his loud voice and tedious stories) and the painter seems to know what he’s doing.  He’s due to come and paint the bathroom door next week, and we’ve told him the can of purple is ready and waiting.

As for le monde politique, we were not unhappy to see the tories pulverised in yesterday’s by-elections.  The Rt Hon The First Lord of the Treasury seems determined to cling to power, and we’re ambivalent about that.  The longer he hangs on, the more likely it is that his party will be annihilated in 2024.  And that would at least give Labour time to get its slack arse into gear.  But what damage can these fools do in the meantime?  A parliamentary vote of no confidence in HMG is unthinkable given the current majority, so any early change must be in the hands of the men in the grey suits.  Are there any left?

Pour passer aux choses sérieuses, the tomatoes are cropping like mad, so we’ve had some on a pizza, more on bruschette (for which I’ve baked a handful of bâtards - half-baguettes) and more went into a bolognese this week for cannelloni and a cottage pie.  I passed on a bag of fruit to neighbours the other day.  The garden is looking good, but is quite demanding: the roses need daily dead-heading, and I’m tackling the iris sibirica a little at a time.  The box is growing back from the stumps, but since I’ve been seeing the moths in the garden, we’re determined to get the plants grubbed out.  I took seed from the chives a couple of days ago, so shall get some new plants started.  We’ll probably turn out a first bag of spuds in a day or two: the foliage is stifling the onions in the raised bed.  And there are bits of the garden that are gagging for the spent compost, to which I’ll add a good dollop of blood, fish and bone.

I watched a YouTube video yesterday of a plainly dreadful bus journey from Victoria coach station to Glasgow.  Awful though much of it was, what really caught my eye was the translation of ‘Departures’ into German: Abflüge.  This can only mean flight departures, so unless they’ve re-invented the Fairey Rotodyne, their signage looks ignorant and silly.  Suitable comment left on the TfL web site.  Watch this space.