elegentry

( gratuitous garden pics ) 

I am just home from the big pre-coronation singing rehearsal. It was fun, we got the piece mostly together, it was great to see everyone including a couple of new people... and I finished my new linen chemise.

Matters have improved since Monday night. Especially since Monday night itself but lets not go there.

Slowly getting a feel for this new job. The people are really nice, welcoming  and seem devoted to their work- I like that. . There is more accountingy sort of stuff in it that I thought, not sure I am going to enjoy that. However people say one can mould a job to oneself- I shall try to move it in more practical directions or something.

Am feeling odd. Emotionally exhausted or something. I need to get my head around the new job before I can redefine some of  who I am? If I'm not the old me, then who am I? I like to think I don't define myself by what I do for a living but that seems to not be the case. Also, spending a full week at a new desk with completely new people around me was tiring. It was like my antennae had to be up all the time, could not just settle and work, partly 'cause I didn't know what I needed to do. This will all improve over time but is probably the cause of my reclusiveness today.

I was considerably relieved that our planned harvest festival was postponed at something like the last minute. Not that I don't want to go, I DO. I just didn't want to go TODAY. Instead I have spent the day alone at home being domestic. Most unusually, I could not even bring myself to seek company for tonight. Don't have the energy to converse. Didn't really want to write this post but wanted to record something of this state of mind.

It seems I am slowly doing an (Autumn ) Spring clean. In some ways it makes sense. Want to get the house nice before I spend the winter shut up in it. One does spend more time at home during winter. As I haven't cleaned or tidied properly in a LONG time, and I live in a house that is far bigger than necessary.... there is plenty to do.

Of minor note today
-finally got brave and washed the two festi gowns (and one favourite underskirt )that needed it. Won't really know how that went until I try pressing them
-cleaned and polished the 2pairs shoes worn at fest and were rather the worse for wear
-tidied the back yard some. Including disposing of the plants that didn't make it through the summer heat.
-plant the new parsley seedlings out to the herb garden. Grown from seed and had already been potted up once
-lots of boring laundry, dishes, groceries
-some jewellery assembly. Might write more on that tomorrow.

Tonight I am cooking a monster pot of curry. I am trying to empty the freezer so I can defrost it but I keep making more stuff to put in it. Maybe tomorrow I will use the esky and go ahead to do the defrost anyway. Possibly  not the best day to pick- coldest forecast in ages. But It always seems mad to reject an impulse to actually do housework. Mostly I hate it so any actual inclination to do it must be seized or live in squalour.

Oh, and isn't it nice to be at home safe with storms going on outside? I have always liked that. Hasn't been enough proper weather lately. Go the rain!

I feel I could burst into tears any moment. I think this has something to do with the fact that my start date seems to be confirmed for the new job. So now I feel all shaky and wibbly. One consequence of this is that I dragged the side of the car against the gatepost again on the way into my back yard. Sometimes I am just a bit too delicate.

So. a couple of positive pics to show the world is not so bad

The first of the autumn crocuses growing luminously through a pile of mulch. I planted 4 lots of autumn flowering bulbs, umm, last autumn. Not suprisingly, none had flowered yet. Wonder if any of the others will. This is a meadow crocus, supposed to be hardy. certainly beautiful. The flowers are much larger than I expected, no bad thing.


Got back from Pt Fairy Monday night. House is still full of camping gear in the wrong places and lots of laundry, some washed, some not. Spent pretty much all festival working on a pair of these:

this is the black and pink remake of the Durer "walking frock" or so I dub it. Maybe i will remember to post a pic of the etching when you eventually get a pic of the finished gown. Amusingly that is a corner of sheet you see pretending to be a chemise sleeve.

Oh, my replacement at work has been announced. He starts on Monday. I actually have some confidence he will be up to the challenge. I then have two weeks leave to go to festi and start the new job after that.....Wibble. It is good, so why do I feel so feeble? relief? fear of the next thing? whatever,  I had better get over it I suppose.

8:30am, 27deg outside with 44 forecast. Garden is watered, sheets and boxes strategically placed to try to shield particular plants from the sun's violent rays, some have new growth since the 40+ days last week.- that would all burn today if not protected. Fingers crossed. Fruit and roses cut and brought inside- they would crisp and burn if left out.

Interesting, the rose buds that have opened since the last baking are bleached. See the pics below. All roses off the same type of bush. They should be the bright pink but I have cream, yellow, apricot  and pale pink ones all picked this morning. Wish I got this selection of colours all the time, only with the roses looking healthy rather than wrinkled, half burnt and otherwise tortured.

 

I am so glad it is Saturday. I had one of those wakenings today where I thought it was a work day for a few moments, then got the relief and joy of the realisation that it is not!

Next plan is to make a curtain for the back door. Pretty indigo gingham. Well I am trying for a trad kitchen, 'twill go with all that blue and white china.

Yesterday I
-made 3 litres or so of apricot sauce- for the surveying expidition if sjkasabi  wants to use it. It is sweet and flavoured gently with cinnamon and lemon juice. The jam funnel that giddyauntsjkasabi gave me vastly reduced the resultant stickiness of the kitchen, yay.
( other stuff )splodgenoodlestenbears
Now overnight my back has decided to go out, ow. Hope it improves real fast! Bother. Doubt I will get the plumbago in the ground today as a result. It had better be OK by next weekend or there won't be any putting up of tents.

two high list things for today
-finish sewing hem- then frock will be finished
-deal with the third bag of apricots before they die.

So, I think I do like the bathroom walls after all now I have things attached to the wall again. A very soft look:


and I am seriously amused to realise that these are almost exactly the same colours I chose when redecorating my bedroom at age 15.

and here are my new geraniums. I must be having a pale pink phase. What does that mean?



now I need to put my feet up and think about dinner.

I'm pleased, my new armeria  seedlings are settling in, growing and flowering, yay!. Here is my first pink armeria flower. Remember the earlier post of pink flowers growing out of a 12thC wall in Orkney?

At least some of my plants are happy. The almond tree is not, still looks dead.

I have managed to get out of work at around 5pm a couple of days a week for the last couple of weeks. Makes a vast difference to how I feel about the world. Seems more like life is worth living.

1. have cold- woke with sore throat and congestion, still have it. About to try and combat with honey+lemon+brandy. I was so pleased for there to be a plan of singing and dinner on my birthday. Now I might not be able to sing. Hopefully it will be a one day lurgy like Mr G's. fingers crossed

2. work is .. well what can I say. Another week of 11hr days coming- suprise- I have but scratched the surface of what has NOT be covered while I was away. This always happens, I should not be suprised. Whenever one of us is away, the others have to do 1.3-2 jobs. One is more than enough by itself and without crises of which we usually seem to have several. Hmm, is it a crisis when they are always happening? I am trying to play this down at work 'cause the lady who has been covering me is so stressed that she is going to the doctor tomorrow to see why she is getting chest pain, no joke. She (and the rest of us) is hoping this is muscular and stress based rather than anything more serious. I don't want her more stressed but I do need to deal with the work, my own stress response to it and try to adequately describe this situation to my new boss. I want to point out the system problem, not a person problem.  Management is never very keen to hear they are short of staff.

3. Yes I am marginally thinner than before the Scotland trip. This is good. Sadly not thin enough to fit into my court frocks though. The orange Cranach and the red Durer are still too close in the shoulder to wear. I can at least get them on now but they really are too small. Sob. No way I could wear them for an evening. I could maybe have a go at wearing the old Holbein frock. it at least has no shoulder constraint. It is too small in the body but at least it laces down both sides.  So I will give it a bit of a sponge down and review for needed mending. Otherwise I have only the 14thC stuff, really nice but i don't think of it as court wear. Fatty boombah lapsed frockmaker that I am :(   The consequences of prioritising pre-spring gardening above frocking become clear. Those plants had jolly better do well I say!

Bizarre then that I am feeling marginally more cheerful than I have for the last few days.

This morning I checked, yes, the hardware store had a loaner trailer in. I dibsed it and spent the next few hours bringing home and shovelling a trailer load of dirt. Amazing how restorative some mindless labour can be. Mindless but not pointless. I bought 1/4 of cubic metre of 'premium garden mix' and another 1/4 of mushroom compost. My revamped, enlarged herb garden now has enough dirt, yay. The parsley and silver beet have been replanted. I have added a new tiny thyme plant in case the old one doesn't survive- it is looking suspiciously yellow in part. I have still to water but am recouping my strength while sitting typing this.

More stuff will be planted later. Now I have somewhere better to plant, yay. Fingers crossed the passionfruit survives the disturbance.

I am supposed to be going dancing this afternoon but right now I am just a bit too tired. Right, will water and then work out what I will do.

I meant to write this yesterday but I was out rather later than I expected. Then Ms McKinley grabbed me by the eyeballs again and made me read Deerskin until 2am, that is two nights running now.

Anyway, I think some people are turning up some time today to help me with garden shifting and concrete lifting? Not sure who, how many or when. Sometime around midday maybe? I shall go off shortly in my grubby gardening clothes to aquire random food to feed these theoretical helpers.  Would those who mean to come please drop me a reply if you read this? I shall look forward to seeing you.

May I suggest that extra shovels would be useful? I have one but only one.  Ah, and
the doorbell is defunct so mobile phone is also useful in case I am out back when you arrive.