Robin McKinley's Blog, page 51

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT

 

Hottest day in seven years.  Okay, that’s not going to go down in the history books BUT IT’S STILL VERY HOT.  VERY.  HOT.  And I want it to go away.  And it’s not going to.  Well, we may get some thunderstorms tonight.  They will (a) not provide a useful amount of rain* and (b) they will lower the temperature less than, in terms of human suffering, they will raise the humidity.  Moan.

Despite a certain slippage of hellhound digestive stability it’s been a splendid weekend.  Those visitors I’ve been whinging about last week were blog mod Ithilien and her husband Faramir and they were lovely.**  When we were first arranging this visit I said that I could blow off church on Sunday but I was going to the monks Saturday night.  I’ll show you where the grocery stores are and Third House has a perfectly good kitchen, see you Sunday.  Ithilien said briskly, That’s fine.  Give me SHADOWS and go away.  So we were all happy.***

Sunday, partly due to Chaos dragging me all over Hampshire in the small hours, did not go quite as planned, but we did manage to go into Mauncester for the McKinley Walking Tour of the old city, including a thrilling climb up a gatehouse tower for an exciting VIEW OF THE CITY!! as promised at the foot of the stairs and which proved on arrival to be mainly 1960s apartment blocks and a glimpse of the high street.  Hmm.  Faramir spotted the sign.  I know I’ve been up there but not in yonks upon yonks and I’d forgotten all about it.  This may be why.  But it was a pretty nice hot summer day on Sunday:  not the brain-destroying torridity of the last week.  And again today.  Gaaah.  Sunday night we had dinner at The Questing Beast where they’d already sold out of all their real food—tourists, feh—and so we had starters and hamburgers because that’s what was left.  But the company was good.  Better yet when Southdowner† arrived for mod solidarity.

So I put Ithilien and Faramir back on the train this morning, siiiiigh, and the temperature immediately rose by twenty degrees.  Come back!  All is forgiven!  They’re going to Greenland or some damn place that’s cold.  I am SO JEALOUS.

The funny thing is that my voice lesson today was rather good.  Possibly being too hot to think has a positive effect on someone who is always making up detailed and extensive lists of what’s wrong.  I was writing to a musical friend tonight that I swear I do my best home singing not practising at the piano with the music instructively in front of me, but out hurtling with creatures where I’m just singing.  Feh.  Also gah.  At one point today Nadia said, that’s quite a good sound.  Now, we’re going to sing that again and this time you’re going to listen.  I listened.  She said:  that’s a much nicer sound.  Even I could hear that some of the edge was gone:  that there was more softness and warmth and less blood-letting blade.  Nadia said, that’s a kinder sound.  Be kind to yourself. . . .

Sigh.  Not that Nadia is all sweetness and light.  She’s still making me get on with this frelling German thing.  Although singing in a foreign language has its advantages.  You need to know what the words mean, of course, to sing them with some attempt at suitable dynamics, but I like the literal translations—when you are given what the words mean rather than some tidied-up and frequently CLUNKING English ‘poem’—although either will serve to disguise whether the original Italian/German/White Ruthenian poem or lyric was diabolically awful or not.  For example.  Linden Lea.  I adore Linden Lea and I’m thrilled to be singing it.  But the original words?  Who is this bozo W Barnes who wrote them?  THE LYRICS ARE TERRIBLE.  I was vaguely aware of this of course, long before I started to learn it, but I love Vaughan Williams anyway and Linden Lea is such an icon.  I could hold at arm’s length any frissons of unease about the text . . . I continued to manage this trick even when I did start to learn to sing it . . . but memorizing the thing has proved too much for my suspension of critical disbelief.  GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.  Maybe I should memorise it in French.  Or White Ruthenian.

I still love the song.  And since over-intellectualising is bad for my singing anyway it’s good practise shutting my brain off.

* * *

* Earlier they were saying we were going to get two feet in half an hour (or so) and it would cause total flooding because, of course, the ground is brick-hard and that’s a lot of rain.  However at present they’ve changed their minds and we’re going to get almost no rain.^  But they could change their minds back.  It’s happened before.

^ Just enough to knock down my dahlias.  The ones I’ve managed to tie up will snap at string level.  The delphiniums are over, but a truly engaged storm will be creative:  it could crush my snapdragons and rip my clematis off the walls and stomp them.

** Also, they brought me champagne.  That’s a really excellent enhancement of any natural loveliness.

*** I’m not sure what poor Faramir did.  Peter was playing bridge.

† She claimed to have come for Ithilien and Faramir, but I know better.  She came for Pavlova.  Whom she spent twenty minutes or so being ravished by while I took hellhounds out for a late-night catch-up-while-it’s-relatively-cool hurtle.  Having invited her into the cottage, thrust a hyperactivated Pav at her and bolted out, I spent the twenty minutes worrying about all the TERRIBLE HABITS Pav has developed after ten months with me that she was demonstrating in all their appalling glory. . . . I got back and came cringing into the kitchen where, as I recall, Pav was dancing on Southdowner’s head, Southdowner cooperatively sitting on the floor to make the process easier.  Southdowner said, she’s lovely, you’ve done very well with her.^

::hellgoddess beams::

She’s also beautiful, continued Southdowner.  You must show her.

Hellgoddess stops beaming.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.^^

^ Have I told you about the builder over the road who has a full-size bull terrier and disapproves of Pav whom he considers TOO WELL MANNERED FOR A BULL TERRIER?  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

^^ I can hear Olivia laughing like a drain from here.  Olivia has been through the showing thing with Southdowner.  Southdowner is relentless.  Maybe Pav could develop a squint or an irresistible compulsion to bite judges’ ankles or something?

Opossums! – a guest post by Sarah

 

I should mention first thing that while I do technically live in Los Angeles, I am on the very inner edge of it, within flirting distance of the Angeles National Forest.  This is extremely handy for my photography, as I have a wealth of beautiful nature within easy driving distance*.  The only downside to the location is it means my husband has a nasty commute to his city job#, but it’s brought us so many delightful new things.  Like squirrels who live in trees in my yard, who are so fat and lazy they are almost tame, unending streams of birds coming to feast at the feeders^, fresher air, a quieter pace and just less of that scummy, grimy Los Angeles feel.

A few days ago I was in my yard when I noticed that my neighbor’s dog Gus seemed extremely focused on something.  I followed his gaze and realized there were two opossums walking along the fence.  After an experience when I was 14 with rescuing an abandoned baby opossum and finding a rehabilitater to take him, I have LOVED the little creatures.  I would love to keep one as a pet, as some do, but in the US it’s illegal to keep any wildlife as pets without special permits, even if you come across foundling babies through completely honest means.  Because of this, when I see opossums, I light up and want to watch them as long as possible.  Gus, naturally, did not share this view.  He charged the fence, and while they were out of his reach, they knew they’d been seen and were terrified… which meant they held absolutely, perfectly still. But in the process of him trying to eat them, he’d managed to knock a plank of wood out of the fence, which meant there was now there was a hole the fence as well as opossums on top.  Not good.

Spotted! I’ll just freeze here forever

My neighbor, Donna, and I took all the dogs into the house, hoping the opossums would leave once the threat went away, and then Gus would have no reason to push more boards out.  That part isn’t his fault, the fence along that stretch is old and really quite rotted.  A strong breeze could probably push a board out.  After a while, the opossums were still there, and I decided to walk to the other side of the fence and see what repairing it would look like.  As I did, I looked up at the pair and noticed one seemed quite fat… but there were tiny little tails wrapped around her belly.  She wasn’t fat, she was carrying babies!

Not fat, just carrying a ton of babies.

While I was on the outside of the fence, something happened in the yard, out of my field of vision.  I’m still not entirely sure what occurred, but suddenly Gus was at the fence, barking and jumping… and he either finally managed to grab the female, or she fell, and I saw his jaws close around her torso.

I screamed, and shouted at him to stop, which he did, amazingly.  That’s a WHOLE lot of instinct being overcome right there.  I tore around the fence as fast as I could, to see Gus standing bewilderedly over the opossum’s prone body, and, oh sweet heavens, babies were scattering everywhere.  There seemed to be a hundred of them, all crawling as quick as their little legs could carry them, and all in different directions.  Frantically, I tore off the hoodie I’d been wearing, started grabbing babies and piling them inside it.  Mercifully, it turns out that they make a noise… kind of a chirping noise for lack of a better word, although it honestly sounds more like a soft sneeze.  But they all started making it when they found themselves suddenly not attached to mom anymore; I assume they do this so their mom can locate them more easily.  In this case, it helped me locate them.

It felt like forever, but I managed to gather all the babies I saw or heard into my hoodie, which I was clutching to my chest.  I checked on the mom, who was still lying corpse-like on the ground… but her nostrils were moving.  She was literally playing ‘possum.  There didn’t seem to be any puncture marks or blood, so I hoped that she would come around soon.  As I was doing this, I noticed that after a brief shifting around of bodies when each new sibling was stuffed into my hoodie, the babies were all quiet.  None of them were crying, trying to escape, or hardly even moving.  I tentatively lifted a corner of the hoodie to look in on them, and they looked absolutely peaceful and content.  Apparently being clutched in a hoodie to a human chest is enough like a pouch that they all felt safe.**  At that point I had to just stand still for a few minutes and let my incredibly high adrenaline levels lower a bit.  While I tried to slow my heart down, I noticed that the male opossum was still sitting exactly where he had been on the fence, except now he was wearing an expression of horror.

Donna had heard the commotion, so she came out and I explained what had happened.  While we were talking, I saw the mother opossum crawling out through the new hole Gus had made in the fence.  My first thought, “Yay, mom is still alive!” was followed very quickly by, “Oh no, now I don’t know where mom is and I have all her babies.”  It had seemed like an awful lot of babies when I was racing around madly trying to grab them, but even when I took a count in a much calmer frame of mind, I was still seeing seven or eight heads.  They all kind of flow into each other, like a pile of noodles; it’s hard to get an accurate count.  These were certainly not newborns, they had fur and little nubs that would probably be teeth very soon, but they were clearly not old enough to be on their own yet.  They needed their mom.

I clung to the babies (loving them more and more every second, and cursing the laws that make it illegal to keep them), while Donne fixed the hole in the fence## and we decided what to do with them.  Obviously, getting them back to mom would be best.  We knew she was alive, or at least had been very recently, but there was no way of knowing where she had gone.  But the male was still there.  Eventually we reluctantly decided to set them on the ground, still in the hoodie so they’d hopefully stay together and not just wander off, and hope that either the male would take them, or at least alert the mother.  There are some thick bushes between the outside of our fence and the street, but there are a lot of cars that drive by, not to mention the host of animals who would enjoy a tasty baby opossum snack.  But it seemed like that was the only hope of getting them back to mom, so I set them down, though my heart was in my throat.  One of the babies started wandering off as soon as I set them down.  I watched and listened to him, thinking I’d put him back in the pile if he went too far.  But then he turned some magic corner into the brush… and completely disappeared.  He wasn’t even chirping.  I searched a long time in the area I’d last seen him, but he was gone.  I told myself that he’d probably just found a cozy, pouch-resembling little spot and was happily waiting for him mother’s return.  I really, really hoped that.

Very, very reluctantly I finally went back into the house, since I knew the mother definitely wouldn’t come back if I was hanging around.  All the dogs were on lockdown inside the house.  And while I waited, I googled.  I found a local Humane Society, confirmed they accept baby opossums, and would rehabilitate and release them; they would not be euthanized.  And I also consulted the internet on the likelihood of the mother coming back.  The internet was not hopeful that she would.

I gave the mother an hour, then went back to check on my bundle of babies.  The male was still there, looking at the pile but doing nothing.  The mother was nowhere to be seen.  I lifted a corner of the hoodie and the babies were still inside, making small noises of protest to having been disturbed.  But there was one still missing.  I looked for him again, but again, I couldn’t find him.  I hoped I’d merely miscounted the number of babies the first time I’d counted; that there were only ever seven, not eight, and that the last one had gone back in with his siblings.  Either way, I had to take care of the ones still there.

So I scooped them up again, and again they settled in right away and seemed to sigh with contentment in their makeshift pouch. And, I’ll be honest, I loved carrying that fuzzy bundle around.  Donna found a cat carrier of hers to lend me, so I put the babies, still wrapped up, inside and drove to the Humane Society.  The people at the Human Society were all extremely nice and caring, which made me feel better about turning the little creatures over.  Even though I’d known them for a very short time, I felt very bonded to them.  But I knew they’d be well taken care of, and eventually go on to live normal opossum lives.

My hands are REALLY small, so keep that in mind when imagining how small this baby is.

I still worried that the one who had wandered off hadn’t found his way back and was still out there somewhere, but I didn’t know what else I could do about it, or even if he was actually missing.

Later that night, my husband came home, and we decided to eat dinner in the living room with the front door open since there was a nice breeze.  I was relating the whole opossum ordeal to him, and at the very moment when I was describing the chirping noise they make when they’re separated from their mom I heard it outside. Faint, but distinct.  I leaped up, grabbed a flashlight and tore out the door, honing in on the noise, and there he was.  Sitting alone in the middle of the yard, looking sorrier and more forlorn than any living creature ought to look.  I scooped him up immediately, and he gratefully burrowed into my arm, shoving his face in as far as it would go between my elbow and ribcage.

There were eight of them after all.

Luckily the Humane Society has emergency hours, so I was able to take the little guy over and reunite him with his brothers and sisters. They provided me with an ID number to call and check up on animals brought in, which I have since done, and all of them are doing VERY well. They’re happy, thriving and on track to be released back into the wild when they’re old enough. There is enough wilderness nearby that there will be no shortage of suitable places for them to be set free. I’m glad for them, although wistful, of course, about the little critters I fell in love with in a very short time.



And yes, I did think quite a bit about Jake and his dragon baby Lois as I was swaddling them against my chest, even if it was a tremendously less harrowing ordeal, I was not instantly in a great deal of legal trouble, and opossum babies don’t burn your skin. The two situations don’t really have all that much in common when you think about it, but Robin McKinley books don’t need a lot of encouragement to spring to my mind.
Now the neighbors are called me Saint Sarah of Assisi, a nickname I will be glad to wear.

* * *

*With ME, anything I plan on doing regularly has to be within easy driving distance.

#I truly feel bad that he has to drive through hell and back both ways every work day, but, as he says, it’s worth it to have such a wonderful place to come home to.

^Which my two cats LOVE.  The feeders are nicely situated directly outside the best cat perches, so it’s like kitty TV for them.  The only downside is HOW MUCH SEED they eat.  My word.

While I realize intellectually that some people actually do enjoy living in the heart of LA, I cannot fathom what it would be like to be them.  We are from utterly different planets.

%There are two houses on my fenced-in lot, mine and my neighbors’. Between us all, we have four dogs and four cats, and we share the yard, so all the dogs get to play together.  It’s a pretty ideal situation.

~Gus: a beautiful specimen of  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Kelpie” .  He is a subset of the breed with a thicker, denser undercoat, giving him a fluffier appearance than you typically see.  There’s a name for his coat type, but for once, my memory and Google are both failing me.

##Donna has that how to fix things gene, which I did not receive.

* * *

Sarah Allegra is a fine art photographer and self portrait artist in Los Angeles, when she’s not busy aiding local wildlife and helping lost pets. If you don’t mind some occasional artistic nudity, you can read her blog here: http://sarahallegra.wordpress.com/

 

KES, 88

EIGHTY EIGHT

Mike made a strangled noise.  I laughed out loud.  Somehow Gus as Legolas— ‘Ah the green smell, it is better than much sleep!  Let us run!’— was a more vivid image even than Little Lord Fauntleroy.  (Legolas looks nothing like Orlando Bloom.  Don’t get me started.)  ‘Awake!  Awake!  It is a red dawn’.  I didn’t think teenagers did dawn.  I wasn’t a big fan of dawn myself since it usually meant I’d been up all night being run down by a deadline. . . .  But my stomach did a sudden flipflop:  forsoothly wasn’t as funny somehow after you’d met it walking in the street.   Thou’rt fortunate. Thy new comrade is swift and loyal and high-couraged. Thou and she will go far both as the world doth count span of distance, and in the journey of the heart.  I had a memory about as like a bear-trap as a blob of strawberry jelly.  Why did these lines insist on being remembered?  I looked around nervously for walking trees or shiny-white guys in tall hats.  Which would make a change.

All I saw was my dog . . . apparently eating gravel.  “Hey!”  Sid looked up, jaws moving sideways:  clickety clickety crunch.  I made a grab for her and stuck several fingers in her mouth—the dog I’d adopted less than twenty-four hours ago and still knew almost nothing about.  She looked mildly surprised and let me flick the good-sized pebble out from between her jaws.  Furthermore I still had all my fingers after this operation.  What a good thing she likes me.  Of course as soon as I let go of her collar again she bent her head for exactly that same pebble . . . so I snatched it out from under her nose and put it in my pocket.  She looked at me woebegonely and sat down in a poor-sad-thing posture.

“Well,” said Serena, and looked at me.  “You got everything you need?”

Reality came rushing back in that awful way reality has.  On second thought maybe I’d prefer guys with swords and wands and mysterious backgrounds and a funny way of talking.  “I guess so.”  I didn’t think I’d fed Sid all the tunafish—or Mike all the ham.  I could always share some of Sid’s dog food.  I hoped I could find those pillows.  I hoped Caedmon stayed warm all night—and didn’t burn the house down.  I hoped dienonychus didn’t snore. How complicated living in the country was.

I was forgetting something.  Oh.  “I need milk for the ho —”  I stopped.

Mike, having maintained a nearly straight face for Gus as Legolas, lost it and guffawed.  “I doubt Sheila drinks milk.”

Serena gave me a look she probably used on clients attempting to default on their bill, or possibly her son when he forgot to turn the oven on.  “She must have a tough time trying to do the Belle du Jour thing in Cold Valley.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re never here,” said Mike, still laughing.

Serena turned the look on Mike.  “Milk for the house,” she said.  Girl solidarity was kicking in. “It is a well-known urban ritual for moving into a new house.  A bowl of milk on the—er—windowsill.”

“You leave the window open and the hippogriffs drink it,” I said.  “Yes.  The urban experience.  And a bottle of Remy Martin for the doorperson, which you offer on bended knee with a freshly-sharpened knife in your other hand, in case they want a little of your blood to seal the deal not to lose your mail or the plumber’s phone number when your toilet starts singing Handel and Steve Reich and the shower is always cold.”

“Wow,” said Mike.  “I’m really glad I’m a peasant.”

“We didn’t have a doorperson,” said Serena.  “We had a resident janitor.  Who used to answer the door naked, to make you go away and not ask him to do anything.”

“It didn’t work with you,” I hazarded.  Mike was looking startled.  Hey, rube, it’s a jungle out there.

“It didn’t work with me,” agreed Serena.  “If all you want is milk you can get it at Lorraine’s—Lorraine’s Corner Store—but you’ll have to put up with Lorraine.  On the other hand, you might want to get it over with Lorraine.  She’ll need to know all about you and if you elude her for too long I wouldn’t put it past her to turn up on your doorstep with a casserole.”

“How good a cook is she?” I said.

There was a loud honking noise from Mike like a convoy of Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs and he hit himself in the chest a couple of times and then pulled out a phone.  He scowled at whatever it was telling him and then put it to his ear.  “Yeah?”  GIBBLE GIBBLE GIBBLE GIBBLE, said the phone.  Mike sighed.  “I’ll be right there.”

“The mothership has landed and is leaking oil?” said Serena.

“Worse,” said Mike.  “The bus taking the third graders on their field trip tomorrow won’t start.  We’ve been holding the fleet together with paper clips and string for the last several years, but the school district keeps buying computers.”  He looked at me.  “You need it, my phone number’s in Merry.  You got plenty of wood for at least a couple of days.  Happy reading.  Hope the hippogriffs like the milk.”

 

It’s still too hot for writing blogs

 

Although it’s been a bit better today, chiefly because there’s been a real breeze.  I get excellent east-west cross-ventilation at the cottage, supposing there’s any movement of air and it’s not lying on the ground limply gasping like the rest of us.  I actually turned the hellpack’s fan off for a few hours.*  I am so not ready for visitors tomorrow.  But then I’m never ready for visitors, and I have a better excuse than usual.  Mind you I’d rather be cool and useless and inefficient and disorganised than hot and holy.  I was thinking, crossly, as I stomped around the garden carrying yet more cans of water, that it takes an amazing amount of time even to be a bad, careless, slapdash gardener, especially in a hot drought.  ARRRRRRGH.  And the long-range forecast is presently that it’s going to get HOTTER next week.

Angelia

I realise reading your iPad in the dark isn’t good for your eyes

Is this true, or is it like Mom saying that sitting too close to the TV will ruin your eyes? I ask because one of the best things about my Kindle is that I don’t have to turn on the lights to read at night

I think it depends on who you pay attention to about it and how you define ‘good’.  My eyes are sixty years old and have seen a lot of use, and they get tired fast reading an ereader in the dark, while I can read ordinary hard copy in good light pretty much indefinitely.**  Therefore when I read (as I have, somewhere) that using an ereader in the dark is bad for your eyes I automatically believe it.  It probably also varies with your ereader.  Anyone else have significantly different experience reading hard and reading e-, about lighting or anything else?  One of the things I notice about ereading is how much easier it is to skim.

Judith

I actually have many if not most of the old books and many of the newer books on the Antarctic expeditions of Scott . . . I first got interested in Antarctica when I saw the play “Terra Nova” in 1982,

YES.  Although I was already interested.  I met up with Richard Byrd’s ALONE at a relatively young age and it was pretty much a yowzah!

and I realized the dream of a lifetime when I visited there in 2004 (although I visited the “banana belt” off of South America and didn’t get to see any of the places Scott visited, which are off of New Zealand). The bad news is that all of my books are still in packing boxes. We moved in 2008 and still haven’t properly moved in. . . .

WHAT?  Five years later and your books are still in boxes?!?  WHAT????  How do you LIVE?  What are you DOING?  —I suppose this means all your Antarctic photos of your trip are in boxes too so you aren’t going to be doing a travelogue guest blog either.  Clearly you should (a) unpack (b) go back.  Your photos with your new camera will be fabulous.  Fabulouser.

TELL YOURSELF AIR-CON IS BAD FOR THE PLANET. KEEP TELLING   YOURSELF THAT.

No. STOP telling yourself that. Air conditioning has become quite energy efficient. Go out and buy yourself an air-conditioner and install it . . . doing so will break the heat wave and bring a blast of arctic air down on the British Isles that will break all previous records. . . .

The blast of Arctic air idea is very appealing.  The problem is that, first, I have little old-fashioned windows that wouldn’t take any air conditioner I’ve ever seen and since I live in a conservation area I wouldn’t be allowed to change them even if I wanted to go to the expense and wreck the way my 250-ish-year-old cottage looks.  However if this is Global Warming I imagine that even the British might be inspired to invent cranky little air conditioners to fit in cranky little windows.  But second:  if this is Global Warming, I’ll buy a cranky little aircon when it gets invented.  But meanwhile . . . to the extent that I adjust at all to this wretched weather, I do so only by living in it.  I know people whose temperature control is flexible and responsive and they spend their working days in airconned offices and their nights in airconned houses.  In between they walk their dogs and enjoy the summer.  I hate the heat worse every time I’m out of it for fifteen minutes (supermarkets even in England tend to be air conditioned) or half a day.  If I switch to aircon living, I’ll have to build a gym.  For the hellcritters and me.

Harpergray

Sign me up as well for Not Good At Hot Weather. . . . Embarrassingly enough, I was talking to a friend in Scotland yesterday; we both expressed our discomfort in the heat of the afternoon. On a whim I checked Google to find out how we compared to the rest of the heatwave and…in her part of Scotland and my part of Sweden it was only in the upper 70s (F).

UPPER SEVENTIES?!?  You . . . wimp.  Even I, who bow to no woman in my loathing of excessive heat, feel that you can’t seriously complain about a heat wave unless it breaks 80.  Mind you I don’t like upper seventies myself, but it’s not a heat wave.  —And you Texans who have played tennis in 100° degrees can just stop that laughing.

Diane in MN

Do you have wild parsnip there? I was just reading an article about it–its sap causes photosensitivity, so if you get it on your bare skin and you’re in the sun, you get significant burning, sometimes with blisters, and marks that can persist for a long time. (There were pictures.) Who knew? Not me, anyway.

Oh my.  Giant hogweed?  Yes.  And it’s serious.  I’m scared to death of it, especially with my history of contact allergies.  I avoid anything that looks like large Queen Anne’s Lace on principle, and since Queen Anne’s Lace grows rather large around here, I can do some fancy zigzagging.  No, if I were colliding with Giant Hogweed I’d have a lot worse than some ugly red marks on the back of my legs.  I also think I’d notice if I had it in my garden.  Although I do have a couple of garden plants from that family, and I’ve been looking at them suspiciously.   I was watering in shorts again today and jerking spasmodically every time anything brushed against my bare skin—which in my garden is constantly—and, um, general aaugh and angst.  Especially since this will-die-in-long-trousers weather is due to continue. . . .

Blondviolinist

Ugh. We have that around here for sure. It looks a bit like Queen Anne’s Lace, only I think it blooms a bit earlier. One of my friends is an organic farmer, and she has to pull it out of her roadside ditches by hand. (Speaking of the Full Gardening Suit! That stuff is NASTY!)

Yes it is.  Very, very nasty.

Diane in MN

Ground-nesters seem to be more aggressive than the average wasp. Yellowjackets are ground-nesters. ::Shudder::

Yes.  I remember being specifically told that in Maine:  you can maybe sidle around a little and wait on developments if something is buzzing at head height.  If something is coming up at you from below, RUN LIKE CRAZY.

Stardancer

Hellterror photos! I love hellterror photos!

Oh good.

She’s so big!

She isn’t.  But she comes over as bigger than she is—in photos too apparently.  I have trouble remembering she’s a small dog.  She certainly doesn’t think she’s a small dog.  I’m surprised when I pick her up and find out I still can.

I love the Grumpy Uncle Chaos photos. His long-suffering is obvious and kind of adorable.

Yup.  Also, he doesn’t have to lie with his head hanging out of the crate.  And if he retreated I would defend him.  Hellterror MUST learn to leave hellhounds alone if they’re not in the mood.  Darkness is never in the mood.  Sigh.

Diane in MN

Also she’s stuck in the false-pregnancy stage of the end of her heat, er, season: I assume this is a malign collision between the frequent weirdness of a first season and that they kept messing with her while she was trying to have it.

Well, you may not ever see overt signs like nesting to indicate that the false pregnancy has come to an end. A pregnancy lasts a bit over two months, and if she got a milk line, that will take more time to go down even after the imaginary puppies have been born. (If there’s milk, she’ll have to dry up. Vinegar compresses help with that, if it’s a concern.)

ARRRRRGH.  This has been going on now a month-plus.  It’s so not bothering her that I’m a bit loath to interfere, especially since I worry that one of the reasons this first heat has been a bit doolally is because of all the drugs she had just before she got stuck.  And trying to keep vinegar compresses on her would I think be more of a concern.

Mirkat

Ok, yes, hellterror cute, blah blah, but what I notice are the Hellgoddess’ feet – straight line through big toe, nice even spacing between the toes. A touch of tucking under on the last couple toes, but overall some of the healthiest feet I have seen

::Falls down laughing::  Well, I’ve been wearing All Stars about 90% of my shoe life for the last thirty-five years or so, and they’re very foot-friendly.  I used to have narrow feet but they’ve flattened out with age.  Those photos are of me rocked back on my heels too, if I have my weight on the balls of my feet my toes spread out like they’re expecting to latch onto branches. . . .  And, um, what do you do that makes you so conscious of feet?

* * *

* Third House has only one fan—and that’s only as of yesterday.  This should be sufficient for a married couple—supposing they’re still speaking to each other after several weeks’ holiday relentlessly in each other’s company—not ideal, but sufficient.  But I’m worrying about when Luke and his family come back through in a fortnight.  Multiple fan purchases get expensive . . . especially when you’ve just been buying sheets, towels and pillows because most of the old ones are left over from the old house, older than I am and, um, grotty . . . and even John Lewis’ warehouse is going to empty out eventually in this weather.  And we won’t go into the dread topic of assembling the frellers.  When did you start having to ASSEMBLE your fan?!?  I remember the good old days when you took it out of the box and plugged it in.  When are they going to start expecting you to hem your own sheets?

** Being a fidget is an excellent defense against most standard strains, like eye- and back-, so long as you’re not in an office making your boss crazy.

It’s too hot to write a blog post

 

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  I’m certainly sticking to everything else—the chair, where my wrists rest on the bottom of the keyboard, the sole of one foot on the floor, the other one is in a mutual stickfest with my opposite leg*, my own hair**. . . .

Angelia

the most popular [bird feeder] is one of the suet blocks

I’m surprised it isn’t melted into a puddle under the feeder!

Nearly.  I had to put a new one in today and I had to SPOON IT IN because it had half-melted.  And it’s been indoors.

B_twin

We sometimes run an empty 95C as a short “cleansing” wash after a particularly nasty load [in the washing machine]…

NINETY FIVE?  I’m so jealous.  After ordinary hellcritter bedding duty I run one sixty-degree empty wash and then rake handfuls of fur out of the filter since this (German) machine does have a filter***.  After extraordinary hellcritter-with-problems bedding duty I run two sixty-degree empty washes, one with DETERGENT and one without.

PamAdams

I was on an Arctic/Antarctic reading kick lately- entirely this blog’s fault, as the mention of Francis Spufford led to his Antarctic books, and then to those of other writers.

Ooooh, you could do a BOOK REVIEW GUEST BLOG.  Who did you read?  Marie Herbert?  Sara Wheeler?  Some of the old guys?  (Surely I mentioned Spufford’s I May Be Some Time, one of my favourites?)  This is probably the weather for revisiting polar classics. . . .

Quill

†† Hellterror was at the cottage, snarking in her crate. As she bears down on her first year birthday she is unmistakably showing signs of responsibility and righteousness . . . but not very many and they don’t string together well.

††† She has an excuse: she’s been laid up with a bell-rope-antipathetic injury. Usually she rings better than I do. Sigh.

I read this at first as the hellterror ringing better. I’m sure she’d ring with enthusiasm and dispatch . . .

Ahem.  Anyone who doesn’t read individual footnotes in their individual contexts but merely in a wodge at the end of the page can expect to be confused and only has herself to blame.

Maren

. . . Duke, a very sweet dog but an avid collector of dead things.  The best way to get them away from him was to bring him home with the dead thing in his mouth and turn the hose on him.

This would only encourage the hellterror.  She’s spending kind of a lot of her time damp anyway since she has no clue that she should maybe SLOW DOWN in this heat.  When I bring her indoors she’s panting hard enough to cause brain damage so I douse her, which, as I say, she thinks is an excellent game and I wouldn’t put it past her to start plotting other ways to make me perform.   —Also, she’d’ve swallowed by then.

Aaaaand on a different note, now you know why I gave up on container gardening on my unshaded west-facing balcony with no spigot. The single daylily is still doing well left to its own devices, but I can’t even have the drapes open to look at it during the summer because it’s too hot.

Oh, now, don’t tease me like this.  If you’ve only got a balcony you can fuss.  You can line your pots—this is working a treat with a big heavy terra cotta pot out front that clearly missed its calling as a pizza oven—and you can use about half compost and half water-retaining crystals or gel or whatever’s on offer at your garden centre and/or put a reservoir in the bottom.  And mulch, of course, although I wouldn’t waste time with ice cubes.  I wouldn’t try pansies or sweet peas both of which will frelling mildew on you even if you water twice a day† but yes you could grow roses. 

Katinseattle

There was the time my husband and I were eating at friends of his. Their little girl told a funny story about how once after daddy picked lettuce for supper, they found a slug in the salad. We all laughed a little. I covertly checked my plate.

Dickinson family mythology declares that—this was before my time—Peter’s eldest son in law and eldest grandchild have not let a green vegetable pass their lips since they were served broccoli with added protein from Peter’s garden.  Hey it was cooked and everything, I don’t see the problem.

And for all of you who have suggested that I be glad I didn’t find half a large slug in my salad . . . that’s not really how you eat salad.  The line works a lot better about half a worm in your apple, which I why I cut my apples up before eating, because yes, I eat organic apples, and the occasional worm is part of the package.  What helps keep me awake at night is wondering how many tiny slugs I have eaten . . . unknowingly, obviously, and raw, in my salad.  This does not bear a lot of thinking about.

EMoon

Dead mouse in Pav’s mouth…slug in salad…not the best of days. You surely do deserve that bottle of champagne.

Thank you.  I so agree.  And all I’ve had from Peter is the assurance that he washed today’s lettuce VERY CAREFULLY.  That’s fine for today.  But I am suffering trauma and post traumatic shock.  I need MORE than merely slug-free salad, although I admit it’s an important step in the right direction.

Ringlets

I’d say it’s worth the bottle of champagne and the jewellery!!

My husband reads the blog.  I hope he is paying attention.  I am a poor broken woman.  I need help. 

Shalea

I’ve lived in a fairly hot climate for most of my life and still Don’t Do Heat. My coping mechanisms involve, mostly, being too stubborn to acknowledge this until I’m forced to by general physical rebellion. For example, I spent some time yesterday wrestling with the root ball of a boxwood I was trying to evict, and then spent a comparable amount of time lying on the vinyl kitchen floor in front of an aircon vent

I stopped reading as soon as I got to ‘aircon vent’.

Diane in MN

My flowers are about the only thing I really like about summer, so I’m sure I’ll be out with the hose. I will not feel holy and connected to Life and Nature. Are you sure your vicar is from this planet?            

I often wonder about this.  But I am the opinion that either introverts or extraverts are from a different planet, so that means one of us is.

EMoon

I grew up in a hot climate, and when I moved back to one, it didn’t take long to readjust.

Age, however, has soured the relationship between me and 100F. . . the age effect on temperature regulation has taken off capacity at both ends. I can’t handle big heat as well, and I also get colder in cold. I can, on a dry day, ride the bike up to the post office and back when it’s 95F . . . . But any attempt at serious work outside…no. I’ve actually had some on-the-edge-of-serious heat problems in the past ten years….it’s galling that I used to play tennis in the middle of the day–our tennis class was at 1 pm–in 100F. Of course, I was 17-18, skinny as a rail, and had grown up there and none of the schools then had AC. There was usually one fan in the room pointed at the teacher.

I’ve always been terrible with heat and I can’t get any worse about cold.  But this muggy English heat always reminds me of being a kid in Tokyo—now there’s muggy heat for you.  I used to spend the days at the library which was AIR CONDITIONED.  But the nights were seriously bad—my parents had one room-sized window air conditioner, and it was in their bedroom.  And I so remember the last weeks of school—with the one fan in the room pointed at the teacher.

Okay, it’s cool enough to hurtle. Half-hurtle anyway.  Last night there was an actual breeze so I sat in the kitchen at the cottage for way too long with the doors open letting the house cool down, like a doused hellterror.  With all the lights off so I didn’t attract the local bug population and possibly a few bats and an owl.  I realise reading your iPad in the dark isn’t good for your eyes but it’s not like I’m planning on needing to do a lot of it and it was a boon last night . . . and will probably be a boon again tonight.  And maybe tomorrow night if the breeze keeps blowing . . . .

* * *

* Yes of course I’m wearing shorts.  I was watering in shorts again today.  I had been changing into jeans to do the watering but I think I might die.  So I hope whatever I’m allergic to out there doesn’t kill me instead.

** WHY DON’T I GET IT CUT AGAIN?  There’s not enough of it left to have it this long.  With reference to menopause:  not everyone loses 95% of their hay fever, ditto their banquet status with mozzies and other evil biters—but not everyone loses most of their hair either.  I hate this a lot.  It’s apparently pretty common, but I don’t notice it being talked about much.  But I had long hair for over forty years and it’s a hard habit to give up, especially since I equally detest having people messing with my hair.  So I have long hair again because nobody gets near me with a pair of scissors.

*** Even if the design is stupid and insane.

† Mildew is counter-intuitively a plant disease of drought, not drowning

I’m so glad it’s Official Short Wednesday*

 

It broke ninety—degrees Fahrenheit—here today.  I haven’t checked to see if my max/min thermometer has boiled its little brains out.  I’ve now got four bird feeders out there** and the most popular one is one of the suet blocks.  Blerg.  Who wants to eat suet IN THIS WEATHER?  I like heavy greasy food as well as the next person BUT NOT IN THIS WEATHER.

The Washing Machine Man came again today, despite my having inadvertently stood him up on Monday, because he is a kind, sympathetic, wonderful human being who understands that other human beings are sometimes thicker than bricks ESPECIALLY IN THIS WEATHER.***  And HE FIXED IT!!!!!  YAAAAAAAAY!  I was so sure he was going to tell me that it had lived long and prospered, and now deserves a decent burial.†  I’m not in the mood, either emotionally or financially, to buy a new washing machine.

The only blight to all this is that he came later than expected, and time had got away from me rather.  Hellhounds and I were already at Third House†† and I was sorting books to go to Oxfam and of course taking some of the ones in the ‘go’ pile back out again and you know you have to read a few pages to confirm and justify your decision . . . or not . . . and . . .

It’s been a day.  It’s been a hot day.  But I held my line through Grandsire Triples and Bob Major tonight while some other poor schmuck was losing hers.†††  And it’s still cooling off enough at night for a little catch-up hurtling, although this means my evenings are running even later than they do anyway and it’s starting to get hot again long before I’m ready to get out of bed next morning AND DO MORE WATERING.‡  Meteorologists by definition are all talking through their wellies, but the forecast is that this is going to go on for weeks. . . . I wonder if Antarctica is all booked up and if they take dogs.

* * *

* All of you lovely and charming and fabulous and adorable people on the forum who are posting guest blog suggestions . . . YES!  YES!  YES!  —Next question.  Also, generally speaking, travelogue ones are always good.  Either it’s exotic, which is cool, or if it isn’t, then it’s entertaining to the locals to see what some frelling clueless tourist has to say or has chosen to take photos of.  When I was over here as a tourist a million years ago I took photos of the phone booths and the Royal Mail vans.

** They breed.  Like coat hangers and odd socks.  And it’s worse than that because I’ve actually replaced one.  I bought a sturdy, good-quality one that is A TOTAL DROOLING RATBAG to clean, and it needs cleaning kind of often because it’s so badly designed.  Including HOW HARD IT IS TO CLEAN.  So I have this moderately expensive useless piece of rubbish which, since I was at that point inexperienced in bird feeders I bought on the hype, and recently I bought a cheap-tosh bird feeder at the farm-supply shop BECAUSE IT ALL UNSCREWS INTO ITS COMPONENT PARTS WITH NO FUSS.  Arrrrrgh.

*** I was talking to Hannah tonight and she says it was 101°F today in Manhattan!  A hundred and one!  What is this, Death Valley East?  101 is not reasonable.

† This is Third House’s washing machine^, which was already of a certain age when Vicky offered it to anyone who would haul it away because she had inherited a new one.  You know it’s old because it offers a sixty-degree temperature option.  Modern washers have gone all holy and ecological and I don’t think ordinary domestic ones ever offer more than 40° any more?

^ And the friends who are arriving this weekend with suitcases full of dirty laundry are going to be very happy.

†† Hellterror was at the cottage, snarking in her crate.  As she bears down on her first year birthday she is unmistakably showing signs of responsibility and righteousness . . . but not very many and they don’t string together well.

††† She has an excuse:  she’s been laid up with a bell-rope-antipathetic injury.  Usually she rings better than I do.  Sigh.

‡ I’ve got visitors coming this weekend, right?  I’M GOING TO HAVE TO RUN A VACUUM CLEANER.  Is there anything HOTTER on this planet, barring nuclear meltdown, than a FRELLING VACUUM CLEANER?  —Maybe they could stay at a nice B&B.

Dead Things

 

IN CASE THE TITLE HASN’T WARNED YOU, THIS IS ANOTHER OF THOSE POSTS YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IF YOU ARE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE.

It has not been a great day.  It is still VERY VERY VERY TOO HOT*.  VERY.  And it’s supposed to go on getting hotter till Saturday.**  I went bell ringing (again) tonight, at Fustian, and even the experts were hiding at home with the curtains drawn—there were only six of us—and some of us didn’t ring very well.  Ahem.***  It’s a small ringing chamber and people are relentlessly warm-blooded and furthermore they will breathe, adding overheated dampness to the thick curdled atmosphere.

I didn’t get up very early† and then I had to DO THE WATERING and one way or another it was later than it should have been when I got the critters out†† so arguably I wasn’t paying as close attention as I might have if it had been about twenty degrees cooler.  The hellhounds are worse in this heat than I am, which is restful in an annoying sort of way.  The hellterror . . . not so much.  HEY!  WE’RE OUTDOORS!  ISN’T IT FUN!  LET’S RUN AROUND OR . . . OR SOMETHING!  It’s the or something that causes the problems.  I’d already suspended her upside down while holding her mouth open to shake out some cat crap but she was only going through the motions with that one because just running around and trying to eat bumblebees (NOOOOOOOOOOOOO) isn’t sufficiently exciting and she wants me to play with her.††

But then she did the deadly darting thing and her jaws closed on something else.  Even when I’m chilly and alert I can’t move faster than the deadly darting thing.†††  So I clamped her between my legs again and started trying to pry her mouth open.  This is, as I’ve said here previously, usually surprisingly easy, because to my considerable amazement she acknowledges my right to interfere.‡  Today . . .   Whatever this was, she wanted it.  The beady little varminty eyes were boring into mine.  This was making me prospectively nervous before I finally managed to crack those jaws and . . . and . . . I was pretty sure what was in there was furry.  I DON’T WANT TO TOUCH THIS WITH MY BARE HANDS.  I DON’T.  It took me at least a minute to lever those bull-terrier jaws open far enough that I could conceivably shake whatever it was out—and whatever it was was LARGE and it DID NOT WANT TO SHAKE OUT.‡‡

It was a dead mouse.  It was a very dead mouse.  It was a very dead mouse with its insides coming out.  AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  I’M GIVING UP DOGS.  AFTER THIS IT’S GOLDFISH ALL THE WAY.  CHENILLE GOLDFISH.‡‡‡

I was probably still shaking with trauma and overwhelming grossness when I got down to the mews.  Hellhounds did what they could to cheer me up by eating their lunch.§  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I was settling down to do a little work with my lunch and . . .

FOUND A SLUG IN MY SALAD. §§ AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.  And Peter, that fiend in the guise of a lettuce-washing husband, ISN’T GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO FORGET THIS ONE EASILY.  I put my foot on his neck and made him beg for his life.  I’m wondering if maybe I can get a bottle of champagne or a minor piece of jewellery out of this one. . . .

* * *

* My little max/min thermometer which is in the shade in the back garden, registered 98.9°F some time in the last twenty-four hours.  I did say it’s a barbeque pit back there in the afternoon.  Those lovely brick and flint walls hold the heat in.  But the BBC, bastion of truth and honest reportage,^ is predicting the upper 30s/90s generally over the next few days, and not limited to small walled town gardens that catch a lot of sun.  The funny thing is that a lot of my garden—due to those same walls—is shady.  But the middle third is a blast furnace, and the back wall is hot to the touch.  There’s a lot of frelling advice going on about surviving the heat—which boils [ha ha ha ha] down to ‘stay cool and keep hydrated’.  Well duh.  You are also warned that you’ll have to water your garden EVERY DAY and baskets and small pots twice.  I KNOW.  SHUT UP AND GO AWAY.  But my favourite piece of advice is to put ice cubes around your plants for slow release watering.  Are you frelling JOKING?  An ice cube is going to give one gasp and vanish in a puff of vapour, I don’t care what you’re using for mulch.  I also wonder where you’re getting all these ice cubes.  Your average garden is going to soak up a lot of ice cubes.

^ Google ‘Jimmy Savile’.

** Whimper.  Also, I’m expecting house guests.  I hope they’re self-motivated and heat-proof.  Here are the keys to Third House.  I’m going to go lie down now.

*** Fortunately one of their other regular non-experts was there to share the guilt.

† When did I ever get up early?  Not since I started the blog.  Which I tend to be writing at 1 a.m.

†† You’re also supposed to walk your hellcritters either early in the morning or late at night.  DIDN’T I JUST SAY SHUT UP AND GO AWAY?  The hellhounds are pretty self-adjusting.  They flump along outdoors like wet spaghetti and come indoors and collapse.  Pav tends to come home with little fiery squiggles zooming off her and it takes forever for her to cool down.  I tried sprinkling her with water which she thought was very funny, so I turned her over and sprinkled cold water on her tummy.  She thought this was FAAAAAABULOUS.  Anyone sprinkled cold water on my tummy I would bite them.  Hard.  I don’t care how hot I was.

††† Might I suggest chasing a nice ball?  BOOOOOOOOOOOORING.  There’s no urgency or screaming to ball-chasing.  Pav likes life on the edge.

‡ I met another bull terrier fan today and he was all over Pav, which is fine, but he was also telling me stories about his bull terrier, which is clearly a dangerous menace to society and I’m thinking nooooooooooo I don’t want to hear this.  She’s very docile, he said of Pav, not entirely approvingly:  Bull terriers aren’t usually docile.  Well.  Um.  Yes.  In the first place she’s bred for it but in the second place I HAVE PUT A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF TIME INTO PERSUADING HER TO LISTEN TO ME.  IT DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK, MIND YOU, BUT SHE DOES SHOW SOME SIGNS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE.  Gaaaaaaaaah.  People.

‡‡ Your average piece of cat crap shoots out pretty easily.  —I did tell you if you’re a delicate flower you should not read tonight’s post.

‡‡‡ I bet there’s a knitting pattern for goldfish.  Probably in Rowan kidsilk haze stripe.

§ The hellterror ate hers, of course, but this is hardly worth mentioning.  Is she breathing?  Then if you give her food she will eat it.

§§ Note that I tweeted this in the first rush of horror, and over the course of the day I think it’s become my most-retweeted comment ever.

May I sit down now please?

 

It’s been an unnecessarily insane couple of days AND IN THIS FRELLING HEAT.  I do not do heat.  Heat makes me STUPID.*  Heat also makes planning and schedules and stuff so dratblasted difficult—because we’re not used to it, here in England.  We’re used to being out in the middle of the day.  We’re used to the afternoon being an appropriate time for doing things other than staying indoors with the curtains drawn and moaning weakly.  I know hot countries figure this out but historically this is not a hot country.**  And I personally don’t have any hot-country genes.***  I’m Scandinavian, Inuit and polar bear, mostly.†

And of course as previously observed, there is precious little air-conditioning anywhere on this ruddy island.  TELL YOURSELF AIR-CON IS BAD FOR THE PLANET.  KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THAT.

Yesterday in a wealthy high-Tory town not far from here they were opening ten private gardens that are never open to the public for some specific charity that one (wincingly) assumes has a particular meaning for some one of those families, and I hope they took in thousands.  Hellhounds and I have hurtled down their main street any number of times and in my case peered through gates and wondered what was back there.  Peter and I were going to this garden-open day and Nina was coming too.  I had frelling afternoon service ring at Forza to squeeze in so we decided to go early—which meant I had to get out of bed,†† absorb caffeine, hurtle critters and do some frelling watering since the local plant life isn’t any more used to HEAT than we are and tends to die in about six hours if you don’t, first.

So I was late, of course.  I got there as Peter and Nina were coming out of their third garden—and Peter’s back was giving out.   Nina, gallant woman, took him home while I caught up on the gardens, and then Nina and I finished going round together.  Some of those gardens are AMAZING.  A M A Z I N G.  We parted making ‘amazing’ noises at each other—and I informed Peter that I was going to loop past on my way home from ringing at the abbey and take him back to garden-open day and therefore he was to be prepared.  No, no, it’s not necessary, he said.  I didn’t say anything about necessary, I said:  I said, have your shoes on.  We’ll have nearly an hour if I don’t hang about after ringing, and I’ll only make you go to the amazing ones.

There were six of us at Forza.  Six is the minimum.  If you’re a major historical landmark possessing ninety-seven bells, you don’t ring uncovered doubles (five bells) or minimus (four bells).  If there aren’t six of you, you go home.

Have I mentioned the ‘no discernible sleep since this frelling heat offensive began’?  I did very well.  I whinge a lot about how few methods I can ring for the unblessed number of years I’ve been doing it, but this does mean I’ve had the time to develop automatic pilot for the methods I can ring . . . it’s nothing like perfectly reliable†††, but it can get me through rings like yesterday’s, when the air in the ringing chamber is so heavy it’s hard to poke your arms up through it to grab your rope and everything sounds strangely muffled because the air is much too heavy to, you know, vibrate.  And you’ve had no sleep.

Then I pelted home, stuffed Peter protesting in the passenger seat, and we went back to the gardens-open town.  And Peter agreed that the gardens I was prodding, not to say frog-marching, him to were pretty amazing.  Marital harmony restored.

Then I had to race home, get hellcritters out, finish the bloody watering,‡  and . . . go to church.‡‡

Today I had to do more watering, not least because I’d slightly skimped yesterday‡‡‡.  I was late to my voice lesson when I realised I’d missed the washing machine man and had to rend my garments§ and then ring up and grovel so he’d rebook me.§§

My voice lesson . . . we’re into some interesting territory.  I’ve made a kind of frustrating breakthrough in that I’ve pretty suddenly become much more aware of my tension level§§§ but appear to be as unable to do anything about it as I ever have—although I did have one day this week when it was like I could sing anything.  Where did THAT come from?  I have no idea.  And it went away again, of course.  Nadia says it came from all these frelling exercises I’m doing even when they don’t seem to be doing anything and to keep doing them and I’ll start having more free days.  Nadia winkled me into making a noise that she said was the sort of noise that if I were a member of an eight-soprano choir they’d miss me if I weren’t there.#  That’s the goal, I said.  And then I butchered poor old Linden Lea arrrrrrrgh.

I came home again and spent a good half-hour on the floor of the kitchen at the cottage–it was still too hot for hurtling–using the slightly dampening effect of the HEAT to help persuade the hellterror that if she wants to hang out with the hellhounds and me she has to be calm and quiet.

And it was about at this point that I remembered that I’d promised Niall that I’d ring at Old Eden tonight. . . . ##

May I sit down now?

* * *

* I missed THE WASHING MACHINE REPAIR MAN TODAY!!!  How tragic is that??

** Ask us in a decade.

*** Buckminster, the vicar at St Margaret’s, was loathsomely jolly and bouncy last night, talking about how much he loooooves the heat.  He’s been out chopping things down in the garden and feeling holy and connected to life and nature while his family were all indoors watching a film.  What’s the film?  Do you have room for one more?

† I got my temper from the polar bear.  You may have guessed.

†† The getting out of bed part is not really the issue.  It’s not like you’re enjoying having a hot mattress pressed against one entire side of your body.  It’s the moving at all aspect when you have had no discernible sleep in several days that is the problem.

††† !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

‡ The gardens we were looking at had staff, irrigation systems, or both.

‡‡ And be bounced at by my frelling vicar.

‡‡‡ This is more of the flapdoodle about planning.  The back garden is a barbeque pit in the afternoon, so I need to get the watering done in the morning.  The house shadow falls over the front in the afternoon, so I tend to do the front watering then, except that I have to hit a few of the pots that won’t last all day both morning and afternoon/evening, and the front is more sensitive generally because it’s road and house walls, not dirt and gravel and lots more plants.

§ I’m not wearing enough garments for really top-flight rending, so I had to supplement out of a drawer.

§§ Wednesday.  DON’T LET ME FORGET.

§§§ Singing is FREE! Nadia says.  You can be a stressed-out control freak in the rest of your life!  Singing is FREE!

# In a good way, okay?

## Old Eden practises tend to be heavy on the beginner end, and to need the ballast of even dweeb-level ringers like me who can ring Grandsire doubles in their sleep.  The situation tonight was so pathetic I was even doing some minding.

YAAAAAAAAAAAH

 

I really have to learn to check my guest posts before the last minute.  I thought I had one left–well I do have one left–except that when I went to hang it there’s a large red headline saying NOT READY YET.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

So let’s have some hellterror photos.  We haven’t in a while, I know, but she hasn’t been looking her best:  they shaved her in several places for the various tests they did, and her hair seems to be in no hurry to grow back–in this HEAT this is very sensible of it.  Also she’s stuck in the false-pregnancy stage of the end of her heat, er, season:  I assume this is a malign collision between the frequent weirdness of a first season and that they kept messing with her while she was trying to have it.  Also of course the reason why they were messing with her is because her digestion was seriously out of sorts, which may have reverberated elsewhere in her system.   I rang up about the false-pregnancy stuckness last week and they said if it hasn’t cleared up in another week she could have yet more drugs to make her hormones lie down and leave her alone.  She’s not nesting, she’s not restless, she’s not cranky–any of the other false-pregnancy stuff–but her nipples (and her vulva) remain rather more prominent than they should, and her breasts are swollen and soft.

Anyway.  I took these this week.  And I’m aware they’re not very good and if I weren’t desperate I probably wouldn’t use them.  But they are highly CHARACTERISTIC and it was one of those occasions where you simply had to take photos of what’s available.  And she likes an audience.  She’s happy if you laugh.

Now, please the WordPress gods, let me not get half a sweater knitted while I’m waiting for photos to load.

Creating mayhem and confusion wherever she goes. Especially in my kitchen.

 

Little badger face. Feeeeeeeeed meeeeeeee. Note evil little varminty eyes.

 

In which Chaos manifests patience.

 

I loooooooove you. Plaaaaaaaaaay with meeeeeeeee.

 

I am, as you see, ready to interfere. But Chaos likes being grumpy uncle.

 

Darkness is hiding in the depths of the hellhound crate, uttering the occasional lugubrious bark.

 

She is not giving up. Not. Giving. Up.

 

Eventually I took pity on the grumpy uncle. So now I have to play with her

It always comes back to mayhem and confusion, when there’s a hellterror about the place.

 

KES, 87

EIGHTY SEVEN

Serena picked up the empty brownie pan, JoJo swung his long legs into the van and turned the key.  It had always started fine for me but I thought I heard an eager little descant saying homehomehomehomehome.  But JoJo frowned, got out and lifted the hood.  There.  He got to raise the hood after all.  Mike joined him and I could hear words like ‘carburettor’ and ‘Pan Galactic Gargleblaster’.

JoJo dropped the hood again and as he climbed back into the driver’s seat I said humbly, “It really has run fine.”

JoJo looked at me and then at Sid and back at me again.  “She’s only just adopted me,” I said defensively.  “She’s been living rough all winter.  I’m feeding her as fast as I can.”

“She likes you,” he said, as if it was the salient point, which I guess it was.  “The van’s got about two hundred and thirty thousand miles on it,” he went on.  “The boss was sure it would make it up here okay.  The rest of us weren’t so sure, but it was all he had when Joe asked and he doesn’t like to say no to Joe.”

TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND MILES?  That’s really not wanting to say no to Joe the Doorman, I thought.

“It’s good,” he said.  “But it’s going to need some work when I get it home.  It’s finding parts that aren’t more busted up than what you’re trying to fix.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “Tell me about it.”

“This gentleman,” I said blandly, “is selling me that antique maroonish object parked next to the van.”

“The Agate Ironman?  Yeah.  Great truck.  You’re lucky.”

Serena laughed.  JoJo and Mike exchanged a Boy Look and then JoJo slipped the van softly into gear—it had always gone thunk for me—and backed out.  I felt positively nostalgic as it slid past me—at least as long as it took me to register the cumulative effect of JoJo’s t shirt with the skull screaming around the corner of the driver’s window.  Unh.  The skulls on the hood with the full-frontal of that t-shirt through the big van windscreen would probably make people move smartly aside as JoJo bore down on them on the highway.  The flickering wash of street lighting would make it worse.  I hoped no one had impressionable small children kneeling up on the back seat staring out the rear window.  That’ll teach them to use their seatbelts.  I winced for the shock absorbers as the van sashayed over the bump out of the parking lot.  Two hundred and thirty thousand miles.  If those were the original shocks they deserved a medal and a pension.

“Well,” said Serena.  “That was unexpectedly engrossing.”  She looked at her empty brownie tin.  “Jan’ll be cranky—he likes his brownies —”

“Dad does not need to be eating any more brownies,” said Mike.

“Yeah, well, I need to get paid, and this is the best way to make him do his big boss stuff and pay me,” said Serena crisply, and Mike collapsed like a joggled soufflé.  (Ask me how I know about joggled soufflés.  Well, but it was chocolate, and it was still good.  Just very, very gooey.)

“They were fabulous brownies,” I said, attempting to be placatory.  This is not my best trick, as the laser glare from Serena told me.  “Um—” I said, preparing to dig myself in deeper, “I wonder if Evie would like the country?  More trees and fresh air and stuff.  Better sidewalks in the city though.  The cow pastures don’t look too wheelchair-friendly.”

Mike said, staring after the vanished van, “I got a cousin in a wheelchair.  Rolled his motocross bike.  I told JoJo we can always use a good mechanic.”

I was watching Serena so I saw her face soften momentarily.  She did like him.  Right.  I had to get the story out of her.  From where I was standing Mike was too good to be true:  carrying unknown outlanders’ way too many books up a gratuitously steep flight of outside stairs, worrying about his father’s waistline, offering jobs to sole providers of wheelchair-bound sisters.  And he had a nice smile.  He could maybe be a little taller but I’d take the heavy-box-carrying facility to superfluous inches any day.

“They could always try it for a weekend.  We’ve got several disabled-accessible cabins, one of them housekeeping.  Jan, I’m told, put them in before he had to,” said Serena.

“Yeah,” said Mike.  “And he helps little old ladies across the street, whether they want to go or not.”

“I admit I wouldn’t be looking forward to my son meeting JoJo,” added Serena, “who makes Gus look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

Mike looked blank.

“Anne of Green Gables?  Little Lord Fauntleroy?”

Mike continued to look blank.

“They just don’t make them read the classics any more,” said Serena.  “Harry Potter.  No, Legolas.”