Letters from Wetville

One head of garlic planted.  Not all of this year's garlic bed is ready for planting - some of my buried bokashi hasn't broken down completely.  Though the many and large worms are testament to the goodness of the bokashi. Hopefully the rest will be ready later this month. One only slightly forlorn gooseberry bush found in the sad and cheap section at the far end of Mitre 10 and planted.  I've had no success with my first gooseberry bush, but gooseberries taste so good and are rarely available outside of home gardens, so it's worth persisting. Six celery plants and six soldier poppy plants planted.  I helped the celery along with some sheep dag and wool mix I found in the shed.  The soldier/ANZAC poppies should be flowering for Lou's birthday in October.  Lou was a Prisoner of War in WW2 and a very wonderful man and we like to particularly honour him on ANZAC day and his birthday. Two full bins of bokashi buried, and much weeding done beforehand....

Here it is, the latest crafty project, draped over the chair back.  You can't tell the triangle shape as it is all bunched up circular needles behind the chair.  If it looks home made and home dyed and homespun, that's because it is, though the only homemade part that I have contributed is the knitting. It's quite thick wool, which makes it grow fast and warm, and I quite like the colour.  But it's not going to adorn a ball frock anytime soon or a work outfit.  I see a great future for this shawl as I sit up in bed and read. I spent much of the day practising for using the shawl by sitting up in bed and alternately reading my own book (Kate Atkinson Life after Life ) and reading White Boots by Noel Streatfield to Brighid.  Thyroid care, you understand.  Preserving and nourishing my health so my children don't have to step forward into this world with an unwell mother. Last night I attended a rather notorious organisation - the middle class ladies' ...

I loved The Rosie Project .  I probably need (*need*) more Rosie Projects in my life. Look at the cover, even.  I don't read deliberate comedy very often.  But I giggled, properly giggled, my way through this.  It's a better tonic than vitamin C.  I also went to Christchurch and had a minor spending spree - two lovely bras and a beautiful scarf later, I closed my wallet for all but food and petrol expenses.  I went driving out at Greenpark (near Lincoln and Tai Tapu) and looked down behind Greenpark School.  It is going to close at the end of this year, but it was here that my Grandma began her formal schooling, and it was in a paddock at the back of the school that she tethered the pony which her father bought for her to ride to school (taking her younger brother with her). Then I went to Tai Tapu and played lady lunching.  Nice gf roulade (yes I mentioned food, AND gf - it may get worse as the blogpost continues) and I got great value o...

So I've now read The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck.  I don't know what the 'S' stood or stands for, but obviously Mrs Buck thought it was important.  I can't call her "Pearl" because really she is an author of stature and old and dead to boot, and I keep thinking of the song "Pearl's a Singer " which isn't quite seemly. I liked the cadences of the prose.  Really, I did have such a pretentious thought.  I like how it has a fable-like quality which I have decided is because of all the Bible saturation which Pearl S Buck, daughter of a missionary, experienced.  I quote: "Men labored all day at the baking of breads and cakes for feasts for the rich and children labored from dawn to midnight and slept all greasy and grimed as they were on rough pallets on the floor and staggered to the ovens the next day, and there was not money enough given them to buy a piece of the rich breads they made for others." (p.113) It reads like the Bi...

This is what the trees look like in paradise.  First I spent the day reading and finishing Claire Tomalin's Mrs Jordan's Profession .  I loved it.  I found myself thinking about the biographer easily as much as Mrs Jordan.  Mrs Jordan was the mistress of William IV, and bore him ten children, living as his de facto partner for many years before he rudely got rid of her in response to the advice of his royal advisors.  She was also a superb and very famous actress, both before, during and after her relationship with William (the Duke of Clarence while they were living together).  She was born in 1761 and was on the stage from the age of 14.    She worked through all of her pregnancies (13 live children and still more miscarriages) and was back on the stage within a month of giving birth.  Tomalin, herself a very interesting woman, often draws explicit links between modern day parenting and Jordan's effective parenting and caring skills....

So I went to the hairdresser's yesterday, where they had NZ House and Garden.  My novel stayed in my bag while I flicked through the magazine instead, and fell for the red lino in the photo above.  One day, I'm having red lino in the kitchen.  A few years ago, also at the hairdresser's, I found the perfect nautical blue colour for painting the kitchen walls.  Both together might not quite work, but budgetwise I'm pretty safe from a making a hasty and regrettable decision any time soon. In other fripperous news (fripperous may not officially be a word, but it should be), I bought two ready made items of clothing last week.  I'm wearing the emerald green hoodie top and it's comfy and I've been wanting something emerald green for a zillion days and now I have one.  I've just been altering the skirt as acording to the pattern drafting of the skirt, I have a ridiculously sway back.  Doing the alteration was faster than sewing a skirt, though buying the...

8.25am Climb in car in dressing gown.  Deliver husband and children to work and school. 8.40  Get dressed.  Hang out washing. 9.00  Turn slow cooker on high. Slice two onions, and three carrots and put in slow cooker.  Roughly chop one black pudding, one white pudding and three chorizo and put in slow cooker.  Pick four bay leaves from tree outside and add to slow cooker, along with some red lentils, a tin of tomatoes and some water.  Stir it up and put the lid on. 9.15  Eat leftovers from last night's dinner for breakfast (noodles and stir fry).  Put a pear and a banana in a bag to take to work for the rest of breakfast.  Clear table of breakfast things, and remove the laundry the laundry monsters scatter through the house. 9.40  Drive to work.  Do busy work things at work. 2.00pm  Drive home.  Drive back to childminders to drop off hockey gear.  Drive back home.  Bring washing in.  Pick kale from...