Skip to main content

Marvellous Miscellany

Seven things that you may or may not find interesting.  But first, a picture.

Weekend Cottage 2 by Toby White.  Note the numbers above the doors, the chimney (and are those solar panels?) on the roof, and on the right, a tap with hose attached.  All his houses include this feature.

1.  I have six growbags in the back of my car.  This is the cheap and cheerful approach to starting a vegetable garden.  Once the frost has finished, the plan is to fill them with courgettes, spring onions, rocket, green beans and tomatoes.  Out of all those, tomatoes are the only ones I have grown before, but apparently they are all easy to cultivate.

Shiny seed packets!
And yes, I will take the growbags out of my car first.  Unless the weather is so bad that I need an impromptu greenhouse solution, in which case mine's the vehicle with green beans hanging out the window.

2.  Toby at dinner tonight: "I've tried the fishcakes and they're not good.  And I have nothing to dip in my ketchup.  So... I'll just have a bacon sandwich."

So I'm running a restaurant now?

(Since he actually did try the fishcakes twice, we compromised with a tuna sandwich, as long as he ate his peas.)

3. Recently I saw a man walking along the cold, muddy canal bank - barefoot.  Apart from that, he was fully dressed, had a dog, and looked like any other man walking along the cold, muddy canal bank.  Was he doing it for the health benefits?  And are there any?  I think if I tried that I'd be amputating my frostbitten toes at the end of the walk.

4. My latest recipe trial was peanut butter and orange cookies.  I don't think I'll be sharing that one with you.  They're OK, but as I said to Graham, they lacked something.  He responded, "What, flavour?"  Oh, that'd be it.

You can have a picture.  They looked good.

5. Things that Theo likes doing that we don't like him doing, in order of disgustingness:
   - headbutting his reflection in the mirror
   - investigating the kitchen bin
   - peering into the toilet

6. Things that Theo likes doing that we don't like him doing, but are preferable to those other things so we let him do them anyway:
   - rearranging our carefully ordered boxes of CDs
   - emptying all the plastic boxes out of the kitchen cupboard
   - pressing all the buttons on the TV remote

7. I just found out that we will be able to see a 90% solar eclipse on the 20th of March!  Weather permitting, of course (please please please let it be clear.)  Googling "UK solar eclipse 2015" brings up several links to local newspapers, and I was amused to see that the one for my place of birth carried the heading, "Reading, Bracknell and Wokingham are set to be plunged into gloom on Friday, March 20."  Meanwhile, the rest of the country will be enjoying a spectacular astronomical event.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

St Editha's Way, day 2

For the first day of St Editha's Way, see here . I had walked from Polesworth to Tamworth and stayed in Tamworth overnight. Today, the journey continued to Lichfield. I think I was the only person staying in the hotel last night. Certainly I was the only person having breakfast. I felt a little sorry for the two men who had had to get up early to cook and serve it to their one and only customer. Tamworth Castle, Monday morning St Ruffin's Well was mentioned on the pilgrimage brochure as a place to see. I hadn't found it yesterday, so I went back to the castle area to take a look. I don't think there's been a well there for a long time, but there is a plaque tacked on to the wall of the shopping centre, giving an approximate location. I also wandered over to Borrowpit Lake while I was waiting for St Editha's Church to open. St Editha's, Tamworth, is a very impressive building. Tall arches, painted ceilings, and modern wooden partitions for cafe and shop areas...

Ten books that shaped my life

Ten books that shaped my life in some way.  Now that wasn't a problem.  I scanned the bookshelves and picked out nine favourites without the slightest difficulty (the tenth took a little longer). The problem was that, on the Facebook challenge, I wasn't supposed to explain why .  Nope.  Having picked out my ten, I couldn't let them go without saying why they were special to me. These books are more than a collection of words by an author.  They are particular editions of those words - taped-up, egg-stained, dust-jacketless and battered - which have come into my life, been carried around to different homes, and become part of who I am. How to Be a Domestic Goddess Well, every woman needs an instruction manual, doesn't she? Nigella's recipes mean lazy Saturday mornings eating pancakes, comforting crumbles on a rainy night, Christmas cakes, savoury onion pies and mounds of bread dough.  If you avoid the occasional extravagance (20 mini Bundt tins...

Unto us a son is given...

Did I mention something about life getting back to normal in October? Oh yes, I was just finishing work and looking forward to at least two weeks off to organise the house, stock up the freezer and buy baby stuff. Then little Toby threw a spanner in the works by turning up five weeks early! Which would put his birthday in... let's see... October. So much for normal! For those who would like the gory details, here goes. If you are a mother who had a long and protracted labour, I advise you to skip the next bit - or if you don't, please don't start sending me hate mail. You have been warned. You see, we'd been to all the childbirth classes (yes, just about managed to finish them) and learned all about the different stages of labour, and how many hours each lasted. We learned some relaxation techniques and various things Graham could do to help coach me through long periods of contractions. And then we turned out not to need any of them, because the entire thing...