Working back

 I have no idea whatsoever how far to work back on my camera to find a possible starting picture for my tank top. Probably about as far back as the point where I did any regular blogging!

 It amazes me that you only have to work back to yesterday to see proof that we have experienced sunshine here in the Frozen North this summer. Certainly today it is all mythical, mystical Ireland once more.

 Yesterday I was barefoot in the garden, and had moved my chair deeper into some shade. On the table you can see the recently completed back of my attempted tank-top, and on the hook a nearly completed front. Prince Charming seems to have taken the picture. You can see how relaxed I am whilst in a state of crochet!

Alas, these balls stand testimony to too inaccurate a counting of stitches at some fatal point and are all that remain of said front panel. Working back to work forward this week! It struck me, while pulling out row after row, that the model of said tank-top looks very likes Rodin's Thinker. She too is obviously deep in thought as to just what skinny size Nicki Trench has in mind when she says 12...

In which our protagonist puts her hope in a tomato plant

 Way back when last I wrote we were in quite some commotion of hospitals, medication and trying to maintain some semblance of working life. Thus it was that, walking through the village one sunny afternoon, I took the uncharacteristically horticultural decision to attempt to keep a tomato plant alive. There it was outside our local florist's looking healthy and burgeoning. I'm not doing a very good job with humans. I thought; maybe I'll scale down and concentrate on this.

 Somewhere in the recesses of my more than slightly addled mind I wondered if success with tomatoes might give me some hope for the strawberries as well! So I tended with watering, feeding, and the occasional chat. Very similar attention to that bestowed upon the poorly, if I'm honest!

And indeed, as the weeks have worn on, both strawberries and tomatoes have ripened into health and strength and vibrant redness of face. Well, Jo got a tad too much sun at tennis yesterday, but the suncream is out now.

So here we are, at the start of our summer holidays, marked as usual by a birthday. The Meadowplace is back in its happy place, the sun appears to be doing its Irish best to shine, and tomatoes continue to grow. Thus far!

May update

I was Googling for some images to go with that fabulous verse from Samuel- setting up a rock as a reminder that thus far, the Lord has been good to us. I liked this one, but it doesn't have the words.

Thus far in May I have, would you believe, really just nipped out and cleaned my car. I barely believe it myself. Having had an extremely unwell strawberry in said car at the weekend, I took a brief moment of non-nursing duties on Monday to just nip out and sort the damage. So, while I was there with lots of soapy water anyway, I thought I would just do that thing. You really can just nip out and clean a car. Who knew?

I have also been better at eating less nonsense, wasting less time on nonsense, and we have all been getting out for lots of fresh air. It's the worrying bit that has caught up with me. In the last five days all three of my men have been briefly in hospital.Not for long, and one is much better now! The other two are making progress.

All this just to say that it is good to look back with resolution and remember what God has done. And then to (try to) look forward with renewed confidence.

Blogging will be even more erratic than usual for a while- so love to all and to all a good night x

Momentous mantra for May

I know I'm contravening someone's copyright somewhere, but I took this from farcebook so maybe that will be acceptable? This fabulously talented woman and bloggiste shared it last week and I find it eminently sensible. So I am adopting it as my mantra for this month, which you already know is making feel me feel more than slightly uneasy. So many months passing by. So little achieved!

I'm not sure that I'll manage to pray for twenty minutes twice a day. I am quite sure that there will be no thirty minute exercise session every day. For TV I should read farcebook- now that my Lenten successes are long gone. The rest, however, I could most gainfully employ.

We did have lots of time in nature today and it was lovely. We went to Springhill in County Tyrone. (Goodness, I think its Tyrone..) So many daffodils and bluebells. So much imaginative use of wood in the new adventure playground! Then Mattman and I sat outside on the back step for a while tonight. End-of-year school exams in two weeks and he's feeling the pressure. It's all very hard when you're twelve. I struggle at nearly four times that!

So from the strawberries in the meadow- we wish you all a May week of fresh air and juicy fruit xx

Lesons still unlearned

So here we are in May. It feels somehow momentous. Mattman is into his last number of weeks at the end of his first year at Big School. Jo is well into the AQE process of getting ready for The Test that will determine his Big School. Summer is ahead and plans are being made. Another whole year gets ready to add itself to the accumulation. Years are still marked in school ones here!

I gave up on the 52 books in one (school) year a while ago. MK's recent post on whether or not we are still readers was interesting. I know that my attention span is definitely going the way of all my grey cells. So I have decided to get a grip!

I am 46 years of age and not at all proficient in lighting a fire. My mother was the protector of the fire, as of all other things, when I was at home. Then when I had my first house, Prince Charming would motor down to the little country town where I lived and show off his fire-building skills, and I was quite happy to let him do his cave man thing.

Our first house together had a gas fire, which I loved. Switch on when wanted. Switch off when done. Phone Andy's Stores (local purveyor of everything you could possibly need ever- including home removal service) and order new cylinder when necessary.

The Meadowplace however has a real fire in the Book Room. PC lit it often through the winter, usually on grim Saturday afternoons if we'd bought the weekend Irish Times and could hide from Minecraft with tea and the magazines.

Yesterday it rained all day and the boys had friends round from church. I decided to pull a chair right up to the fireplace with one of the remaining unpacked crates of bumpf and resolved to light the fire. I was nearly there. I did need some cave man assistance to make it properly secure. I was there the whole afternoon thereafter, supplementing with peat and old paperwork as came to hand. One crate down, x to go.

I'll have a photo of my first solo lit effort by the end of the month. I also want to have a photo of a clean car. Last night at friends' C. told us that if they are just in from school and her son is pottering and she still has her coat on she'll just nip out and wash the car. Just nip out and wash the car? Is this normal? I'll soon see....

Views and Badger

 Jane! Help! I am currently capable only of blogging on a Thursday with my Northern Irish views, but keep meaning to tell you that, despite my invitation, I can't get in. Please advise...

Everyone else! It has been a typical Spring week here in the Frozen North. Just when we had all put away our woollies and bought suncream, back came the rain and snow and blizzard- and that was just lunchtime on Monday- and out came the winter coat. Shed today with the return of Meadowplace Blue. The strawberries are re-enacting Roman prisoners being taken into slavery. You can guess what we're revising tonight. Big into kinesthetic learning in this house.

 Jo sat us all down to make paper bunting yesterday, which we dutifully did. Not least because a return to sun means the annual return of exam weather and no-one was in any fit state to revise Physics or rotational symmetry. The bunting was in honour of PC's new (to him) car. We bade a grateful farewell to the carriage which has taken us all through Ireland, Scotland, England and France. It needs a rest!

 On to more pressing blog Badger business. Pom Pom, in the deep mid-winter, sent Badger forth on a quest for international hygge. He got as far as here, felt about Ireland much as I imagined the Romans did, and refused to come out of his den.

 There was a brief burst of energy when the grey cold lifted momentarily for February half-term. We took him out and about for his Irish farewell. Not sure that he appreciated the Stormont playpark as much as we did. He mustn't have known that activities there are mightily more impressive than any antics in our Parliament Building on the hill behind...

I think he did appreciate the wild ruins of Nendrum at Strangford Lough. His nose was twitchy and I suspect he smelt weasels. Though it could just have been ancient vestiges of Viking fear still  floating over the waters.

This is our oldest monastic site in Northern Ireland with links back to St Patrick and beyond. You can wander over the enclosures and hear the chants. Mole would have been bored.

He might have preferred the splendour of Mount Stewart house. We proceeded there for refreshment. Badger looked for some animal company on board but there was none to be had. The sunken garden is closed, with much of the rest, for a huge refurbishment, so all the strange stone creatures were out of bounds.

We did explore the Ulster Garden and count symbols and legends.

The story of the Red Hand of Ulster is most gruesome, but it was too early in the season for a vivid display of blood. No doubt when our Marching Season of July comes round we'll be spilling some again.

So, FINALLY, Pom Pom and Betty, finally I can state that Badger has left the country. He should by now be well on his way to England for a stay in a real Wild Wood. He is rested and ready for adventure. His fur bristles with the need for undergrowth and trees. Betty the Wood Fairy, here he comes.

If you would like to host Badger do let Pom Pom or me know- it's a wide, wild world, and Badger is on the move... (Ang, no reference to Rev Bob has been harmed in the making of this post. Bob seems currently to be a cult figure inspiring stomach-clutching hilarity in any context involving ten year old boys. Answers on a postcard. To someone with more patience for stomach-clutching hilarity in full exam season.)

Views and eggs

 I've invented a new colour. It's Meadowplace Blue. It's the wide, uninterrupted blue of the sky over our heads when the weather is glorious and you feel you shall never again wear more than two layers. It's the blue you get when you're not even wearing socks.

Yes, I did neglect to remove the laundry draped over every possible outdoor surface. Although you feel you shall never again wear more than two layers or need to dry clothes anywhere but outside, a small voice whispers that this could nonetheless be an opportunity not to be missed.

 We continue to struggle with illness in this house. It definitely gets better as Spring takes firm hold, but a dose more vigour would not go amiss. Great encouragement to the morale arrived on Monday night with Cooking Catherine and two great goose eggs. Never before has such a sight been seen in our little lives. Our meadow-dwelling must surely be complete?

 Number one went the way of all eggs, well most eggs, well, most eggs in this house, except for baking. Egg A got into some hot water tonight. I kept waiting for it to jump up in true Gingerbread Man fashion and rush out to have adventures through the fields with the goats, the chickens and a ubiquitous fox.

But it didn't. The white of a goose egg is very different: discuss. The white shell is incredibly white, much tougher and held on by a significantly thicker layer of membrane? Then the cooked white was much thinner around the yolk, I found. Taste-wise, no remarkable difference. Except that it was lovely, and very, very yellow at its core.

What should we do with Egg B? Unless it decides sit on a wall...