Not being thankful

I'm pleased with myself. I've put all my OS Maps in numerical order and the right way up. I have very many more maps ,I love them . When Kirsty asks me what book Im taking on my Desert Island I am going to ask for the complete set of OS Landranger Maps.  I wouldn't mind a set of the Old 1 Inch to 1 Mile  as they take up less room . The OS have just released a digital map of Mars. I want it but don't need it. I am trying very hard not to buy books and maps . Google Earth is great , online text is sort of great , but one cannot replace the feel of paper , or parchment in the case of the Laws of the land, and hand crafted Title Deeds . 

I've enjoyed sorting my maps. Its a perfect wet weather occupation when spouse is watching Come Dine With Me or Rising Damp . I am near enough to hear that he's watching a re run of a re run of a re run, but far enough  away to be still a companion . So  S A D have I been, even with Brazil Nuts, that I have actually resorted to tidying and filing . Thankfully when it stops raining I  take my compost Bin Veg and fruit peelings  to the Allotment and sojourn there awhile in the Greenhouse looking at my rows of Leeks and Shallots and Garlic, and wishing that the Saffron Crocuses would look a bit more like the £12  I stupidly paid for them in my insomniacal spree on Amazon . Yesterday I took Cleo the borrrowed Westie up on the Country Park for the afternoon in the sunshine and sodden grass and deep mud. I looked over the bay , and saw such a change in Carr Naze as the winter erosion has deepened all the Run -off -gulleys in the Boulder Clay .

It wont be long now , well 3 months only , before I start my 2016 Plant Surveys again for NPMS. By then my allotment will be working hard to supply our vegetables , fruit , flowers and sanity. I will have got past this Doldrums period, where all the books I've read have been boring *.

For the last 8 months the furtherest I have been is Sutton in Holderness just 38 miles away . I have never been so near home for so long. Its all part of being a dutiful wife to a dear man .He cannot go anywhere much at present until the NHS either treat him or say NO to treatment . We can then get on with our exciting Life Together.   Small jaunts to exhibitions in London are perfectly manageable but trips abroad no longer are , and wild countryside and windswept Scottish Islands are a memory on Picasa.

So I've been and bought a map of Herefordshire. I've never been .  I've convinced spouse that the Mappa Mundi will be interesting and we can take some bus trips on our Passes along the Wye and Lugg valleys. Well be fine in the  Premier Inn, and I can get us there easily  with 2 changes on the train. My first Deputy Head at Belleville Junior Girls School , the redoubtable Miss Midwinter, came from Hereford and as this young teacher was jetting off to Norway and Austria she told me how lovely it was in her home county  , and I have remembered.

1972 revision

1989 revision

And here a puzzle for you if you too are BORED with Feb .Two Landranger maps of same area, my old one from 1970s and new one from 1990s.
What has happened to the SEWAGE WORKS THAT I KNOW WERE NEVER THERE ? Clue  GOLF BALLS 

*I've read 4 of the British Library Crime Classics so lauded in the press. They were OP because they were awful  , why did no one tell them , a case of the Emperors New Clothes of fiction .

Well I was warned about insomnia !

Saffron Crocuses

This has been an exciting week in our household .

Rhubarb Chard

It peaked on Wednesday evening with the final of GBBO*. I had never seen much of the programme before, spouse had , as he made me buy an orange top in M and S which he liked on Mary . I wore it twice and gave it away , it was just not me , or Mary as she only wore it once according to my telly critic husband. When I'm out on the allotment he sometimes rests from his book and I come in to find Come Dine With Me is having an unashamed airing in our sitting room . My men seem to like cookery programmes, and I don't take it as a hint as I'm quite good at cooking, just bored with it after 45 years of dinners. Last Sunday daughter and I made our men come out for Sunday lunch to one of the Filey no frills Pubs. It was all on the plate for £6 and just delicious. It made such a change for me too, and the small boys loved it and the Pool Table . 

I remember my Aged P saying that she just couldn't think of what to cook , and it had become a chore. I'm not at that stage yet, but I am finding it difficult to cope with all the dietary restrictions suggested by the Filey Surgery for my spouse. The latest one is no purines. I am  a Biology teacher by training and yet had no idea what PURINES were. The Cardiologist told me to google it , and do my best so that GOUT would be limited in its appearances. I'm having a go at reducing our meat intake , not really a hardship : My vegetarian recipes are all so time consuming , however delicious the outcome, and I'm thanking God for Quorn which was just not around when my teenagers were going through a vegetarian Stage. 

Free seeded 

Weighing up , in my many sleepless nights ,the rows on my allotment which cause me  to rethink what to grow. I have for many years grown rows and rows of Swiss Chard and Rainbow Chard. The freezer is full of it. Of course its the simplest vegetable to grow and always looks attractive , even in the Flower Border. Its just that it needs to be eaten within a day of picking , unless put in a vase of water. and  though I have a list of friends who like to have some , unless they live on my walk home I'm too tired to divert to deliver some.  I will not grow so much chard then . It free seeds easily , and the best plants are often the ones that have .  So next year I will leave one of each of the best plants to seed themselves , red , green and pink and orange.
Sleepless nights have made me plan purine free and tasty vegetarian meals using the 4 aubergines which are my total crop for 2015 , and devise tasty soups where all the endless Runner beans are pureed and ordered to reinvent themselves with mint and peas. Spouse says he's had enough Green soup , even with mustard added.
Sleepless nights too have cut down the blackberry , weeded between the raspberries and rhubarb , ordered more manure and sharpened and cleaned the shears. Sleepless nights with the addition of anxiety have made sure all the Horsetails are pulled out without dropping a single bit ,and put  the incinerator bin . Allotment partner has nearly eradicated his ,with his patent method involving wire wool and weed killer-dont ask !
Sleepless nights , I was once warned , may lead to taking actions that are regretted in the light of day . Its such a shame that I know my Amazon password even in the small hours, and even more of a shame that Amazon knows my Visa Card number even in the middle of the night .Its a shame that my phone , neatly backlit does not disturb sleeping bedfellow as I do half an hour of Facebook and see that friend has planted a row of Crocus sativus on her allotment so that she may harvest some Saffron .
The parcel arrived yesterday ;25 neat autumn flowering Saffron Crocuses which in the middle of the night I bought and paid for . I planted them today hoping they will autumn flower , and that I will be able to give my friends some saffron on the way home. Ive got lots of Saffron in the Spice cupboard. I buy it every time I go to the Chinese Supermarket in Scarborough. My children bring it back from Spain for me. I always forget to use it now that I use the ready cooked 2minute Microwave rice.
Next time I  am sleepless I will look out for a recipe for Saffron buns , or maybe  I wont .

*Great British Bake Off

Insomnia 4

Echiums  Burton Agnes

These Echiums look how I feel, able to see out  and feel the cold but wanting to be in Madeira .

Saatchi  March 2009

Insomnia Blog again

Old and New PC label

This time I have a reason. My mosquito bites from last night are so painful and swollen  that I just cannot get cool enough to sleep. 

I have been getting up on the hour every hour since I went to bed first. Now , I have remembered ,using desperate reason, that a warm milky drink does infact help. So I am downstairs with a mug of milky decaf  instant coffee. I say that rather gloomily, as I only take real coffee usually, and maybe only one a day. I have given up my strong black coffee habit now, after years of caffeine abuse,as I try to keep my BP down. Milky instant is in another realm, one of 1950's coffee pot Camp the coffee brewed or rather assembled ,by my now aged parent. So it is a comfort food almost, and it does seem to get me back to sleep if decaf. I used to love the Camp Coffee bottle, the old one that is, with the sikh Servant holding a tray on which was a bottle of Camp, on which you could see the label of the Camp bottle, with a label  etc etc. I know I have blogged on this before!

I have done some light Insomnia reading. I definitely want to go on a course  offered by the East Riding College in their new prospectus  leading to a Diploma in either Trowel or Wood occupations, or machine Competancy. All the work on the Crown Construction Site next to my home has fired me with enthusiasm for new skills of the building site sort. When I am older and grayer and not full of sleep I want to be pushed to a building site and left there to watch for the odd hour.

If I did not still share a double bed I would watch TV in it at this moment. 

I have just remembered it is already Saturday and my beloved Wallender has given way to my equally enjoyable Montalbano, which I will  watch in bed with subtitles at 9pm. Only 18hours to go.