Phews all round . . .

 I managed to lock myself out of the blog yesterday. When I logged in last night, I couldn't post as there was a different gmail address at the top.  How did I manage that?  I vaguely remember having to alter something google-wise but I clearly hadn't been paying attention at the time.  I get this some days - did I take my inhalers? Antihistamine? Where have I left the car keys?  My glasses?  I am not always mindful - that only seems to happen when I am gardening!  Anyway, I opened my passwords book at the front page this morning and the details I needed were on a piece of paper, in Gabby's handwriting, so I could get in again.  Phew.

    Anyway, the morning was a good one, of nice little things arriving.  My Homes & Antiques magazine was in down at the Newspaper shop I go to and I had a lovely garden chat with one of the ladies who works there. Later in the morning the book I had bought (after seeing it on a friend's blog - you know who you are, D!) also arrived.  

    Sorry that the photo isn't clear - I think I had the camera on a scene setting! My brain truly wasn't in residence yesterday :)  Anyway, it's a WWII diary to take me back in time.   Do you have this one Sue in Suffolk?

    I was in a baking mood too, and also had a 70s song (Marvin Gaye - Abraham, Martin and John) going through my head, so I put my play list on in the background and had a 60s/70s singalong.  I saw (somewhere! not being mindful again) a recipe for Apple Parkin recently, but couldn't for the life of me remember if it was in one of my many cookbooks or on line.  Anyway, I googled the recipe and found one to try.  I shan't bother with it again - or if I do I will double the quantity as it came out very flat.  I think I will use my usual parkin recipe  and just adapt it.

    The grated orange peel came out in dollops - I had washed and scrubbed the orange to remove any spray. The teaspoon of cinnamon should have gone through a sieve too as that also came out lumpy.  Sigh.

     

    The Apple Gingerbread is a recipe I could make in my sleep and that was fine, as ever.

    

    I have finally made a start on this x-stitch kit which was a Christmas present.  I wanted something straightforward to sew. I have laid aside (yet again) the Devon Village x-stitch, so nearly finished, but going x-eyed trying to work out the backstitching on it.  I think I will get a red pen and mark it on the chart that way.  Easier then to check where I am with it.

    As you can see, it's early days yet. I need to get in touch with Emma Louise as it would appear that I have two different numbered colours which are exactly the same . . .

    I've been watching the racing from Goodwood, to keep Keith company.  He had a bad day energy-wise yesterday, and was struggling to get about.  The previous day he had been so much better.  He has agreed to use the Tens machine daily and see if that helps his neck/back but the main problem with it is that the instructions say you can't use it on the neck . . .

    Ghengis didn't eat his tea yesterday. That is most unusual for him as he normally eats his and then hoovers up any leftovers in other bowls.  Then last night when I sat down (to RELAX), I noticed that he had a dropped mouth and his left eye was almost closed.  For a horrid moment I thought he may have had a stroke. If that was the case, it was going to be an out-of-hours visit to the surgery for euthenasia. He's a very old cat, and there will be no heroics. I very gently touched his chin which on closer inspection looked swollen, and he recoiled, and it occurred to me that was why he hadn't eaten much of his meal earlier.  Then he got up and walked across to the rocking chair and jumped up and so I surmised bite or sting, not stroke. He's better this morning, phew again.

    Pippi's hunting is getting better - though I was horrified to see her stalking a hen Pheasant twice her size earlier in the week!  Fortunately it made a heck of a squawk when she did her final run and grab and flew off.  I have to say, she's a brave wee thing.  Anyway, yesterday she came in with a pygmy shrew - still very much alive, as I discovered when she dropped it and it scooted behind the shoe rack.  Then Lulu managed to find it and, growling, shot off across the kitchen and into the library, where she dropped it. . .  There was a determined game of hide and seek under and over Tam's Laura Ashley armchair, which is draped with a voluminous sheet to stop kittens stropping it.  The shrew had obviously made a beeline for it and hidden in the folds of a sheet, but those two kittens were everywhere outside and beneath the sheet!  They lost it.  Fortunately as they were elsewhere and I was doing my x-stitch it strolled past me towards the French windows.  I leapt into action and quickly opened said windows, but it couldn't manage the step, so I had to scoop it up and give it its freedom. Those kittens must have retriever mouths as it was just a bit damp from kitten-spit - not a mark on it.  Phew again - there is already a niff of decomposing lost shrew in the hall where one caught earlier obviously went behind the food cupboard and snuffed it. . . I didn't want the same in the library.

    After the racing, I finally got out in the garden and decided that, whilst wild ferns are nice, they have to be in the right place, and the thicket of them in the centre of the bank needed a different look.  I had a moment of inspiration and decided something colourful needed to focus the eye there, and my new Buddleia "Buzz Velvet" will be it.  I have begun clearing but by golly, a lot of digging over (and then mulching) is going to be necessary. There is some ancient membrane there but it's been down so long that all the grass and weeds have grown through/over it.  Great fun trying to rip that up.  I cleared an area where I have other yellow late-summer daisies and bunged in the Rudbeckia laciniata "Goldquelle" which had been languishing in a pot for far too long.  As long as I don't buy any more, I have just 5 to find homes for - and I know where the Buddleia's going.

    I am glad I can enjoy music again.  Last year, with the stress of Keith's health problems, I just couldn't want it.  Nor did I turn Radio 4 on in the background all day long. I hardly baked anything.  The bread-maker was about as far as I got with being creative in the kitchen.  I couldn't cope with the heat and the garden, so that got abandoned too.  Perhaps I am accepting the "new normal".

    Have a lovely Friday and weekend all.