Where the hills were alive with the sound of my coughing

Tuesday to Friday morning last week I was in Salzburg. It was good. We hit a couple of the Christmas markets in the dark, going to the Residenzplatz one evening and to Hellbrunn the next, where H bought me a star decoration for our tree, a musical carousel, hot apple juice that burned my tongue [...]

Green manure

A clever gardeny thing to do is to sow a crop of something such as mustard or rye, so that lovely things such as nitrogen and, oh, I don’t know, tiny tiny unicorns maybe, are held in the soil ready to help out during your next growing season. You sow the seeds, the plants grow [...]

Things I can’t do yet

1. Get dressed up for going out on Sunday evening
2. Pack for my trip on Tuesday
3. Open my Lindt advent calendar and eat the chocolate
It’s all dreadfully frustrating.

Happy to help

When you come to pay for your wares at our local branch of WHSmith – a stationery and book shop – the queue to the tills is lead carefully through a steep-sided valley of half-price Terry’s chocolate oranges.
Oh-ho, Mr and Mrs Marketing Department, I saw what you did there with your impulse buy chocolate [...]

Yesterday’s birthday cake

It’s what’s for breakfast.
I had a good day yesterday, pottering about, spending all afternoon making chocolate brownies, talking to friends, listening to music, being serenaded in person and on the phone and having curry at a restaurant with my family. So, this is 28.

Whereabouts

I had a post half-planned that involved the sunflower seed head that I harvested a couple of weeks ago. And indeed I’d write the post could I just find the damn sunflower. It was on the window sill in a paper bag for ages and now it’s not there. I don’t know where it’s gone.
Similarly, [...]

Parcel delivery

I open the front door to a lady who has come to deliver a parcel.
“Hello, are you Mrs Marchant?”
“No, daughter, but close enough.”
“Yes, close enough,” she agrees, handing me the console to sign.
“You work down the road, don’t you?”, she asks, adding, “I’ve seen you.”
“Ah, no you’ve seen someone like me,” I say, realising [...]