Good News!

Fantastic news in the Telegraph today about rember, a new drug for the treatment (and potentially the prevention) of Alzheimer’s! My thoughts went to Terry Pratchett and I found myself spontaneously giving thanks to God for this scientific advance, an answer to prayer.

I’ve now made a formal report of the recent break-in and attempted break-in over the allotment to the police, as requested by the Site Rep. It seemed a bit of a trivial matter to be bothering them with, but the Administrator who took the call said I’d done the right thing, only wondering why I’d left it so long.

Soppy Senegal

Went to visit Dave to see the work he’s had done on his drive and renew my acquaintance with his Senegal parrot. The bird loves caresses and attention. It also quite likes sidling under my long hair and wearing it like a comb-over.

I grew carrots!

I grew carrots! Last year when I first took on an allotment I listened to my fellow allotmenteers and concluded that growing carrots wasn’t for the faint-hearted. My neighbour went to great lengths to erect an enclosure to protect his carrots from carrot root fly. This year when I was looking at seed, I came across an F1 hybrid carrot seed that was resistant to carrot root fly, so I thought I’d have a go. As you can see from the photo, I was delighted with the result. They are a good shape and texture, although I think flavour has been sacrificed in the bid to breed in pest-resistance.

Wearing shorts to work over there seemed to make sense because of the heat, until I felt something biting my leg. I looked down expecting to see a red ant, and was surprised to discover the culprit was a spider! I was scared of spiders as a child but was always told ‘Spiders don’t hurt you’ (you can tell I was born and brought up in the UK). When I had children of my own, I didn’t want to pass down my fear of spiders and successfully de-sensitised myself to them many years ago. At home I’ll often leave them in undisturbed ‘nature corners’, thinking that they will get rid of other pesky visitors such as flies and woolly bears. Well, that’s my excuse anyway. Might not be quite so accommodating in future!

June Update

As I type this, it is over a month since I last logged a journal entry so without further ado, here are the highlights from the last week in June.
Thursday 26th: Vic departed on his trusty steed (the BMW F650 CS) to meet up with work colleagues for the trek down to Blois in France for a few days. Meanwhile arrangements were in hand for me to have some help with getting my car MoT tested and with the allotment (ripping up the old paths and planting out some seedlings I’ve been bringing on in the potting shed). Then it was dinner, shower and change to go to dance class. A full day, and very satisfying.
Friday 27th: Up early and over the allotment again to finish relaying the new paths, do some weeding and plant out some more seedlings. All looking good! Dinner included the fruits of my labours (sugar snap peas and strawberries for dessert), then on to watch the Chronicles of Narnia film, Prince Caspian. I think the young lady in the box office must have been having a private joke: the tickets gave allocated seat numbers; there weren't many people in the theatre, and almost all of us were sat side by side in one row! It was, shall we say, a cosy arrangement.
Saturday 28th: A friend took me over to pick up the car with it’s new MOT certificate and we gave it a long run down to Dover – couldn’t see France today owing to the heat haze. Walked around Dover castle, had lunch in the Naafi then walked along the seafront – there was a large group of people swimming round the harbour.
Sunday 29th: I went to church in the morning and tried to write down the words members of the congregation were bringing in the Spirit – there were many of them, including a beautiful love song to the Lord. Something in the sermon really caught my attention and set me thinking, seeming (in my mind) to be addressed to me.

Vic returned safely some time after midnight. This may seem unremarkable to the reader. However, my father was one of ten siblings, and his youngest brother (Ian) was killed in a motorcycle accident in France, as was one of his nephews (also named Ian), as was one of my ex-boyfriends (named Nigel). At some point in life my mind had processed the conclusion that motorcycling in France is not a safe activity but obviously I hadn’t wanted to influence Vic’s decision prior to the event by burdening him with my fears, so had kept all this to myself. Now though, the thoughts or feelings I had been suppressing welled up within me, making it difficult to sleep peacefully. In between snatches of sleep, bizarre thoughts troubled me.

Monday 30th
I was due to host a meeting about the proposed Wholeness through Spirituality group, but sensing that I was in the throes of another relapse in mental health, I passed on the work I had done towards creating an agenda and managed to get word out to change the venue and proceed without me. I coped with Monday night Dance class only with a little help from my friend.

Sit down, put your feet up and relax …

Today is National Siesta Awareness Day. My father was well ahead of the times. From as far back as I can remember, he had a habit of retiring from the lunch table to his armchair, closing his eyes and having what he referred to as ‘forty winks’ before walking back into work. I looked up the phrase ‘forty winks’ on Wikipedia and found the article chatty and interesting. Then I googled the phrase ‘put your feet up and relax’. In recent times I have learned* that the optimum position for passing a bowel movement is squatting – that our custom of sitting regally over a porcelain throne is less than ideal. Apparently if you suffer from constipation, sitting on the loo with your feet up on a stool in front of you (so that your knees are higher than your backside) should assist matters. I found myself wondering if that was where the phrase (put your feet up and relax) first came from, and was surprised to find an article with that title discussing the euphemistic use of the word ‘feet’ in the bible. Which if it suggests anything, perhaps suggests I’ve got just a little too much spare time?

*I believe it was courtesy of Gillian McKeith, she of ‘what does your poo say about you’ catchphrase

A rose by any other name would as thorny be?

This miniature rose was given to me as a 'hostess gift' by my sister-in-law, Jacky, a couple of years ago and when it ceased to thrive indoors, I planted it out in the front garden

The ‘Growing in Awareness and Practice’ training course finished last Thursday. One of the things I had been intending to practice in real life situations was listening without an agenda: reflective listening that isn’t aimed at changing the speaker. It’s a skill that I’ve practiced in various training situations and in theory should be part of my ‘skill set’ – yet I’m aware that it certainly doesn’t seem to come naturally. Despite revising, re-reading a couple of articles on the subject and deciding henceforth I would be a good listener … well, let me tell you the story and you’ll maybe understand my difficulty in completing that sentence.

Had a conversation with a friend about Lee McQueen, the winner of the TV series, ‘The Apprentice’. My friend observed that Lee was the candidate who had lied on his CV, and wondered whether it sent out the right message, giving him the job – the end doesn’t justify the means. I responded tartly that, given Lee’s performance throughout the 12 weeks of the selection process, I didn’t think it was a fair way of defining him and had more to do with the media trying to polarise opinions. “You’ve joked about being ‘creative’ with expense claims” I pointed out, “how would you feel about being defined by that one negative act?” Point made, acknowledged my friend.

Then tonight at the dinner table, Vic commented on an article in the Telegraph about how ‘despite a £50 million “deep clean” of every hospital in England designed to curb superbugs’, hospitals are failing to meet basic hygiene standards. “It doesn’t help that they’re so under-resourced they have to employ cleaners who can’t speak a word of English and aren’t the most intelligent people around” he said. “That’s not fair!” I protested, “Just because people can’t speak English doesn’t necessarily mean they’re stupid”. It wasn't what he'd meant at all, and it killed the conversation. Reflecting back on these conversations later, I noticed the pattern. At first I saw it as a positive (me leaping to the defense of those not present to defend themselves), then my earlier resolve to listen without an agenda came to mind and reluctantly I acknowledged the negative (that leaping to seize the ‘moral high ground’ is not a loving way to respond to someone who has made him/herself vulnerable by offering an honest thought). I thought about other occasions where I’ve responded to what amounts to an invitation to intimacy, an ‘us against the world’ position – someone saying something unflattering about a third party not present – by turning on the speaker and denouncing them. Small wonder so few people have stuck around to maintain a long-standing close relationship with me, and full credit to those courageous souls who have!

Then I turned to ‘Power to Soar’ and read the entry for today:
(Titus 3:1-5)
Raging Restorer,
I respect you. Therefore I grant you enormous freedom of thought and expression – even when you’re dead wrong!
Will you deny others the same freedom?
Yours smiling,
Father

It feels like I’m on the edge of a new order of understanding. Let’s hope so, eh?!

Fragrant flowers

Last night at Cell group the breeze from the open window every now and then would carry the fragrance of the syringa and peonies to me, which was lovely. Not so lovely was the realisation that the peonies brought a fair few unwelcome visitors with them into the room - a number of ants. Perhaps they like the fragrance, too.