Butterflies

 My sister called yesterday to bash the garden into shape.

We discussed the total absence of honey bees and butterflies on the buddliea bushes in the garden which have just burst into bloom.

I checked each of the three bushes in turn.

Not one pollinator could be seen. 

Their absence has worried me for days now.

Perhaps it’s because today seems warmer, a precursor to the proclaimed horror temperature due on Monday, but this afternoon the bees were back in good numbers and the butterflies, noticeable in ones and twos rather than the dozens I was used to last year.

The back garden buddliea 

At least they’ve started to return. 

I cooked stir fry vegetables and mixed them with udon noodles and hot Korean sauce for supper.

I’m back on nights tonight.

A Pretty Shitty Love

 I am glad and thankful that I have no hang ups about going to the theatre on my own. 

Tonight, I grabbed a cheap 10£ ticket for Theatre Clwyd ‘s production of A Pretty Shitty Love by Katherine Chandler and again I was stunned by an innovative, provocative and intensely moving piece of Theatre. 

A two handed piece set in working South Wales we are introduced to a cheerful but damaged Hayley ( Danielle Bird) abandoned by an alcoholic father as a child and desperate for love. The object of her affection is the taciturn and damaged soul Carl ( Daniel Hawksworth) the product of a drug induced death mother as a teen. The couple’s tragic love affair is cleverly portrayed in and around a Perspex set full of photos and words from Hayley’s prison letters to Carl and although the physical violence of the abuse between perpetrator and victim is only alluded to the true horror of the violence is underlined by one, clever but truly horrid scene when Hayley s left for dead and buried on a Sandy beach.

Domestic Violence has been depicted many times in stage and screen as we all know but this production, which depicts a true story, brings a new terrible light to an age old abuse problem.

No News

Ive nothing to say this morning. 

Off to the theatre later

Evening Stroll

Walk a few steps past the ponies and this is my view of the valley to the South West. 

I forget sometimes just how beautiful it can be. 

The dogs, Albert and I walked to look at the view this evening. 

A peaceful walk. 

Roger arrives next week so things will be fraught for a while . 

Puppies can be exhausting if you let them be .

I know, I’ve had enough of them 

I’ve painted the upstairs doors a gloss white today, 

Another necessary job to do before a puppy arrives.

Wipe clean surfaces are the order of the day. 

I’ve sorted out my sister’s birthday trip on the 27th. I’ve rebooked trains for the day before the strike and booked us another hotel room for the night. Not the boutique Z Hotel in Covent Garden , that was full, but a travel lodge on Drury Lane. 

I hear there are more rail strikes for the weekend of the 30th

Thank fuck I’m working that weekend.

Crossing the Bar

I had bought my friend Ruth a ticket to her favourite chorale group The Spooky Men for her birthday . With her all communed up in Scotland I was in two minds driving a hour West to see them last night, but having managed to get a work friend Steve to take the spare ticket I went. 

It was a great concert, set in the historic Capel Jerusalem in Bethesda. 

Funny, innovative, odd and at times incredibly moving , The Spooky Men , perform their own songs about such varied subjects of sad audience members, eyebrows, Men’s Groups and politics ( Vote The Bastards Out being a highlight) 

But they peppered the humour with some truly beautiful singing , with a couple of Ukrainian folk songs and the sublime Crossing The Bar being true standouts.

I could hear several of our choir members singing in the audience as like me, they went to support Conductor Jamie ( sans his RAF moustache ) who is a guest choir member on The Spooky men’s Uk tour.

Jamie is on the far left

Ps . Remember that I’m taking Janet my sister to London for her birthday treat? 

Well the RMT has decided to strike that day ! 

Heyho

1970s Holidays

 I never went abroad as a child with the exception of my near fatal visit to Lloret de mar with my sister, Mother and Aunt Greta when I was a ten year old.

My memories, apart from the drowning centre mainly around large ants, the smell of leather goods in the thousands of shops my mother dragged us into and fields of hotel filled flooring.

The rest of the very few family holidays we had were in a beige caravan in Scotland, complete with orange melamine cups, midges, and family arguments.

Holidays were never happy affairs when we were children. 

A thing that changed considerably when, as older teenagers, we were invited away with my elder sister and her family to Spain, where we sat at restaurant tables, were allowed to drink and were treated as adults for the first time in our lives.

My parents were not bad people, they were just a little sad and unable parent very well, but that did not mean that they did not want to, for I remember after my father had uncharacteristically made my sister and I laugh as we sat in the back of the car and only after he had got out to do something, my mother made a pointed comment that he wasn’t all bad. 

Another dampener in another rain covered lay-by near Drumnadrochit.

Next week,(easyJet permitting) my family will be meeting up in Sitges at The Santa Maria. 

I’m only popping over for three days but it will be enough to remind me of those first teenage holidays where we’re had fun for the first time and learned how to be adults

Life Finds A Way

I was busy yesterday, as I was the two days before 

Four loads of washing, cutting the lawn, watering 30 planters,housework, painting

I overdid it

My post covid lethargy is back with a vengeance today and I have slept most of the morning.

I can’t quite get going, a feeling not helped by the weather which is humid and overcast .

It has rained very gently off and on all day, but the rain has been so gentle, the droplets have more or less evaporated before the ground got wet. 

The buddliea in the garden has suddenly blossomed in the heat but there are no butterflies to be seen on them at present. I can’t wait for them to return

As I took the dogs out I noticed this perfect little antirrhinum clinging onto the cottage garden wall.

Life always finds a way

My sisters and extended family have now booked to meet at La Santa Maria Hotel in Sitges next month. I was in two minds to join them , but I have booked my flights nevertheless  

Why the fuck not? Let’s take a chance .

The humid conditions here today coupled with my thoughts of the shabby chic Santa Maria transported me to those cheapo holidays in the sun of yesteryear.

1972 Lloret de mar. 

Never supervised once in the pool by my mother 

I nearly drowned in the deep end after slipping through my rubber ring

Today it’s called neglect
 

Nipples on the concrete

 

It’s still and very hot indeed.

The ponies in the field are standing quietly in the shade of the hawthorn hedges with back legs bent and Dorothy is lying nipples to concrete in order to cool down after a short walk. 

The cottage is peaceful as my neighbours in the new build have put Charlie inside out of the sun, where he can bark his voice box out of his head without bothering anyone.

I’m off out shortly to buy white gloss paint. 

I’ve been meaning to paint my bathroom door since CBM was here. 

Not only did I buy white paint but I saw some planters going cheap at Sainsbury’s so brought them home and filled them with cheerful pink geraniums 

I’m not booked to work until the weekend and have emailed the dog breeder about picking Roger Up

It sounds that a majority of the village has covid

Btw my booked train home last night ( the last one from London ) was cancelled, thank goodness I got an earlier train, the guard on which let slip that the recent excuses of shortage of personnel wasn't quite the truth? 

Hummmmm