Woke with a cough and a sore throat again.
Since Thursday I’ve been plagued with a cough and a sore throat. Today I was just feeling yuk for most of the day. I’m guessing I picked up somebody’s Lurgy on the train coming up from down south. The carriage we were in from Peterborough to Edinburgh was stowed, so it’s a fair bet that’s where it came from. I’d felt better last night and hoped that today would bring even more improvement, but it didn’t. It looks like I’ll just have to ride it out Thankfully Scamp seems to be free of the effects of whatever it was.
With that in mind I decided to have a lazy day, not doing much at all. More or less the story of my life if I can get away with it! However, while Scamp walked down to the shops to get some fish for tonight’s Cabbage and Smoked Haddock Risotto, I did some swift reorganisation of the living room with boxes piled on the coffee table and the Sarracenia pitcher plant balanced on top to give me the image that became PoD. Beautiful colours and patterns on the pitcher plant, but it does look like a triffid. Then I managed to put everything back in its rightful place before Scamp returned … just!
Later we did some gentle gardening. Scamp looked a bit disappointed to find a single stem of Astilbe growing where a forest had been last year. Me? I was quite happy to see one strand had survived the shock and awe attack. You just can’t keep Astilbe down. We replanted the astilbe and transplanted what we think are Candelabra Primula from where a single plant grew in the wilderness last year to a more easily seen spot beside the steps. I chopped up the remaining kale plants, collecting a few leaves from them to freeze for use later in the year. I think if we remove the top planks from the failing raised bed we can grow some kale and maybe some leeks in it for another year. After that we can make a decision on its long term viability, all being well.
Spoke to Jamie after dinner to hear how things were now that we are out of their hair. It seemed like they were doing today what we’d been doing yesterday. Told him the coffee tub for storing coffee was a clever design that works well. Forgot to tell him that I liked the coffee that came with it. So: Thank you Jamie for the coffee it tastes good now that I’ve got the grind right again!
Sent Hazy a movie I’d made demonstrating the brilliant design of the herb stripper she gave me for my birthday. I’d never seen anything like this before. Three different sized holes in a ceramic dish strip the leaves from the stem of herbs like Thyme much quicker and more efficiently than doing it by hand. Such a clever girl for finding these things.
Such clever folk we have as family. We should be and are grateful to all of you.
No plans for tomorrow. I’m going to dope myself up with a wee hot toddy tonight then go to bed to read a (relatively) new Carl Hiaasen book, Squeeze Me, hoping the cough will have abated by morning. Backlog from my blog gone when I post this!