This week mostly.....

I'm watching.....

the US Open Tennis on satellite TV. Problem is, some of the best matches are at 1.30 in the morning here, such as Agassi v Bagdatis tonight. Will just have to settle for the reruns tomorrow.

I'm listening.....

to the (European) Robins which have suddenly become very terrtorial now that autumn is definitely in the air.

I'm reading.....

The Last Resort by Alison Lurie. Di says it's her favourire Lurie book so here's hoping. I'm only a third of the way in yet so it remains to be seen. I've met Wilkie Walker and Salty so far!! Wilkie I'm not sure about, Salty I love already.

Fireworks

Blogger seems to have a mind of it's own at the moment. Hopefully I can now post the pic I took of the fireworks at the weekend.

Looks like it worked so I will try my luck with a couple of others taken of Kingswear from the Dartmouth side of the river.

Loads of boats in sight and this was only a small section of them. We'll definitely be going back next year.

Those magnificent men

We celebrated our 15th anniversary in style at the weekend at the Royal Dartmouth Regatta no less. During the day we saw a myriad boats and ships of all types, rowing, sailing, a couple of frigates and everything in between. then we watched a display of the new Typhoon bomber being put through it's paces, a dancing Chinook helicopter, a Harrier jump jet and finally and most breathtakingly, the Red Arrows, the RAF's display team.

Some of the stunts are really death defying like the picture above with some of the aircraft flying upside down.

Or how about this one where they pass in mid-air just a few feet apart?

Later in the day we watched the Firework finale whilst the band of the Royal Marines played in accompaniment sharing a celebratory plate of chips on the riverside as we watched. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Blogger doesn't want my fireworks picture so you'll have to wait for that one!

Cancel Mansell??? Why???

There is a campaign locally to Cancel Mansell, that is to stop a planning application to update a local carting track to provide a first class leisure facility. They've even got Kirsty Allsopp of Location, Location, Location fame involved.

Several things occur to me here:

1. The past 21 years the site has been a complete eyesore and it could do with updating.

2. It is already classed as a brownfield site so no damage will be done to surrounding wildlife etc on top of what has already been done.

3. Only part of the planning application seems to appear on their website. Where is the rest of it??

4. The leaders of this group seem to be totally annonymous other than one lady whom I believe spends a lot of time abroad on projects for her business.

5. It seems that some campaigners have been busy contacting various campaigning groups all over the country, in particular student groups, asking them to sign up to the petition against the planning application. How fair is that??

6. Shouldn't a local issue involve and take account of local people who have first hand knowledge of the situation??

I'm getting off my soapbox now but it does seem as though a certain few will stop at nothing to get their way. I wish some of them would put a bit of effort into campaigning for something worthwhile, like my old favourite Invest in ME!!

This week mostly

I'm reading.....

The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society, Chris Stewart's sequel to Driving Over Lemons and A Parrot in the Pepper Tree. This is a humerous look at life in the region of Las Alpujarras, south of Granada in Spain where his family have had a small farm for 20 odd years. Having relatives living in Tenerife whom I have visited several times I can appreciate some of the Spanish way of life and some of the strange things that happen there. I'm also addicted to all things Meditteranean so this satisfies that craving for this week too. Maybe one day I'll actually get to go and live somewhere like this. For now, I'm reading all about it !

I'm eating.....

runner beans straight from the garden. WH has a bumper crop this year and we are eating them until they come out of our ears. The best way, I am reliably informed, is cooked in boiling salted water until just tender, then served with a large quantity of butter on the top. I'm not to keen on butter and anyway having liver function tests weekly is not conducive to eating great amounts of animal fats. I love them just plain as they are. WH has had to resort to the cholesterol lowering spread to put on his. No wonder his cholesterol is off the scale.

I'm listening.....

to the silence. Our noisy neighbours are on holiday and it's so peaceful here it's like being on holiday myself. Just hoping they have gone for 2 weeks and not their customary one so we can make the most of the peace.

More Books

Well I suppose it was no surprise that I went to Waterstones in Bristol and took advantage of one of their special offers. I now have yet another three books waiting for me to read. Actually one of them is started all ready!! Ya-yas in Bloom has already been read half way through. Only got it yesterday and could not put in down. A sort of campanion to the Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells, this tells some of their earlier secrets and some newer stuff too. It's like meeting old friends again.

I also succumbed to Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson and Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Kate Kerrigan.Putting these links here I have just learned a salutory lesson, these books were all cheaper on Amazon, I should have bought them there. There is something rather special, however, about walking into a bookshop and picking them out in the flesh as it were.

All this has brought me memories of a very special friend whom I met in person exactly this time last year in another bookshop in Bristol. I had known here 'netwise' for probably five years but had never met her in person until then. The memories of that special evening will live with me for ever, sadly they will have to remain as memories as she died last December.

Bristol here I come

Off to Bristol for the weekend. Bristol is one of my favourite ever places so I'll be soaking up the atmosphere and hopefully spending some money at Cribbs Causeway.

St Nicholas Market and the nearby Glass and Exchange markets have an ambiance all of their own. It's an atmosphere that spells Bristol for me. I've spent many happy hours in the Watershed too, the cafe bar having been the scene of many memorable meals over the last 12 years or so, people watching there is amazing as it attracts a really eclectic clientel. When you get tired of the people you can just sit and gaze down at the water of the floating harbour and all the boats. Just like being on holiday.

See you soon!

OK, so who noticed??

my lovely new cat clock??

I know it is set to UK time but that is so I don't lose track of it!! I loved it on first sight.

What do you think??

Sulphasalazine woes

Well it's been 3 weeks today since I started this and I am still on a half dose. Looks like the best I will do too. My white blood count is down and my neutrophils are extremely low. Add to this all the side effects and I am not doing too well. I am going back down to a quarter dose until we get further info from the rheumatologist but it looks like methotrexate is heading my way. A nastier drug overall but one with less side effects. Meanwhile, the stiffness and hand thing is worse by the day.

Oh and by the way I've now got a lovely Lupus rash too. Wonder what the rheumy will make of that? I expect I'll be seeing her about January......

Windy weather

It's cold here today and we are both wrapped up in thick trousers, jumpers and thermal socks. WH has fallen asleep over the Sunday Times and I am desperately trying to keep myself awake. Given that I have spent 30 out of the last 36 hours in bed this is no mean feat. The sulphasalazine has got to me big time.

I'm cooking pot roast tonight because it seems like a very autumnal warming dish. It seems our summer is over already.

This week in my garden.....

my Salvia patens 'Cambridge Blue' is putting on a real show. I have it in a tub with another tender perennial whose name I forget and which has flowers like butterflies.

The other stars at the moment are also both blue, the gorgeous trailing Convolvulus mauritanica

and the blue Laurentia axillaris formerly known as Isotoma. The scent of the Laurentia is exactly like that of Bluebells only a few months too late!

Good news

My food blog is finally up and running. There may be a few changes over the next week or so but esentially it is alive and kicking.

Do you like the really unusual title huh?? Jas's Food.

A Box of Books

I've recently been buying some books from Green Metropolis after it was recomended by the lovely Di and even selling a few too. This has resulted in my pile of books to be read to be even bigger than usual!

Two I am dying to start are both by Alison Lurie, whose books I just adored when I first read her work about fifteen years ago. These are The Last Resort and Truth and Consequences. Years ago I was a similar age to some of her characters especially in The War Between the Tates and Real People, I just hope that time has not spoiled her for me now.

Another in the pile is The Memory Stones by Kate O'Riordan. It's set mostly in Ireland, a place I sometimes have dificulty with, the more so as I have never been there and don't really know any Irish people. Paris is the other main setting and I can definitely take to that. I even fell in love there once. How's that for a cliche??

Bottom of the pile for savouring in deepest winter is Dinner with Persphone by Patricia Storage. Part travelogue, part memoir, this is an exploration of Greece's land and people. I'll start reading this when I'm planning another trip.

This week, mostly.....

I'm reading.....

I don't know how she does it by Allison Pearson. What a whirlwind of a book! It moved so fast I couldn't put it down and read three quarters of it in a single sitting on Sunday when I was otherwise bored. The story of a high flying female exec who neglects her husband and her kids as she relentlessly pursues the company cause, I really cared about the family involved and wanted to shake Kate Reddy, the main character, and shout at her. I wanted her to leave work and look after her kids as the time she lost with them she would never regain.

This is due to be made into a film and our friends at Trashionista have even been discussing possible casting suggestions. Can't wait to see it.

I'm eating.....

everything and anything that WH throws at me. As we have our annual change of roles for the month of August whilst I turn my hands to other things (like making sunhats) I am just grateful that for once I am not cooking and cleaning and he is doing it all. Surprising how a man can get interested in eating a lot of salad when he has to cook his own dinner!

I'm watching.....

my garden turning to a brown desert in the drought we have had here recently. The nasturtiums which were giving quite a splash of fluorescent colour are also disapperaing fast due to the army of stripey caterpillars martching along their branches and eating everything in their wake. It's definitely all looking very end of the year.

Red hatted ladies of a certain age

Last week I met some of the local chapter of the Red Hat Society. They were splendidly dressed in scarlet hats and purple outfits and were having a great time at our local flower show. I had heard of them before but never seen them out and about in their full regalia.

The idea for the society came from this poem by Jenny Joseph

WARNING

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other peoples gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

I'm thinking of joining!

On a similar theme, an old friend of mine, Mavis, died last week. She would have definitely joined had she been younger but she lived their philosophy to the full anyway. She had been a Landgirl in the war and moved here permanently when she met her husband, a local farmer. I will miss her wicked sense of humour and her raucous laugh.

A day from the past

Off today to this Vintage Vehicle show and Steam rally. I love these things and really enjoy the noise, the smells and the sights of these majestic old engines. there is something about sitting listening to the hum of the old steam engines running almost like a heart beat so you feel it right up through your feet and into your whole body.

Can't wait to get there.

Another Loss

We discovered recently that our stray cat Napoleon was no stray. He belonged to someone else around the corner and was called Merlin. Even after we swapped notes on him and repeatedly took him back to his real owners he still preferred to sleep at our place under the parasol in the back garden. He had found them by chance, just wandered in and stayed for 12 years. He had become a part of the furniture here too over the last three years. He was apparently on medication and at times the owners had to bring the pills round here to get me to give them to him. Last Thursday after a couple of calls from his owner asking where he was (not with us on those occasions) we found him and took him home. We have not seen him since. A chance meeting today with his owner revealed they have had him put to sleep as he "was never home to take his pills".

WH and I are upset, speechless at the kind of person who has done this to a perfectly happy little cat who just happened to prefer someone else's garden.

We are in mourning.

This week mostly

I'm reading.....

Alphabet Weekends by Elizabeth Noble. Two old friends get together and he fancies her but she need convincing. This is the story of a game they play; they spend 26 weekend together and each gets to choose in turn the theme of the weekend which must begin with the relevant letter. So far I've got to F - family get-together. I love Elizabeth Noble's writing, her other books The Tenko Club and The Reading Group were good too. Like great big warm hug wrapped roung a great story.

I'm watching.....

Misty and the others playing with their new Cat Shelter in the back garden. This is a wicker constrution like a small beehive with a little opening at the front and gives the cats shade from the recent hot sun. We bought it from the maker at a recent garden show. Misty loves it though I don't think anyone else has had a look-in yet!

I'm eating.....

pasta and asparagus salad. I made it to take to a barbecue last Friday and you guessed it, I left it behind. So now I'm eating it all up. Mind you it is rather yummy especially with some feta cheese on the top!