Ole!

The title of this post translates from the Spanish as Hurrah!, but that's not my version. Oh no. Uh uh. If you put a letter v or a letter m before it you get GARDEN PESTS, and just to show that the wildlife of Suffolk is mocking me they've sent two of their most destructive critters to plague me. At the same time! I remember the vole tracks from the lawns at Wilby when we had a huge pond and resident water voles. But I have no water here, and there is no undergrowth for voles to hide under. Where are they coming from? And another mole! This two-pronged "ole!" attack has to be stopped, and so Sid will be calling on me next week. I'm thinking of paying my pension directly to him each month since that's where all my money is going to go. And as I drove home late this evening from seeing Imitation Game in Aldeburgh, I saw a member of the genus rattus rattus run across the lane and down beside my hedgerow. But you know what? Ratophobe though I am I didn't give him a second thought. I've got more pressing vermin on my plate.

Still on a garden theme I'm waiting for the last of the leaves to fall from the western boundary hedge and trees, but they're being very slow this year. Once they're all down Did is coming to chop several feet off their height so my summerhouse doesn't sit in shade from around 4pm in the summer. These were the trees today glowing golden in the November sunshine. It is a shame to reduce them to around half of their current height, but needs must, and they'll grow again. A summerhouse has to have sun. It's a law of nature.

Imitation Game was brilliant but heartbreaking. Alan Turing came across in the film as secretive and unfeeling, but he learned how to be such at an early age. Lonely and bullied at school for being different - he was high on the autistic spectrum - he had one close friend who transformed his life but who died about a year into their friendship. Terrified that authority suspected a homosexual liaison, he denied any closeness when told of Christopher's death, hiding his shock and pain behind a stiff upper lip. He called his enigma code-breaking machine Christopher, and loved it as he had its namesake. He killed himself at 41. Really gut-wrenching stuff.

Folie a Neuf

It looks so small!

And here it is, my latest mirrorial folly. When the polyfilla over the screws dries I shall paint it a jolly colour, or maybe a sombre one. I can now count nine mirrors in the house, ten if you include the small one on a stand that magnifies your face if you turn it the other way. Narcissists will love being here. The new mirror is big, five feet by three. But I think I like it. It's too high to let me see myself working at the barre or the room could be a ballet studio. But I think it will improve the light situation, and maybe now a function will suggest itself.

On the left the old yellow, on the right the new Slipper Satin

I popped down to Waitrose to order my turkey since I'd been so unsuccessful online, only to be thwarted again. Bloody internet. So I did a bit of shopping, and at the fish counter I saw some nice line-caught cod loins, slightly reduced. One of them was significantly smaller than the other one. "Could I have that chap please," I said, pointing at the little 'un. We Laings tend to anthropomorphise objects. As the fishmonger wrapped it he said "He's called Roger". I thought I'd misheard him, and then I was sure I hadn't. "What's the other one called then?" I asked, and back he came, quick as a flash: "That's Clive." And I thought I was the only loony in these parts. "We give then names when it's quiet," he told me with a grin. High five, respect, whatevs. "Tell all the truth, but tell it slant," wrote Emily Dickinson, and I'm sure Yeats said something similar. The straight and narrow is so boring. Much better to wobble the lines and take a different squint.

Water, Water Everywhere

I have a lot of oddly-shaped roofs on my house, and a great many outbuildings, all with nice gutters. The house ones mostly drain directly into pipes leading to the septic tank, apart from one where the rain can run so forcefully that it misses the gutter and bounces straight down the wall. But the others - one along each side of the garage, one along the side of what was the old washhouse, and one on what is now my woodshed - pour straight onto the ground. That may have been fine when the garden was a haven for donkeys, but it's turned over a new leaf now. You can't grow roses and clematis under Suffolk's version of Niagara Falls. And so I've been buying water butts, the slimline ones, and plan to attach a length of hose to each of them for the winter so that the water can drain straight into the ditch, or moat as I like to call it in grandiose moments. In the summer I'll have plenty of water in dry spells, and I'm hoping Santa will send me a team of elves to wield the heavy watering cans.

Another problem is a bit more slippery. A few months ago I painted the Room With No Name, a nice F & B Slipper over the horrible bright yellow. It and the attached utility room on the way to the cloakroom were the only ugly spaces in the house. I was very pleased with the result, happy that one coat had covered the yellow so well. Yesterday I did the utility area, but this morning I can see that it needs another coat. Puzzled, I had a closer look at the RWNN, only to discover that it probably needs a second coat as well. The space is so gloomy I hadn't noticed. Darn it! The nearly full tin that was left behind by the previous owners is virtually empty, and in any case I haven't got the will to do it again. Luckily the handy Tony is coming this afternoon with his father to hang my huge mirror in the RWNN. I'm sure he can whip around the walls in no time for me. Painters love to be indoors in the winter.

I had occasion to go into Framlingham before 9 this morning, and what a different world it is then! Traffic jams, queues, the usual laid-back atmosphere charged with tension. It took me eight minutes to get to my destination where normally it's only five. At one point I was waiting behind four cars to get through the town. I'm not doing that again. Life's too short.

Bun in the Oven

I've made the Christmas cake and it's in the oven. I thought I'd given up such calorific indulgence a few years ago, but I was persuaded to reconsider. And so I flitted hither and thither gathering ingredients: who knew my new larder would be bereft of mixed spice, nutmeg, baking powder? I mixed the whole lot in, and it was then that I inadvertantly set the machine going before putting the lid down. Result? Splatterings of mixture all around the kitchen and on me. No wonder everything takes so long. I looked around for the two little girls to give it a stir for good luck. But where were they? Oh yes, like the larder's basic ingredients they had gone, all grown up and making their stamp on the world. Once upon a time I used to photograph them engaged in this time-honoured tradition, a wooden spoon covered in cake mixture rammed into their mouths, their eyes wide with pleasure. There was nothing for it but to do my own "lickies". Yum yum.

And now I have to see if the Rayburn is going to be on my side or not. I placed the cake in the bottom oven which is cooler than the main one, though I have no idea what temperature either of them reaches. Nine hours later it smells good, but I'm leaving it on all night on the advice of my friend Judy the Aga afficionado. Fingers crossed.

Mystery Unfolded

I stood in Trafalgar Square for ages yesterday morning, the day sunny and pleasant, tourists just beginning to stir. I was there for the Rembrandt exhibition, but what kept me outside for so long were the performance artists. We've all seen those men, dressed from head to toe in silver or gold, who seem to perch in midair, no visible signs of support. How the heck do they do it? They were just setting up as I arrived, and they were a revelation. Scowling and aggressive looking to a T, they couldn't help but reveal most of their secrets to amused passers by as they made their preparations. Before they got into their final position they swathed themselves in blankets or duvet covers, but you could see that their seats, attached to the pole that goes inside their jacket sleeve, actually slid inside their trousers. Very clever. Once unveiled, they became a magnet for small children. Two little Japanese boys obediently trotted to the side of one of them when he beckoned, his mask smiling as he invited their father to take photos. But behind the mask I knew he was scowling still. And they were so trusting. So that's how it's done. Very disturbing.

After Rembrandt it was the National Portrait Gallery, one of my favourite places. While I was there I checked out Grayson Perry's Who Are You display. Very interesting, very clever, but it is the portraits of Victorian politicians, early 20th-century literary figures, and famous and infamous women that always draw me in. It's extraordinary to witness these insights into their characters, so revealing and so intimate. I saved my absolute favourite to the end - James Joyce by Jacque-Emile Blanche - and what do you know? One of the many, far too many, groups of schoolchildren who swarmed all over the gallery was sitting on the ground in front of the painting. They were sketching something, urged on loudly by one of their teachers. Their age seemed to be around seven. And they paid no attention to the fact that they were inhibiting my pilgrimage. I teetered on the edge of this sprawling group, leaning in dangerously to get a better look at JJ, and they took no notice. I must admit to a spot of mild irritation; wouldn't they have been just as well served sketching back at school, or in their local town hall which must have some paintings of dignitaries? Was visiting the NPG at that age really so vital for their education? Or was it just a jolly for their teachers?

Academe

I had a wonderful weekend in Cambridge, the absolute antithesis of country life (I can't even say village life because I'm rapidly coming to realise that there isn't really any here). It's extraordinary, having everything you could possibly want - and a lot you probably never would - right on your doorstep. We shopped, we brunched with a BBC Young Thinker, we re-visited old movies, and I finished up with choral evensong at Kings. Better than Metatone and Floradix put together. Not cheaper though.

My Tower of London poppy pic at last

Back home, the leaves were thicker on the ground but those still hanging on are a beautiful mix of duster, lime drops, toast, labrador and Marigold rubber gloves - well I never said I was a poet! Everything is so late, and shrubs and perennials are being tricked into thinking it's spring and are starting to sprout. I have a burgeoning azalea in a pot on the terrace that may well come to a sticky end once the weather really changes. Thinking of that - ice, freezing winds, snow, sub-zero temperatures - I decided to check the level in the oil tank. The normal gauge doesn't work, so I polished my tallest bamboo cane and thrust it in. It seems to be more than half full, so all my self-sacrificing economies are paying off. It's considerably cooler now, though, and the Rayburn will be on most days in future. I can live with a cold bedroom since the only time I go in there is to get into an electric blanket-heated bed. I don't need to heat the other rooms unless I'm actually using them. But the hub of my house is the kitchen, and that has to be warm and cosy. Bugger the cost.

In The Pink

A woman in a pink anorak leading a small Jack Russell just walked past my house! I know! It's a first! I get cyclists sometimes, large jolly groups chatting away in pairs or trios. I hear them way down the lane on still, warm days, the men discussing seriously the marvels of their bicycle gears, the women laughing their heads off at the absurdity of what someone said, or did. I'm on a cycle route, so this is not infrequent. Otherwise I get tractors towing massive farm machinery according to the season, and occasional huge lorries carrying chilling loads of livestock; the school bus goes by twice a day - I could set my watch by its passage (pity the poor tardy schoolchild); and cars, from time to time. Horses often clipclop past then tuck into the field beside me for a brisk canter. But walkers? Almost never. Who was she? I didn't see her return, and recognised neither her nor the dog. All answers on a postcard please.

And then blow me down with a waft of hot air from the Rayburn's extractor fan if another person didn't walk past not an hour later! What is this, Oxford Street? He was a tall, youngish man dressed all in yellow heavy weather gear, and as he passed my house he tucked into the field like the horses and walked along the inside of the hedge. I was just going out, so my antennae twitched. Who could he be? Was he in cahoots with the pink lady, both of them camouflaged as normal people but really burglars? As I drove slowly past I squinted through the thinning hedge to see where he was. Then I spotted him, crouching down beside a telegraph pole with a large bag open in front of him. And there was his van at the end of the lane, an official looking one with a logo. BT, Open Reach, call it what you will. Danger over, for now. But I hope they don't make a habit of this. Anyone would think I lived on a public thoroughfare.

Show It Like It Is

Just some pictures of yesterday's minor improvements. They may be small, but they are mine own. Now I must decide whether or not to paint the bare fencing beyond the woodshed a nice subtle shade of green. It's a bit bright at the moment, though the lovely variegated evergreen ivy with its bright leaves, and the solanum crispum Glasnevin next to it will surely have covered quite a lot of it by next year. There will also be a yellow rose climbing up the woodshed, all being well. And please god it won't be too cold a winter and there'll still be some logs left in the spring.

Bins on a plinth

View From the Bottom

And Another One ...

Paint It Black

Gloaming

A most productive day. It was unusually dry, no overnight rain to clog the beds with mud and add inches to my height in wellies. I started by painting black the outside of the woodshed's corrugated iron in keeping with the other outbuildings. Then I moved on to building a brick base for my bins. Being brick rich, I only had to remove a pile from the shed and take them round to the front, where I had raked back the stones and made the ground flat. I'm very pleased with the result. I trimmed the hedge back a bit but there is definitely not room for all three bins, so the smaller one can have a home elsewhere in the garden. After all it is the garden refuse bin. Then I moved all the really old bricks that had sat on the path outside the shed to the inside, and swept everything clean. It all looks much better now. It's the tweaking and touching up and tidying that is so pleasing, and that makes all the difference. It's all in the detail. Then I gathered up all the rotten planks that used to form vegetable beds, all the non-biogradeable garden detritus, plus three blinds, an old printer of Kitty's, some huge cardboard boxes that I couldn't flatten, and the old postbox. Into the car they went, and off to the council tip with them. Oh, the satisfaction as I hurled the last object into a container and put the car back together again.

Back home again in the gloaming, I put the shopping into the house but couldn't resist a walk. It's a magical time, with the stars just beginning to come out, and the last few birds unable to refrain from a final song or two before bedtime. Bats swung and wheeled in the sky, and the smell of woodsmoke was in the air. The dark shape of the church loomed up behind a bank of yews, ghostly in the diminishing light but oddly friendly too. But I was wearing dark clothes and had no torch, a danger to and from the odd passing vehicle, so reluctantly I turned home. I had a last look around -  I'm so glad I had the drive done properly - and went inside. More delicious jobs await me in the garden tomorrow. Sheer bliss.

Snape

It was the party for Snape volunteers tonight, and how proudly I wore my name badge with Aldeburgh Music stamped under my monicker. But the only other person wearing one was my friend Sammie, old campaigner of as many art exhibition invigilations as me. We strutted, we pouted, we posed, we bragged and we gloated, and next year EVERYONE has to wear theirs too. What goodie goodies we were, teacher's pets. "Oh I wish I'd worn mine," they all wailed. "I meant to tell them all to wear them," said the Boss. Brownie points showered upon us from music heaven. It was a great party, the most amazing food and decent wines too. We met the new uberboss, ex Radio 3 Controller Roger Wright, not a patch on the gorgeous, the utterly delectable Jonathan Reekie whom he's replaced (this picture doesn't do him justice, but phwaorrr anyway) but a decent enough cove.

On the way home I stopped off to see my bridge partner Helen who's been suffering from flu for nearly two weeks. Pink nose, squidgy eyes, puffy cheeks, croaky voice, but she insisted on hugging me. Are you still infectious, I asked nervously, and she said probably, and hugged me again. Oh, I've missed our bridge. She's completely outrageous, our Helen, doesn't care what she says or what effect it has on people, but she makes me laugh like nobody else. Get well soon Helen, for God's sake!

No, Really?

I'm not a geeky sort of person. Technology is something I don't naturally understand. Written instructions for anything from setting the PVR to record a series of upcoming TV programmes to changing the clock on the microwave might as well be written in Chinese. I never read them. I'd rather break the gadget than sit down and calmly work out how to make it function. If pressing every button and hoping for the best doesn't work, somebody has to demonstrate its use to me. But even I, technophobe that I am, could have made a simple mobile phone with integral camera connect to a computer, especially as both are the product of Microsoft. Have they never heard of a USB port, a connecting cable? Cannot Bluetooth, with which both devices are fitted, magically transfer the photos to the PC? No.

And so my lovely, moving pictures of the poppies at the Tower of London will never appear on this blog. Nor will my close-up of Boris Johnson's thinning blond thatch, viewed from the parapet above as he strolled his thoughtful way below me, be shown. I went, I saw, I cannot share. Alas and alack. I should have stuck to the 99p upgrade to my old phone instead of forking out the giant sum of £14.95. Nokia 220 - you are rubbish!!

Now You're Talking

I've finally got a beautiful drive, thanks be to God. Lovely long-haired Richard turned up with his load of stones and delicately shovelled them into place. At one point this morning I had no fewer than three people working in the garden: as well as Richard there was Tim the fencing man who put up the extra trellis panel to screen the oil tank, and also erected a post to support my Calycanthus Occidentalis (I think); and Val who planted several dozen wallflower plants, an ivy, a lavender to pair with the lovely present I got a few months ago, and a rose. Good morning's work all round. I know the mole will be listening, but I'm extremely pleased with how the garden is coming on. Another few seasons and it will be a whole lot better. Just Did to come and cut down the hedge when the leaves have all fallen, and that's the end of my large outdoor projects, fingers crossed.

Bootiful

An unexpected job lurked this afternoon, definitely an indoor one. A few years ago I bought three pairs of moleskin trousers from the House of Bruar, in a size 14. At the time I was a big 12, the wrong side of eight and a half stone, and I decided in a fit of pragmatism that I would probably get bigger, not smaller. Hence the baggy pantaloons. But wouldn't you just know it, instead of growing I shrank, quite a lot. Result: enormous trousers, not a bit flattering, and which I hardly ever wore. A few weeks ago I happened to follow a Range Rover along the Fram road from Sax, and advertised around it's spare wheel was the name and phone number of a seamstress working from Swaffham. So I brought the trousers to her and she took them in. End of story? No. When I tried then on back at home they were all far too tight. I saw the funny side, and fell about laughing, not. I daren't take them back because, in all honesty, I've been a bit of a glutton in the two weeks since I saw her, and have probably put on several pounds. And so I've set to letting them out again. Luckily she did double seams, and the second, looser one seems good enough to hold. Sometimes I could give myself a good hard kick, but I'd probably fall over and one broken leg at a time in the family is quite enough.

Wall to Wall Sunshine

It was supposed to be wet and windy, but surprise surprise! there was not a cloud, not a whisper of a breeze. A man with a wet finger in the air could foretell the weather better than the Met Office sometimes. And so we went to Aldeburgh and schlepped along the beach right at the edge of the incoming tide. We headed towards Thorpeness, but this was no route march. Instead we pithered along, studying the pebbles and stones, trying again and again to find perfectly flat ones for skimming on the water. My very first one bounced five times, but thereafter I only managed a few doubles, most of my stones disappearing under the frothy waves. My companion fared no better. But she made me laugh. What time is high tide, she asked me? Well, it varies every day doesn't it, I replied. Half an hour on in the morning, another half hour later in the evening, and on and on. Really, she said? I thought it was always at the same time.

We walked smartly back along the track overtaking very old people, people in wheelchairs, toddlers. But every dog we passed had to be acknowledged and fussed over. Animal lovers are like this. It doesn't matter how mangy the creature, how ugly or misshapen, they all matter. The mole so cleverly dispatched by Sid was brought up, my ethical position discussed. I didn't stand a chance. What's a garden full of molehills compared to the life of one of god's creatures? Well, don't ask me. You know what I think.

Show and Tell

I have a new mobile phone with a camera. My bloggin' will be transformed. At least it will be when my weekend visitor comes and shows me how to activate Bluetooth on my computer and transfer pictures across. Anything rather than try to make sense of the instructions myself.

Arrived home too late on Wednesday to see what the drive looked like after four days away, and it was raining, but next morning I could see it hadn't improved. Gritty stuff gets stuck to the shoes and transported onto the terrace which is horrible. I think a layer of stones will be the answer, and in the meantime I'm going to stay chilled about it. It's only a drive.

I had a fabulous day in the garden, weeding and raking my big shrub bed which had sprouted lots of green stuff in my absence. It was quite back-breaking but very satisfying. The day was warm, sunny, still and almost completely silent apart from when Sarah's nieces and nephews came to visit her across the lane. After hours of weeding I suddenly remembered that the evenings are much shorter now, and if I was going to get the lawn mowed I'd need to get a shufty on. That's the first time the full implications of the clocks going back really hit me. Bloody waste of good gardening time. So I mowed and mowed, up and down, emptying the grass every second run because it was wet and very heavy. This morning I can see that an animal has nested overnight in the temporary heap I stacked at the bottom of the garden. Hope it's not Ratty.

I was absolutely on my knees by the time I finished the lawn, but I still had the terrace to power wash. Mud and drive grit had made it messy, and there was no leaving it for another day. And so I set to, one of the best outdoor jobs there is. Result? Everywhere tamed for now, neat, gleaming, lovely. And so to bath.