Exclamations

Oh, these long bright evenings! How is it possible to stay still, to stay indoors even, when outside the world is bursting into life and the sky won't relent and call a halt to the day until, at the moment, well after 8pm. In my late teens I used to get in my car and just drive, drive anywhere, sometimes until I ran out of petrol. Keep moving, don't stop, you'll exhaust your feelings eventually! At this time of year I've always found myself to be most alive when the day is mainly done, when any wind has settled down and the blackbirds find a handy tree and sing. Oh how unsettling it is! But how beautiful too, how seductive. Age is meant to bring a calming effect to these emotions, isn't it? but it doesn't, it doesn't. Luckily I have one thing to ground me when my senses threaten to run out of control: Hugo. I looked at him earlier, curled on the kitchen sofa in a deep sleep, a picture of relaxed bliss, and I said to him, Hugo, I'm so glad I have a dog to keep me company, to share my exuberance with. No, it's not just that, I added, it's that I'm so glad I have you. Imagine not having known Hugo!

Eventually the evening moves on and becomes just another part of the day and I can settle down to mundane things like cooking supper, doing the crossword, pulling out an Italian exercise book. It's still light outside, and lovely. The garden is a picture and a visit to the garden centre today garnered a load more exciting plants to mull over and relocate. I had a silver birch delivered from a local garden centre too, and that will beak up the lawn as the sorbus has already done. Courage, that takes, to dig a hole in the grass, but worth it. I've survived another maelstrom that is the spring evening. Tomorrow there will be another, and then another, and soon it will be their unbearably glorious relative the summer evening. A day at a time, that's how to take it. Hugo must have read my thoughts. He sat up and wormed his body towards me and crashed his head onto my chest, looking up into my face with a total absence of guile. Really, there are no words. Only gratitude.

Acting the Part

Is there an actress more compelling, more convincing, more gifted, more darned classy than Helen McCrory? No there isn't. She's starring in a series called Leaving currently on Saturday night television, and for me it's the best thing since the last thing she was in. I watched this programme recorded from Saturday night because it was cold when I came back from work and so I heated the whole house and lit the woodburner in defiance of this horrible change in the weather. Once the fire was blazing and the sitting room irresistible, I cooked my supper early and brought it in on a tray, then searched for some entertainment to accompany it. How clever of me to have thought Leaving would be good when so much else fails to interest.

We had an extra walk this evening because the sun suddenly came out and as always I was unable to resist its lure. Hugo roused himself from a deep sleep to come with me, and we strolled down the lane, past the church which is having a new roof put on, and as far as the first field on the right which sadly is a sea of yellow rape this year. I know these fields look pretty, especially from a distance, but I hate the smell of rape. Nearly like wisteria, it just misses and verges on the sickly for me. On the way back I spotted five small hares racing around in circles on the other side of the lane, but Hugo's attention was elsewhere and he missed them. It's been a hectic day. Straight after work I raced over to Woodbridge to resume my product manager's duties, doing a last minute clean before the tenant moves in on Friday, and rescuing the things I'd left behind, like my hoover (which I haven't missed). Joe the handiman then came to look at my garage with a view to painting it, and I had planned an evening of bridge with Carolyn at the Framlingham club. In the end I had to cancel this event which we were both looking forward to - potential new partners - as I just ran out of time. And it seemed mean to leave Hugo alone again when he'd been out all day, and had stayed by himself for a long evening on Saturday when I saw Eugene Onegin in Aldeburgh. I'm just so proud of him. If only I'd known that leaving a dog alone just takes time, so that they find the confidence to know they are safe. And he's found it now. My heart thumps a little quicker when I think of how far he has come, how insecure he must have felt, but how happy and trusting he is now.

Let Us Prey

I check the BBC weather forecast for Yoxford every morning, but when is it ever right? The day started hot and sunny again with a clear blue sky though bleak grey conditions were promised, and when I checked the dahlias it was too hot to stay in the summerhouse. It clouded over a bit after lunch, so they were partly right. The gardening jobs from now on are quite delicious, and I spent a few hours in the front garden, sliding along the gravel path on my bottom pulling up weeds. Hidden as I was when the refuse collectors arrived, I was just about to call out hello and thanks to a big burly man when he stuck a massive finger up his nose. I kept my head down.

I had to watch the time because there was an evening evacuation practice at Snape and I wanted to get the boy done and dusted and settled before I left. Supper was at 3.30, and then it was down to the woods where we were in for a big surprise. Well, I was. Yesterday our track was crossed by first one muntjack and then another. Hugo paused as the first one crept along and disappeared into the woods, and he was just about to follow when the second one did likewise. To my astonishment he then plunged fearlessly after them and disappeared. I wasn't too worried apart from the consideration that they might attack him, but he soon returned panting his head off. Today at the exact same spot he did the identical thing, but this time he didn't return unscathed. When he raced up to me blood dripped from his ear and there were cuts on his head. Thorns stuck out all over his body. It seemed that the old adage about whippets preferring to tear their flesh on sharp hedging than lose their prey was right. I mopped him up and patched him up and pulled out the thorns while he stood patiently beside me.

I made it to the practice, and though there were splashes and drops of blood across the kitchen floor when I returned, he was fast asleep on his sofa and only got up to greet me out of politeness I think. It's such a happy state of affairs, his willingness to be left at home when I go out. He seems to accept it as normal. I think he must have been used to it once. With his newly plumped up chest like a goose fattening for Christmas, I think I might have to eat him after all. I've been telling him for a year that I love him so much I could gobble him up. At least now there would be something to get my teeth into.

That Gardening Bug

It's been the most perfect of days, for so many reasons. It was hot, and there was barely any wind, ideal conditions for gardening. Time didn't race away from me, but behaved in a leisurely way so that when it would have been 6pm on a normal day, it was still only 3pm. I achieved plenty, and only came in at 7.30 because I'd had a very light lunch and thought I should have supper before I went wobbily. What did I do? I cleaned out the summerhouse, washing windows, sweeping up winter insect detritus and cobwebs, and scrubbing the floor. The furniture went back in and immediately looked better. I've also now power-hosed the two terraces by the house as well as the lower concrete area. I've made inroads into the bench, and when it's been completely stripped of lichen I'll smear on some teak oil. I'm thinking of getting Handiman Joe up to paint the garage. The stuff we used a couple of years ago was a mistake, a sort of acrylic paint that has since been baked off in strips by the hot sun. I'll use a more absorbable paint next time.

Newly scarified lawn

The bottom bed, under control at last

Everything in order

Pond growth developing

Azalea and rhododendrons just showing red

Coming along

Dahlia tubers in their nursery

Everything neat and tidy at last

 The Green Thumb men came to scarify the lawn, and when they left I put the sprinkler on to give it a drink. I completely re-did the long path down the side of the garden, raking up the bark and laying a strong weed suppressant material along its whole length. With the bark back in place and all the weeds gone it looked very smart. I then repaired the line of bricks that separates the main bed from this path, and hoed around generally. I mended the path I built beside the pond, and then weeded the older path that I built in front of the summerhouse a couple of years ago. I ended up by watering everything. Best of all, and I mean best of everything, has been watching the potted dahlias put out shoots. The 19 pots have been in the summnerhouse for several weeks now after wintering in the garage, and they've been revelling in the heat and shelter. Several times a day I've anxiously stared at them looking for little shoots, holding up each one under my nose and searching for the tiniest hint of new growth. The score so far is 15 on the way and four without any shoots, yet. I'm hopeful they've all survived. This is the last time they'll be lifted for the winter, and that was only because they weren't yet in their permanent positions. Now that I'm sure of where they'll go they can stay there until they need to be divided.

A happy, happy day. Hugo plodded around after me in the heat, getting up every time I moved to  follow me. We played with his squeaky ball for a while, and he flew around the grass in mad circles. But he soon tires of this game. At 5pm I took him to Pound Farm, and he worked off all that excess energy chasing other dogs. He could barely catch his breath by the time we got to the car, but I knew he had enjoyed himself. It's funny, but no matter how absorbed I am in other things I never begrudge him these outings. He's loyalty personified to me. The least I can do is return it.

40 Years On

I've always loved water, moving or static. A stretch of water, like a horse, offers the possibility of transport without effort, at least from the legs. I used to dream of building a raft, not necessarily to go anywhere but merely to float. That was as close to freedom as my young brain could imagine. If I'd only discovered Swallows and Amazons as a child it would have been my favourite book. As it was I had to indulge a retarded childhood through my own offspring, and the longing to be one of Ransome's gang was not diminished for all that. So offer me a long weekend in a huge Georgian former mill with its own waterfront and selection of small boats and I'm in heaven. I'd like to say that I skiffed, paddled and rowed up and down the Waveney for four days but I didn't. I stepped into one craft, felt it wobble, and got out again. I blamed it on a stiff wind that curled coldly up the river and denied the prospect of waterborne fun, at least for me. When the sun shone, and it did, I followed the others with my greedy eyes, my camera and on foot, but I didn't join them. Their pleasure was enough to satisfy me, but take me back there in summer and it will be a different story.

We celebrated the 40th birthday in numbers and in style. Our two resident chefs made dinner times so special that some of the finest Cambridge brains could only gasp and sigh at their brilliance, silenced for once. On Saturday night we gathered around the massive dining table in our finery, expectant and excited like characters in an Agatha Christie whodunnit. The wines had been carefully selected and each brought its own series of superlatives and well-deserved hyperbole, an oxymoron if ever there was one. The birthday girl was toasted and saluted and trumpeted and sent on her way into another decade. All good things come to an end.

Hugo behaved immaculately all weekend, tolerating the late nights and large numbers of people. He was petted and fussed and praised enthusiastically, even by the cynophobe, even when he was trying to sleep, and apart from a bar of fancily wrapped chocolate that he dropped when I appeared unexpectedly, nothing forbidden passed his lips. At one stage he picked up a fallen grape from under the table and dropped it at my feet. When we got home he went out for the count. We all agreed he is the best dog, ever, and it was the nicest group of people, and the merriest of weekends. Amen.

Heatwave

Ruth arrived at 1pm with most of the components of lunch, and it was just as well I had to stop working in the garden then because, when I tried to get up from a kneeling position, I had no legs. The mental prompts I thought I had put in place just don't work. "Get up and stretch at regular intervals," I exhort myself, but do I remember to follow my own urgings? Do I 'eck as like. Anyway, the legs recovered quickly and we sat in the garden relishing the sunshine and the absolute, total absence of noise apart from birdsong. My old friend couldn't live where I do - too isolated - but she loves being here. We couldn't linger though as we had business to attend to in Woodbridge, shoes to return, new ones to buy. That accomplished we parked the car by Melton Station and walked up the river towards town. The tide was out, the curlews calling their watery cry, and we barely passed another person during the best part of two hours. A hand-written sign on the bank beside one of the houseboats promised tea, cakes and lunches, but we were a week early. It was an Easter event only. Shame, as we'd have killed for a cuppa. Hugo enjoyed the freedom off the lead, but even he was wilting when we returned to the car. It had just been too hot - too much too soon. Eventually he and I will acclimatise.

This morning we were at the woodland walk early, but not before a group with their dogs had assembled at the gate. "Which way are you going?" I asked, eyeing the German shepherd and the big hungry-looking lurcher. Once I established their proposed route we took a different one, and met not one single person all the way around. Mornings like this are a tonic for the soul. The day is young but full of promise for what is to come. Already the grass is long, and very wet after a heavy dew. The light filters through the trees, still bare after the winter but beginning to shown green. The long brakes between the woods are bright and inviting, and you could probably walk for three hours without repeating your footsteps. We were back at the car in half an hour, already hot and panting after our exertions. Out of the sun the air is still cool, but this is a day for hats and suncream. And joy.

Miracle

I ran out of time to write my blog yesterday, but it was just as well. The superlatives would have flowed fast and thick had I jotted down my thoughts when I came indoors from a long day in the garden. Twenty four hours later my emotions are somewhat muted though my memories still dazzle me. It was a fabulous day, hot with little wind, but when it did whisper across the fields and over my labouring body it was cooling and welcome. A far cry from earlier in the week when it had a frosty sharpness to its edges. But what really boosted my spirits was that, after staring with a petrified bleakness and helplessness at the weeds in the bottom bed just two days earlier when I despaired of ever getting in control of the garden, suddenly it was virtually all done. Val came on Tuesday for two hours and that helped but hers was more moral support than actual work done. I've been battling with those weeds and, much worse, the grass that still grows thickly there from when that area was part of the lawn, for several weeks. I've made progress, huge progress, but the work is horrible and I've wanted to get on with other jobs. Was this to be my fate every year, plucking renegade, tenacious clumps of grass out of the soil? I seriously wondered if I'd made a mistake taking on a donkey paddock and trying to turn it into a garden. But hey presto! the area was suddenly mostly clear and for the last hour I was able to go back over the other beds I cleared several weeks ago and root out the strays. I was exhilarated, thrilled. The rest of the work I enjoy, dogged garden creature that I am. It will be normal service from now on.

By 7pm I was tired but I wanted to reward Hugo for his patience over a long day so we drove to the woodland walk for a run. There's an ease to walking after being hunched over a fork or a hoe all day, and I enjoyed striding out and having a stretch, watching the boy having fun. Back home again I was only interested in a glass of cold Sauvignon. The sun was still a way off setting, so I took my drink down to the summerhouse and lay back on my lounger, admiring how far I've come in the garden. It's still only 7th April for heaven's sake! The beds are clear, the dahlias are potted and in the summerhouse waiting for growth to appear before being planted out, the roses are all pruned, the pond is planted and clear. I've cleaned the bottom area and just have the two terraces to do. All I need now are some greenfly and a few slugs to make the situation more normal. I took great sips of chilled wine and sighed with pleasure, Hugo asleep and twitching at my feet. It truly felt miraculous to be exactly where I was. 

Normal

I brought the table tennis table out onto the lawn for the weekend and made everyone play with me, as often and for as long as possible. Luckily they all enjoyed it too. I don't think I've played for four years but it soon came back, and I remembered the utter bliss of the game. Honestly, if I had someone to play with me I'd be at it all the time. Table tennis. It sharpens your reactions, it exercises your hand-eye coordination, it keeps you moving about and it gets your heart rate going. What could be better, especially as it's enormous fun too. I'm thinking of advertising for someone to play with me, a card in the Co-op in Fram maybe, or a line on Streetlife. It's absurd that I have the table and accoutrements but nobody to share it with. I'll have to be clear that I'm not a brilliant player, and that I'm a woman of a certain age, but that I'm still quite fit, in the old-fashioned sense of the word obviously. I'd hate someone to turn up and get a shock when they saw me.

Hugo revelled in all the attention he got, the sheer adoration, and was charm itself as usual. I quickly got used to tea in bed every morning, and long leisurely chats while the dog basked between legs on the duvet. Despite the miserable weather forecast every day we had some lovely sunshine and warmth, just what you want when people come to stay. But it was back to normal today, which meant slaving over hot weeds in the garden, and chattering in Italian with my two amiches while munching the most divine chocolate and ginger cookies (Co-op Truly Irresistible). Now it's just us again, the boy and me. The song that has gone round and round in my head for the last four years, namely Alone Again, Naturally by Gilbert O'Sullivan, is no longer appropriate, as I'm not. There are two of us here now, and who could be more companionable, more easy going, more loveable than Hugo? Who indeed?

Freedom

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, the three pillars of the French Republic. All fine qualities, but for me a rabid Sagittarius the finest is the first one, liberté. And last night, one year after he came to me, I experienced a freedom I never expected to have again. Hugo stayed by himself at home while I went to Snape to usher. It was a long time for him to be alone, from 6 to 10.30, but I had fed him an extra large supper and taken him for a long walk at Pound Farm. He took one look at the red ribbon I wore around my neck and my black suit and I swear he shuddered. He knew with dread what they meant. "You stay here while mummy goes out and I'll be back soon," I told him, and without waiting to be told twice he curled into a ball on his sofa and shut one eye. I left the house with a light heart, sensing that after all the practice runs he would be fine on the night. And he was. He launched himself at me when I returned, but there was no sense of anxiety or fear, just delight at the reunion. I lavished praise on him and he soaked it up. Then we went to the treats cupboard and I may have slightly overdone it. But the relief is huge, and the possibilities for the future endless. No more does he have to suffer hours in the car when he could be comfortable at home. I'm so proud of him, of both of us. Eeee, but we've come a long way. It just took time. We got there.

Nick came and dug up a load of nettles from around the back fence. He thinks the area needs strimming regularly until the nettles disappear and grass returns to the space. So that'll be a job for Did who I haven't seen yet this year. Otherwise I'm trying to focus on what has been done rather than what needs to be done. The anenomies I planted last year are looking lovely, and so are the pulsatilla. More have been set in the ground for this year, and they appear each spring like magic having completely disappeared for the winter. Someone asked me if I had seen the marsh harriers that fly over Brundish, and I was about to say no when I saw two pairs over the woodland walk on Wednesday, and on the way back from the hairdressers in Stradbroke several pairs gliding on the thermals. Unbelievable! I thought they only stayed by the coast. They are very striking with their huge wings stretched out.

Pulsatilla and rusty trowel

The contrast, before and after

Gleaming

Waiting to go to our doors for the start of Tosca, another usher told me how much she liked opera, and asked me if I liked it too. I love it, I told her enthusiastically. It's everything to me, encompassing as it does the whole spectrum of human emotion and passion. Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore, I joked. But her look told me she didn't know Tosca that well and maybe I was someone to avoid in the future. Woops.

Sprung

It seems like just a week since I clocked the first subtle signs of spring and yet the countryside is already sporting some of it most fancy clothes. The blackthorn, the first of the blossoms to appear in the fields and beside the lanes, is dressed in fragrant white. Go near it at your peril: its thorns are a powerful deterrent to anyone seeking minimalist Japanese flower arrangements. Soon the hawthorn will follow. The pink magnolia stellata in my front garden is in full bloom too, and the hedges are slowly filling up with a delicate green. At the bottom edge of my garden where a row of plum trees straddles the ditch and lingers from an earlier occupant, the masses of flowers are an encouraging sight. One year I filled the freezer with container after container of juicy fruit that went into a series of wonderful winter puddings, but the next year there was barely a mouthful. Slow down spring, I want to cry, take your time to unwind. There's so much to savour, but every day it is changing.

Today I set about power-hosing the concrete base of the summerhouse, a filthy but deeply satisfying job. This year it was exacerbated by the masses of compost flicked out of the plant containers by - what? - a rat? It made a right mess, and I've put off cleaning it up until now. The concrete always comes up bright and fresh, a thing of brutalist beauty. Suddenly it looks big and bare, and I try to think of how to cover it. More pots? Some raised beds? I wouldn't have chosen such a spacious base for the summerhouse but it was already there under the stable and tack room, and I live with it. I got most of it clean, but Hugo was strangely unsettled, perhaps by the incessant noise. in the end I left off the work and loaded him into the car for his favourite walk. How fine he looks, running ahead of me and scanning all around for things to chase. He's really a magnificent animal, slim and muscled, fast and graceful. I never tire of watching him.

Hugo's Blog, with apologies to Molesworth

It wos muvvers day on Sunday an I bort my mum a bottle of wine an sum choclets. The wine wos all fer her, but the choclets wos diffrent. I fort she'd like 'em but mostly I fort she'd share 'em. But nun have come my way, not wun. It's not as if she don't no I luv choclets. She sez I'm her ickle wickle baby boy and kisses all over my face and tikles my tummee but wares the proof? I bin a good boy today too. Mum tuk me to the woodland place this mornin before she left me all by myself to go to Wubridge. She tuk me even tho it was foggy an chilly an we cudn't see very far. But she nose I luv a good run so she tuk me. Spose thats luv. And when we wos there I sore a rabbit an ran after it. Corse I did. Wot else was I ment to do? I'm a hound dawg. Swot we does. An I hurt my sore fut agan. Wen we got home my mum put a bandige on it an a speshal fing wot dont stik to the sore bit. An all day I hav left it alon so its all wite an nice an smart stil. My mum kepes been suprisd evry time she luks, an she sez I'm the best boy in the wurld. But stil no choclets. Wot do I haves to do? We been for are walk agan an my mum kep me on the lede al the way round the feeld. She nose wot I'm lik. I tride to run after a fesant but she stopt me. I'm goin to slepe now. Long day, lotz of citement, no choclets. S'all I can fink about. Shes goin to put the noizy lorn mower fing on agan. Dont no wy. S'all she finks about, been in the garden. If she sat down fer five minits she mite member that I luv choclets. Just sayin.

Me yestaday: Mum sed I wos glossee

Me today. I havint tuched the bandige

Seizing Days

Who could walk past a bank liberally strewn with pale yellow primroses and not wonder at their casual beauty? The magic of spring is all around us, and the speed with which it is advancing is startling. Primroses are just one plant which seems to have sprung up in record numbers. The rear section of my garden, the one that will eventually be a shrubbery-cum-orchard with daffodils and crocuses and tulips carpeting the bare spaces, is as lush as the Amazonian rainforest. Weeds are growing thicker than the beard on Bluto's face, and my current and ongoing - I could say everlasting but I don't like to whinge - job is to clear them away. It's not just weeds: clumps of grass from when this was part of the lawn have forced their roots down deep into the soil and evade my efforts to haul them out. But as well as the weeds and grass there are a thousand tiny poppy plants happily poking their heads and limbs up, and trying to save their lives while murdering their alien neighbours is a job too far. These wild flowers have been spectacular in the past few years, especially the tall ones with the light and frilly foliage and diva-like pink heads. I collected a few million poppy seeds of all kinds last year, and plan to sprinkle them when the weeds have gone, but I haven't put a date in my diary yet. It could be 2018 at this rate.

The wind is still icy, whipping across the sea from Putinland, and despite the hot sun I'm having to wear a hat. But it's heaven out there. I've cancelled my planned trip to Aldeburgh to see Idomeneo because I just can't bear to bring an abrupt end to this day and my efforts in the garden. Hugo pretends to be indifferent but I think he's pleased. Earlier today he frightened a delivery man who brought a huge box of flowers to my gate. The dog raced unseen towards him, suddenly appearing face to face with the poor man who leaned down to open the catch. The box contained a beautiful bouquet of roses artfully arranged with some eucalypyus and rosemary branches, and the scent is now filling the kitchen. A white earthenware pot was part of the package, and a box of sea salt caramel truffles. Mother's Day. Every year I insist that a card will do, but despite my unease at the artificiality of the day I can't deny the thrill of receiving such presents, and loving messages. Nothing from Hugo though. Perhaps I'll get an extra lick tomorrow.

A Year to the Day

This day last year Hugo came to live in Medlar Cottage. He cried all the way in the car, two and a half harrowing hours of it, but he brightened when we arrived. I showed him the field first, because although we'd stopped for comfort breaks on the way I thought he might want to see where he could  relieve himself should he need to. Most people in strange surroundings like to know this. He stared in amazement at the green space in front of him, then as now ankle high in winter wheat. "This is where we'll walk," I told him. "This is your new world". He padded after me into the house, and during the course of the afternoon I introduced him to the different rooms. In each one he gently, tenderly raised his front paws to the windowsills and gazed out. To my knowledge he has never done this since. He followed me everywhere, nose to my tail, even to the loo. My heart ached with pity for this little chap who had no choice but to trust himself to a stranger, me. "I promise you it will be OK," I said. "We'll be fine together. You're my boy now." And so it has come to pass. I think he's happy, and I do my best to take care of him. I can't believe how much I love him. It was a happy day when I ignored my reluctance to adopt "a big whippet, black" rather than the tiny beige thing I'd envisaged, but instead heard the words "but he's a lovely person" and responded accordingly. He is a lovely person, a sweet, gentle, funny, endearing, loving little man. Happy first birthday in Medlar Cottage Hugo. I hope we can celebrate together for many years to come.

Bildungsroman

I'm currently a project manager. My job is to source materials and specialists, bring them together, and then get the best out of both sets. Because it's not my own project I'll admit to being concerned that I'm making the right choices and the job will come in on time and hopefully under budget. I like the word budget. I enjoy cutting my coat according to my cloth and always have. Debt? Nah, I'd rather wait thanks, deferred gratification. And so I've carefully checked goods and prices to make sure I get a good deal from both. My diary is quivering with dates and appointments. By the end of next week the last piece of the jigsaw should fall into place and then all will be revealed. It's a big responsibility for a country girl. I hope my employer will be pleased with everything.

I went to see Moonlight last night. Hugo stayed at home. After visiting his friend Griff near Eye and having lunch with Griff's owners he was plum tuckered out. We'd already been to Woodbridge and Ipswich that morning, and he hates being cooped up in the car for anything longer than the time it takes to switch on the engine. He barely lifted his head to watch me go. In fact he didn't, but he was still wearing his silicone protective collar. Moonlight: barely one person who had seen it had anything good to say about it, but my movie expert was the exception so I expected to like it. Ruth summed it up three quarters of the way through when she leaned towards me and whispered loudly, "When is it going to become the Best Film?". It didn't and it wasn't. I don't think it was even a particularly good film but it was captivating and touching and raw. Its messages were either too subtle or too self-conscious and clumsy for my taste, the moonlight tropes a bit heavy handed. But it was affecting and harsh and sweet in equal measures, a young boy's search for his identity in a tough fatherless world. And it ended on an unlikely hopeful note. I was glad I'd seen it, my friend not.

This morning I woke up and thought, if it's 7am I'm getting up. I looked at the clock and it was 6.59. This is getting uncanny.

Night Errant

You'd think a maurading whippet in search of a hare, any hare, would take a break in a hareless territory and just chill. That's what I thought anyway, which was why I was astonished when he disappeared for an hour and came back with bleeding paws. What, I said! What? Where have you been? What have you done? He didn't answer of course, just left a trail of blood behind him. It's the usual injuries, dew pad torn on the front leg, rear pad lacerated. Nothing new. I've patched him up as well as I could, put a dressing on the back foot and left the front one open to the air to heal. It means the collar again, and my calves are already taking cover. Rabbits it must have been. Dratted furry things. I wouldn't mind but he's been good as gold on the extended lead walking around fields positively clogged with hares. It was me who thought he needed a run at the Woodland Walk. Ah well, at least he's alive.

I washed the worst of the mud off him and settled him down to rest. After half an hour or so his heaving subsided and he relaxed. I put his water bowl beside his bed, and like a drama queen he made a song and dance of stretching his neck out to drink without moving, without having to get up. Even in adversity he makes me laugh.

Italian conversazzione was eccellente though death was the macabre subject of much of the afternoon. Lesley's elderly father died suddenly yesterday, and last week my friend's son killed himself by crawling in front of a fast moving car. Two funerals to attend, one of a 92-year-old and the other a 32-year-old.

On my way home with my injured dog in the boot I ran out of petrol. It took me a moment to realise what had happened and I managed to coast onto the edge of a driveway before the car stopped. The A1120 is a busy road, long and straight, at least where I was. Cars drive very fast along there, and it's not somewhere you want to linger. I flicked on the hazzard light and hunted for my phone. Not there! No phone! I could count on the fingers of a tribe of octopuses the number of times I've left home without my mobile in recent months since it was impressed on me I should always carry it. I had to seek help, but I was outside a holiday home - big sign outside, Suffolk Coastal Holidays - no other houses in sight. Luckily for me there was a couple from Nuneaton staying there, and they loaned me their phone. I rang Ruth, explained my predicament, and within half an hour she was by my side with a full can.

Friends, eh. They go the extra mile. I've had a few experiences lately of favours beyond any reasonable call of duty and I've been touched by the kindness and generosity. Eventually we got home, another lesson learned. New car, strange petrol gauge, just an excuse. Don't let it happen again.

Necessity the Mother of Invention

I've found a way to never have to clean the kitchen floor again: spread milk all over it and Hugo will do the job for me. I discovered this in the obvious way, by accident. I'm thinking of ways to extend the idea: chocolate smeared on the furniture, ice cream on the windows, expensive French cheeses all around the bath. If I can find a way of getting him to like the taste of dog hairs and fluff he could do the carpets too. I already know he likes butter. Penny reported that she found an empty wrapper on the lawn today, the culprit sitting nearby cleaning his whiskers.

My cheeks are plumptuous and my torso is glowing and relaxed after a spa day with my daughter including massage and facial. I wore my new swimsuit, and every time I caught a glimpse of myself in the many mirrors I had to admit I looked rather good, especially as the rest of the clientele that day was not small. Until Olivia took a photo of me that is, and I screamed in horror at the result. We worked our way around all the saunas and dry heat rooms, the meditation spots and the big water bed on a terrace open to the elements. Snuggled under thick blankets, I felt like a 1950s patient at a Swiss sanatorium. We wobbled gently on the watery mattress, chatting away like a couple of jackdaws. But she was still chattering as we sat with a few other people in one of the steam rooms. "Do you think the Shh sign outside means No Talking?" I asked her. Her appalled look was a picture, and we dissolved into helpless laughter. What a tonic the day was.

I'm thinking of stopping this blog and starting a new one. It would be called Tales From My Daughters, and it would be a hell of a lot more interesting than mine. What eventful lives they lead, what fun they have! And I only get to hear the tip of the iceberg I'm sure. Probably just as well.

Looking Lively

Summer came to the country today. It was a gorgeous treat but it makes me nervous: warm spring, wet summer, that seems to be the way of things. I wasn't going to spurn it on the grounds of its unfair appropriation of available decent weather though, and out we went to make the most of it. Pound Farm, aka the Woodland Walk, was washed in sunlight, and we took ourselves there for a gallop. At least Hugo galloped, I lolloped. It started badly when a car pulled into the car park just after us, radio blaring, and out came a woman with two huge dogs. When I see a walker ahead of me I take the other route so as not to crowd them, but this woman decided to follow me. Up charged her dogs, racing round and round me so that I waited helplessly to be knocked over. Hugo didn't help by urging them on. Then the big black one, cross lab/Rottweiler maybe, jumped up at me and placed muddy paws on my trousers and jacket. "I'll walk on briskly" the woman told me lightly, no apology. So rude. We turned and went the other way. After that it was lovely, calm and quiet and hot, and we wended our way where I thought we wouldn't meet the unruly gang again. If a walk like that doesn't set you up for the day I don't know what would.

Back in the garden I got down to the weeding. An unexpected gift of five beautiful white hellebores yesterday became the answer to the problem of what to do in the rhodedendron/azalea corner. Once I'd cleared this space I planted them, and I'm delighted with the result. An order for 237 plants - ground cover mainly but not exclusively - should begin to tackle the weed issue. I'm going to try to cover every space with something that will grow and spread, and be pretty too.

It's a big area, and slow work!

Hugo reminds me oh so gently when he needs something. He doesn't run to the door or the gate when he needs the loo, nor does he become bothersome when he's hungry. He just comes and stands by me and leaves me to interpret his actions. At one point I lay down on the lawn in the sun and he looked at me for a moment then lay down beside me, one arm and his head on my outstretched arm. That meant I need a cuddle now please. Who could resist?

As we wended our way around the fields for our evening walk we spotted the barn owl again as we have done every evening for nearly two weeks now. The other day it flew straight through my garden, but this evening it kept to the bottom ditch, quartering backwards and forwards with great strokes of its powerful wings. I hope it's still around in a couple of weeks. My family are passionate owlophiles, and they'd consider it a huge bonus if there were close sightings.

Making Hay

It's always the smells that get you when a spring day comes at last, and you realise how barren winter is in the olfactory department. Yesterday in the warm sun the scents were of life beginning to burst through the ground and the hard coverings of the trees and hedges. Warmed grass, fresh buds, earth stirred up by new growth pushing its way to the light, all combined to disturb the synapses and intoxicate the senses. And it wasn't all a stimulation of the nose: birdsong was intense, the blackbirds as always most active towards the evening, singing their hearts out in the trees and on the rooftops. .As we walked around the edges of fields already ankle-high with winter wheat the sound of larks in ecstasy filled the air. At first you don't notice the music, so high and constant it is, but it gradually entered my consciousness and then could not be ignored. Sebastian Barry in a rare moment of beauty in the disappointing The Temporary Gentleman describes it thus: "A lark, a single bird with her dowdy plumage, burst up from her cup of sand just in front of me and like a needle flashing in my mother's hand of old made a long stitch between earth and heaven, with a joyousness that rent my heart."

We were out all day, Hugo and me. As I sat on my kneelers labouring to remove the weeds around the pond he stretched out in the summerhouse in a pool of sunshine and slept. Every now and then he came out to watch me, and then he lay on the grass beside me and stretched and rolled before nodding off again. Anything I leave on the grass becomes his bed, however small and inadequate. Yesterday it was my scarf flung from my neck as I heated up, and the boy curled himself around it, his big body making little contact with the wool. I'm making progress though it's slow work. But enjoyable too, and if I wake in the night I'm eager for morning to come so that I can start again. One of my kneelers, left out overnight, had sharp teethmarks in it where something had had a ferocious chew. My visitor on Sunday told me it would have been rats that ate the tulip bulbs in my pots, tossing the earth out to get at the succulent tips. And looking at these teethmarks I could only agree that she must be right. Next year I'll thwart them with wire netting, but it's too late for this year. I'll be surprised if I have a single tulip from the 50 or so that have flourished for three springs. That's gardening: elation and despair living side by side. That's life.

The New Normal

What a difference a year makes. Last night I went to the cinema and left Hugo behind, comfy on his sofa, fed, watered, walked and warm. He was listening to the Archers, waiting with rising impatience to see if Justin was going to reject Lillian or choose her over Miranda, and he barely noticed me leave. (He hasn't told me which one it was, but he knows I'm not a fan like he is, just an incidental listener.) When I returned he waited until I was properly in the door before dismounting from his bed and rushing at me excitedly. No distress, no anxiety, just a placid, contented, trusting dog who knew he was safe and that I would return. Oh the relief, the joy! Try as I might, I have been quite unable to imagine this scene. Yes, I would leave him for a few hours in the daytime, but go out at night without the stress of having a highly strung dog in the back of the car, both of us dreading the moment when I parked and left? No, I didn't believe it would be possible. Welcome, Hugo and Denise, to the realm of normal dog ownership.

The film I went to see in Peasenhall Village Hall was I, Daniel Blake. It was a harrowing story of life as an unwilling, unwitting even, dependent on state benefits. Ken Loach laid it on with a trowel, using every gut-wrenching, heart-breaking trick to make his point, and I think he overdid it. At first I found it simply unbearable, reminiscent of so many interview sessions I've carried out myself as an adviser, but after a while it became so awful I must have hardened myself because I felt nothing but a pang of pity. I'd had my own share of distressing moments that morning, listening to people so under the control of the system, or someone close to them, that it was all I could do to continue the sessions. Empowering those you can with information and support, and being a conduit for those who are beyond helping themselves, is the best you can do sometimes.

Hugo had a great time at his creche while I worked. "Roger", Penny called after the black hound had been there for a while, "did you remember to remove those pieces of bread you left out for the birds?" Then glancing into the garden at an empty lawn, "Oh good, I see that you did." But Roger shook his head and they both looked towards the boy who was nonchalently licking his lips, and clearly thinking, it's good here, before curling up in a sunny spot for a snooze.

Fighting Fit

The other day a friend asked me what my broadband connection was like and I told her it was fantastically fast. Since then it has been dreadful, and now I wait for everything to open or move at snail's pace. There were slow periods when I first moved to this village but nothing like this. I don't like to point the finger but, just sayin' ....

Today I tackled the pond plants, all of which had massively outgrown their containers. Worst of all were the two water lilies which were in smelly black putrid mud, and which last year barely flowered. I emptied these two out of their pots and set about painstakingly scraping off the mud and then washing them in the wheelbarrow. They were much better after this treatment but still not very healthy looking. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and repot them when I find suitable new baskets. I cleaned the other plants up and put them back on their shelves ready for when the pond fills up again. What with carrying buckets of muddy water backwards and forwards, and moving heavy plants I suddenly realised I was feeling absolutely wiped out. Yesterday's session with Mary had been a bit full-on, the stepping bench raised to a higher level than usual making the weights I raised with each step feel far heavier than they were. This is not a good situation for me. So many times before I've become exhausted and gone down with something that has turned into a proper attack of fatigue. I hope I've caught it in time. I spent the afternoon doing Italian conversatzione with my friends, and then lay on the sofa with the crossword straight afterwards. What a bore.

I had a surprise when the bin men called for the recycling today, both household and garden rubbish. The latter bin was packed tight with weeds and rose clippings, but I'd left several full bags nearby, intending to take them to the council tip. When I went out later to bring in the bins the bags had all gone. Such lovely men they are. I'd forgotten that they once told me they would take away my extra rubbish if I left it for them. Fair warms the cockles of your heart it does.

Piggy

Whatever has happened to Sarah Lucas's hideous giant plastic (OK, bronze) carthorse and wagon that used to stand in the field beyond Snape Maltings? Every time I saw it I shuddered, and when Hugo took to peeing up against its massive fetlock I thought it utterly appropriate. This woman has produced some of the most memorable feminist sculptures I've ever seen, provocative and frank, and yet she also created this abomination. There's nought so queer. Anyway, it's gone, and good riddance I say.

Ugh! Though it doesn't look too bad here

 Last night was the first of the Celebration evenings when children from local Suffolk schools perform musical works, often written by themselves. The most moving were a group of children from an Ipswich school which provides help with their 'complex barriers to learning'. They sang and mimed "Fire" by Jonathan Dove, and the joy and concentration on their faces as they did their simple choreographed movements and sang caused my heart to lurch.

I gave another usher a lift home, and how embarrassed I was when we opened the car doors to be met by dripping windows and a fogged up windscreen. Hugo, the resident dog, had clearly puffed and panted his way through the evening and when he saw us he emitted a series of low but anguished howls. My colleague was not in a position to be judgemental, however, and I pretended to be unabashed. Anyway, we're making progress on the leaving-at-home front. So far this week I've been out for around two hours on three occasions, and on Friday I am going to see I, Daniel Blake, at the cinema and plan to leave him then too. I think he'll be fine, and look forward to the day when he'll stay at home when I'm working at Snape too. When I came home today he was very pleased to see me but not distressed, and we had a prolonged play and a big treat. Hopefully our reunion and what it involves will stay with him and encourage him.

On my way home I stopped off to buy some milk, and not having had chocolate for several days thought I'd see what there was. And so I came home with a box of Truly Irresistible chocolate prosecco truffles, and a large packet of Truly Irresistible broken pieces of hammer toffee. Now I could suck toffee until the cows came home. My happiest childhood memories were when I had something sweet to chew and savour. But sweet things make me go iggedy-biggedy as I get a terrific sugar rush, and then I have to quickly eat some nuts. It never used to be thus. So I restricted myself to two chocolates and three jagged lumps of toffee and just suffered a bit of heightened agitation and twitchiness. Years ago my favourite was Thornton's dark chocolate-covered toffees which were sometimes hard and sometimes soft. I'd gorge on half the packet and then post the other half through a postbox. Had I just thrown them away I'd have gone back later to retrieve them. Anyway, it worked. I'm much more disciplined now, the fear of diabetes always looming. The two boxes are never out of my awareness but I'll only dip in when I let myself. But how I wish I hadn't bought them.

Catalogue of Disasters

Cliches aside, it was almost farcical how many things went wrong in a sequence of events yesterday that culminated in precisely zilch. It was quite a nice morning, cold but with intermittent sun, so I decided to wash my new car. Who knew that mud on navy blue would show up so brightly? Or to put it another, less inquisitortial way, nobody knew. So it was out with the power hose, and unusually for Hugo on a chilly morning not long after a lengthy walk, he wanted to come too. I opened the boot door and in he hopped, sitting in his travel bed as if butter wouldn't melt. Fraud.

 

Little Lord F, to the manner born

Now for some unfathomable reason my garage does not have power. So when I come to use any power tools in the front of the house I have to supply it from the house. Feeling too lazy to trek down to the shed and get the proper man for the job I opted for the more accessible extension cables in my study and proceeded to feed one through the garden room window. When I went back out to attach a second one I discovered that the socket of the first one had landed in the smallest imaginable water-filled pot. If I'd tried to do that I would never have been able to. That was no good then, so in I went again to plug in another extension cable. Every time I went in and out of the house I had to drag off my wellies, pull up my socks, and then tuck my trousers back into my socks and drag them on again.

I set everything up, switched on, nothing. I checked switches in the house (boots off, boots on) and still nothing. So I undid everything and went down to the shed to get the proper extension cable with automatic safety switch off button in case of emergencies, and proceeded to do it all again (boots off, boots on). And when I went to set the switch it was dead. Fuse gone, I wondered, thinking I'd get the car washed by someone else, and then I noticed that the washing machine had stopped, and so had the microwave clock. I checked the fuse box, and the power was indeed off, presumably triggered by dropping a live socket into a pot of water. By the time I got the powerhose working again I was an exhausted wreck, a fuming wreck. I won't even list the number of times I tripped over wires, hoses, large vicious pieces of cut rose stems, and trod in some dog poo that I hadn't been able to find earlier because it'sthe same colour as the stones in the drive. But, hey, at least I could wash the car. My idea of washing a car is to hose it with power and leave it. It worked on a silver car. But this one is navy. It's now covered in very visible smear marks where I half-heartedly wiped it with a sponge. One hour wasted, only Hugo happy on his princely throne.

Small cleared area in an ocean of weeds

Bed done

Beds done

All clear

Another mostly good bed

Big bad bed (holds head and groans)

I couldn't allow myself to feel defeated, so I set to and started the laborious job of clearing the rockery (stonery) behind the pond. I was sitting there on a couple of kneelers, crouched over the weeds, 'care-in-the-community' hat pulled well down over my ears, nose dripping, when David my lovely new neighbour decided to pop by. What a picture of glamour I must have presented! We discussed the garden for a while, and I told him I was trying to make inroads into the huge jobs ahead of me, to cheer myself up. "Do you need cheering up then?" he asked me anxiously. "I could ..." but I cut him off too briskly telling him I was fine but just daunted by the work in store for me. Such a kind person. He told me he had sent a letter to the churchwarden's wife apologising for his apparent rudeness at a church service after Christmas. Sarah our mutual neighbour had laughingly told him someone had been offended when he shrugged off an offer of help with his walking stick. But it was the wrong woman. So Caroline had turned up at his house in a bemused state wondering what he was talking about, only to find David out and Tony, my wonderful painter/builder, in situ putting up shelves. This convoluted story had me in stitches, and poor David, who has never met Caroline, cringing in embarrassment.

I love village life. There's always something to entertain you.

Playing with Toys

An afternoon of opera on a huge screen in an intimate cinema made yesterday very special, but how come none of us noticed that Act 2 was missing in its entirety? It's a work I know very well indeed, but so swept up was I in the blissful music that it wasn't until a very bloodied Banquo took his bows at the end that I realised I hadn't seen him being killed. And then in the flurry of tea and biscuits and chit chat, and trying to compose myself after a very emotional journey, I promptly forgot to ask if anyone else had noticed Banquo's grizzly demise. How the organisers worked it out I don't know, unless they rushed through the whole tragedy later on a computer. And so that left me with no choice but to play the entire thing through when I got home, something I probably would have done 24 hours later anyway. I've been given the job of making suggestions for future screenings. Could there be anything more delicious?

Hugo may not have been allowed to run free in the fields, but he's made up for it in the garden. I wish I could describe his mad antics when he gets onto the lawn and I say, "Go on Hugo!". He's like a very small, gleaming horse being broken in on the end of a lunge rope, prancing, kicking up his heels, tossing his head, whirling his body from side to side, and all at great speed. My laughter only urges him on to ever more outrageous behaviour, and when I find the battered, torn miniature rugby ball whose squeak used to delight him, and toss it across the grass, he charges around with that in his mouth, tail batting wildly. Those dancing heels cover every inch of the lawn, the proof being visible in the state of it now. Clumps of dead growth are hurled around, and there are holes everywhere. Could I have imagined that I would tolerate anyone making such a mess of my garden? No I could not, but Hugo would charm the hare to share his dinner (no he wouldn't).

Someone else who is charmed by the boy is Roger who has painted his portrait. It's an excellent likeness, taken from a Christmas card I made for him and Penny starring a photo of Hugo on the front page. He was very pleased with the result, and I was very impressed. Can the little chap have any idea of just how many people love him? He's folded up beside me at the moment, more like a small furry mole than a long sinuous pony. He's zonked after his antics, but it's such a thrill to finally be able to play with him properly, and know that he's having a ball.

Pants

I am the proud if somewhat bemused owner of 31 pairs of knickers. This might seem excessive, but think of it, I could go on holiday for 124 days without having to wash any smalls - you can wear them the right way on, back to front, inside out and inside out back to front, simples. I didn't set out to own 31 pairs. I'm a big fan of the Sloggi, the big Sloggi, up to the waist, passion killers, nice snug fit. I always get a size 14 though I'm a 10 because they shrink a bit at first, and it's nice to have some give. They cost £8 a pair and they are good quality but they don't last. Come the day when you are pulling them up in a hurry and your hand goes through the fabric. Which was why I rejoiced when I saw a cheap substitute in The Factory Shop where I had gone to try and find some Marigold gloves - Waitrose only do their own brand now, and they're rubbish. I passed the underwear displays spotting boxes which looked like Sloggis and lo! inside were the identical item for only £2 a pair! Box of four, £8. I bought five, just in case they stop doing them, or get wise to their ridiculous cheapness. So far I can't tell the difference apart from the rear gusset seam which you can slightly feel; Sloggis have near-invisible seams. Add the new ones to the 11 pairs I already had and you have 31. It should be 32 but one of the originals has vanished mysteriously. Whose house did I leave it in? So with my new-found abundance of pants I can go for much longer without doing the washing too. Sorted.

Spring Sprung

I mowed the lawn this week, the day before heavy rain fell in abundance. I relish such occasions when I get the timing right, as if I've got one over on the 'powers that be' instead of them doin' me dahn. They don't of course, I'm really not that paranoid. But it was also a boost because it means that spring is here, or nearly. Already the banks of the ditches are strewn with primroses, and there are daffodils growing along the verges by the roadside. But strangely my wintersweet, which flowered just before Christmas last year, only opened its petals at the end of February. Inspired by this new lease of life in the garden I've continued to make the most of the dry spells, lured by the birdsong and the sudden emergence of dazzling light from behind clouds. I pop out for a few minutes that turn into a few hours. Which is why I'm so bad at the 'before' photos that serve to encourage me: if I did that mammoth thing, then surely I can do this one too. I didn't set out to transform the rose bed yesterday, thinking only to finish pruning, but by the time I crawled indoors again it was completely clear of weeds and winter detritus. Hence no record. Hugo joined me when I agreed to open the summerhouse door for him. The light streams in here and he quickly found a warm spot. But when the sun went in he followed me around for a bit before disappearing back inside.

I watched a film on Netflix called And So It Goes, starring Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas. I found it to be absolutely charming and uplifting, the delightful Keaton recreating her Annie Hall character but older and wiser, and Douglas a curmudgeon who comes good. The story was a bit lame but the dialogue was sparkling and funny, the chemistry smouldering between them. But reviewers had slammed it for every possible reason apart from the acting quality of the two stars. How nice to be out of step with the experts. How pompous they are.

I only meant to take Hugo for a short walk after my strenuous work but the sun came out again and the wind dropped completely. I ached everywhere, and limped down the lane, the boy held tightly on the lead. Everywhere there were hares, and he could smell them and see them. He tripped along on tiptoes like a poodle, body tense, nose up, eyes alert and focussed. I reminded him firmly again and again that he was going nowhere. After a few hundred yards my body eased out and the stiffness began to go, so it turned into a much longer walk instead. We watched a barn owl circle the field, remembering just a few weeks ago when it flew so close we could practically touch it. The hedges were alive with little songbirds flitting around. I thought my heart would burst. But suddenly it was cold and a chill wind ruffled my hair. I steered the straining dog homewards, and we got back just in time to watch the western sky burst into colour that spread in a wide lurid arc. Pure magic.