A strangely unsettled weekend...
Ken mowed yesterday, while I helped Kai plant up the manhole-cover-cover into his own little mini-garden, with speedwell, native and garden forget-me-nots, white violets, two mint plants, bluebell and pink-bell, and a fuschia in the middle. Next time we go to Wyevale we'll see what small plants or herbs he'd like added.
But my apple tree is going to have to go. We've been fighting off some sort of unpleasant lurgy for years now, lopping branches back as they've died, but whatever it is has now reached the trunk and the tree's days are numbered. We're going to let it flower (I love the scent of apple blossom) and fruit (to see if I can save some of the pips, and maybe germinate a seedling or two) then cut it down and dig it up. Terribly sad - we think the tree has been here since before the house was built, maybe since it was in the grounds of Kensington House - but we don't have a lot of choice. Now we're pondering what to plant to replace it. Something native, or at least naturalised...
It's rained all day today. While I made dinner - roast pork - and beefburgers for freezing, Ken and Kai played Monopoly - ably assisted by Ryme (photographs by Kai) - until
Time Team came on, at which point Kai stopped to build his own crannog out of jenga blocks.
He's also been making ice lollies this weekend. Well, fruit juice squares on toothpicks, actually, freezing them in an ice-cube tray. He likes them a lot: I'll have to pick up a proper lolly-making kit next time I'm over at The Range.
On the subject of cats... The cat and dog treats are kept in the bottom 'drawer' of the veg basket tower, and they all know it. Ryme tries hooking them out with a paw, while Raptor has a new trick. She meeps until you follow her into the kitchen then goes round and round in circles very fast if you bend down by the veg - very funny to watch. Argent - well, Argent's still Argent, scared of anything bigger than a worm while thinking he rules the house. He tries to bully the other two into giving him theirs...
They were intrigued by my waterball. Raptor tried drinking from it, Ryme watched for a minute then decided it wasn't interesting enough, and Argent's... wary of it. (Quyn hasn't commented yet.)
House, starring Hugh Laurie as Dr Gregory House, "pretty much the most caustic-tongued medic you could ever wish to meet", is on at 9 p.m. We're planning to catch it: the trailers look pretty good, and it'll be interesting to see Laurie in a serious rôle for a change.
I haven't managed to write very much this weekend, which is frustrating. A couple of paragraphs of the
Haadri short, half a page of the first
Leander Pryne chapter, and another paragraph of
Hostage. We're also having serious doubts about the
CH follow-up: without descending to the level of the 'crystal mystics' we try to debunk, I can't see us having enough material for a creditable book.
We don't have very long to come to a decision...
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 6:30 pm
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