Thoughts of finding fame, having a close relationship with a bag of frozen peas, plus the usual ramblings.

Well, I wouldn't say that this sudden fame has put me on cloud nine, or even has me with my head in the clouds. It came as a surprise, and still has me a little perplexed. So what is this fame... well... you might need to be sitting down for this but I was nominated for the POTD on authorblog. YES, I KNOW!!! Heady stuff indeed. Well, when I found a strange comment on my last blog, strange in that it was from a stranger not that it was weird you understand, and she was congratulating me on this POTD thingy, I had not a clue what she was talking about. Nor did I know what authorblog was, and I was beginning to think I had missed something, but then another fellow blogger assured me she had never heard of it either until she was nominated. I felt less dinosaurus-ish then let me tell you!
And for those other dinosaurs of the blogosphere among you who don't know what this is, let me direct you to a blog ... http://david-mcmahon.blogspot.com This man has over NINE HUNDRED followers would you believe!!!!! Any road up, he has this POST OF THE DAY 'award' for want of a better word, and mine was a runner-up. Personally I didn't think the posting was one of my best, but somebody obviously did, sent the suggestion in to him (which seems to be how it works) and so there I was, Honoured indeed. I have to also admit that most of the winners and other runners up over the last month or so are people who I have never heard of. I did go and look at a few, but then got bored, as I usually do. Of course, the lovely Maddie Grigg was there amongst those Honoured, and Mrs Jones too, she with the fab coloured hair... oh that I had the nerve!!! And the face under it to carry it off. Anyway, there you have it, fame at last. I would like to think fortune would surely follow, but somehow I doubt it.
Before I go any further, I should perhaps mention my reference to frozen peas. Occasionally you will now find me sitting with said bag of frozen peas on my left ankle. Not the most comfortable of things to do, but needs must. I seem to have strained/sprained the ligaments in my left ankle, no wonder it hurt for the past ten days when I put weight on it! I am terrible about going to the doctors, maybe it's because most of the time I have no say in the matter and it's just routine, so that when it comes to going to the GP about matters other than renal, I am reluctant, to put it mildly. I will put up with something for ages, but always know, from this inner voice of mine, when I really should just go and get it over with. Yesterday was one such occasion, when within minutes of getting out of bed I was hobbling around like a little old lady, minus walking stick - though that will definitely be employed come shopping day! I decided enough was enough, that this latest niggle wasn't going to go away by itself as they usually do, and that as it seemed to be worsening, perhaps seeing the GP was the sensible thing to do. (Not known for my sensibleness, when it does appear, it is ALWAYS commented on by Himself!) Anyway, that is how I know I have done this thing to the ligaments, and the only treatment is good painkillers when it's bad, getting up close and personal with the frozen peas, and resting it as much as possible.. which is the really easy-peasy bit of the whole treatment. Now I have legit reasons for watching recorded LAND GIRLS, reading for hours on end, doing my crafts likewise. And so I am especially looking forward to the weekend, when I can do the resting bit properly, having Himself here to make me a cuppa, fetch me a biccie, peel me a grape and so on.
And speaking of crafts, as I just did briefly, did I mention that I love getting my hands all sticky with papier mache? I do it the really dirty way, with strips of newspaper and wallpaper paste... can you imagine the colour of my fingers with all that newsprint? I never use coloured bits of the paper, since this can sometimes leach through, and it is so difficult these days to find a newspaper without lots of colour. So it's not something I do that often, and indeed, these two examples are years old. The above bowl, was painted with a matchpot of this glorious pale purple paint which has a slight silvery sheen to it. I then added glitter whilst the paint was wet, and now it sits on the landing windowsill, filled with rose pot pourri, and because of the deliberate ripples left in the paper, once painted it took on the look of something covered in pale purple silk fabric.

And this is Henny... I made her about ten years ago possibly, no frame or anything, just scrunched up newspaper made roughly into the shape I wanted, of a fat, sitting hen, and then I added the strips and paste. She is a bit battered, normally sitting on the outside of the kitchen window ledge, which is actually in the conservatory, so that when I open the window, she invariably falls off. But I rather like her, for some strange reason.

Most of you who regularly read this rambling will know of my glamorous raised bed, kindly built by Himself earlier this year, and in which I grew carrots, spring onions, lettuce, beetroot and so on, quite successfully if I do say so myself. Well, we are having more raised beds next year, only not as high. And this is the proposed first row of them, three feet away from hedging on the left and at the back, and this taken at nine in the morning, when there is some shade cast by the birch tree off to the left, but during the day, in full sun until later when it has begun to sink and has moved to the right. The one furthest away will be for leeks, then the middle one for broad beans, and the one nearest the camera will actually be built up another couple of layers, and I plan to sink a pot of mint, as well as growing garlic chives and chervil. Each bed is about a metre long by just under that in width, a lovely, easily-manageable size I think.

There is a lot of colour in the garden at the moment.. this white crocosmia has been flowering its little socks off for months now, and the pink-flowered salvia something-or-other which you can just see a little of, has been going even longer, and improved greatly since we moved larger plants out of the way. I love geraniums, have a large blue pot full of them on the terrace/patio (terrace always sounds too grand, patio too common somehow but don't know another word for the paved area which wraps around the house on two sides!), plus other pots scattered around the place, dotted in amongst other things or standing alone, and then these on the kitchen wall, where I can see them from the conservatory. A bit slow to do anything, they are at last looking pretty. I also have lemon scented ones which are just lovely, delicate pink flowers and the most heady lemony scent comes off the foliage when you brush past.

Reading has to feature in my ramblings doesn't it? These are the books I have read in the last week. The one by Louise Candlish is absolutely brilliant, I couldn't put it down, a real page turner if ever there was and definitely one of the top five books I have read so far this year. It's about Olivia, happily married with two young sons, whose mother dies and leaves her the address of her first boyfriend. Olivia and Richie met at University, he was from California and she was madly in love with him. For her, it was the Real Thing, but he left, went back home and that was it. It felt like unfinished business for her, but what about him? When Olivia goes to find him, she tells her husband she needs a break after nursing her mother and will be away for the weekend. That turns into the whole summer and what will she do at the end of it, for there has to be an end to it all, again. Great read.

My reading of Patrick Gale, great author though he undoubtedly is, has been very hit and miss. Some of his writing I have loved, and then gone and chosen another to read, and been disappointed. Some I can't put down, others I can't even get started with. This was somewhere in between really, and again is about a couple who meet up after having broken up twenty years previously. Life has changed a lot for both of them, but have their feelings? Interesting read at the end, not what I expected and felt a little flat in a way, maybe because of that. But a good read nonetheless.
And so this brings me to the end of another rambling, with no rants, and just a little bit of a rave. Thanks to everyone who popped in again, and for your comments, and especially whoever it was who recommended me for the POTD.