Another “busy” week which has flown by, with weather which is, I believe, described by the “experts” as “unsettled.” Wind, rain and cooler temperatures in between the torrential downpours – autumn is definitely on the way, I guess. Muddy walks and wet dogs. Wonderful.
For those of you who were concerned by Penny’s destruction of one of our lawns (as described last week), you needn’t worry – having dug up one lawn (a pretty scabby bit of lawn, to be fair) she started on what I like to laughingly call the Croquet Lawn. Hardly the smooth green billiard table baize that one might normally associate with a croquet lawn but still, not overly horrendous. To be fair, the area which the moles destroyed was looking decidedly grim, especially after the dry summer.
She started off with an ancient scarifier we’ve had for years – I was amazed that it still worked. Sort of. It does a hell of a job at scratching out all the thatch and dead and dry grass but Penny had to stop every ten metres or so to replace the drive belt which would slip off at regular intervals. Thankfully, she had just about finished on Thursday afternoon before the scarifier began emitting a burning-type smell and ceased working all together.
Having thoroughly scarified the lawn to within an inch of its life, she hired a lawn aerator and spent Friday happily poking holes in what was once the lawn. I am assured by the Head Gardener that she knows what she is doing and that it will be fine and eventually an improvement on what was there. She’s undoubtedly right but the amount of work involved is monumental. I get so tired whenever I think about it, so tired that I need to recline in a horizontal position with my eyes closed for a period of time to recuperate.
Other than that, I’ve not much to tell you this week. We are off today on a Garden Club outing to the RHS garden at Bridgewater. I’ll try to remember to share some photos next time.
BTW, did you see the Blood Moon on Tuesday?
Nope, neither did we!
Sometime after we had our kitchen extension added and we reorganised the utility room to accommodate the downstairs toilet, Penny mentioned that she would like me to build her a shoe rack for all our boots, Wellingtons, walking shoes, etc. That was only about five years ago and, although she’s mentioned it once or twice in the intervening years, it was one of those projects which was on the list but never seemed to make its way to the top of the list. (That’s probably mainly because my “To Do” list is not capable of holding more than one thing at a time). But this week, it finally came to fruition, splendidly proportioned shelves with ample space to hold everything it needs to hold. We’ll get round to painting it one day. Check back in about five years’ time.
We had some great photos from our Chinese family. They are in Yangshou at the moment and have enrolled Julieta (Juju) in a nursery school nearby. The nursery send photos of the things the children have done to the parents and Ava kindly posted these on our Family WeChat group.
Great photos and it’s great to see that she clearly enjoys being there. If she gets to stay there long enough, she’ll be jabbering away in Chinese as well as English. Way to go Juju!
YCNMIU
Startling and shocking revelations in the UK press this week – Boris Johnson may not have been entirely truthful about how he is using the public subsidy granted to former Prime Ministers for assistance with their public duties. Quelle surprise! It transpires that he is using the public subsidy for his own personal financial benefit.
Boris Johnson more interested in his own aggrandisement than in serving the public? Who would have thought that his propensity for ignoring rules which apply to everyone else along with his well-catalogued penchant for lying would apply to his receipt of public funds? If only there had been some early warning about his lack of character.
Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies. It is a question of priorities, which most of his colleagues have no difficulty in sorting out. Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half). I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.
MARTIN HAMMOND, MASTER IN COLLEGE, ETON, letter to Stanley Johnson, 10 Apr 1982
And, I think that’s it about it for this week! Once again there appear to be no family birthdays this week – is that right? Apologies if I’ve missed anyone.
Meanwhile, keep breathing, keep happy, keep smiling, keep exercising, be good, be careful, and keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees – we need all the pollinators we can get.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg