A Whale And A Worm

We were all at the Dinosaur Park. Steph was with the boys in the queue for the amazing Fossil Falls Slide. She sent me a WhatsApp "The children standing next to us are called Septimus and Nineveh" We speculated, was Septimus child #7 ? [J Rees Mogg called his sixth child 'Sixtus'] Bob wondered if there was an Octavia between child #7 and child #9 [maybe pronounced Nine-eva]

I suggested it seemed rather bizarre to call a child Nineveh. "Who was Nineveh? I know it's in the Bible" said Liz. I explained Nineveh was not a person,  it was a place [in northern Iraq]. And on the way home, I reminded my family of the story of Jonah. God sent him to Nineveh to preach to the people encouraging them to turn from their evil ways and do good.

 But Jonah didn't want to go, so he got on a boat going the other way. There was a storm and everyone was scared. Jonah said it was probably his fault for disobeying God, so they threw him overboard. He was swallowed by a whale.

After three days, the whale spits him out, and Jonah goes off and does preach to the people in Nineveh, who do repent and turn from evil to good. Jonah is a bit annoyed and goes off out of the city to have a sulk.

But the sun gets blazing hot. God makes a tree grow up to shade him. Then a worm eats up the tree and he is uncomfortable again and starts complaining that he wants to die. God suggests that the grumpy preacher cares more for his shady tree than he does for the thousands of people in Nineveh!

A good reminder to all of us to care for other people whose situation is much worse than ours [I did the turn from evil to good sermon last week]

But why would someone call their child Nineveh?? Beats me!

It's The Silly Season!

This phrase was first coined in the UK in 1861, describing late July. August and September. It is a period during the summer months when the papers publish trivial news stories to fill space, primarily because major institutions are in recess. During this time, stories about massive vegetables, strange animal behaviour, or Loch Ness Monster sightings often take centre stage in the news.
Here in East Anglia, we have had some rather ambiguous headlines, alongside bizarre photographs in the last couple of weeks. Julian and I were reading the Eastern Daily Press online over the weekend. We honestly couldn't decide of some of these captions with the accompanying pictures were deliberately chosen, or whether the head had gone to their heads.
For instance 

Sandringham Estate in Norfolk
hit by "Vermin Infestation"

The report does explain...A tenant, who did not wish to be named, told a national newspaper: "There are always rodents in an agricultural area like this, but most people can keep the numbers under control by having a cat."…However, tenants on the estate are banned from keeping cats under a rule introduced by the late Queen Elizabeth II to protect wildlife in the area. Despite the complaints raised at the council meeting, it is understood that the estate has not received any direct reports of vermin from tenants, . …It comes after Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's new home on the estate, Marsh Farm in Wolferton, was invaded by moles earlier this year.

Next My Grandsons are particularly keen on this local theme park. But this picture certainly made Julian and me laugh

Dinosaur Park gets green light for new look

We presume the exclamation mark is to be illuminated in future !!

Thirdly

Owners of "hidden" sauna, built without planning permission, fight to save it.
The bizarre thing about this story is that the sauna never was 'hidden' - the EDP had a big feature on it back in April when it opened.

The establishment is called The Hidden Sauna Club because it is off the beaten track, looking out over the countryside. It has proved incredibly popular. Quite why the owner thought she could build this without first seeking planning permission is unclear. But she is now applying retrospectively, claiming "the sauna is small in both scale and impact"
It is proving very popular, operating seven days a week, daytime and evenings, with sessions for up to 8 people at a time.[£20 an hour, if you're interested] So it's clearly a nice little earner. But the first sentence really tickled me
"The owners... hope the council planners WILL NOT POUR COLD WATER on its bid to stay in business" 
I don't know about the silly season, but as they say round here, it is

One final thing, picked up, bizarrely, by the Manchester Evening News before the EDP or the BBC reported it - the World Snail Racing Championship at Grimston in West NorfolK, was won this year by Snailor Swift!! [here]

Spud-U-Like*

The potato plants were looking awfully sad - and it is the middle of July, so I felt I should harvest them. 

It is not difficult when they are in pots, and in two rows of the raised bed. But they were somewhat varied in size, and rather earthy. I washed and dried them very carefully, then decided to sort them.

I am sure that the commercial potato growers have some sort of mechanical process for grading spuds. 

I used my rubber egg [which was mysteriously laid on my front drive about 15 years ago!] The potatoes were put into 4 groups thus:

• Bigger than the egg
• Egg sized
• Smaller than the egg
• Marbles [just a cupful of these]

I normally keep the potatoes I buy from the veg place in their brown paper sack, on the bench in the old garage. But it is baking hot in there at the minute. So these are all stored away, in separate containers, in the fridge. I found a fun pic on the internet

What does I Papiassos mean? Sounds like a Greek potato pun

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do with the marble sized ones? 

If I can't think of a good way to cook them, they'll go into the compost bin.

*Back in the 90s, the family always pronounced the name of this fast food outlet as Spudoulikae, having decided it was a small village on a Greek Island in the Aegean Sea, famed for its tubers!

What I've Been Watching...

If you like sport, then the last few weeks have provided some good TV. Tennis, Football, Grand Prix...and more.(sad that England lost last night) If you are like me, and don't really like watching sport on TV at all, the programme listings have been a little dull. 
However, I did manage to catch some of the Penelope Keith programmes, following her recent death. How I loved her wardrobe - both as Margot Leadbetter and Audrey Forbes-Hamilton! She was so tall and statuesque and could really pull off those fabulous silk kaftans, satin evening gowns and glorious millinery. At a diminutive 4'11" with a small budget, I was more at home in the old jumpers and dungarees favoured by Felicity Kendall. PK was a brilliant actor and I can watch re runs of The Good Life any time. 

At last Quizzy Mondays have returned. This week we had to deliver something to a friend, and we were delayed, so it was just after 8pm when we arrived "I thought you two would be the sort of people at home watching Only Connect right now" she said. Our friends know us too well! We watched it later, when we got home. Good to see Clive, Amol and VC-M quizzing away as before. 

We have been watching the 2010 reboot of Hawaii Five-O on Netflix. Quite enjoying it, altho it can get a bit violent.  But we are particularly grateful to Liz for alerting us to a policeman called Panda

NO not Peppa Pig's Policeman Panda, voiced by VCM's husband David Mitchell, but a French crime drama on Channel 4's Walter Presents

Panda [aka Victor Pandaloni] is an ex-cop, turned relaxed vegan pacifist, who is reluctantly dragged back to the force. But he insists on working on his own terms. So no early morning callouts, cycling rather than using a car, no weapons or violence.
It's so clever and so witty. Providing you can cope with subtitles , it is easy viewing for a warm summer evening. Set in the Camargue [yes there is a pony, sunshine, sandy beaches etc] It has all the usual tropes...

-longsuffering boss [permanently tired due to young family]
-attractive but highly-strung female partner, who is his polar opposite
-younger idiot cop who worships Panda 
-teenage son whom Panda 'accidentally' adopted

C'est Très Drôle

No Reds Under The Beds Here!

When we got married, Bob's parents bought us a bed. The guy in the shop told us to turn/rotate the mattress every three months to ensure even wear. I diligently marked each corner, top and bottom. Thus in the corner under Bobs pillow, it would say Jan 1st/ Apr 1st/ July 1st/ Dec 1st depending on which season we were in. We kept the bed, but changed the mattress a few times. The bedframe had four built in underbed drawers. So useful when we lived in tiny flats.

Then Bob got sleep apnoea. We got a new bed and a new mattress. Now we had one with a definite top and bottom, so it's turned round, but not over - every six months. Last week we did the July turn. This is an IKEA Malm bed, and matches our bedroom cupboards [as does the one in the back bedroom] IKEA are about to phase out the Malm range. Look out for bargains on FB Marketplace!
A few years back, IKEA had an ad campaign for its beds "Where family starts" claiming that German researchers had discovered than 10% of European babies were conceived on IKEA beds. They had a photographic family tree including bed pictures. [The other Europeans were presumably conceived "out of bedlock"]

It is always slightly embarrassing to see how much dust collects under my bed despite my 'swiffering'. There are a few things which live there

• the extension cable for plugging in bedside light, phone charger etc
• A small zip underbed bag where I keep our summer sandals and beach shoes over the winter.
• The big pack of spare kitchen tiles, because when the boiler dies, probably soon, I will need to fill the gap. And these tiles are big and need to be stored flat
• A small box of emergency foodstuffs. A hangover from the days of my Brexit box, I check this and use/swap stuff that is going out of date every so often. Rosie recently asked me "Grandma, why do you keep snacks under the bed?" I pointed out that a can of red kidney beans doesn't really count as a midnight snack!

In the back room, the bed is a little higher, and I have two proper Malm storage drawers. One has all my craft paper and card [flat and accessible] The other holds spare bedlinens and tablecloths. The contents of both drawers are slowly being used up/donated to CS. 

There is something very satisfying about doing a thorough clean, washing the bedside rugs, putting fresh linen on the bed... 

At the moment I use the duvet cover as a loose top sheet. Even in hot weather, I like to have something over me when I sleep] My preferred heatwave pjs - an ancient "Friends" t-shirt, and M&S men's boxer shorts.[3-pack, for £10 in 2023] Confession; some of these hot mornings recently, I get to lunchtime and I'm still slumming around the house in these!

Years ago [having read the joke in one of her dad's books] my daughter asked her Sunday School teacher

"Is it true that we come from dust and go to dust?"

The somewhat surprised lady said "Well, that's what the bible tells us, dear"

My cheeky child responded "Well, there's a lot of people coming and going under my bed then

Watching The World Go By

Friday was really quite tiring. We went to see my old schoolfriend, A, who I reconnected with in the autumn, who is now out of hospital. But her mobility is poor and she decided she was not able to look after herself properly any more. So she's relocated to a care home by the sea. I have visited her there three times now. The journey is quite exciting, as the satnav takes us on a route through the backroads, and villages I have never heard of before. Like Sco Ruston, a tiny hamlet mentioned in the Domesday Book. 

Last week, we went down a hill, on a narrow hill between some cottages and rounded a corner. Bob slowed right down as he steered the sharp right hand bend. And there, in the middle of the road was a guy in a red stripy jumper and bobble hat. "There's Wally!!" called out my witty spouse, as he braked. We did not see Wally this week. 

A has no phone and no internet connection. She asked Bob to sort something out for her. He spent the morning setting this up - once the care home had managed to find the wi-fi password for her. I don't think many of the residents are able to use modern technology - and her bedroom is woefully short of power sockets. We finally got away at 2pm, and decided to go to Sheringham for lunch.

I had my first ever iced matcha. I suspect it may be my last. It was cooling, but I didn't feel it was that special. As I told Bob "It doesn't taste green either!" We popped into a few charity shops, and I bought a mug. I don't actually need it, but it brought back happy memories. 

You may know La Vache Qui Rit, [the Laughing Cow] the processed cheese made by the Bel Cheese Company in France for over a century.  There is a Belgian company with a similar name

When we had a family holiday in Belgium 25 years ago, we saw adverts for "La Vache Qui Regarde Passer Les Trains" [the cow that watches the passing trains] This is the logo of a  family company producing foods which are organic, vegan, and made with ingredients sourced locally to their factory near Liege.

Sauces, dips, spreads, biscuits, crackers, desserts, chocolates...all very delicious, and good for the planet. We enjoyed some of the foods on our holiday.  At one of the major Belgian stations, there was a lovely tiled mural. The cow is standing, wide eyed, chewing the cud, watching the world go by.

The girls were growing up, that was one of our last family holidays together, just the four of us. Bob had spent all his childhood summers in Belgium staying with his grandmother. We took the girls once. So I treated myself to this mug because of the joyful happy memories that flooded back. And I shall show it to the grandchildren when they visit. 

I do like this little cow, and if it were not so hot right now, I might even get out my silks to embroider a picture of her on a piece of cotton. 

Standing watching the world go by is about all I have the energy for at the moment...

There's Many A Slip

Slip is a word with many uses, some with quite negative connotations. 

You slipped up there, didn't you?

The pavement is icy, be careful not to slip and fall!

The burglar was able to slip in unnoticed through an open door

If you slip me a tenner, I'll sort out the problem

It has slipped my mind for the minute
    And then there are other definitions of the word

A slip is an undergarment aka petticoat 

A small piece of paper is a slip [eg payslip]
A young woman [slip of a girl]

Clay and water slip mixture is used by potters

"The slips" are the collars worn by greyhounds as they wait to run
"The slips" is a specific fielding position in cricket

Slips are men's briefs

And in knitting there is a technique known as 'slip stitch' where you slip a stitch from left to right needle without actually knitting it. [often you wind wool round needle twice in previous row, to give a looser loop]

I can’t remember when I last did a slip-stitch pattern. Here is my latest pair of squares for our collaboration. In the book it is pattern 201, "V-stripes"

This is simply a regular 4-row stripe in stocking stitch, with slip stitches used to create contrasting V-patterns I used maroon and pink. First square I began with the pink, second I began with the maroon.

Whilst this is OK for a decorative item, I would never use this on a child’s jumper, too many loops for them to catch on things! The colour not in use for each stripe is carried up the right hand side. I don’t think I did this very neatly. I must work on that!

 

Heatwave - A Marmot Thing, Love It Or Hate It!

I should have been on the train* to London, meeting Liz and the girls and going to this. But the Young V&A is closed due to the heatwave. And instead I have fallen down an Internet rabbit hole, no, a marmot burrow. Consider the French painter Fragonard for instance. Until this week, I only knew two of his paintings

Young Girl Reading - which was on a postcard pinned in my student bedroom, and The Swing [I saw this in the Wallis Collection]

But now I have found The Girl With The Marmot, [in the Albertina Museum, Vienna] and I have now learned an awful lot about marmots. These cute rodents [related to the groundhog] live at high altitude , spending many months in hibernation. They come out for just 4 or 5 months in the summer, and display hyperphagia - extreme insatiable hunger.

This enables them to build up body fat to sustain them through their winter months, in their underground burrows. But these creatures are ill-equipped to survive temperatures about 20°C. They cannot sweat [no ex-Royal-related jokes, please!] 

They have to sploot - that is, spread themselves out, face down**, on a cool rock in the shade somewhere. This helps them reduce their body temperature. Maybe I should strip off and sploot on the cool tiles in the Futility Room? Perhaps not. They forage and eat early & late, and take it easy in the hottest parts of the day. 
I could definitely be a Marmot Girl, following their example 

 - and this is my summer! 

*Trainline are refunding my tickets - thankyou!

** the marmot in the cartoon is lying the wrong way up!

Hominid/Homonym - A Weekend Quiz

This is Ook,the Orang Utan librarian who keeps watch over Bob's library of Terry Pratchett books. He is a hominid. 
The word watch can be a verb [to look upon] 👀or a noun [a timepiece] ⌚. Such a word is a homonym. A word with one spelling and two meanings.

I came across a short list of homonyms recently which fascinated me - each had two syllables. But the stress was on different syllables, and that made all the difference. For instance
subject - what you learn at school
subject  to force someone to do something
"I should do a blog post on that" I thought. And then I completely forgot about it. Till Thursday, when we happened to be in Waitrose. Bob had suggested we drop in for some Thai Red Curry Paste** and a yellow-sticker hunt. At the back of the store I saw this display

Their new range of summer crockery is called "Curate" -which is a homonym. The dictionary says 

1. curate -  to select the best and moat appropriate for presentation
2. curate - a member of the Anglican clergy.

So is this new range designed for Vicarage Tea Parties, do you think?

Here's a weekend quiz for you. A list of paired definitions. Between them, in brackets, the number of letters and the initial of the word in question. Remember, same word, but two pronunciations and two meanings. I will give the answers on Monday. The first one is obviously curate. The last two are a bit more challenging!

Member of clergy	[6,C]	Select best for show
A trade agreement	[8,C]	Get smaller
A gift	[7,P]	Show, or bestow
Way in	[8,E]	Charm
Disabled	[7,I]	Incorrect/without effect
Tiny	[6,M]	60 seconds
Stick out	[7,P]	Plan or design
Rubbish	[6,R]	Turn down
Gather together	[7,C]	A short prayer
Create something	[7,P]	Fruit and Vegetables
Ignore	[8,D]	Reduce in price
Fault	[6,D]	Go to the other side
Mouth wide open	[5,A]	God's love [Greek]
Was miserable	[5,M]	A small scooter

**to make some fish curry for the freezer. Thank you Sue for that idea! 

Here's A Hurdy Gurdy!

 A couple of weeks back, Kezzie posted about visiting Kentwell Hall, stepping back into Tudor times, with customs, costumes, and music. She particularly mentioned seeing [and hearing] a hurdy-gurdy played for the first time 'in real life' And she got to try it herself. Do read her lovely post, with all the illustrations if Tudor re-enacters, and Kezzie herself getting happily involved.
In the same week, Bob and I went to a talk at the Dereham Heritage Trust. 

The guests were Chanter's Jigge, Malcolm and Elizabeth, husband and wife,  who also play many many Tudor instruments. They gave us an Elizabethan Musical Experience, with their latest programme,
including a hurdy gurdy.
Clearly Tudor Music is the sound of the summer!

*If Henry VIII really did write Greensleeves, did all the royalties go to royalty?

*Is it true that if Tudor musicians got into debt, they had to pawn their doublets and sit around in their singlets?

Have you ever played a crumhorn, a shawm, or a hurdy-gurdy?

[* apologies for very, very old jokes]

We Are Not 'Posh Grandparents'

According to the fashion writers, the style for this season is 'Posh Grandpa'.  I kid you not. Style points; vintage jackets or blazers, check or cord trousers [not jeans], loafers or laced brogues [not trainers], waistcoats or woollen sleeveless slipovers. Well, I checked, and I can produce all of those items from my wardrobe. And Bob has most of them in his size too. 

But it's flaming June out there!!
Personally I would prefer to be in a diaphanous dress like Lord Leighton's beauty* today rather than wrapped up like an aged Oxford Professor in December.
I checked out Jane and Beryl [aka The Ministry of Style.] Have you come across these two friends in their sixties, who suddenly found their jokey fashion posts going viral during Covid

Their comment on dressing like Posh Grandpas is here. I found B&J amusing in the early days, when their videos were not quite so polished, but now they have upped their game and become a teensy bit too smug for me. In their mid 60s, it was initially a bit of a game in retirement, but now they are making a living as 'influencers'. So they are sponsored by various clothing and cosmetic companies. I suspect they were not short of a bob or two to start with. Jane, the tall one, was an accomplished artist and milliner, [her hat company supplied Harrods]

Many of the videos are shot in her house [which could belong to the NT] When I started watching them I discovered some fun portmanteau words [wearing a Breton top makes me striped-boobed or "stroobed"] and the Acorn Antiques clips are a scream.

But I wondered about tall Jane's coloured pointy stick, used to indicate fashion points on Beryl's shorter, dumpier body  What is it?
Well done if you correctly identified it as a Croquet Stake! I mean, doesn't everyone have one of them lying around? The Ministry Of Style Ladies are a lot posher than me! Btw I'm a Compact Beryl rather than a Statuesque Jane. 
Do you dress like a Posh Grandpa?
Have you watched any Ministry of Style clips?

*but wearing more underwear than she is, obviously

Will I Be Shot For Treason?

Julian gave me some little resin models of Sir David A to guard my orchids in the bathroom. On his birthday, [David, not Julian] I decided to move them all to the top of their sticks in celebration. 

But disaster struck. I caught my sleeve, on my favourite one [seated with the butterfly]Is decapitating a centenarian National Treasure a capital offence? Fortunately Bob came to the rescue. DA is restored. 

Sadly no restoration possible for my fabulous moth orchid - shown here in May 2022. Over the winter it just...died. But good friends Rick and Angela who visited recently brought me another plant. There are now four plants, all in shades of pink/purple, all in bloom. Beautiful. And the mended Sir David is carefully seated on the new one, low down!

These look good photographed against the white tiles - but they cannot stay there, on my glass hob. I have carefully replaced them in the bathroom.

Orchids have become my favourite houseplants I think.
Which houseplants do you enjoy?

Wake, And Pillage

My own fault, I shouldn't have mentioned my fondness for Peanuts Cartoons, and  Snoopy sleeping on his doghouse. I've been a bit Peppermint Patty myself this week.
I'm not saying I did fall asleep, but afterwards, the friend sitting behind said "Bob said before the service that you had a disturbed night, and I noticed him squeezing your hand during the sermon" [oops! I didn't actually snore though]
The problem was that at 4.30am I was woken up up this random bleeping noise.
I tried to identify it
Not the smoke alarm - Not a phone
Not the new microwave [which is given to random bleeps, as part of its "childsafe" setting, which I cannot unset]
Not the washing machine - that plays little tunes
Not the insistent alarm clock - Not that wretched Alexa woman
What was it? - I decided I ought to wake Bob 

It was the carbon monoxide detector

When we check that, we get a single continuous alarm - not this cheep every 30 seconds.
Bob decided it was a battery alert.

He removed the battery, and opened windows and internal doors so there was a good air flow
And I made the obligatory middle-of-the-night-event recovery pot of tea [glad it was a warm night] On Sunday morning, Bob read the small print inside the battery compartment, which warns that after 7 years of use, this chirping will alert you to replace the unit. So that was OK, and we didn't die...
Bob has had his own sleeping issues of late, but a new memory foam pillow has made a significant improvement. He no longer has a pain in the neck in the mornings [other than his wakeful spouse]
... and Pillage? Not the Violent Vikings, but rather the whole medication routine which is now part of our daily sleeping and rising rituals. I am very grateful for the things which help

• free meds from the NHS via our efficient local GP Practice
• Tony at church, who recycles our pill packaging for charity
• the health benefits which the pills provide
  

I am not so thrilled with the way the various tablets sometimes come from a different manufacturer- and so my Vitamin D pills [evening] are the same shape as the ones for my digestion.[morning] I have taken to drawing lines with a sharpie over the packing of the latter when that happens, so I do not take the wrong ones by mistake.
And the side effects of tablets are sometimes hard to manage

There is much historical evidence showing that Martin Luther [German Theologian] had digestive troubles. It is my belief that his doctor prescribed him omeprazole too...