Garden Daze

It really is quite wonderful to observe the bobbing trajectory of the blue tits from food source to nest box! As well as the bobbing flight path, it sometimes presents a diversionary route; seemingly endless variants on a well-flown flight path, presumably to befuddle any potential predators.

We are indeed privileged in having clear views of their flight path from both living-room and kitchen windows. Even when I was stood at the top end of the garden, within a couple of feet of the nest box, I was quizzically eyed by the bird sat on a twig adjacent to the box before he popped in to feed the brood!

Despite the bobbing, and sometimes circuitous flight path, it’s remarkable how swiftly and accurately they pass through the small diameter entrance hole. I suspect these avians know very little about pacing and, thankfully accept they have little need for it!

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At least a couple of the goldfish, in the pond, were demonstrating a little frenetic activity today. The first giveaway sign was the twitching of lily pads, prior to the Pentecostal flames dancing close to the water’s surface. Thankfully, I’d already taken a twenty-five minute walk with ma belle before lunch, so I was able to just sit with my beloved on the garden bench and, enjoy the spring like activity around us, without any pangs of guilt.

BBC NEWS | Business | Britain's streets of debt: Whistleblower

Surprise, surprise; big business preys on the vulnerable! And I'd never expected less of our banking institutions! Who would ever have suspected that they put profits before their customers? Surprise, surprise; banks are capitalists ... whoever would have thought it?

Interesting to get an insider view though.

BBC NEWS | Business | Britain's streets of debt: Whistleblower

What's Cooking?

After a leisurely start to the morning, arising gently from the duvet realm after ten and a half hours bed-rest, within an hour I felt sufficiently energized to face the shower routine. In the remnant of the morning I applied a further blanket weed treatment to the pond and, quickly returned to the house to grab some headgear as the baldpate quickly felt the full force of the sun’s rays.

During the afternoon, we called around to Helen’s chapel, to drop off some flowers and the weekly notices that my beloved had prepared but, decided it was too warm to endeavour a walk. In any case, I was getting a bit hungry by this time, having only had a bowl of breakfast cereal at lunchtime.

Having eaten a delicious ciabatta based sweet chilli chicken pizza, it was nearing the time for me to prepare tomorrow’s lunch. First, I prepared the griddle pan with liberal sprinklings of ginger, garlic, coriander, cumin, a little chilli and paprika. After preheating the spices to release the aromas, I added a generous amount of olive oil to sautée a couple of sliced onions before adding the lean minced beef. A generous sprinkling of garam masala intensified the already wonderful aromas. Next, I threw in a liberal amount of chopped peppers, a few sliced mushrooms and, after a while, added a tin of plum tomatoes. To finalize the preparation, added a little crushed garlic and some chopped chilli, before pouring in a jar of spicy Jalfrezi sauce for good measure.

All that remains, tomorrow lunchtime, is to pop a casserole dish full of this wonderful concoction into the oven and prepare the saffron rice. Et voila!

Cooking complete, ma belle et moi settled down to watch the latest episode of ‘Doctor Who’ (BBC1) and, a behind the scenes programme on BBC3, before venturing out to do a little more clearing up in the garden. By this time, around 8.30pm, the temperature seemed ideal for such pursuits.

Apart from the occasional bout of hollowness, a non-specific sense of despondency and frustration, it has still proved possible to rejoice in this day the Lord has made.

Verbal Trespassers will be Blacklisted

It’s happening again, the invasion of the disembodied vampires. Yesterday, mid-afternoon, the telephone rings and the hypnotic voice asks to speak to my beloved. I’m quite happy to inform him that she’s not here, in response to which he enquires, “when would it be convenient?” Now comes the moment of testing, as I cautiously enquire as to the identity of the caller.

My suspicion aroused that they may be out to suck money from us, for a service which we have neither requested nor require; the voice intones “Yorkshire Water – Home Services”, to which I reply that no time would be convenient, don’t they realize how ignorant it is to intrude on our time, our home and, utilizing the phone line for which we pay rental, for their commercial purposes.

The disembodied one explains that they have previously contacted my wife and, at this point, I’m struggling to prevent my language from becoming too colourful. I tell them that if my wife wished to contact them she would but, we are not in the habit of doing business over the ‘phone, or perhaps they’d be willing to permanently pay our line rental for the inconvenience they’re putting us through. I reminded him, in no uncertain terms, that they had indeed spoken to me and, that I told them then, that no time was convenient for them to phone. On that occasion, someone else from the same company ‘phoned at just the moment my wife had come through the door from work. My beloved tried to get rid of the nagging female vampire at the time but, out of frustration said that they could send us a quote!

We have no intention of changing our direct debits for the particular service (?) they were trying to coerce us into subscribing to, as we are quite happy with the current provider.

I’m afraid that their persistent telephonic irritations ensure that the quote they provided will never be viewed and, as far as I’m concerned, the less we have to do with Yorkshire Water – Home Services, the happier my life will be!

What had been a reasonable, though marginally de-energised, day was transformed by these trespassers into an evening of despondent irritability. Today, whilst Helen is out, the telephone has been left to switch to answering machine mode after a minimal ring. I’d like to be able to follow the maxim “Don’t let the buggers grind you down” but, unfortunately they do just that!

Bush and Blair - Endless Love

Leaping Into Action

A bright sunshiny morning greeted me on my emergence into the world of the day people. My beloved was already out in the garden, doing her best to disentangle ground elder roots from those of desirable plants. I loyally sat and observed her exertions from the pond-side garden bench, with only the slightest modicum of guilt!

That disturbing guilt potential proved sufficient for me to access the lawnmower in the top shed and, lop the tops off the ground elder that had begun encroaching on the lawn. Ten minutes effort was sufficient at this early hour as my body issued a muted scream at the prospect of further exertion. At least that ensured that I was sufficiently energised to prepare, and consume, lunch before venturing down to the Chronic Fatigue Unit for my appointment with Julie.

The hospital was ten minutes walk from where we parked the car providing me with a little more exercise. As we arrived at the hospital we met Helen, my physio / acupuncturist and Patrick, a physio who had worked on the ‘Food For Thought’ course that ma belle attended a couple of years back. The meeting with Julie was productive, as always, allowing some scope for modifying my pacing activity.

On our return home, I made a start on splitting and re-potting some Aloe Vera plants, before accidentally coercing my beloved into re-organizing the greenhouse (from its sad state of chaotic desuetude). In the course of this ‘spring cleaning’, a startled Helen recoiled from an unexpected resident, a rather large yellow frog who startled by her presence leapt towards the corner. Another similar, in size and colouring, creature joined the first to cower in the corner before hiding amongst sundry plant pots and seed trays. The speed, with which they manoeuvred around the cluttered space, was quite astonishing; much too fast to catch in one’s hands. They chose to leap any direction other than towards the door. Eventually, a large pond-net provided a solution; unfortunately it was difficult to explain to the amphibians that I was trying to help!

No sooner had the yellow two been despatched to the undergrowth near the pond, when a smaller olive green amphibian made its presence felt in the greenhouse. This little critter seemed quite determined not to be rescued but, the (by now) experienced netter was able to release him into the big wild garden, after a brief battle of wills.

It really is quite wonderful to have this wildlife right on our doorstep.  

The Weariness of the Short Distance Walker

Energy levels have not yet restored themselves to what I assumed was becoming my new norm; a sense of weary frustration hung over my day although, I delighted in watching young birds (primarily blackbirds, starlings and sparrows) being fed in different parts of the garden. My suspicion is that my pathetic power of concentration is at the root of the frustration, alongside my restricted activity.

On the work front, I managed to rinse out the filters from the pond filtration unit, and topped up the water level after previous overenthusiastic baling out activity. Later in the day, I managed to take a twenty plus minute walk.

At present, limiting myself to ten hours bed rest per night / morning is proving rather difficult and, I’m really nervous about allowing myself “forty winks” during the day, even when I need it, because of my propensity for going into overtime!

Pictures Of Lily

A Little Stumble

Is it quite simply that I’m not sufficiently attentive to my body’s requirements or, are the signals transmitted by the aforementioned ‘heap of sensations’ deliberately muffled? This question is posited from the shattered state in which yours truly finds its being. In recent days I have started to take progress for granted, yesterday being no exception.

So, what went wrong? If I knew the answer there would be no need to ask the question. Saturday morning I felt unusually alert and, ventured out into the garden, shortly after 10.00am, to do a little necessary tidying up. One hour later, I quite sensibly called a halt to these exertions and returned to the house for a little rest. In the early afternoon, my beloved and I strolled down to the local Brewers Fayre for a relaxed lunch and, by the time we returned home, knew that I’d had sufficient exercise for the day.

Preparation of Sunday lunch occupied best part of an hour, late afternoon / early evening but, by then the aching weariness was beginning to set in. An early night was definitely called for; it was almost as if shutters kept falling in front of my eyes, a blanket kept muffling my ears, and the world became a floating blur. I think it must have been the quickest I’ve ever managed to transform myself from fully clothed to bed-resting Malcolm. Such was the need for sleep that I fought my weariness, as I undressed, the sooner to immerse myself in the duvet lair.

From the exhaustion came forth … not sleep … but rather a tortuous aching void, a kind of spontaneous depression, a turbulent restlessness. Far too tired to sleep, everything seemed rather pointless as I was unable to pinpoint the source of my complete psychosomatic dis-ease!  S-H-A-T-T-E-R-E-D, I couldn’t bear to be touched, even though one of life’s greatest pleasures is being cosily snuggled with ma belle; it was almost as if my body was an alien being, totally unrelated to my stupefied brain.

After a while, I arose from my bed, hazily stumbled down the stairs, my beloved following in concerned protectiveness, wandered through the kitchen to the stable-door for a nicotine fix. When in turmoil, grab a cigarette! The nicotine was followed by a mug of chamomile tea and, a laboured re-ascent of the wooden hill. On return to bed, the invasion of the night-sweats began, even before I’d gotten off to sleep. It seemed inevitable that they would return to disrupt my snoozes and, as is its wont, the inevitable occurred!

Hopefully, things can only get better; I look through bleary eyes at the sun’s reflected shine on the clouds and thankfully, I rejoice in this day the Lord has made.

Marking Time

After a seemingly interminable grey damp day, come early evening the sun finally broke through and, I ventured out with my ma belle Helene for a little amble around the local roads. I’m sure the weather affects our energy levels, or at least I prefer to reason that way, rather than worry that I may have overdone it on Tuesday. Of course I know that I’m much too wary, and idle, to overdo it on many occasions; as Heterocon reported on the following day, “I actually listened to and, all too willingly, acted in accordance with my body’s directive”!

Yesterday morning I once more walked down to ‘Open Church’, to enjoy a cup of coffee and a chat. I’m happy to report that my dispenser of healing acupuncture, who called to administer a further treatment yesterday afternoon, seems quite pleased with the progress that I’ve made since she started seeing me last year. I’ve even been contemplating spending a couple of days away with my beloved, in the near future; it just seems so long since I was last able to consider such a venture. When this becomes a reality, it will most certainly mark a major turning point; even the use of “when” rather than “if” is something of a marker!