More of the same

 After yet another stormy night, I came down to find the fence between us and Annie leaning over at 45°.  The fencing contractor has a contract to fix it, but have scheduled it for a month hence.  They sent someone round last week to do a temporary lash-up.  Temporary’s the word: last night’s little zephyr pretty much finished off the steel sockets - the fence has to be fixed for part of its run on top of a low brick wall.  A phone call to the friendly installation manager led to a visit from two fitters, including the chap who did last week’s job.  I got them to take the offending panels out altogether and dispose of them, together with the remnants of the fence on the other side of the garden.  So we’re even more open than usual, but safe and disencumbered, if that’s a word.

The wind dropped during the course of the day, so I was able to get out and do violence to some rather overgrown potentillas, the apple tree and the clematis montana, and whatever else got in the way of my destructive frenzy.  The garden is dreich but promising: lots of bulbs are pushing through the surface, and most of the shrubs are looking encouraging: the Fuji cherry and the magnolia stellata in particular.  Fresh air and garden work are good for the Weltanschauung at this dismal time of year.

That time of year again

I’m always a bit reluctant to start on the marmalade, since I know the hands are going to hurt from scraping the pith out of the skins!  But after staring at the oranges on the work top for a few days, I got cracking yesterday.  I use plenty of technology; an electric citrus juicer and the magimix for slicing the skins - once through the coarse disk then once through the fine one.  But I still use mother’s preserving pan: it might even be Granny Smith’s.  I need to find someone who can replace the rivets that hold the handle to the pan, since two have come off.  Anyway, a kilo and a half of fruit plus a couple of lemons have made eight and a bit jars.  I’ve only done one lot this year: we’ve been using less lately, and I found half a dozen jars in stock.  Judging by the colour, two jars are from the year before last.  I’ve never been much good at managing the pantry.  Anyway, this year’s lot has set nicely and apart from the part-filled baby jar with the last drops, it’s all tucked away in the cupboard.

Quite a lot of traffic this morning at the feeders on the apple tree: a robin, a wren, great and blue tits and a nuthatch.  Very pleased to see the nuthatch: it’s years since we’ve seen one in the garden.  The great tits were pecking away at the frosty tree branches, perhaps to get some water.  I’ve put out a pan of water for them, and break the ice from time to time.  Roll on spring.

Is it me?

I asked the chemist last weekend for a repeat of my batch medications A and B.  Got an email back saying ‘batch expired: contact GP’.  Did so, told chemist so, and got reply saying ‘OK: I’ll watch out for it’.  Went to collect yesterday, and on opening the packet today, found meds C and D.  By which time I’d just ordered fresh supplies of C and D.   Called in on chemist: ‘Yes, the batch for A and B has been renewed, but you need to order it’, and it won’t be ready till Thursday.  The last time I was there to collect medication E, they had two prescriptions of it awaiting collection.  Given that I’ve also been having trouble with other prescribed supplies, it seems there’s a mix of non-dispensing, wrong dispensing and phantom dispensing going on.  Either that or I’ve finally lost my marbles.  Discuss.