Age

It’s getting to us both a bit of late.  Following a pretty rough few weeks, Martyn is feeling better and the results from various tests etc are encouraging.  I’m not changing much, with some enduring discomfort and indignity.  But we’re the right side of the grass, and doing most things we want to.  We’ve both been gardening, and Ben has done most of the top dressing of the top bed, which looks much the better of it.

A climbing rose we planted a couple of years ago is flowering profusely, and doing its best to cover a bay and a half of the fence.  Another nearby is a little less vigorous, but doing well nonetheless.  Ben’s muck spreading will encourage them both.  We’ve started re-planting the various containers with summer stuff like tagetes, rudbeckias and lobelia, and we’ve got all the geraniums out of the sitooterie and into pots and beds.  

Our sweet olive tomato seedlings are mixed: the two we started in new compost are thriving - and starting to put out side shoots, from which we’ll increase the stock.  The others, which we started in old compost are altogether less enthusiastic, but three of Annie’s Sweet Apéritif seed have germinated, and look vigorous.

To our surprise, our local MP has joined the colony of rats leaving the sinking ship.  Two days after his announcement,  neither his web site nor his constituency party’s has anything to say on the subject, though word is that he cites ‘the political climate’ as his reason.  My guess is that the tories will parachute in one of the big beasts most likely to lose their seats, though Disgustedville is no longer the safe seat it once was.  The recent local elections saw the Lib Dems take overall control, bagging over three times as many seats as the tories.  Our ward is now represented by two Labour councillors and one from the Alliance group.  The chances of Labour taking the parliamentary seat are pretty slight, but if tactical voting is as widespread as predicted, the tories should be very worried, particularly if they don’t field a punter that local voters like - and that will now be difficult.  Interesting times.

Emerging from the cave

We have been out and about a little more of late, taking in a couple of performances at the biennial Mayfield Festival.  Last week we were at an enjoyable Cole Porter evening: two capable singers and a pianist who warmed up as the evening advanced.  Last night was the high spot of the festival - for us anyway - with a superb recital by Imogen Cooper.  Mostly stuff I hadn’t heard before, though the second Schubert impromptu was familiar, and I knew one of the Bach chorale preludes.  She paired a piece based on a highly depressing Dowland composition, written by one Thomas Adès, with a Beethoven sonata which neither of us knew, but which delighted me with a couple of lengthy fugato passages in the final movement.  I likes me counterpoint.  She was never going to get away without an encore, and rounded off the evening with a familiar Chopin piece.

Despite having taken cushions with us, we finished up with gravely numb bums from the church pews.  As I still have a lot of post-operative discomfort in that department, this was a bit of a trial.  But one nice surprise was to have my glass of wine dispensed by our former GP, who is plainly thriving in retirement.  I complimented him on his choice of our current GP to take over his list: ‘not that we don’t miss you, of course!’.

The weather has moved from chilly and very wet to sunny and very warm, so we’ve been out in the garden quite a lot, planting out summer bedding, doing a spot of weeding and just sitting beneath the parasol for meals and a bit of general idleness.  Today it’s off to the stores for supplies of compost to earth up our vigorous spuds.  We’ve sown them in the raised bed by the kitchen door this year instead of using bags, so will see if that makes any difference.  We’re experimenting with a salad potato, Alexandra, which we’ve been getting from Fortnums and enjoying.  I couldn’t find seed potatoes, so just chitted a bag of shop stock, and hope for the best.  The aquilegia seedlings I grew last year seem to be coming true to the plants I harvested the seed from: they in turn were seedlings fro Sutton’s Simply The Best.  Recommended.