And a few more.

Labels: garden

My Sultan's Palace iris has started flowering!

They are magnificent! Will try to take more pics tomorrow.

Labels: garden

Catch up...

Kai's now had 3 (of 4) exams, and hasn't enjoyed any of them, even Galaxies and the Universe, which we thought would be OK. Will have to see what the results are.

On the medical front: my root canal filling now done and fine. Kai's meds are being changed after the exams, so fingers crossed the new ones will be more effective. Ken's last set of Hep C meds (the ones that are an almost 100 percent perfect cure: headaches and insomnia the only side effects and the course only 12 weeks long as opposed to the first one that was 9 months and left him feeling like he had permanent bad 'flu) seem to have done the trick: his last test, the one the consultants insist has never been known to fail, showed absolutely no trace of the virus. He has a final check in December - if that is also clear we can say he's cured.

You can imagine the relief. It's been 28 years. We first found out he had it when he came with me to give blood back when we were both working for BT...

Films... Moana, which is wonderful.

Unlike Boxing Helena. Quite why I wanted to watch it I'm not exactly sure. Except it stars Julian Sands, who I quite like. It's not very good. Boring soft-core porn with a nasty twist.

Kai mentioned he'd heard good things about The Expanse. I found it reasonably priced on amazon, and as it sounded good ordered it. We watched it over the last week and a bit and ye gods it's fabulous! Absolutely deserves its IMDb rating, if not more. The best - intelligent, subtle, complex, entirely believable - sf series I think I've ever seen. Alas, the second season isn't out on DVD until July, so we now have to possess ourselves in patience for a couple of months. Seriously, if the SyFy channel can produce work like this - why don't they more often?!

And finally, it rained! And rained and rained. Ground now nicely saturated, pools refilled, and waterbutts completely full again.

And of course, the obligatory garden photos. Kai helped me plant the sweetcorn this afternoon..

First strawberry of the year...

Off to make supper while listening to J-pop on radio garden. Later!

Labels: busyness, exams, films, gardening, medical matters

New potting bench! (It wasn't originally that colour: I've painted on 'golden brown' wood preservative to give it that extra bit of protection). Nice, innit?

Forgot to say - the sky was clear on Sunday night for the Moon-Jupiter conjunction: took the 'scope out and saw the planet and its four main moons (three on one side, the fourth one on the other), and the lens is powerful enough that we could see Jupiter's bands and the red spot! Wonderful, wonderful sight.

It's probably time for me to start the major scanning operation - all Kai's baby/child photos...

Labels: astronomy, garden, photographs

Well that was busy!

Let's see, what have we been up to...

Chilling, actually. I'm following Dr Ng's orders and exercising three times a day (admittedly, the third time is a bit more relaxed in the shower. I massage my shoulders with my octopus then too), and (mostly) managing a rest early afternoon, although that went completely out the window this weekend. We've done a little gardening - I've planted more beans, and K&K assembled my potting bench yesterday in time for me to paint wood preservative on the underside (did the topside today). Tomorrow Ken has annual leave, and is going to prepare the location - a good patch of gravel at the far end of the greenhouse. Just in time as my sweetcorn need hardening off!

The bench... well, it's a good height, and seems quite sturdy, but one of the legs is a quarter of an inch shorter than the others, which ain't great. We can level it with the gravel, but given what it cost I'm not impressed. It's also been designed so that it's impossible to use an electric drill to pre-drill the screwholes, so Kai had to struggle with the hand-drill. Anyway, it should be in place tomorrow, and I'll post a photo or two next blog.

I've been watching Masterchef over the last few weeks, (I usually do every year, sometimes it's good for new recipe ideas, ones I can actually make, I mean, rather than the restaurant quality dishes they end up making!) so we haven't watched a lot of films. But Kai was fancying watching National Treasure (I thought we had it but found we didn't, so bought it cheap on amazon with the sequel), which we watched last night. I honestly remembered less than about 10% of it, so it was like watching a new film. Quite fun, though I could have done without the smug chauvinism. Hoping to watch the sequel tomorrow night, the one night this week that Masterchef isn't on (it's finals week)!

We have Crystal Clear coming to measure up for the windows in a little over an hour. Off to make lunch first!

Labels: busyness, food, garden, medical matters

Finished. And it's not bad, even though I didn't have a brief to work to, or find out the title until last Wed...

I ended up committed to 8K words by last Fri and the remainder today. Tight, but proved very doable. Not sure when it'll be published - has to be edited first, but I've been told I will at least get to see the final book before it goes to print. Hopefully they won't need to do too much to it.

And everything fitted in around appts. Tues Dentist refilled the problem tooth with more of the medical stuff and I go back in a couple of weeks for the final filling, though since a chunk of the enamel has now broken off, it may be more work than originally planned. It is dead now though, no more pain. I researched for the book during Kai's counselling appt on Wed, then went with him to his drs appt on Thurs a.m. Andrew from Crystal Clear came in the evening and we're now waiting for the surveying bloke to come take the measurements for the first round of replacement windows: lounge, Kai's room and our room. Friday was my MATS appt with Dr Ng: he told me I need a holiday. Three months in Hawaii would do. Yes, he actually said that. In the absence of that, I have a routine of twists and stretches to do three times a day, with hand exercises every hour. And I have to lie down for at least 15 mins every day and do nothing. (Actually, I play my old New Age ambient music through the CD player I found at Weston, which now goes by the name of Cosmos since he's round like the little UFO. It's fun re-finding tracks I particularly like!) And he gave me the carpal tunnel injection into my wrist, oh joy. So that's me told. And now I have both Ken and Kai nagging me to stop bombing around and rest. Which will be fine if they carry on helping around the house...

Have had fun with amazon too. My old potting table managed to break (I think a fox may have jumped onto it) and while we've propped it up, it's a bit precarious. So I found a nice pressure treated wooden one on amazon and ordered it. Details said delivery in 3 - 5 days: was it hell! Two weeks - and then I got the email saying it had been despatched, went to track details only to find it was showing as undeliverable and on its way back to supplier! WTF??

Contacted amazon, who apologised and arranged to send a replacement.

Same thing happened again.

Contacted amazon again, who apologised, refunded the money, and said they'd investigate.

Just before I left for my MATS appt, potting bench was delivered.

[HEADDESKHEADDESK]

SO contacted amazon again, and asked how to pay. Luckily that just involved me giving them written permission to call for the payment again.

It's a nice little bench. Will photo once it's assembled and in place.

The obligatory garden photos...

Hazels and ramsons.

My life has been a long sequence of synchronicities, the latest one on Sat when Ken came with me to Tesco to pick up the heavy stuff in Wheelie. There are now a series of tiny Transformer turbo chargers blind bags and Ken said I should grab one. So I did.

It was Starscream...

But does this mean he'll be reappearing in the Transformers: The Last Knight film, out in June? Fingers crossed!

We watched Inferno on Filmflex last night. Interesting and thought-provoking.

Not sure if I mentioned radio garden anywhere: it was mentioned on tumblr. I'm currently listening to J-Pop live from Tokyo. Such fun! (The local ads are annoying, but I guess they must have to pay for the service somehow, it's free to use...)

Time to get dinner served. Roast chicken tonight as it's a Bank Holiday. Later!!

Labels: books, busyness, films, garden, medical matters, Transformers, unicorns