8.04.2025 Another bloodbath, new chairs but not toast.

 ~o~

  Tuesday 8th 30F/0C. Another white frost followed by a sunny morning. A weather change after lunch.

 Up at 6.40 after a busy night. There must be a lot of water in salad. 

 I am intending to visit my English friend. Sadly, the idiot who borrowed the Morris to go shopping yesterday, left the lights on until bedtime. Fortunately the car started despite the white frost. Perhaps I should ride over there. Not been out since Saturday.  

 9.00 Bright sunshine. I am leaking again. Somehow I scratched the tip of my nose in the shower. It is dripping with blood at one second intervals. Like a precision clock. At first I thought it was a normal nosebleed. Until I saw the wounded proboscis in the bathroom mirror. It must be the blood thinners preventing my blood from clotting. I had trimmed my nails and they ended up quite sharp. 

 I was patched up by the nurse at the surgery. So now I am sporting a large plaster on my nose. Which only stopped bleeding after a full hour. I then drove on to visit my friend. We enjoyed a chat, with coffee and a spandauer each. In his excellent new greenhouse in the sunshine. While sitting in his comfortable chairs.

 Which has inspired me to make a real difference to my own greenhouse. The 22' long greenhouse I built myself. From two, lean-to greenhouses but was never allowed to be in. Except to hang more shower curtains. To pretend to keep the sun's heat at bay. The large space was wasted from the very start.

 13.30 Safely home again after visiting the shops on the way home.

 16.20 55F/12.8C. Bright sunshine.  I have opened the greenhouse door again to share the warmth. 70F/21C in the room.

 I am returning from a drive into town with the trailer. Where I bought two, moulded plastic, garden armchairs in a delicious, soft green. For use in the greenhouse. The colour hints at the colours we carefully chose for the woodwork of the house/hovel. All those many years ago.

 The chairs are remarkably heavy but  uniquely comfortable. We had a mixture of outdoor chairs from flea markets and charity shops but they were uncomfortable and never used. Certainly never in the greenhouse. Except to take up more space. As did a three piece cane and willow chair and sofa set which was already disintegrating from woodworm when we bought it.

 The books we had collected about furnishing greenhouses, to make magical spaces, were soon ignored. It was too hot. Too cold. Too wet. One year she grew the most tasty cherry tomatoes that ever existed on this planet. I was full of praise. Obediently thinned out the middle shoots to promote fruit growth under her watchful eye. But that was it.

 Today I tried all the dozens of garden chairs. On outdoors display at the three big box outlets in town. These outlets are in a neat row on a new build car parking area on the very edge of town. Which can't have been good for the distant, cobbled high street.

 Most of the other chairs had steel tubular frames. Which is cold and uncomfortable to the touch without some sort of padding. There was already signs of rust. I didn't even need a cushion to sit on these fabulous new thrones. The arms are just broad and flat enough to be comfortable too. In fact I may fit one of these chairs on my e-bike! 

 Dinner was meant to be a cop-out and something boring on toast. I had a "proper dinner" yesterday after all. I was looking for something in the fridge and saw the broccoli. My first use of the lower drawer in the new fridge. I have been very backward, even remiss, in stocking the new toy. What to have with broccoli? A salmon pasty of course. 20 minutes at 180º fan oven. 

 I washed up while it cooked. So it wasn't toast after all. It was something green and tasty. With a few blobs of vegetable pretend butter. Which was half melted in the heat. Before it was smeared untidily on the veg. To vanish without a trace. It felt as if something was missing. Cherry tomatoes? Probably.

 

  ~o~