21 May 2024

21.05.2024 Filling the ugly, empty spaces.

 ~o~

  Tuesday 21st 57F/14C [7.15] Another sunny but windy day. High pressure sitting north of Denmark is giving warm and steady weather. Elsewhere it is anything but steady. 

 Spathiphyllum wallissii Sensation Variegata?

 Up at 6.30 after waking at 5am. I am tidying and cleaning in readiness for a rare visitor. I shall have to go shopping now the bank holiday weekend is over. 

 The boundary hedge beside the drive has gone berserk! I cut it down to the fence height two years ago. Now it is as tall as the house! I have been struggling with these hedges for the entire time we have lived here. 28 years and counting. We had an agreement with the first lot of neighbours to maintain it. Since then it has been completely ignored by every owner and tenant. So it fell on me to keep it in check.  The trees on the other side, of the absent neighbour's "back garden," continue to grow skywards. Though they don't have the same effect. Of closing down the light and feeling of space caused by the nearer hedge. 

 Most of the hedge is composed of vicious, spiny, wild cherry trees. Which are so dense they are completely opaque even to bright sunlight. Only reducing the height helps.

 8.30 Back from the lanes. I walked deliberately briskly and made it to my usual turning spot. No ill effects. Now the Internet is broken. Perhaps it was just a glitch but some email services weren't available. It has clouded over now. After a clear sky when I left. Much breezier too.

 I had a haircut after lunch, collected my heart meds and bought a couple of indoor/house plants. A Monstera, a variegated rubber plant and a pretty but unknown variegated plant for the kitchen window. The cupboard for the rubber plant is too high. The detail in the upper foliage is lost to the ceiling. I shall have to find a solution. These plants will help to hide the ugliness of the unfinished wall. I forgot to buy clay pots for them. So I'll go back tomorrow. The Monstera needs a bigger pot. It is root bound. I bought large plants to avoid waiting for years for them to grow big. I may not have enough years left to practice my usual impatience.

 The garden is increasingly full of flowers. With the rose hedge packed with white blooms. I had cut it back a couple of years ago. Which meant it didn't flower last year.

 The front indicator bulb on the Morris packed up. I could see it was not flashing. As I parked in front of a shop window. So I bought a pack of two at the garage. Several people spoke to me about the Morris today.     An entitled psychopath, driving an ugly, bulbous Audi, barged in front of me at a roundabout. Absolutely no right of way nor space between my bonnet and the car in front. Only emergency braking, on my part, prevented a serious dent. In his overpriced, Chinese slave built, piece of battery driven crap.

 I found a pair of khaki, cargo shorts at the charity shop. Finally I can stay cool and still carry my phone. I have finally made an appointment to have my teeth checked for a new plate. It doesn't sound as if there will be any change from £1000 equivalent. I am already £500 out of pocket on the X-rays, cleaning and one extraction.

 Dinner will be a salmon pasty with chips. I ought to have some peas for a token nod to the absence of veg in my diet. The mini oven is definitely not heating properly. The pasty took 35 minutes to brown. Even the tan on the chips was hardly convincing. 

 The cuckoo was still calling when I went outside to admire the flowers in the evening light. A mistake, because it suddenly made me feel very depressed. My wife would often come back indoors. To tell me her flowers were glowing in the twilight. We would go back out together and admire her garden. She cried only once, towards the end. Saying she only wanted to see her flowers again. It was already much too late.


  ~o~

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