Bog crawling

Elder Son and family have gone to Butlins for the weekend for a football tournament, so we have house guests in the form of Toby Dog and Stella Cat.

I took Toby for a walk this afternoon, intending it to be a short walk over the tip but I got distracted and ended up walking by the river. I said, "We'll walk until we reach the first swamp." (Swamp being a place where the path has been washed away and replaced by a bog.)

Then, of course, we reach our first swamp and I say, "We can manage this, Toby." 

By the time we reach our fifth - impossible - swamp it's too late to say, "Go back now," and instead I say, "This must be the last one." 

It wasn't. But I got across it without sinking up to my knees, and by relying on things you don't want to have to rely on. Like the branch that broke off in my hand. 

I squeaked a lot but only actually screamed once when I thought I was headed for the miry pit. 

It was worth it though. 

I feel better for it though I may be suffering later! I put my vest on to go out and I realised my granny would say that's why I have a cold. Taking off your vest, putting it back on, taking it off again. No good will come of it. But may is well and truly out.

And when I got home Stella appeared to remind me that before I left I said, "I'll feed you when we get back, Stella."

Iron Men

Stu said, "If you're feeling at all under the weather don't come in on Friday. We can manage." (To Zac's for food service.)

Well, since you mention it . . . so I'm having a day off, a week off in fact as I've not done any of my regular routines. I'm not too bad, mostly just tired, and a bit snuffly. But as I don't think I've been ill since April 2023 that's not bad.

* * * * *

I keep getting clips for Marvel films on my social media and they look funny - and have good-looking stars - so I decided I'd like to watch them. Asked Younger Son where to begin and he pointed me to two chrologoogiacl lists. (Good grief, I was trying to type chronological there without looking at the screen.)

Turns out there are something like thirty-two Marvel films! We started last night with Iron Man, the first one to be made (2008) rather than the first one history time wise (WW2). 

I enjoyed it while Husband said it was okay. "But," he said, "I didn't bother watching the earlier films either that you watched with the boys when I was working away."
I frowned. "What earlier films?"
"The original Iron Man. And Iron Man 2."
"I don't remember those. Who was in them?"
"I don't know. You watched them."
"I don't think I did."
"Yes, you did."

I googled it. There were no earlier Iron Man films. 

We often have these arguments usually over what I'm supposed to have watched without him.

* * * * *

I've just finished True Grit by Charles Portis. Great book. I can hear the voice so clearly. It's narrated by Mattie Ross, a fourteen-year-old. We should all bring our daughters up to be like Mattie Ross.

I'm sure I must have seen True Grit with John Wayne but I don't remember it. I definitely haven't watched the remake. 

* * * * *

Looking for a photo of Iron Man I was reminded of the book by Ted Hughes. Now that I have read.

DANGER!

 

It's the final count-down!

My next post will be my book launch!

It's more low key this time - not that it was ever high key (? is there such a thing?) - and if I told you what I am thinking you'd think I was depressed but it's not depression so much as resignation. 

To be a successful self-published author you need determination (x), perseverance (x), new ideas (x), confidence (x), to not worry about being boring or repetitive (x), self-belief (x), you get the picture.

I am happy to have finished a book, published it, and have it on my shelf. Anything else is a bonus.

It might be because I'm still a bit under the weather. Maybe I'll have more enthusiasm next week. Maybe this book will be like GrandSon1's football team. Last night they won their first game of the season. Yes, I know it's a bit late but they're building their team, and their coaches are nice, and don't swear and abuse players, unlike some in the league. And GrandSon1 scored a great goal.

The amazing thing about figs

This morning Husband said, "The fig tree has lots of fruit on it, but it's strange: I've never seen any flowers."
"How can it produce fruit if it doesn't have flowers?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."

So, while waiting for a radio programme to start so I can the ironing I thought I'd check it out. 

This is what I learned: figs aren't fruit but inverted flowers. Multiple flowers bloom inside the pod that matures into the fruit we eat. How amazing is that? (You probably already knew.)

So how is it pollinated?

By a fig wasp. The fig and the fig wasp have a symbiotic relationship. They can't live without each other, it's called mutualism. 

Now pay attention because it gets complicated. The female wasp buries into the male fig and lays its larva. She's basically digging her own grave because the space is so narrow her wings break off and she can't get out. Male baby wasps don't have wings because their job is to mate with the baby girl wasps (their sisters) and dig a tunnel for them to get out. The female wasps fly out taking pollen with them.

Now if a female wasp buries into a female fig she loses her wings but can't reproduce because there isn't enough room. So she just dies but has deposited the pollen giving us the fruit. 

Apparently we only eat female figs so if you bite into a fig and it's a bit crunchy it could be the remains of a wasp! (Most of it is broken down into protein by an enzyme in the fig.)

I am amazed once again by the things I don't know.

My brain made me do it

For some strange reason, lying in bed this morning, trying to have a lie-in, my brain began thinking about boys I knew in university. I think it might have been triggered by the dug-up ship in Suffolk mentioned in the previous post. And my brain said, "You might as well get up and write it out of me. You know I'm not going to let you sleep until you do." So.

A couple of years after uni

As a teenager my innate shyness was compounded by my mum's over-protectiveness, making me fearful of males generally. I went to an all girls' school but while the other girls were already enjoying their first relationships I was sitting at home watching television, and dreaming of what it must be like. I never went out and my first real involvement with boys didn't happen until university.

The trouble was, the boys I liked - the ones everyone liked - were way out of my range. The ones who liked me were, well, the others. I know this because they all confided in my friend, Julia. 

There was Nelson. He was in the Royal Navy and smelled. "It's a glandular problem," was the general consensus. Then there was Doug, Mr Beige Man, unintentionally the class fool. There was Phil, who drank too much and embarrassed himself and me. Then there was Dave, a mature student and widower, who lived in east England and was building his own boat. (See the vague connection with The Dig?)

The boy I did like I soon frightened off with my intensity of feeling. I was desperate, come on.

The big problem, of course, was me. I was immature and inexperienced. I didn't know how to deal with boys or emotions so I ran away, or ignored or avoided people. Looking back I realise they were all perfectly nice boys and had I not been so scared/superior/embarrassed I could have handled things differently and better. Made good friends with them at least. 

Have I improved since then? I don't know. I still have a tendency to run away or hide from people if I don't know how to deal with them. It's probably too late to worry about it now though. 

"Is that okay, Brain? Can I stop now?"

Digging up the past

First thing this morning I get a request for urgent prayer for Louie dog currently seeing the vet. He'd eaten Nurofen. Louie not the vet that is.

An hour of induced vomiting later, and by mid-afternoon he's full of beans but he has to stay in doggie hospital overnight. I'd like to say, "That will teach him," but it won't.

I'm still snuffly so after recording my book launch I spent a couple of hours watching The Pilgrimage on BBC iplayer. A group of celebrities of different or no faith follow a recognised pilgrim path. The ones I'm watching are taking St Columba's trail. It's interesting seeing people react and relate to others when spending weeks in close proximity. I think things are about to kick off in the next episode.

I wouldn't have thought a novel about an archaeological dig would be my cup of tea but it was fascinating and at times exciting. Would they discover treasure? Had the tomb already been raided? Would everything be washed away before they can preserve it? 

There were lots of relationship issues as well, of course, the wealthy old widow of the manor and her surprisingly young son, the local experts versus the Top Dogs, the young bride of an elderly professor and a visiting cameraman. 

The book is based on the real dig that took place in Suffolk just as the second world war was about to begin. A huge burial ship was uncovered at the 'most famous archaeological dig in Britain in modern times,' and treasures uncovered that caused archaeologists to reconsider their description of the period as the Dark Ages.

There's a film made in 2021 by the same name.

Health report

1. My eye is much better. Still a bit sore and red but not as painful as it was yesterday. 

2. I messaged the doctor about my hearing report as instructed, including photos of the letter and results, and she phoned me back. "I don't know what it means," she said. Not particularly reassuring but she's referring me to the NHS audiology department. So that will probably mean at least a year's wait. If she works out how to do it. She said she didn't know that either.

3. My cold and sore throat are worse, making me feel very sorry for myself. 

In this sorry state, I've done some promotional stuff for my book launch this week. I think I probably won't do a Live launch but pre-record it. But I may change my mind when I feel less bleurgh and more yay!

Getting its revenge

Back out in the garden I was trying to pull up a root when a branch flew up and whacked me in the eye.

It feels much worse than it looks. That was over an hour and a half ago and it's still painful. Painful when it's open and painful when it's closed. NHS advice is to run water on it for twenty minutes.

How are you supposed to run water over an eye? I bathed my eye using a measuring cup in the absence of an eye bath.  It's still blurry too so if it's like this tomorrow I will have to go to A&E, again according to the NHS website.

Let's hope it's better by then. I'm already a bit snuffly and you know how quick I am to wallow in my own misery. 

* * * * *

Last night I started reading The Twits to the grandchildren in Italy. I'd searched in the library for a copy but I should have looked at home first. I found most of the old Dahls from my children's days.

Take 6 litres of seaweed

Happy National Laverbread Day!

Sadly I have to tell you that, even though I'm Welsh, I don't like laverbread. I know it's rich in iron and iodine and very good for me but I still don't like it, sorry.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about let me explain. Laverbread is made from seaweed. In Chinese restaurants you can get crispy fried seaweed, and that's quite palatable. Welsh laverbread is something entirely different. It's a thick paste, sometimes spread on bread, sometimes tossed in oatmeal and fried with bacon and cockles. Or just heated and dolloped on a plate with cockles.

You can buy it in Swansea market in little tubs.

Or if you're far from home and missing it you can order it in tins.

In 2017 Welsh laverbread was awarded a special designation under European law, like champagne, although I don't know whether that's still valid now we're no longer in the EU. (Boo hiss.) The north Gower coast is home to a number of cockle-picking and laver-gathering families, and their products are renowned. 

If you fancy making your own you first need to gather the seaweed. This is porphyra umbilicalis in situ.

Mo Wilde has a recipe for laverbread on her website. You need 6 litres of laver seaweed, which you wash well under running water to rid it of any sand. Place it in a slow cooker, add 150 ml of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, and cook on high for 8 hours. You can add seasonings to taste: salt and pepper, chilli, soy sauce, whatever takes your fancy.

Nicely mulched

What do you do when you're a tad stressed? Go and dig the garden in the rain, that's what.

It's my favourite part of gardening, hard physical work. Most unlike me! But it's satisfying. I wanted to see what the soil was like at the back of the garden where we had trees cut down and where I intend to plant rambling roses. I wondered how it would be after forty or so years of big conifers living there. 

Pretty good as it turns out. Nicely mulched by the leaves and twigs. And here's my prize trophy.

Yes, I dug up a tree root! Well, I was impressed. I had more trouble with the honeysuckle that took over and refused to flower. There's still a lot of that to shift.

The plan is for Husband to fill in the cracks in the wall to strengthen it then to get someone to put fencing on top (and other bits I'm planning) before I plant my roses. I'd love to see them in this year and starting to ramble but the weather's not being very helpful.

And here's some of the rubbish that Husband has been keeping for years - just in case - but now I'm taking charge so watch out.

Natural born panicker

I went back for an intensive hearing test this morning. You have to sit in a little box and press a button when you hear a sound. Sounds simple but not if you're a natural panicker.

"Why is there such a long gap between beeps? Is he not pressing buttons or am I missing loads of them? Why is he staring at the screen so intently? Is there something terrible wrong? Why is he leaving me in here when I haven't heard . . . ooh, was that a beep? Or was it my imagination? That light switch looks like a face. No, concentrate, close your eyes. No, stay awake."

It turns out volume wise my hearing is okay but I miss certain letters of higher frequency making my brain struggle to work out what the word should be. My hearing has deteriorated a little since the last check two years ago and I would probably benefit from hearing aids. But I'm still in the mild hearing loss band.

However, it seems I hear better through the back of my head than I do through my left ear. So I have to see the GP who will probably have to refer me to the Ear, Nose and Throat department. Something is stopping the sound getting into my head, maybe fluid in the ear or something.  Signs of it were showing at my last test but now it's gone over the edge of the 'should be referred' line. So it's not a dramatic sudden change. And I don't have to worry. 

But of course I panicked and went to Mumbles and bought a large bar of chocolate.

But on the good news front, the biopsy from Husband's ear shows no further cancer cells. Yay.

* * * * *

As I've said many times I grew up in the heart of the village of Mumbles, living in Albert House with my mum, my grandparents, and my great-gran.

My grandparents and my first dog, Soames.

Many years after we sold it the house was still in reasonable condition.

Then the old lady who was living there died.

Her son intended to do it up but time dragged on and the house looked worse and worse. Then just before lockdown work began on it, and then stopped. And then started again last autumn. And then stopped.

This is my childhood home now.

People who knew my family stop me and tell me how it breaks their hearts to see it so. It breaks mine too.