Summer garden...

on the 30th May 2013...

A grumpy gardener records the parlous state

come through the garden gate

on the right by the olive tree is the front door 

up the steps to the newly Autumn sown

Emorgate Seeds wildflower 'meadow'

can you spy the ScareCrow?

 potager left to do its thing,

cutting flowers are my plan; although 

I love the thuggery of wildflowers.

I always bow to their superior knowledge

 the work of baby blackbirds...

helping me weed!

 the pond, in my impatience

we didn't dig deep enough.
The mushroom bought at Scotney;
gnome-like I sit pond-side,
watching the tadpoles grow

 raised beds with red onions

and garlic, Romanesco and black beans

 little Tommy, the sole surviving tumbling tiger

flanked by his big butch brothers...

the Black Russians

I've got my doubts any of them will

catch up?

 'White' Wisteria bought by me

from B & Q

(that'll teach me!)

 rhubarb in a water tank,

the last raised bed waiting for its

precious cargo of

gourmet sprouts coming in June

 the oil tank, I wanted anywhere but here.

'Stop! This is where I want it!'.'

'Sorry!'

'Okay, I'll have it there ☜☟✌!'

'No can do!  I'll tell you where you can have it.'
'Here, out of the way?'

Oh how I wanted to tell him where to put it ☝!

'Health and Safety!' he suavely shrugged.
With poo-shoes look, I graciously agreed.
Lady Docker would have been proud

 more evidence of baby bird gardening

  directors chair...

from which I usually orchestrate

my potager... feet up and wine in hand

 shambolic greenhouse...

all forlorn

 the wildflower meadow, unevenly sown

 the site of the hammock,
no sign of it anytime soon

 the table, where every morning I diligently

clean the birds' water bowls

and back to the garden gate.
'Come again soon and
next time stop for tea!'

What to do next for badness...

Lettice and I are home alone.

Ted is out doing good for the community.

This morning taking a lady to East Grinstead Hospital,

this afternoon off to Tenterden emptying

the Kent Air Ambulance boxes.

In the dust-draped quiet I sit and blog...

is this what my life has come too?

Jumper-clad June approaches.

I, with every fibre of my being hate donning jumpers.

With podge-bod, you would wouldn't you?

I need silk to skim, linen to layer,

dresses to float.

Camouflage by any other name would look as sweet?

Jumpers are apparel for dinosaurs to don at the dawn

of the ice age.

My clothes are my armour,

my boudicca blades I sheathe in slub silk, fine lawn

and gossamer woven Irish linen.

Hairy, hoary hemp has no place here.

My Achilles heel is clad in biker boots. 

Cutting a swathe through the crowds,

it's the women that give an admiring glance.

Gone are the days, when men walked into lamp posts as I passed.

(That is probably the biggest, fattest, stonkingest fib I've ever told here!)

I wouldn't mind, but today's a fasting day, so I can't even console myself with

the odd pasty, pork pie or scotch egg.

I doubly wouldn't mind, if this fasting lark was working!

I feel I'm growing old...
I'm beginning to feel the cold!

Err... Mr YP how do I now un-pixelate my wrinkles?
Done it... 

☺☹☺

Cats kept away as...

the kids played.

A new role was found for our

Ministry approved cat deterrent.

The summer paid us a fleeting call yesterday.

In the sun, Charlie and Hope

discovered a new role for... 

Shucked out of clothes like peas from a pod,

they nonchalantly strolled past the

evil, on the look out for cats, eye.

The tech-whizz that is ScareCrow

randomly lets off hard spraying spouts of water.

There is an eight second pause then, move a muscle and it

peppers you with the power of a pressure-washer on speed.

Ted, Poppy (me) Aaron and Claire

look on from the safety of a glass of something

alcoholic.  We prefer our water served in gentler ways

with ice and a slice, middle cut, no pips.

Family from York are here.

Today... rain, fire lit, games played...

Summer?

Casing the joint we went in for...

a beer.

The restaurant opposite our hotel in Chiang Mai

was very upmarket, family run.

The place was full of oriental antiquey

knick-knacks.

Full of locals enjoying the food.

When away, Ted and I always eat the local food.

Little cafés,
 street food and at the stalls in

shopping malls.

The dish everyone seemed to be eating in the restaurant,

 was little meat patties.

Although we always get the language basics,

we don't get so far as to enquire as to the provenance

of the food.

We tried one portion with our beer,

they were delicious.

We had a few lovely meals there,

all with the starter of these little savoury meat cakes.

In a cab, in traffic, a chap pulled along side, 

 on the back of his moped he had a cage

full of very distressed poodle-type dogs.

I looked away with the horrible thought of

the ingredient of the tasty patties.

☹☹☹

We were lucky enough to be there during the
Festival of Lights 


We don't holiday now, due to Lettice.
Our holiday money is spent on Miss Tena bed pads
for our elderly lady (no, not me)...

Lettice on her Miss Tena triple-protected
Thai triangle day bed bought in Chiang Mai

A dramatic irony?

This recollection came about due to the question posed by 
Yorkshire Pudding about Palau.
If you haven't found his blog you must go there now!

I DON'T do DUSTING...

in order to get the full force

of these words, you need to say it out loud, in

a Billy Goat Gruff voice.

Yesterday on arrival back from lipreading class and

shopping, I was just putting the car away

when up the drive came a group of people.

Ted being an ex-copper decided to investigate,

like you do, or to be more precise...

like you did in his day!

They were looking at our row of cottages, and telling their

daughter's French husband and family about them living in the

cottage at the opposite end to us, thirty years ago.

Like a galleon under full sail I got stuck in

'Come in and have a look at how our cottage has changed since you left!'

Now I ought to own up here, that to coin a phrase...

I have got previous.

All my life I have the desire to show folk a good time.

The joke in the family is I would invite

strangers in off the street, and believe you me, I have!

What's this got to do with dusting?

Well...

I invited them in, secure in the knowledge that the house was clean.

Why?

Because Ted does it while I'm out of the way. 

'Have some tea, coffee, cake?'

They, I could tell, thought I was some mad half-crazed woman,

and to be honest they'd be sort-of right.

The mum and I (she, I suspect was out of a similar mould)

got on like a house on fire.

Our row apparently, was the hospital for the row

across the way, which was the Workhouse.

Details of which, I am sure as promised, she will send.

I have this funny notion that when in foreign

lands, the only way to get a feel for the country

is to see the locals in their homes.

In Palau a couple of years ago, in the restaurant of the hotel, 

we got chatting to a lovely family celebrating their

very old grandmother's special birthday.

We raised a glass to her, had a super time talking

and having fun.

The next day, the waiter said the family had thought how lovely we were(?)

and wanted to ask us to come to their home.  They decided against it

because they imagined we would think it strange.

Well, you can tell exactly, how upset I felt?

Kindred spirits.

My Turkish slippers will be the death...

of me!

When I fall in love I do it with every fibre

of my being.

I have a pash. pot pourri...

gay men top the list

the smell of...

 books

the quiet country-side

crushed underfoot

the play of words on a page

the British put-down coming from caring

Worn, torn clothes, weft and warp imbibed

with history in every fading fibre

My Turkish slippers...

bought over ten years ago.

Many times they have been to the snobs (cobblers)

for a make-over.

Every time he says this will be the last.

I wrote about them on 4 February 2011
'The cobbler mopped my tears with a shabby chamois'

Ted rode to the rescue...
here we are two years later,
the snob rolled over at the onset of my tears,
followed hard on the heels of man on a mission.
Since then he has restitched them, saying once again those fatal words
'This will positively be the last time!'

Once again Ted was sent on the covert mission to 
not only get my slippers reconstituted, but my Russell and Bromley boots
as well.  Bought years ago for the princely sum of £5.

Same conversation, only with the added threat of how much
it is all going to cost.
Water off a duck's back, when the force that
is 'Lady Docker' is in full spate.

Now I know I'm always cracking on about bribery and corruption...
however when needs must...
palms and folding money come into play.
I'm not proud!

Getting home from a damp day in Scotney,
my slippers awaited my return.
Drying myself off, my first job was to try them on.
'Ooooh, they're a bit slippery!'
Man retires to garage to rough-up their soles.
Back on they go and the very first thing I
do is skate-board across the fat I'd just skimmed from Lettice's casserole,
falling with a crash and bending my knee
ever-so badly back.


Soaking in a Radox bath this morning,
I idly thought perhaps the cobbler
is planning the end game? 

I know, I know... I am making a mountain out of...

a mothball.

Lady Docker aka LL, in furs:

the full length mink, the flying fox draped around her

front row forward shoulders, pulls herself up to her full height

5' 4" in old money.

Let's face it, old money's the name of the game.

All of that paragraph is a totally stonking great fib.

Well to be honest, I have on many occasions been called Lady Docker

and I am 5' 4'.

The furs bit; just the thought gives me a fur-ball moment right in the pit of

my tum.  How anybody could, just defies me.

The reason I came out with that twaddle,

was two-fold, firstly I'm a tart and want to draw folk in,

the second and the reason why I'm having an ugly strop is...

Moths!

We seem to be experiencing our very own in-house blizzard

of the flying kind.

From 0 - 60 I'll fly off the sofa as a moth flutters gently by.

Snapping my capable hands together for all the world

looking like a Spanish dancer exploding into a frenzied flamenco

I strut my stuff.

The little buggers are everywhere,

I even opened the fridge in the utility room to find one

fluttering over the cold cuts.

Now I know they like wool, although I thought they would draw the line at lamb!

On opening the wardrobe, I just wasn't quick enough to smack the

one that sneakily limbo-danced its way between the light fitting.

I prodded it with a coat hanger until suddenly I thought, is a moth worth

a lightening Dr Who trip to local sub-station... NO!

I've spent a fortune on cedar balls,

moth-exciting traps filled with the moths equivalent of speed,

and the herb killer.  I've even against better judgement 

brought in the heavies by way of...

chemicals!

The war came to an ugly head last night when 

going to bed, there, on my side, were two of them  bonking!

With great glee I did the dastardly deed, 

secure in the knowledge they had at least, died happy.

Now in the past I've written about my love for

worn, torn and tatty clothes.

I think in modern day parlance it's called

deconstructed.  And yes, I ought to own up,

some folk might say I'm a deconstructed sort of a lass,

or put another way...

a cucumber slice short of a Pimms.

However, I like my worn look to be courtesy of me, not a 

frigging band of moths with aspirations of

the Vivienne Westwood kind.

Close your eyes and

 picture the scene...

I'm with one hand poking wotsits down my throat as 

fast as particles in the Cern.

Am I hoping for Higgs Boson?

Who knows?

The speed increases with the strop levels,

as I sit reading the advertisement in the FT's

travel unravelled

how to spend it special travel edition.

All lower case cos, well to be honest I don't know?

Perhaps that is how you are, when you are achingly rich.

How would I know any road?

Open the magazine and what do you see...
this...

The words in case you can't see them are...

'Why this watch?
This watch is a witness.  To words that moved nations.
It's dared men faster.  Further.
Worn by luminaries.  Visionaries.  Champions.
It doesn't just tell time.  It tells history.'

Err... it tells me that these people
have been given a free frigging watch...
What does it tell you?

Help...

Can someone tell me what this is all about?

I've had an email from Google to say I need to agree

the terms before May 21.

As I don't use my blog for advertising of any sort,

what happens if I don't sign?

Will my blog and all who sail in her, fly off into the ether,

never to be seen again?

Answers on a postcard to...

Me... here.

Thanks I'd be grovellingly grateful.

I had a fluffy dice moment...

yesterday, it came and bit me on the bum.

I have a thing about naffness...

It's like this; I honestly can't make my mind up

as to when an article slips from naff to art?

Are the fluffy dice in my Scratch Black Smart, together

with my 'Smarty pants' sticker bought for me by wicked 

step-daughter Belinda, my bête noire or
just the icing on the cake? 
I dunno!

Yesterday saw me stroppily frog-marching around the 
The Decorative Living Fair at Eridge Park.
How I stopped myself from kicking
some of the pretentious bankers' wives that
tend to frequent these events I'll never know.

'It wos me biker boots me 'onour, not me.
Wenever I wear 'em I get the desire to give 
folk a good kicking!' 

'Guilty, as charged, send her down!'

Driving there, I made myself a solemn promise
I will not buy another one of these...

Claire, my daughter-in-law always
groans when she sees my men work at work sign
saying 'It's the sort of thing we did at Uni, how awful!'
As good a reason as any to keep it, I say!

On arrival at the fair, where was the first stand I went to?

Yes, you guessed it right...
and what did I buy?
One of these...

Bird on one end and ball on the other.
Because the stone sphere is obviously a lot heavier,
it isn't evenly balanced, which I liked... PLUS
it is different from  the one I've got.
I had to buy it didn't I?
Obvious innit?

It has pride of place in the little
courtyard part of my garden.

I love my roughty-toughty horticultural piece of heaven,
 where in my 'potager'
(too much hobnobbing with the toffs!)
I let the wildflowers scramble through the veg.
"Uniformity is a fine thing!'...
has no place in my garden.

A couple of weeks ago in the Scotney Castle shop I bought
 a toadstool made out of the trunk of a tree.
On telling a gardener and a garden guide, 
they both staggered back in shock horror.
Inwardly smiling, I stopped myself from adding
'I will sit my fishing garden gnome on the top!' (fib, haven't got one.)

Yesterday I was at the fair to support my lovely friend
Viv of Hensteeth
Check her out, her work is truly lovely.

I bought this super French beaded
wreath.

I just have to wait now for the
'No Nails' knob to go off,
then I'll hang it on the wall!