Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy

The scallywags have obviously decided that there's a need for a litter bin by the bollard. Just in case, I suppose.

To hide behind the glare of an open-minded stare

I gave a snort of laughter whilst listening to Ken Bruce announce that Mr and Mrs Whatever were celebrating their diamond wedding and were going on a tour of Switzerland. I couldn't help but wonder whether their children had got them a bogof deal at Dignitas.

(wonders if you can get gift vouchers)

In an English country garden

Although I love flowers, I'm not a great fan of having cut flowers in the house; it just seems wrong somehow. Flowering pot plants are okay because they're still alive and can go back outside later, but cut flowers are doomed to wither and die. Almost all the flowers I grow in the garden are scented ones; roses without scent, no matter how pretty, are like tasteless food - they lack that which makes them interesting. I love wandering around our very own (the excitement about paying off the mortgage hasn't worn off yet!) small patch of England smelling the various plants that my lethal fingers have so far failed to kill, but there's not much left so late in the season. So I gritted my teeth, got the secateurs and brought in all the flowers to enjoy them indoors.

There are roses (New Dawn - the pale one with holes (not a breed characteristic btw) in the petals - has the most delicious scent, but is also seemingly clad in barbed wire; I can't remember what the other one's called); sweet peas; jasmine; the last spike of phlox; and a few sprigs of photinia to add a little leafy interest. My flower-arranging skills are only slightly advanced from the 'bung them in a jamjar' technique, but I think they look quite pretty.

And the sitting room smells divine.

I'll go back to black

Tuesday Challenge #29 is on the subject of 'Black'

So here's my interpretation.

"Y'all remember to wipe your feet"

I wonder if anyone knows what she and Billy-Joe were throwing off the Tallahatchee Bridge.

I've always reckoned it must have been a baby.

Whenever you stroll along with me

Having a few days free I loaded Beattie in the car and took her to visit the Aged Parent; while we were there we found that the best place for exercising a dog with arthritic feet was the wonderful miles of sandy beach.



There's a pier



and around the base of each leg the sea has scoured the sand in an interesting way.



Beattie found she could step out quite briskly on the hard sand without hurting her feet



but didn't really enjoy the bracing sea breeze



so she tried to eat the camera when I laughed at her.



But she didn't try to eat the jellyfish.

But I might die tonight

For the past week I've monitoring the growth of a random mushroom that started growing in the greenhouse.

Day 1


Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6


When I went to check it this morning I found it had fallen over (probably felled by the influence of the slug visible in picture 6) so I picked it.

Day 7


I'm slightly perturbed to see that the gills aren't the nice pinky-beige (aka 'mushroom'), or even dark brown, colour I was expecting, but are instead a rather unhealthy, pallid-looking white.



Boy reckons it's a Destroying Angel or something along those lines so I probably won't add it to the shepherd's pie.

Like the circles that you find

As you know, there's a saying "It's a small world". I'm acquainted with someone who hates that saying, so it's worth repeating if only for that reason; not my favourite person. But I digress. The smallness, and frequency of odd coincidences was brought home to me a couple of weeks ago. Brother #2 had recently visited our mother in her new home Oop North, and was chatting at work (in Sussex) to a new student they have working with them. The first coincidence was that the student's father worked with Bro's wife; then it got surreal. Bro mentioned he'd just been to the Frozen North, and student told him that his grandparents lived in Yorkshire, on the coast. In a nice little town, in a quiet road ... which turned out to be the exact same town and the exact same road that Mother lives in. Spooky.

That weekend Bro and Sis-in-Law went to a dinner celebrating a friend's marriage after many years of widowhood. The groom was a nice chap, about Bro's age.To cut a long story short, it turns out they'd been to primary school together in Cyprus in the mid 50s - chap had been in Bro #1's class and remembered him well.

After a while this sort of thing can mess with your head.

There's room enough for two

I was spoilt for choice regarding titles for this blog. I could have had "Right smack dab in the middle of town", or "It's peaceful as can be, or "I get away from the hustling crowd", but finally chose yet another line from the same song.



Luckily the holidays are nearly over and the village scamps will soon be back at school. Is it wrong of me to admire their ingenuity?