A walk in the woods

Ella and I took a walk in Rectory Wood this morning.  I managed it ok although I had to stop and cough a few times.  I really think I’m getting a bit better, but it looks as though it’s going to be a long recovery.

The bluebells are glorious, although I think they are not yet quite at their peak.

I found this little inch-worm on a railing.

Quintessential English woodlands in spring - lovely!

Sad News, Happy News.

Hello all!

The last few months have been a bit fraught, which is why I haven't done any blogging.  I'm at home with a cold and am finding it difficult to work on all the stuff I ought to be doing.  So I thought writing this would be a good alternative. The cold is clearly my body telling me to slow down a bit. I had another one 2 months ago and I've been coughing and exhausted ever since. I'd just decided to go to the doctor when this latest cold developed. It's really horrible. Everytime I move or laugh I start this chesty hacking cough. I don't want to spread the germs around so I'm waiting to go to the doc. till next week when I hope the infectious part will be over.  You all know that I'm a hypochondriac - when I start coughing I think I've got pneumonia or lung cancer, when I have a headache it's a brain tumour, etc. etc.

It has been a bit of sad/happy time.  The saddest news of all was the death of our good friend David Matthews.  David lived in the house at the  top of our drive with his wife Pam and the four of us became firm friends.  He was the first person to welcome us when we moved in and he was always ready to help with a project or advise on technical issues.  David and I worked together, took long walks, discussed all sorts of things (sometimes quite rudely, but always in the spirit of good fun), and of course, I was always giving him advice which he ignored completely!  Here's a picture I took of David on one of our walks with Ella, their lovely dog.  I really miss David.

We've also seen quite a bit of Ella over the last couple of months as Pam has been up and down to London a couple of times.  Ella stayed over and now thinks this is her second home.  It's not unusual to open the back door and find her sunning herself on the driveway!  When the door's open she comes in and makes herself at home.

Last week I went to a workshop on relief modelling.  I needed to learn how to do it, because I have tried it in polymer clay and failed.  Our teacher, Jane Robbins, was fantastic and here's what I produced.  Yes!!!!! A portrait of Ellla!!!!! 

In March we cancelled our trip on Longsdon because we had a lot of things to do.  I think, now, that this was a mistake because we're both tired and a rest on the boat would have done us good.  Still we have had a few trips out.  Most notably a day out with Joy and John when we visited two very interesting National Trust properties in the northeast midlands.  The first was Mr. Straw's House, which is an early 20th century house complete with all the furnishings and trappings of life from the 20's and 30's.  It was fascinating, not least because we recognised so many things from our grandparents houses.  The second property was the Work House and I include a picture.  This is where poor, sick and indigent people lived and worked in Victorian times.  It was a hard life, designed to deter people from living off charity.

On the way back from our outing we saw a beautifully ploughed and prepared field - is it banked up for potatoes?

In between work on birding courses, birding atlasses, Scrappies, Church Stretton Arts Festival and all the other things we do, there has been progress in the garden.  After a slow, cold spring we're finally seeing some green as the buds burst and lots of colour as the flowers come out.  There's more information and photos on the Peel Wyke Gardening site, but this is a picture I took from my study window this morning.

Finally, I want to tell you about a very happy event.  On May 1st, John's cousin Janice married her fiance Ian.  It was a beautiful, happy day, full of love, laughter and fun.  Here's a picture of Janice and her dad (John's uncle Wilf) as they prepared to enter the church.  Wilf is 98 - it's not polite to tell you how old Janice is!  We're all happy that Janice has found someone to love and who loves her, and that he comes from a good and caring family.  We wish them all the best for their future lives together.

I’m doing a test

This is a test of the Windows Live Blog editor.  I doubt if I’ll use it, but I have a new computer with Windows 7 on it and I want to try everything out.  It give me the opportunity to insert a lot of stuff I’ve never tried before like tables:

here it is	row 1 column 2
	our wedding picture – 41 years and counting!

Let’s see, what else will it do?  This is the map I chose from Bing – Church Stretton has DISAPPEARED!  Are they trying to tell us something or is it just a crappy map?

Enough of this – I don’t think it’s worth it.

Just a Couple of Days!

Some of you know that "Just a Couple of Days" is the title of Tony Vigorito's first book, but today I'm thinking of it in a different way.  Here's what a difference a couple of days can make to the view from our living room! 

This first picture was taken on Wednesday of this week.  We had a heavy, wet snowfall overnight and this is what we woke up to.  The bamboo is doing an octopus imitation.  This in turn exposes the dark woods on our southern bank.  It really shows you how dark it is under the beastly laurels.

Now here's the view today.  It's taken from almost the same spot.  As you can see, the bamboo recovered - helped by me bashing the snow off with my walking stick.  It has been raining on and off for two days and it's very grey and foggy.

I worked down at Scrappies yesterday.  It's the first time anyone has opened the store since before Christmas.  Irene is finding it difficult to get in from Clun in the van because of all the snow and ice. We had a few customers and it was very cold.  I lost the will to live about 3:30 and was home by 4:30.  It took most of the night for my body to warm up, in spite of going up the drive to Pam and Dave's for a lovely duck dinner.

Today, I saw our first heron in the garden.  It's a Great Grey Heron, very similar to the Great Blue of the US.  We saw its footprints in the snow at the weekend and people have been seeing it further up the valley along the stream, but it's a bit odd for it to be at our house where access to the stream is more difficult for such a bird.  I'm quite sure it's not after anything in our pond - there's still a lot of ice in it, no fish and probably no frogs or newts.  Unfortunately, it saw me as I came to the window and took off, so John didn't see it.  He's been lurking by the windows all day in the hopes that it will come back again!

On Monday we had a cock pheasant on that table on the patio.  When it saw John coming it didn't fly away - it calmly jumped off the table and walked towards the door as if it knew he had food.  Mr. Pheasant seemed to like the peanuts we threw out for him, but we haven't seen him since.

Britain Comes to a Standstill

I expect you've all heard about the "big freeze" we're having here in the UK.  Our American and Canadian friends will be laughing their heads off.  So far we've had about 6" of snow and the temperature hasn't dipped below -10C (23F) here.  Some places have had more snow and some are colder, but it's still nothing compared to what we experienced in North America.

However, we're not prepared for it here.  This cold snap has gone on for about 3-4 weeks and promises to last at least till the end of next week.  Grit and salt supplies are running out, and we don't have the snow ploughs to cope with all the snow.  Farmers are coming out with tractors and they're using front-loaders to shift the snow off the roads.  The big worry is that the snow melts a bit during the day and then freezes into "black ice" at night.  With no snow tires and very little experience in driving in icey conditions people are getting into horrible jams.  Lorries are jack-knifing up and down the country, cars are ending up in ditches, the railways are having signalling and points trouble and they can't keep the airport runways clear.

Scrappies is closed.  Their toilet has frozen and there is no heat in the shop, so it's too cold to shop or work there.  Our heating packed up overnight on Monday night when the condensation overflow pipe froze up and water backed up to the boiler.  Fortunately, we guessed that might be a problem and poured hot water all over the outside pipes.  We got it thawed out and the boiler started working again.  We breathed a big sigh of relief because one of our neighbours has no heat and the service people can't get to them till next week!!!!!

John and I are staying in today.   Our road has been ploughed, but we're not sure we can make it up the driveway!  Tomorrow we'll walk down to the market and get supplies.  We had a quick foray into the garden to feed the birds and take pictures and now we're settled inside with glasses of port.  I've posted some of my pictures on my Peel Wyke site and a couple here to show you what it looks like.

Greetings!

It's 2010 already!  Today John turned 65 - can you believe it? 

And on Monday we have our 41st wedding anniversary!

We hope all our friends have had a good holiday - we're sorry we're so tardy in sending out greetings but December absolutely flew by and we don't really know where it went.  We're determined to catch up on letters and e-mails in the New Year.

When John got back from Montreal, I had several meetings to go to and we only had a few days to prepare before we were off on our narrow boat for my birthday trip.  This turned out to be more of an adventure than we bargained for.  You can read all about it by clicking here.  The final disaster came when we got stuck in the ice and had to be rescued by our brother-in-law, John!  Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed most of it - it was just the ice and cold weather that put a damper on things.

A few more days went by as we did washing and shopping and prepared to go to Joy and John's for Christmas.  Christmas day was lovely - a quiet, warm family affair with lots of wonderful things to eat and drink.  Strefford Hall Farm did us proud with a multi-bird roast (goose, stuffed with chicken, stuffed with pheasant and all lined with sausage!) and the whole dinner was delicious and cooked to perfection.

Boxing Day saw us out on our traditional walk.  It was cold, but that added to the pleasure as it made the ground firm underfoot.  The sun shone, there were lots of people out with lovely dogs and the mince-pies came as a welcome break halfway round the walk!

We managed to get the boat home on the Sunday.  And it's a good job we did since it has been cold and icy ever since.  In spite of our 4-wheel drive and ABS breaks we have been slithering and sliding down the driveway with very little, if any, control.  This is a picture I've just taken from my study window.   If you look very carefully, you can see little black dots in the central field - that's people sledding!  You can click on the picture to enlarge it, if you want to.

Pre-Christmas Updates

It's December already! I've been working to catch up on all sorts of indoor jobs because the weather has been too wet to go outside. Of course, I couldn't do much outside anyway since I haven't been able to kneel down for the last few weeks. That being said, my knee surgery has been quite successful. I can straighten it a lot better and I can almost do a squat now! Getting it completely bent is now the object of exercises and stretchings and then we must work on strength so that my knees are stable enough to go rough walking in the hills.

Last month I was busy making stars like those you can see in the picture above.  Each one can be made from a sheet of A4 or letter sized paper.  Or you can make a huge one by making each point from one piece of A4 or letter sized paper and joining them together.  I made one of those from white card and it's on our front door - it's the biggest snowflake you ever saw!!!!!  We're selling the shiny ones pictured above at Scrappies and I've also posted the instructions on the Scrappies web site - they're really easy to make.

John has been away in Montreal this week on his annual EPIIC meetings. I stayed here this time. I took the opportunity to live on smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels and get on with my filing. I've invested in a nice new filing cabinet and I'm slowly getting my room sorted out. What a chore! I have un-filed things that have been piling up for three years!

I'm also taking the time to catch up on on all the blogs and websites.  The Arts Festival events are now fixed for next year and Scrappies is ready for Christmas. There are some new pictures on the Peel Wyke Gardening site, even though there's been no work!  I've also started a new blog for the owners of our shared boat, the Narrow Boat Longsdon.  It will be open for all the boat owners to post logs and photos, but I'm the only user so far.  We bought our share back in May (I think) but the boat went into the water in August and we had our maiden voyage (down the Oxford Canal) in early September, click here for photos.  The boat is part of the Ownerships scheme.  This is a long running scheme where multiple people buy shares in a boat and the boat is looked after by a central organization.  It's not a time share as such.  You don't get the same weeks on the boat each year, but there's a rota where each owner's choosing priority changes each year.  So some years you get to choose your weeks early, and other years you're further down the list.  Joy and John have bought a share in the same boat.

Longsdon is 58ft long and only 7ft wide.  It has a rear galley and is steered from the outside at the back of the boat.  Many of our friends from overseas aren't familiar with the UK Canal system, but it's a large network of canals which were used commercially up till the 1950s and which are now maintained mostly for tourism.  Boaters run and steer their own boats and manipulate the locks by themselves, also.  For a plan of the boat, click here then click on the link for a plan.  For a series of interactive panoramic shots of the inside and outside of the narrow boat Torksey click here.  Longsdon is very similar except for slightly different patterns and fabrics in the upholstery and curtains.

Well, it's Sunday night - that means its time for a nice roast dinner (duck tonight - yum) and an evening in front of the fire and the telly!  Gotta go and get the table ready.

Ooops - a little problem in the operating theatre!

Well, that was interesting!

On Saturday I went to the Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry to have minor arthroscopic surgery on my right knee.  I had a torn meniscus and my knee kept "locking up".  In addition, I couldn't straighten it completely and I couldn't bend it as far as the other one.

After a bit of discussion it was decided that I could have a spinal block, so I would be awake during the surgery.  If I had general anaesthesia they would keep me over-night in the high dependancy ward because of my sleep apnoea.  I was hoping they could do the 20 minute operation and there would be nothing to stop me going home later in the day.

Unfortunately, this didn't work out.  The block spread up my spine as well as down, so the paralysis and numbness first made me feel sick and then made me faint.  Apparently, my blood pressure fell and my pulse rate dropped to about 20.  I'm not sure but I think the block reached the nerves controlling my heart.  It got most of the thoracic nerves, but didn't get up into the cervical nerves, so it didn't stop my diaphragm and I kept breathing.  There's a good article on spinals at this web site.

They treated the problem with atropine and ephedrine and after a little while (I don't know how long it took, but the anaesthetist said it seemed like ages!) I came round to find the anaesthetis calling my name and looking very anxious.  Once my blood pressure started to go up they got on with the operation and since I was concious I was able to watch the action on a monitor.

So now I've seen the inside of my knee!  The surgeon found a tear in the meniscus and cut it off and then clipped off lots of rough bits of cartilage.  At the end he showed me the healthy bone (white) and the parts that have osteo-arthritis (pink).  There's not much can be done for that, but it isn't bothering me much yet, so we'll hope it doesn't progress much further.

When I got back to the recovery room, they tested to see how high the block had reached.  It was up to my armpits!  It shouldn't have gone above my waist! The aneasthetist stopped by to make sure I was all right and to explain what had happened. I was pleased to see him - he's very attractive! He came by to see me on the ward, too, twice(!) - a really nice guy!

Eventually, they wheeled me off to a ward and I was told I would stay the night.  I'd pretty much figured that out ahead of time ;-)  The anaesthetic slowly wore off.  I felt the numbness leave my chest and then found I could wiggle my toes.  As all this was happening I was making friends with the three other people in my bay.  They were all very nice and we had a good laugh.  But they are all in there for far worse stuff than me.  Two have had hip replacements and one a knee replacement.

After a while I was just able to lift my legs off the bed and sometime after supper they let me use a zimmer frame to walk to the loo!  I was glad about that as I didn't want to have to use a bottle or a bed-pan.

That first walk was very weird.  Not particularly painful, but my knee felt like it didn't belong to me.  Since then I've been exercising it and walking about on it and now 48 hours after the op I'm able to walk about the house, including up and down stairs, without the crutches they sent me home with. 

They also sent me home with painkillers that I haven't had to take, exercises which I am doing faithfully and letters for doctors and physios.  It appears that I will be doing some physio with a local practitioner and I'm glad of that for my knees need strengthening if I'm to tackle the hills and take my friend's dogs out for walks.

The bandages have come off and I'm left with two small dressings covering the places where the instruments went into my knee.  It's still a bit stiff and swollen but I made it to the neighbour's on crutches this afternoon and let them feed me with tea and cake!  I haven't tried the hill up the drive, yet.  I may leave that for a day or two!

Well, that's all the gory details - I'm glad it's over and really pleased at my progress so far.

Nothing Since April?

I last posted on this blog in April. You might be tempted to think that we've done nothing since then, but you'd be wrong! We've done a lot!

May:

We spent most of the month of May at home, working on the garden and our volunteer commitments. The willow nest got finished and is absolutely lovely, though we haven't been able to sit in it much because the weather for the rest of the summer was abysmal. There's more garden information at peelwyke.wordpress.com. Helen and Kelvan kindly let us do a couple of rows of the weaving ourselves, so we learned first hand what hard work it ways! The second photo shows Helen and Kelvan helping us celebrate when the whole thing was done. You can see how tired and mucky they look.

We had a great deal of fun with Helen and Kelvan. We sat on the patio and swapped craft ideas and did a bit of willow work at the table. I also made a polymer clay head to embellish the nest. I'm planning to do some more embellishment, but it may take a while - it's so hard to find time.

But the most exciting thing about May was that we became boat owners.  Well, part owners.  We now have a 1/12 share in Longsdon, a Narrow Boat moored on the Grand Union Canal at Stockton Top Marina near Leamington Spa.  In my next post, I'll be telling you more about this and about our maiden voyage!

June:

June was spent mostly working on volunteer activities, particularly the Arts Festival. Entry forms were coming in from artists, publicity had to be distributed and there seemed to be a hundred and one things to do. However, we did have a wonderful day with Joy and John's Swiss Relatives who all came to visit. After they walked around our garden, we all had coffee and cake on the patio, then took off in three cars (there were 12 of us!) for a tour of the Mynd. We had lunch at the Crown in Wentnor. I think everyone enjoyed that. It's a very traditional English pub, with low ceilings and a cosy interior and they make superb pies!

July:

July was another busy month.  A look at our diary shows activities almost every day.  The beginning of the month was taken up with last minute work for the Arts Festival - delivering and setting up notice boards, data entry, web site work, making sure we had all the necessary supplies for the exhibition, etc. etc.

Then the last two weeks were taken up with the actual festival itself.  This was a resounding success this year.  We managed to break even on funds, even though we had no external funding.  We had three sell-out performances and most of the rest were well attended.  The program of events was spectacular beginning with a lovely concert by Emma Johnson and ended with a raucous evening of entertainment by Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen.  I hope to have the photos on-line soon (the Arts Festival web-site is down right now for unknown reasons), but in the meantime, this is a picture of me at the opening of the Art Exhibition (I'm the organizer right now).  The gentleman in black to my right is Jon Baker - the guest artist.  Visit his on-line gallery to see some lovely images.

August:

In August we started to relax and take a breather, but there was still lots to do.  Apart from gardening, I had to finish up the paperwork from the Arts Festival and catch up on work for Scrappies which I had severely neglected in July!

Towards the end of the month we took a few days off to visit the British Bird Watching Fair or Birdfair.  This is an amazing three day event, which attracts thousands of people from all over Europe.  It's the biggest fair of its kind and it makes lots of money for conservation projects.  There are lectures; demos; entertainments; lots of marquees with stalls advertising and selling books, art, optics, clothes and holidays; all with a birding theme.  The weather was lovely and we really enjoyed browsing.  We had a beer with Peter Carty, Malcolm and Helen Loft and friends from the Strettons, but were particularly pleased to catch up with Paco Madrigal, our tour guide in Costa Rica.  He was at the fair to publicise his company and it was a joy to meet him again and to make the aquaintance of his brother-in-law, Marco.

We also took a day to tour around the Rutland area and after a smashing lunch in Wing, found ourselves in a fabulous sculpture garden called artdejardin. Do click on this link to see examples of the lovely work and the beautiful landscaping.

We came back with lots of "stuff".  John got a couple of books and we shelled out for a lovely recycled iron sculpture of a Dodo from Baobab Trading Company!  We've called him Frodo and he is standing proudly in the west part of our garden.  Other purchases for the garden this month included a wire-work love seat (also in the picture with Frodo) with two matching chairs and a naughtly concrete gnome who flashes at people when they emerge from the willow nest!

 

That's all for now, folks!  With a bit of luck I'll be able to catch you up on September tomorrow!!!!!

 

Is it, or isn't it?

Check out this photo. Does this dog remind you of another you once knew? If you've ever visited us in Columbus, you'll know the answer. Of course it isn't the late departed Monty, but it sure looks like him! This is Ruby, a mixed border collie/lurcher and we've been looking after her for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, with that mix she has immense energy and stamina. We've been taking her for long walks, but we can't tire her out. When we go up on the hills she runs up and down them as if they were flat while we're puffing and blowing and staggering about.


Here she is, hiding in a stream, waiting to run after the stick at John's feet. She can run as fast as we can throw it! As we walk along, she'll grab the stick and run ahead. Then she'll drop it and hide till we come by. Sometimes she lets us pick it up and throw it, sometimes she'll burst out of the undergrowth, grab it and run on ahead. The only times she drops the stick are when you get the lead out and she realises she has to get leashed up, or when she gets the scent of rabbit - if that happens she takes off and can run from one hilltop to the next in no time flat! Mostly she keeps us in sight and will eventually come back when she's looked in every rabbit hole on the hillside! Fortunately, she doesn't chase sheep as the hills are full of ewes with lambs. To the left is a pair we came across on one of our walks.

Ruby does like lying in streams and this is a bit of a problem as she is in and out of our stream all day. She'll swim too, if you throw a stick in a pool and she's not averse to a good wallow in a stinking mud puddle, either!

We were only supposed to have her for a week, but she is such a darling that we asked to keep her for another few days. She is a lot like Monty in her looks, but she's got her own personality and behaviours and she's made us both very happy. I haven't heard so much laughter about the house for a long time.