It's looking very green despite the recent onslaught of water. Remember the little seedlings which were growing at the end of the runners?
Well they had developed into a carpet of green leaves and, as per Mark's warning, were threatening a takeover down there, so I pulled them up and replanted them in their own bed:
As I was doing this - planting some of the strongest looking ones and discarding others I was thinking about how, in 'the old days' of rural England every seed counted - every plant which successfully germinated could make the difference in feeding your family throughout the winter - or not. These days if it doesn't work out, I can jump in the car at any point and go buy the veg I want from the supermarket. This was a very depressing thought whilst pottering about with soil and toil. When did it all get so lazy for us? The 60's? The 70's? What's that saying - necessity is the mother of invention? How about a new one: being a lazy-arse is the death of job satisfaction.
It was a warm enough day for our number one cat to stretch out for a snoozed on here:
This is Tabba. Don't know if I've mentioned her before. She was from a farm as a kitten. I think she must have got dropped on her head at some point, because she's mad. She is very affectionate and seeks company, but does not want to be picked up and cuddled (or she'll rip your face off). She was Oliver's first pet, and slept quite happily with him on his bed until we got Poppy, who she took an immediate and all-consuming dislike to, and buggered off to live outside. She comes up to eat on a daily basis, sitting on the wall outside the kitchen and glaring in the window until I open the door and feed her. In a clean bowl, or she won't eat it. If she ever needs the vet, I don't know what we'll do - because I'm a bit scared of her. Mark loves her though. I think he senses a kindred spirit, simultaneously seeking yet rejecting affection.
Anyhoo. Following this stint in the great outdoors, I toddled along (in the car, obvs) to visit my mother in law, who has recently moved into a residential home. She has Alzheimer's, so sometimes conversations can be startlingly repetitive, and her negative frame of mind means you have to brace yourself to be calm and matter of fact for the first 10 minutes or so while she complains bitterly about being in there.
This accomplished, she seems to relax, and once ensconced in the relative comfort of the TV lounge, we shared a companionable hour or so of crochet (me), cat petting (her) and tea drinking, watching tennis and odd chat (both of us). This peaceable afternoon was only broken by the insistent pleas of Ethel (another inmate) whizzing around the whole of the ground floor with her zimmer looking for downstairs. Her unshakable belief that there is a downstairs and that there is a conspiracy not to tell her where it is is a little alarming, especially as she did this for the entire duration of my visit, despite everyone she encountered telling her there was no downstairs. In the end I told her I didn't know where downstairs was. This didn't work very well either as she then lost her temper and accused us all of being stupid. When I left there was a row brewing between Ethel and another woman who MiL calls 'a bossy boots'. Zimmers at dawn there I reckon. You have to make light of it - it is a bit of a twilight zone in this type of place where people have such a tenuous grip on reality.
Maybe I sense kindred spirits here. My own grip on reality feels a little tenuous at times too.....
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