Flowers Of Scotland

The side garden round the raised bed is a bit of a desert. The grass is brown and crispy, there are a few determined dandelions showing their sunny faces. The apples and pears are ripening on the trees. The raised beds are looking decidedly sad. I'm watering and harvesting the odd lettuce here and there, and a few beans - but general there is not much happening. Until Saturday...

This huge thistle sprung up from nowhere, in the shade of the pear tree, with spiky green foliage, and its purply pink petals pointing heavenwards.

A pop of glorious colour in the arid surroundings. I am leaving it there, in honour of Josh Kerr and his Miracle Mile. I'm not really into sport, and I am not Scottish, but this was such a lovely story. I am so glad he won the gold, on his home turf, and that they played Flowers of Scotland for the win, not God Save The King!! 

Have a good week, everybody!

Tune The World Out

A few weeks ago, I treated myself to a pair of noise cancelling headphones. They have proved useful in lots of ways - helping me relax, enabling us both to sit in the same room, but listen to different music, 

they are brilliant for listening to radio plays when the sewing machine is humming, and also managing my tinnitus.

So much has been happening in the last month. Some good, some bad, some joy, some sadness. 

• Huge things, global issues - wars and wildfires. 
• Political turmoil, comings and goings, 
• Burnham and Binface, and more.
• The deaths of famous people, ordinary people, and friends and family I know and love. 
• Unexpected illnesses. 

And those lovely events which have made me smile - 

• The Tunnock and Tardis at the Commonwealth games, 
• Punch the Macaque [look him up] 
• Happy moments with the family, 
• Unstoppable, enthusiastic grandhildren

Sometimes these things can overwhelm us .The strapline on the ad for my headphones says "Tune the world out" and I confess there are days when I want to do just that. Singing this hymn to myself helps... 

What calms your soul? 

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

A Blind Cat, A Found Cat, And Six Headless Mice

 Rosie adores the Studio Ghibli Cat purse which her dad brought back from a trip abroad. It has suffered of late- it is rather grubby, and sadly the pupils have come away from the eyes. "Grandma, please do you have any black felt?" She emptied the purse and left it with me  I climbed up into the loft.
🥵It is absolutely swullocking up there🥵

I took my phone with me, as one of my tasks was to photograph the electric socket for Bob. And as I got it out, I spotted a message from Katie regarding another Mouse for the Museum. So I grabbed black and yellow felt, the whiskers wire, and a few other bits. I was just about to come down when I spotted a long thin yellow fabric bag - It was my missing Hockney posters! I've found the cat!

Mr & Mrs Clark [& Oscar] are on the spare bed, looking up very suspiciously. The only space I could find for my Bigger Splash print is on the wardrobe door. It just fits above the handle! It can stay there for a few weeks in honour of Mr Hockney

I hope that Julian, George, Jacob and other overnight guests this summer will appreciate it! Right now I would quite enjoy a pool in the garden. But I am content to have my raised beds and two fruit trees there - much more useful!

A box of half a dozen half-completed mice. Fortunately Katie only needs one new one this summer. I should be able to sort that for her quite easily. The colours are wrong in this photo, mice #4 and #5 are not really Trump Orange!

PS I know nothing about football, but I am very, very pleased that Belgium won their match! 

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

Of Mice And Museum

 These were the mice I made two years ago for our local Museum

This year the theme is Sport In  Dereham, so the mice are all wearing hats and scarves in support of Dereham Football Club, aka The Magpies. 

Katie has planned a new trail and more mousey mayhem for the summer. Bishop Bonner's Cottage Museum opens today for the summer season.

Well done to all the team at Dereham Heritage Trust. 

In other news, our next door neighbours have discovered mice in their loft. Cornerstones is semi detached. I'm hoping these little creatures don't get through into our space! I do not want them nibbling through my new wallpaper books!

🐭 🐁 🐭 🐁 🐭 🐁 🐭

Bonnie The Mouse even got a mention on the BBC Radio Norfolk breakfast show on Wednesday! 

I Came To Manchester For The Marathon

But I can at least look after my grandsons while their parents run ...
And after this morning's school run, I shall get the train back to Norfolk

Life Is Not A Sprint...

 ...it is a marathon

Thinking especially of Steph and Gaz as they run the Manchester Marathon today. 

One For Sorrow, Two For Joy...

This is the logo of The Magpies, aka Dereham Town Football Club. Norfolk boasts a number of FCs with bird nicknames [Norwich Canaries, Kings Lynn Linnets, Reepham Robins...] Founded in 1884 as Dereham FC, merging in 1986 with a Sunday league team, to become Hobbies United - in 1991 named Dereham Town FC.

This year, 2026, marks 60 years since the first name change, and our local museum is making this a year of sport [we just had the Winter Olympics] So Katie asked how we could bring the Museum Mice up to speed on this.
I said that creating sports gear for the mice was a bit of a challenge - why not dress them as footie fans, and give them all hats and scarves? And I'd got black and white wool in my stash...
Oh no I hadn't! Lots of white dk, but somehow almost all my black wool got used up when I donated it to some poppy-knitters. I bought a cheap ball of black dk and set to, producing first scarves and then hats. And the hats needed pompoms. 
"Why is there a small fork on the coffee table?" asked Bob. "It's mine, I said defensively, "my first ever fork, it used to have a little spoon with is but that got lost decades ago"
"Buy why is it on the coffee table?"  "It is perfect for making Mini PomPoms"

That really is black wool, it just looks navy in the picture! Here's a diagram.   Choose a fork the width of your finished pompom.

 Thread the ends round between central tines a few times [use a darning needle] and tie tight. Cut and trim.

The project is going very speedily, I'm making hats with both white and black pompoms. The mice should look splendid! I decided to polish up my little fork, so got out the giant tin of Brasso. Don't forget, if you polish a piece of cutlery with Brasso or Duraglit, you should wash it in regular w/u liquid afterwards before using it for food.

Have you ever made mini pompoms?

Do you support a football team? [I don't] 

Do you still use metal polish? [The National Trust polish their copper and silverware just once a year before the start of the season]

⚽⚽⚽⚽⚽⚽

Magpie began on ITV in 1968, it was intended as a rival to BBC's Blue Peter which began ten years earlier. Magpie ran for just 12 years. BP is still going, approaching its 70th birthday, it's the longest running children's TV show in the world

Did You Solve The Rebus?

I wonder how many you worked it out, We were at Dunston Hall, a luxury hotel, spa and golf course, just south of Norwich. 

 

Weekend Puzzles

For my 70th birthday in April, Liz, Steph and their families gave me a special present - a double ticket for a day here. It looks Elizabethan, but was actually built in the 1850s. Here is a rebus, can you work it out? The things we did and places we went during our day - and the two facilities we did not make use of...
Thank you family, for a wonderful gift

but we did not do these...

Answers will appear at 5pm [BST]

Benchmark

benchmark - a point of reference against which other things may be compared - a "gold standard". The best it can be

• The Men's Shed Movement seeks to provide the best. 
• Connection, conversation and creation – that’s what joining a Men’s Shed is all about. 
• Men’s Sheds encourage people to come together to make, repair and repurpose, supporting projects in their local communities. Improving wellbeing, reducing loneliness and combatting social isolation.

On Monday, I helped Bob to deliver the latest project that our Shed Men have been working on, And it was to an organisation which is totally in support of the Shed's aims. We went to Easton College near Norwich, to the HQ of Active Norfolk.

This group works to enable everybody, men, women and children, believes that movement improves lives - activity and sport promote health and well-being for individuals and communities.

Here's Sam Watts, Senior Partnerships Office, explaining about their football programme

 

Sam contacted Bob recently to ask for help. Like many such organisations, Active Norfolk is funded by the County Council, with help from Sport England and ActivePartnerships, and therefore runs on a very tight budget. Their HQ is really small - and usually the team eat their lunch 'al desko' as they say, because they have no staff area. But at the back of the building is an area of grass, adjacent to the College rugby pitch. Sam wondered if the Shed could help by building a picnic bench, so that people could sit outside to eat lunch, or even work outside in the sunshine - and generally improve their working day. 

The Shed got to work - eight seater benches usually cost in excess of £200, but the men worked to produce one for around a quarter of that price. Then it was dismantled and loaded into the Kodiaq and Bob and I delivered it to AN's HQ. The three of us carried the parts round to the grass, and Bob quickly assembled it.

And here's the official handover

I really hope Sam and his friends really enjoy sitting out here in the sunshine - their work, like that of The Shed, serves as a benchmark for "good work which benefits both the individual and the community"

Don't Throw In The Towel!

To throw in the towel means to give up, to accept defeat. It comes from the world of boxing - when a fighter cannot go on, he [or his second] throws a towel into the ring to signal the end of the bout.
I was beginning to feel a bit snowed under with sewing tasks, because I didn't have the time or energy to sew any of my own projects. But as the slime and prom dress took less time than |I thought, I was able to get the machine out for myself on Thursday. I wanted to work on a Beach Towel. 

My rules for the ideal beach towel

• big enough to wrap right round you and cover yourself when getting changed in/out of cossie
• not so big it won't fit easily in the beach bag
• thick enough to dry you quickly, and keep you warm
• long enough to cover a sunlounger
• not shabby, but not so precious you'd be upset if an irreversible oil stain meant it had to be discarded or if it somehow got left behind on the sand
• easy to find when you are packing for a day out

I have such a towel. Rather old, and much washed, but it meets all my criteria except I often have to sort through a stack of white towels to identify it. I spent a happy half hour on Thursday sewing two strips of pretty blue cotton from the Great Stash. I cut them and pressed the hems, then sewed them along the non-terry stripes. A simple modification, but one which will make the towel stand out among its plainer neighbours, and save time later.

Do you have a 'dedicated' beach towel?
Are you as organised as my Liz? She always keeps a "Beach Go Bag" ready, with towels, cossies, sun cream, wipes, buckets and spades etc.

What Is A National Treasure?

In 1922, Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" was sold to an American collector. 90,000 people came to the 'Farewell Exhibition' at the National Gallery. Many were moved to tears - how could this unique, beloved work by an English artist leave our shores for the USA? After WW2, the Waverley Report was published in 1952, setting out criteria for "National Treasures" and situations where the government could step in to 'save it for the nation' when something was likely to be sold overseas. These three criteria were
History: Is it closely connected with our history and national life?
Aesthetics: Is it of outstanding aesthetic importance?

Scholarship: Is it of outstanding significance for the study of some particular branch of art, learning or history?

In the last 70+ years, hundreds of items have been saved [some are listed here] from Jane Austen's ring, Salvador Dali's Lobster telephone, and Maps from the Spanish Armada.

And in 2022 - exactly one hundred years after it left, The Blue Boy did return to the National Gallery for a 5 month exhibition - but has gone back to the USA now [permanently, sadly]
Basically, what it means is that in certain cases the government [guided by the Secretary of State and a committee of eight 'experts'] will refuse an export licence and declare something may not leave the United Kingdom. Often export licences are deferred, giving a chance for somebody in the UK to buy the item. But the number of refused licences is very small in comparison to the number granted. For instance, in 2012-2013, 33,842 items with a value of £1.7 billion were issued with export licences. Only 19 were referred [their value was £114 million - including Estate Maps of Hampton Court, and two paintings by George Stubbs [the latter bought by the Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich]

I never knew all this until today...and I bet you thought this was going to be a post about Stephen Fry and Delia Smith*, didn't you? As far as I know, the government has not put any restriction on National Treasures such as they from travelling abroad!

[the only reason I found out today was through reading about the proposed Queen's Memorial and falling down an architectural rabbit hole on the internet!]

*Both ardent supporters of Norwich City FC

I've Got A Little List

I had so many lovely birthday cards, they are all hanging on the wire in the hallway. This is so useful, as there is nowhere else to display them properly, and with all the kitchen traffic in and out at the moment and doors opening and closing, the draughts would blow them all over the place if they were standing up.

Towards the right is a bright blue one, handmade - with 70 cut out of card, and each numeral covered in colourful tinfoil. It's from my old friends Elisabeth and Mark in Cambridge. She sent a lovely newsy letter with it, and posed this question "have you got a list for the year?" It's apparently a thing for 'milestone birthdays'.  Either you have a long list of Small[ish] Aims, or a shorter list of Big Ambitions. So she suggested 70 little things I might want to do before next April 10, or seven major things, one for each decade.

Learning the Saxophone, Growing My Hair To My Waist, Writing a Crime Novel, Visiting The Kennedy Graves At Arlington, Seeing the Northern Lights, Owning a Lotus Elan [like Emma Peel's], and Running A Half Marathon. These seven were all previously considered at some point in my youth, but long since abandoned due to lack of finance, time, health and talent. So The Big Seven List is out...
This week I shall try and come up with 70 things which I could aim for. What's that phrase? SMART Goals

My dear Auntie Peggy used to have a plate like this in her china cabinet, my Mum gave it to her, because she was always saying 

"One day I'll get around to it" So maybe this is the year for me to do all those things I have been intending to do...

Watch this space [please, NO suggestions, I am afraid that once I start writing it down, there will already be more than 70 on my own list, without additions from well meaning friends!]

ITEM NUMBER ONE - WRITE THE LIST!

I just spent 10 minutes on this project and came up with 20 items without much difficulty 

You Couldn't Make it Up!

If I had published this story a week ago, you would have thought it was an April Fool - but it isn't. After 60 years, the RAF has rescinded its ban on Tunnocks Teacakes being allowed in the cockpit of planes!
It seems that in 1965, a pilot and  a student took teacakes onto the plane, unwrapped them and left them, on top of the instrument panel. When the plane depressurised suddenly, the cakes exploded, leaving sticky residue over the two men, and the canopy of their cockpit! The RAF banned the treats from flights.

But now, tests at the  RAF Centre of Aerospace Medicine in Henlow have declared the cakes are safe to fly, but pilots are advised to keep them frozen until take off, and to keep the foil wrappings in place until they are about to tuck in!

Although the company has been around since the 1890s, the teacakes did not acquire worldwide recognition until the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014, when a troupe of tartan clad dancers whirled into the arena carrying huge teacakes!

Fergus Loudon, operations director of Tunnock's, admitted they had given permission for the iconic image to be used. ”It was a closely guarded secret -we didn't know to what extent they were being used. We were absolutely bowled over when we saw there were 30 large teacakes in the Ceremony.After that the phones started ringing off the hook."
Following the exposure it received in the Opening Ceremony, sales of Tunnock teacakes soared with Waitrose reporting increased demand of 62 per cent within 24 hours. A year after the event,  Loudon revealed that they had sold an extra 15 million teacakes, meaning the firm's turnover had almost doubled in five years.
And now the RAF can buy lots more too...
Do you like these teatime treats - or do you think "teacake" is a currant bun for toasting?
[I like both types of teacake myself] 

A String Of Pearls

I love the idea of an oyster dealing with the irritating grain of sand inside its shell by covering it with nacre, which becomes a wonderful opalescent sphere. Taking the awful thing in life and turning it into something utterly beautiful. I have four pearls set in a silver brooch, which my Uncle and Aunt in Australia sent to my grandmother many years ago, and when she died in 1975, they said i was to inherit it.

I'm old enough to remember a singer with a very powerful voice called Pearl Bailey. My Dad always called her Pearl Barley [I suspect he was not alone in that]

In the long hot summers of my childhood, I used to dream of a cool drink of fruit squash, made with Pearl Barley.[but Mum said it was too expensive] Robinson's Lemon Barley Water was synonymous with Wimbledon Fortnight. The company ended their partnership with the All England Lawn Tennis Club in 2022, the drink having been first invented to hydrate their players in 1935.

Pearl Barley is a tasty grain which features in many national cuisines [cholent], the slow simmered Jewish Sabbath stew, and krupnik a rich Polish soup] My Flemish MIL often added it to her casseroles. I bought a packet last year. And forgot about it, until last Monday. I'd put a curry in the slocooker in the morning, then in the evening I could not find any rice to serve with it [all my cans and packets are in boxes in the back bedroom]

I measured out some pearl barley, and used my microwave rice cooker to produce a delicious accompaniment. This is a brilliant Joseph Joseph gadget which I found for a fiver in a CS, and use regularly to make perfect rice.

Do you ever use Pearl Barley in your cooking?

How do you cook your rice? 

A Month Of Sundaes?

Firstly, thank you everyone for the kind birthday wishes for Rosie yesterday, she is definitely making the most of her celebrations. On Saturday we went on a family tenpin bowling trip, followed by lunch. If you have younger children, I can recommend the Bowling House in Norwich. This is the quirkiest bowling alley I have ever visited. A while back, we looked after the girls one evening, while Liz and Jon visited this venue [For cocktails and food, which they enjoyed] There are just five lanes, at BH and all half-length, so it suited the girls. The pop-up seating is recycled from years ago when this building was a cinema. I took three shots of Rosie bowling, and inadvertently got pictures of Jess as the seat folded up on her!

We went on to a Pizza lunch [I pleased to have discovered that I can eat pizza with vegan cheese]  and the girls enjoyed desserts. Jess was intrigued by the inverted waffle cone in her ice cream sundae.

I have four glass sundae dishes at Cornerstones, They were given to me about 35 years ago- my friend was having a new kitchen and decided to clear her clutter. "You can only have them if you promise to use them" she said. I promised!

I still use them on a regular basis. 

Even the most boring pud is greatly improved by fancy serving, I frequently put a scoop of plain vanilla in the dish, topped with some fruit, and home made yogurt and a 'boudoir biscuit' [I think in the US they are called ladyfingers] Occasionally there is fruit sauce or chocolate sauce too, or some crumbled cake. The girls think this is a real treat, especially when I give them the longhandled teaspoons. 

In my current, ruthless kitchen declutter, I can assure you that my sundae dishes are staying! I must lay in a box of waffle cones before the Easter holidays though.

Rosie said Saturday's treat was her 'quarter final' birthday. Monday [the day itself] was to be the 'semi final' and the 'final' will be her party on Saturday - a Clip'n'Climb event with schoolfriends