Pen's Nest

It has been an... itchy time. For I have thrush. And I went to the pharmacist, who told me she could not supply me with the Good Stuff because of my age, and I must apply to my GP. Which I did. And they were full, and advised me to go to the Walk In Centre. Which I did. And oh, bliss, I got my medication. But, damn. Three unnecessary days of pain.

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Lots of singing to do: my women's chorus is ramping up for Convention at the end of October, but we are also participating in a concert on October 18th. We've been sorta working on making our Convention songs look as though we're really at a festival in the 1970s, with all the, hm, flavour that might entail. If you know what I mean. And then pulling it back a bit.

I'm also going to a singing day in Ipswich (horrors!) next weekend, so have to learn a version of Here Comes the Sun. Did you know that Here Comes the Sun cannot be written out in a sane way? The sheet music starts in 4/4 time, then has four bars of 3/8, then a bar of 2/4, then back to 4/4. Further in it goes 4/4, 4 x 3/8, 1 x 2/4, 1 x 4/4, 1 x 2/4, 3 x 3/8, 1 x 5/8, 1 x 4/4, 1 x 2/4, 3 x 3/8, 1 x 5/8, 1 x 4/4, 1 x 2.4, 3 x 3/8, 1 x 5/8, then at long last (mercifully) back to 4/4 for a blissful stretch of normality. Oh my god. Fortunately there are teach tracks. When you listen to the teach track, it makes sense. I don't suppose George Harrison ever bothered to write it out.

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I have had some decent tomatoes, which is a great relief considering the abject failure of pretty much everything else. Well, the pumpkin is alive and producing flowers, but I fear me it is a bit late in the day for it to do anything special in the way of actual pumpkins. And there are teeny tiny French beans on the two bean plants... I'm thinking of signing up for a regular veg delivery over the winter.

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The Voters of America constantly amaze me. I mean, it ought to be, like, 80/20 for Kamala by now, but no, still too close for any kind of confidence. Not that the voters in my own country have been any kind of smart, but seriously. Donald Trump? Seriously? Mind you, when the electoral system is straight out of the 1790s I suppose it's hard to blame the voters all the way.

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Little news on the squirrel front. Most of them seem to have moved away. I did see one sitting on top of the squirrel feeder a couple of days ago. This was spectacularly useless since (a) the squirrel feeder opens at the top, and (b) there was no feed in it. I have since stocked it with a fat ball. I wonder how long the squirrels will take to notice!

This morning, we completed a tour of local supermarkets, in a quest to achieve Jude's Salted Caramel ice-cream for Beast. Sainsburys yesterday yielded only little pots, Tesco nothing, Lidl nothing (though we hadn't held out much hope for Lidl). This morning, after the Oxfam run (I had a clear-out), we tried Morrisons and the other Sainsburys, and eventually ran the stuff to ground in Waitrose (he bought four tubs). There are of course more supermarkets around the city, but, phew. If I were to include a map of where the supermarkets are and how long this took, you would think me mad be impressed. Possibly. It was like a complicated sort of dance.

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Squirrel-wise, there has been much less action of late. Earlier this year there were as many as seven of the little blighters in the garden at one time, but it has been quite quiet recently. Perhaps the teenagers have been told to get jobs and move out. I haven't had the luck to see any of them attempting an assault on the peanut cylinder, but Beast has: apparently one leaped up onto the dustbin-lid baffle and thence to the peanuts, and one seems to have jumped from somewhere on the house, either window sill or roof, and thus achieved squirrel bliss.

Magpies continue to jump up, enbeak something, and then plummet to the ground. Ridiculous birds.

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Bun and I went to see A Chorus Line in the city on Tuesday. It's a good show, and it's interesting to compare it with the film and see what they managed to lose while committing the thing to celluloid. The 'star' character, Cassie, was so obviously not a 'star' that I was a bit thrown—I don't think the production was trying to say that The Director was so obsessive about her that he lost all objectivity, but maybe? I thought she and the woman cast as 'Sheila' should have swapped roles.

The worst thing was the sound. Why do theatres these days so often want to be rock venues, to which one needs to wear earplugs? Why does not some sensible person send feedback to the sound crew that (a) the band is so loud we cannot hear what the chorus are singing, and (b) some of the soloists' grandstand notes actually hurt my ears. This is unwelcome.

I did in fact send feedback, since the theatre were so kind as to email me asking for it.

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A link about chocolate! Always an interest of mine. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn47zg3xgxxo Using the whole of the chocolate fruit rather than having to involve sugar and to throw away the pulp. Looks worth a go, to my mind.

Firstly, thank you, everyone who opined on the thorny problem of whether to floralise or tentaculate. I went with tentacles, since the occasion was 'my kids are coming round for lunch' rather than 'Afternoon Tea at the Assembly Rooms' or 'somebody's garden party', which would have required the colourful choice and a fascinator.

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Dispatches from the Front, part whatever

When last your humble reporter sent a dispatch from the front, the squirrels had chewed through the string keeping the upturned, now-rimless bucket on the pole.( Read more... )

Tree rats 3: humans 0

It did not take them long to figure out how to ride the bucking slinky.

Beast has put a baffle on, about half-way up the pole, which seems to be throwing them a bit, but not enough to stop them entirely. I did see one leap onto the slinky and be hurled sideways in startlement, but it does not appear to be a thorough deterrent. Sigh. I foresee we are going to have to give up the War by purchasing a squirrel-proof food dispenser, which feels like cheating. I wish to DEFEAT them, not get someone else to do it for me!

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I got **drenched** on Saturday, walking back from the hairdresser. I had a quite long plastic coat, with hood, but everything from mid-thigh was sodden when I got to the fish and chip shop (where Beast had just put in an order). Sat and dripped while they cooked the cod. Had to get changed completely before eating it! (Uh, at home.)

Yesterday I was happily indoors when the heavens opened to disgorge hail, and emitted lightning and thunder. My poor plants. I had to rescue a few of them from drowning, as I'd stationed them in a large bowl. Which Sable has since been using as a drinking water dish, though I don't think the fresh rainwater is entirely to her taste. Not enough rotting leaves in it. Cats are strange.

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Having had considerable success with keffir making, I am branching off into kombucha. There's a rose-and-green-tea one in progress, and I'm just about to put the new scoby into another one. Which may not be entirely happy as the teabags were vanilla chai, but I can only experiment. I like kombucha, but it costs an awful lot per glas when bought in bottlefuls, so this seems a worthwhile experiment. And after that, I can ready Of Cabbages and Kimchi, wot my Boy gave me for my birthday, and see about producing some kimchi. All the Ks.

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Because I happened upon it recently, here is a memelet from tielan

What was the first piece of furniture you bought?

Hmm. Beast actually had a house before we were married, and thus had dining table and chairs and an elderly but comfortable sofa, all second hand. It may have been a decent sized bed, or it may have been the handsome Swedish teak sideboard. Can't remember for sure.

What proportion of your meals do you cook?

I cook/prepare about 95%, I should think. The rest, we get delivered or eat out. Beast *can* cook, but he doesn't particularly enjoy it and generally needs a recipe and lots of advance planning, which I don't.

Favourite chore?

Cooking! At least, I quite enjoy cooking, which is why it is my job and not Beast's job. I also maintain the flow of groceries. He fills the dishwasher, and is responsible also for making it run and for emptying it again.

Least favourite chore?

Well, I offloaded those.... my husband is a rare and precious Beast, who vacuums and cleans toilets. I do the ironing, less frequent but it usually takes a while, as it accumulates. And most of the things to be ironed are mine.

Most precious thing one of your pets has destroyed?

I don't think I can remember anything. The cats have been fairly well behaved in that respect. We did find tooth-marks in the butter once....

Had a very nice Official Birthday Lunch at my Bun's place, which was also Boy's Birthday Lunch *and* Father's Day. Bun is now on the FODMAP diet, Boy is trying to figure out what is stirring up his Crohn's symptoms and thus was glad to be pointed towards a FODMAP diet, and I'm thinking of trying it myself, since eating beans and/or lentils (very good for you, particularly if you're diabetic, as I am) gives me appalling wind. But Bun managed to produce a delicious roast dinner that we could all eat, and we played a game that involved collecting unicorns.

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The squirrels may think they have won, but I refuse to be defeated.

The fishing line 'twixt house and fence is down. Whether it was bitten through, clawed asunder, or just broke, we shall never know, but the peanut cylinder and the fat ball holder were both well emptied by the time I discovered this tragedy.

We went to the Norfolk Show on Thursday. Partly because my Beast's chorus was performing there, so it seemed like a good day to go, partly because I wanted to speak to beekeepers, partly because I haven't been for a long while. While there, we purchased a pole with a double spike on the nether end and three iron arms at the top. I propose to taunt the squirrels with food suspended from these arms. If, as seems possible, the squirrels climb up the pole, I shall (a) add Vaseline, which strikes me as likely to be amusing, and (b) purchase a slinky to encase the pole, which according to the vendor will baffle the blighters.

I shall report again soon.

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I have sowed a few seeds in the desperate hope that there may be vegetables in the months ahead. I doubt it, but we shall see.

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There are adolescent magpies in the garden! I saw four magpies together, and two of them, though perfectly magpie-formed, were quite small. My deduction that these two were offspring was confirmed when one of them sat down and opened its beak, and one of the big magpies stuffed something into the gaping maw.

And this evening I spotted a large crow with two smaller crows in the back garden. Wonkywing has babies!

A slightly different squirrel update today.

Sable has started to take an interest. She spent quite a bit of time on the dining room windowsill looking down on the squirrels. Who feud, apparently. There were up to five on the grass together at one point, but one of them was very pugnacious and kept attacking the others.

Sadly, it was not until Sable had left the room that one of the more intrepid squirrels jumped up to the window sill and spent quite a while staring in at us. It subsequently tried—this was obviously one of the intelligent squirrels—to climb up the corner of the house, with the assumed goal of walking along the fishing wire from the easy end, but was defeated by its plastic surface. (The windows are on three sides, and the corner posts are upvc.) It spent quite a bit more time looking in through the rest of the north-side windows, to our amusement. I do hope it tries again when Sable is there, I wish to see the mutual reaction!

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Covid is slowly improving. Beast is Covid-free, though he did get the sniffles yesterday after mowing the rest of the lawn on a high-pollen-count day.

I've spent the last couple of mornings doing some garden work before the exhaustion kicks in. It is so disheartening. Having planted the sweetcorns, three of the eight have been murdered overnight. The first kale plants have been shredded. The beans, both dwarf beans and climbing ones, are looking extremely forlorn. Beans were so productive last year? I'm just hoping the pumpkins and courgettes are sturdy enough to survive. I waited as long as I dared to put these outside, and the courgettes are actually starting to flower, so I Do. Not. Want. them to be demolished by slugs.

Oddest thing is, I hardly ever see any slugs. I did put out a beer trap last week, and there were a couple of dozen corpses in it, which I turfed out onto the pond surround in the hope that they would provide a tasty snack for various birds.

Well. Monty says I can plant sweetcorn now, so I shall. And more beans. I have some plastic cloches, perhaps these will protect the tender babies. So infuriating.

I was happy to observe a squirrel crawling along - and then under - the fishing line a couple of days ago. It managed somehow to right itself to stand on top once it reached the plastic bottles, only to plummet ignominiously to the ground. Heh.

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In other news, I have Covid. Sigh.

I had visitors! nopseud and her other half, and ephemera came to stay for Eurovision weekend. We feasted on Swedish meatballs, English asparagus (and Dutch asparagus, which turned out to be irrelevant), Italian cannoli, French red and white wine and Austrian fizz, Portuguese custard tarts, and sweet pierogi. And much else besides. I didn't manage to do much to represent Latvia, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia or Georgia, though. Our local 'ethnic' supermarket is mostly a Polski sklep, and many of the products have no English labelling at all, so I had to avoid them as I'd have no idea (a) what they are, or (b) how to prepare them. But there were some fun things in there nonetheless, including honey gingerbread called Boromir.

Switzerland a deserving winner, Croatia deserved to do well, bit miffed about the Israel result, glad the Ukraine entry did well, disappointed for Finland, who were completely bonkers and deserved a bit more love from the audience than they got. My personal opinion of the UK entry is that it was well performed but too decidedly gay and not camp enough to work for a Eurovision audience. (I don't know why a Eurovision audience would love the camp and be uncomfortable about the gay, but I have a feeling that's what happens.) It'd be a decent music video, I think.

Anyway. It was fun, silly, and entertaining. With appropriate bevvies and things to nom, definitely a good evening!

We tried at several points but failed to see the aurora. Pity. And the cat deigned to approach a couple of the guests, but only if they were bribing her with ham or cheese.

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On Sunday we went to Oxburgh Hall. Very attractive place, with some huge tapestries embroidered by Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. These featured a crocodile, a somewhat fanciful rhinoceros, a byrd, an ostrich, and many other interesting zoological creatures. Walked around the woods in dappled sunlight from the many trees. Only real flaw to the place was that the tea shop was closed when we, having completed our walk, could really have done with a cuppa. To be fair, it was closing time by then.

(Iiiiinterestingly, got an email from the National Trust saying Thanks for visiting Oxburgh Hall. I'm not sure I approve of this.)

My chorus did a delightful WhatsApp thing, chiming in that it was indeed A Good Day, good morning sun, etc, as many of us were out and about enjoying the sunshine. T-shirt weather, yay!

Note: it was not Mothers Day in the UK.

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In other news, after quite a bit of prompting—and eventually, propping the thing wide open—squirrels have begun to take advantage of the squirrel feeder. Now that they have understood they can open the food hatch, we have unpropped.

There is also evidence that they have been trying to gnaw their way through it.

OMG. I do not have a bird feeder on a pole but I WANT ONE NOW.

Spin, squirrel, spin!