Snarl again

I mentioned my struggle to get a savings account closed and the balance transferred.  The bank’s pop-up dame couldn’t deal with the cheque, and recommended that I post it to the Chatham branch, which I duly did.  I’m still waiting to hear, two days after posting, whether it has got through.  The on-line banking works fine, but there are a lot of routine things that need a visit to a branch, and our nearest one is three quarters of an hour’s drive away.  The pop-up is no substitute.  

Oh well, grizzle over: there could be - and are - worse problems.  We had a most enjoyable session of German conversation at Linda’s on Tuesday.  She had been given a piece about how modern colloquial German has adopted the word Maus (mouse) as a term for any person, often in compounds such as jemaus in place of jemand (someone).  It was striking how many anglicisms (or neo-anglicisms) seem to be OK in written German: Influencer, Softness, Me-time, and many others.  I’m in an endless struggle to reconcile my linguist instincts with a lingering pedantry.  For example, I’d better get used to decimation’s inflation from 10% to 99%.

We enjoy spring in the garden as much as summer. The bulbs are going over, but we have enough diversity of narcissus varieties to keep a display going for weeks and weeks.  The fritillaries have done well as usual, and the roses are coming along nicely.  Today I’ve sown some sweet peas, after getting them sprouted on the kitchen window ledge.  Previous attempts failed, probably because I didn’t RTFI [read the … instructions].

Annie next door asked, via Ben, if we’d be willing to part with the thuggish hypericum that was violating her airspace in the bed between our drives.  We’d have had to shift it anyway at some point, so maybe we were lucky to get it done on Annie’s bill) rather than ours, and without breaking sweat ourselves.  Today I’ve planted a cistus pulverulens in its place, grown from a cutting, and shall try to keep it in order.  I’ve planted out the leftover primulas from our last garden centre purchase, so the bed is at least populated for the moment. 

Mixed week

A fair bit of admin: the annual boiler service, a chat with our finance man, a bit of routine shopping, cooking and gardening.  Limited gardening: it has been a bit too showery and windy, but the grass is cut, I’ve sowed some nasturtium seeds and started preparing sweet pea seeds on the kitchen window ledge.  I’ve never grown them before, so will be interested to see if they come to anything.

On Wednesday we had a funeral to attend in Eltham: a former colleague and friend Mary, with whose (third) husband Michael I worked later.  An exuberant character and expert hostess, so the stories told had the chapel in hoots of laughter.  It was a beautiful day, and it being half term, the driving wasn’t too awful.

Today we’ve been to a good concert at the local assembly hall: Gershwin’s An American in Paris, and Ravel’s piano concerto (for both hands), with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason as the soloist.  Superb: it was the first time we’d heard the latter, and reckon it needs more exposure.  Perhaps it’s such a rarity because of the enormous demands it makes on pianist and orchestra alike.  It was well-placed right after the Gershwin piece, since it draws on a lot of jazz and blues influences.  Jeneba gave a virtuoso solo encore, but to my shame, I didn’t recognise the piece.  I shall enquire…  The local orchestra has improved greatly in the time we’ve been here - perhaps thanks to the recently retired conductor, who happens to be a distant cousin of Martyn and Sandra.  The tickets were a treat from Sandra, who was unfortunately unwell on the day.  Martyn wasn’t much better, so we stayed only for the first half, but didn’t mind missing Mussorgsky’s Pictures and Ravel’s Bolero.

Back to the usual routines next week. Covid-19 booster tomorrow, then a visit from a painter to quote for a couple of jobs we’re too lazy to do ourselves.  Tuesday: German conversation, then a visit to our generous bank’s one-day-a-week pop-up presence.  If they can’t deal with the transaction I need, I may blow a gasket.  They have shut down the local branch, and have proved bloody awkward to deal with, the nearest branch being a good half hour’s drive away.  I’ve not been too lucky with banks in recent years.  Snarl.

They all laughed…

Well, they were actually too polite to laugh at my idea of planting a rosemary hedge to replace the box ditto, which was ravaged by the moth.  Anyway, I took dozens of cuttings three years ago from a vigorous plant in the back garden, and brought them on in pots, planting them out in the raised bed that autumn.  They did OK, so we stuck them in the dreadful soil round the edge of the front garden: voici!  There are a couple of gaps, but I have a few more rooted cuttings to fill those that won’t be filled by the cornus when it gets going again.  The parent plant is now very leggy, and is overgrowing some roses, so I shall chop off a bough when it has finished flowering and start a new generation of plants.  Given one’s medical history, it helps to keep a long view when it comes to propagation.

We had a welcome visit from big brother John on Tuesday, and indulged in fish and chips from our usual supplier.  We order using a QR code on their card, which is held in place by a fridge magnet.  It’s somewhat telling that I was greeted by frier Jamie with ‘Got people in, David?  That’s a lot more than your usual order!’  

We’ve done a couple of u3a sessions this week: the monthly computer group meeting, where we always pick up some good tips, and ideas to fix our problems.  There were only four of us at our Scrabble group yesterday, but I managed to snag two out of three games.  Next u3a date is the usual German conversation group, and towards the end of the month I shall try out a French ditto.  From what I read, it seems rather more structured, if not bureaucratic, than our German group, which is more like friends meeting for coffee - and by the way - speaking German.  Open mind, please, Smith!