Things to do, places to go..

The Security light outside the back door, below our window ,has been going on and off relentlessly in the gale  and so I have been up for hours. We have never really worked out what triggers it, frogs , rats, branches or lurkers. I am however enjoying watching the dawn and having a catch up. I have already wiped round the kitchen (sort of) and put a load in the washing machine and looked thro all the Tweets to the Parish Twitter, @FileyParish and my own @margaretkiaora.

I have not been on the PC much  since getting my new toy. Since #cnmac I have just about assimilated the stuff I learned. I have therefore put the Parish on Facebook following the advice from famous blogging Bishop. Consequently I spend time looking at Facebook and Twitter on my new Smartphone, which it certainly is, all sync-ed and clever, I keep the Parish Website as up to date as I can, and have really neglected my first love .  The honeymoon with the new toy is over now, as I heard Parish Secretary say of hers -They're quite addictive aren't they?

I am back to being me with words now, the touchpad keyboard is fantastic on my toy, but it is not solid and homely like this one, I am not able to sit and drink tea next to me , putting it up and down on my Echium Mat from the Chelsea Physic Garden , or leave the words and come back to them when I've fed the cat , answered the phone or powdered my nose. This feels right. I can say more . 

So the news is this-daughter is buying our house when  she sells hers , and we are moving to our cottage  round the corner, hopefully by April. Spouse has promised to carry on being a Fileygardener here, as the cottage has only a yard. I am getting rid of EVERYTHING to good homes. 

For the last few weeks I have been making almost daily trips to the great Charity Shops of Filey with all my clutter,and hundreds of novels. All the paperbacks have gone. Not the well loved favourites of course, and out of print Arthur Upfields. Anne Tyler has gone, Carol Shields has gone, Agatha Christie has gone along with Georgette Heyer and PD James. My first Editions are going round the family. Leo Walmsley went first. Donna Leon is about to move from Venice, via Filey  to Sutton on Hull.  My First Day Covers have gone to the Christian Bookshop , who sells them, and my Victorian Doll to the Salvation Army Shop. 

Furniture anybody? Will find placements for all I am sure.  It is so FREEING. So If anyone wants my grandmothers Edwardian  Dressing Table it will be free to a good home in the Spring. I must have somewhere to keep the national collection of Bridget Jones' p's till then .

Cauliflower and the hairy Bikers , and a Murder at Pemberley

Watching TV and listening to the Radio do inform me. I am really grateful to have found out on the Book Programme ,BBC radio 4 , that Phyllis James in her 91st year,has  written in the style  of Jane Austen a Detective novel  and set it as a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. It has climbed to No 3 already in the Times H/B best Sellers. I have just finished it. In fact I hope she considers this  a worthwhile genre as I am ready for Death in Lyme Regis, Sir Walters Body in the Library and The Highbury Poisoner. 

So too I have really appreciated the series on BBC TV ,Great British Food Revivals. Do See it on iplayer  if you have missed any of the programmes. Last night The Hairy Biker's recipe for a Curry of Cauliflower and Potato or Saag aloo with roasted gobi curry, had me straight round to Angela's  our local greengrocer for a Cauli (and only 59p for a huge one).I was looking for an excuse to pick some spinach ,(chard actually) . Since C's visit to the Practice Nurse , we are taking her advice very seriously. We try to  do everything  Sister Rose suggests.

 We are trying to eat from smaller plates to reduce our food intake. I am still cooking in my mind for all the children and their friends, old aunties , and frequent visitors. In reality I am cooking for Colin and I , and hordes only on Sundays and school holidays. My curries last for days , I buy several pineapples when 1 will do and usually have a harvest festival  in the fridge. SO Today I divided the ingredients for the curry by 3 , except for the spices, I always double them, now that our palette is getting very accustomed to hot , sour , spicy ,bitter and unusual.
Thank -You BBC.

A sit down with the Crossword

This is the first minute I have really had for a few days. Small boys (and parents)have spent weekend here to access all that Filey has to offer in way of Bonfires and Fireworks.
This morning I have been refuge too for poorly boy ,who couldn't go to school and had to spend an hour or so with what is forbidden fruit at home, but allowed in Kiaora on a ration book basis, Grandmas 'puter'. Miniclip has replaced Moshi Monsters.

Working backwards in my timeline, We had a good weekend . It began with a very successful burn up of all out Tax papers from the last 20 years, all Colins Case Notes from work for the last 20 years, and all same for our son-in-law, but just for 5years. A smouldering incinerator is a fascination for small boys, and although we just couldn't work out how to toast Marshmallows on it, it was great for lighting sparklers, and was still going in the morning.

Burn up no 2 was in the Car Park in  West Road. Bonfire food full, four adults and 2 small boys joined the hundreds of families enjoying our annual Bonfire and Fireworks (to music)  organized by Filey Lions on Saturday Night. Even Colin , a reluctant reveller enjoyed it. Coup de grace was the music of the Finale , The Dance of the Capulets from Prokoviev's Romeo and Juliet.
The Children were soon back here and asleep and Sunday was a great success as all the lunch was eaten without incident.

So today to recover , and although R arrives from Scarborough at 8am , by 11am Colin and I have earned a sit down . R is enjoying Miniclip, and now on Level 4 of something, Colin has hung out the washing , and I make coffee for us and pick up the Crossword. Colin reads a bit from todays Times saying today marks the 25,000 Times Cryptic Crossword.  2 vintage puzzles are online today, from 1946 and 1978 but they are behind a paywall. I cant get the hang of Times Crypic Crosswords , although I do try sometimes, and have spent hours trying to follow the tutorials they published about 10years ago.(Keeping them for times of immobility ). I sat down with Times 2 as usual, its not difficult, and now that I have found a 2B pencil it is a real pleasure.

Quince Japonica (Chaenomeles japonica)

Quince Japonica

Always good value in a small garden is  the Quince Japonica (Chaenomeles japonica), for the bush has very early blossom, a welcome sight in any garden in Spring, but then goes on to be home to sparrows, a thorny barrier to cats, and bearer of green then mellow yellow hard waxy fruits. These make easy preserves; chutney or jam.

This year I have made Quince and Ginger Jam.

I am a terrible messy cook. I never prepare properly and do everything at a whim, so yesterday thought 

"I'll do something with those quinces" whilst Colin was having his  weekly prayer time with his Prayer Trio, and I knew I needed to be out of the way of the sitting room and gainfully occupied.  I washed jam jars rescued from the crate for the Recycling Bins at Rudston, and then remembered I had decided to throw lids away this time  . 

The jam  was a pleasure to make, so easy-put fruit  in the pan , cover with water boil til soft , strain off all the pips, cores, and unknown bits , then 1pint pulp to 1lb Sugar, and as much ginger as you can grate. 

The prayer trio had long  gone, I was still testing for set on a cold saucer until after the BBC 4 radio play about Elvers had finished. Then I accidentally splashed all the jam pot covers with water so they looked wrinkled on the jars. It was silly enough that I had to empty 2 jars of gravy mix into small plastic containers  to get more jars. I think I know which is chicken and which is beef as they are 2 different shades of brown but I don't suppose anyone will notice if Chicken Gravy accompanies sausages, they will just think Its a foretaste of Christmas Dinner heaven.
Call round if you want some jam, and I still have 5 pots of Quince Chutney from last year . No comments about the taste might be awful, it isnt ,any of it, just not made in factory conditions, and might only get a 4 in the window.

Dear Daydreamer

I feel I must introduce myself to you. My name is Samson and I live with the Rowlings in Filey now. I used to live in the south , Brighton and then London. I really think you ought to get another feline companion. I have really improved the quality of life for THEM. They are much more rounded now THEY have me to care for. I reward them well with loving glances occasionally, and purring, and the odd baby sparrow or mouse. 

I am in HER bad books today because I rested on the table for a while. I like to see the coming and goings during half term as everyone is coming and going. 

I do write a letter home to my real owner Ben , most weeks.It is called Samson http://kiaoracat.blogspot.com/

 If you do get a new cat friend  I promise I will be HIS cyberfriend.

with best wishes from Samson Rowling 

MORE than just #cnmac

Make a few days of it we thought. Take up M's offer of using her Putney flat, get cheap deal with First Class +complimentary food on Hull Trains, get Netbook ,do #cnmac, factor in visit to progeny and aged aunt, try out a Sussex Premier Inn and blog it when home.

We did and I am.

Lovely to be back in our favourite part of London: south of the river, and Chelsea , lovely to have Peter Jones ,the Saatchi. Chelsea Physic Garden and the Kings Road  part of our Friday with a bus pass from Putney on the No 14. Oh! too  the 39 past the road where C was brought up , and the road where I coped with 3 under 5s with no Washing Machine. Great to be near Arding and Hobbs and the Junction and recall all these years of  teaching ,off the Northcote road . Its not changed very much , just gentrified and twee'd up . 

Installation at Saatchi !

I remember how  our dear Aunty Ann , who had worked at Morganite Carbon of Battersea from aged 14 to 60 spent her retirement years taking buses from the Junction (Clapham) to the termini of all the bus routes, Peckham Rye to Richmond on the 37 etc, etc. Well ,we were doing the same in a way, planning our sorties from Suburbia to make full use of the privileges of Age. 

Chelsea Physic garden has always been our treasure in Chelsea, especially as Colin can get in on his Friends  ticket when no one else is about, and we can feel it just belongs to us.

Chilli Theatre

Echium Wildpretii

Getting to #Cnmac11 was easy for us . The 14 bus to the  Royal Academy, then the 38 to Rosebery Avenue, Sorted.We knew we were going the right way and just followed all the young men with rucksacks and earnest faces.

It was great to meet our blogfather Simon Rudiger, now in Aylesbury, and put real faces to remembered Avatars. I have blogged about this on the Parish Blog.

# cnmac 11

Note to Daydreamer
I have seen Fr Cloake in the flesh and he looks just like his picture.

The gates of Mordor

For the last month I have been trying to have a clear road for stopping and taking the photo of the Gates of Mordor  which have appeared at Great Kendale.

Not only does my Thursday road to Beverley take me past Howe Farm (barrow)and Refuge farm and Google farm all delighting the imagination with their names, but the road from Rudston to Kilham has the best avenue of Ash Trees on the Wolds, and I do love all things Yggdrasil . More later ,I am off to that highlight of any  Social Calendar , the PCC meeting.

Clues

I have read detective stories all my  novel life. I started  with  Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, and seamlessly into Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer and all points past Arthur Upfield to Henning Mankell and Donna Leon.

Marian my brass cleaning partner at St Os also is an avid reader and has given me a list of authors to try, including Alan Rustage and Mark Billingham and Veronica Healey. I will try them all. I don't like too much blood and gore or sex, so only just cope with Wallender, so Peter Robinson is out for me and Stieg Larsson will never be even tried . Filey Library has a huge section of  Crime novels. 

Ive just finished  The Help by Kathryn Stockett, not a crime novel, but so very good I shan't be able to read anything other than  a bit of light Crime for a few days until I have processed all its themes and implications. My sister says it is soon a film, so am glad to have read it first. Does the Cover picture tell you what the book is about, does it give any clues?

And what about these my faithful reader? Have you known me long enough to know what these are? Where are they going and what part do they play in my exciting life?

Google Farm

On the way to Beverley I have gone down Sands Road to Hunmanby for the last few months. It has taken me 20 years to realise it is easier than going through Royal Oak. I don't have to do a hillstart outside Hunmanby Co-op now, and Sands Road has such interesting verges and flora.Travelling east from the Butlins roundabout I have been intrigued by a new sign to Google Farm. What a  name .I live at Google Farm, Google us at Google farm, Come and see our field of googles, .................

I couldn't stop to take  a picture of the sign, too much traffic at 7.30am . Coming home at 2pm a different matter, not a car for miles, and not a sign of the SIGN either, I had to drive a second time  down Sands Road  after a circular re-run of 4miles to spot the sign when travelling from the East . Hope you like it

I didn't notice

that it had gone Pete! http://fileyparish.blogspot.com/

Putting the bubble wrap back

It has happened. I am sounding like my mother. Where did the Summer go? She always said that in September. I know that nights have drawn in, because I had a burn up in the incinerator as soon as it was dark yesterday, which was just after dinner, which was just after Neighbours.  I had a productive morning getting everything ready for the accountant  , and was able to finally throw away 2008/9 and bring 2009/10 out to thrill HMG s Tax Return . I love fires , and apart from smelling like an Anglo Saxon went to bed knowing my conflagration had robbed the Stig of the Dumps from accessing my old bank statements, Huge dividend notices( My  Fairtrade Acc netted 00.18p) and Pension notices.

Here in Yorkshire we call it Back End in the garden. 

I am trying to make my Sweet Peas last til Christmas as I did in 2007. I take off every flower, and dose regularly with Tomorite. The Runner beans have been good, but the Hurricane winds last week knocked them nearly over. I have had only 1 Tondo Courgette (round). The Chard has been good-my family are getting tired of Spinach and Rice Pie however. 

  I am ready to use Nicandra Physalodes for Christmas Decorations. Last year when it had dried out it looked great in a vase hung about with baubles and Chocs. They are all about 4'high now and about to turn brown. What a find they are. No need ever to even buy a packet of seeds.

C is thrilled as his Yucca is about to flower for the first time. He wants to know if it will die now. I think that's an urban Myth.

So the bubble wrap is about to go back in the greenhouse. The tomatoes were a disaster this year, so have been removed already. The grapes were made into wine in July. The Ipomeas all came out white and none blue. I should have  remembered all the F1 genetic talk I heard at school.

I am  ready to protect my precious Echium plants and try to get some through the winter.I will bring some in to the top of the house where it is light but cold and hope some will survive. The potted rest will go in the Greenhouse and the large E.pininana x wildpretii (about 15 of them)  will have to chance it in the garden.

Echium spp

Another Hockney moment in a Richard Dadd week

Reversal

For nearly 60 years the beginning of September always meant for me the going back to school. Now I love it because I don't have to go back to school ever again.

I don't have to spend every evening working on Smart Board programmes for my Maths Lessons, ransacking the house for that bit of material I knew would be useful one day if I could remember where I had put it or being so tired I couldn't even remember where I'd put the car .

I leave it all to the next generations. Today youngest grandchild started school.

I have all  worked hard during the Summer. I have played Yo! Ho! Ho! and walked the plank ,  found Miniclip  and Moshi Monsters and policed the Pc. I had a hairy moment last week when R managed to rotate the online display on the laptop screen by 90 degrees. It happens all the time apparently when the arrow keys are mis-hit  during juvenile gaming . I had to move R upstairs and allow him on the Mac. I had banked on 30 minutes of time to sew his PE bag.

Colin and I had a great trip on the train with both boys to Hull last week, that City on the East Coast that is my birthplace. 

Pedestrianised streets are a godsend for carers of wild small boys. The updated Streetlife Museum , an hour of tearing around and pressing all the buttons and climbing on everything that did not bear a warning notice was much enjoyed. 

I don't think Philip Larkin would have liked the way HCC allowed the statue of him in  Paragon Station to be put up. John Betjeman at St Pancras he is not. *

We all did like the free  Table Tennis tables in the Nelson Mandela  Gardens. That gave C and I  30 minutes of peace and quiet to eat our packed lunch.

My Grandfathers Tram

The boys were not really impressed with the Tram Model built under their great -great grandfathers supervision. It didn't do anything, and they couldn't open anything or climb on anything.

The Hockney's Bigger Trees near Warter just didnt work in Ferens Art Gallery. It was far to big for the space. It would have looked Good in the City Hall. I'm glad I went to see it in the RA in 2009. (looking forward to to the exhibition in the RA starting on 21st January). His Yorkshire landscapes are all painted  near here, and on my drive to Beverley  across the Wolds I see all his trees and fields and hedges.

Back to the Quiet Life then. Schools Back!

* Colin says when he was at Liverpool Station yesterday there were statues of Ken Dodd and  a middle aged woman with a hat_just  Googled it -Bessie Braddock.

#HULL CITY OF CULTURE 17 of course it will be!

Moving House

Today I said Goodbye to my Dolls House. It has all moved.

The holiday I never had

Looking on uTube to find the video of King Creosote , Jon Hopkins,  'Bubble'  should have been the work of a moment. I thought it would be a great post for Bank Holiday Monday . My forays into uTube invariably take hours as I browse and enjoy the  offerings. 

Today I found not only Bubble, but a random Holiday Movie  which I post here. I have a house full of younger people staying. I am enjoying being chief cook and  using  Dishwasher. Yesterday the Spinach and Rice Pie with homemade tomato sauce  went down really well. Today I am about to put the Beef in the oven for a Sunday Roast. For a treat this morning I listened to The Archers Omnibus and then Private Passions. We do not do the full on Sunday entertaining every week now. Usually I am at 10am Service with C, and we come home and read the papers, or garden, watch a DVD   and the Antiques Road Show and speak on the phone to the Elderlies. 

I have been remembering how it was. Oh dear! I am reminiscing. I have never done housework or shopping on Sundays, except when necessary. For years  and years I served Sunday lunch to The world , their wives, our old aunts and my children and husband. It takes me so long now. I wake up in the middle of the night and think irrationally I'll do the vegetables, make the Yorkshire Pudding Mix. Iv'e wised up since retiring. Sunday lunch may be Mince and Yorkshire Pudding  or a Casserole in the Slow Cooker. I dont have to make a pudding now, I can buy one. 

So Today I have been thinking . Not more so when I found this video of a couple on Holiday in the Highlands.  My family comes as my Elder and McKinnon Cousins who follow this blog , Nancy, Miguel and Mary, will know, from the Isle of Skye. I have never been there. I have never even been further than Iona.
I was a walker once, in my YHA days before marriage to  C who  loves City Breaks , no Cows In fields, and thinks the Yorkshire Wolds are the Middle of nowhere. (This is not a grumble on my part).

So this is video is my fantasy Holiday. Thank you -you unknown rough campers. 

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.

Mark and Iona Birchall and the Old Geezer

Mary Fuchs, Maisie Holding and Dorothy Thiajaraj and Ray Smith, Mark Wigglesworth; my list could go on. These people all had or have something in COMMON.

Barnabas people

Filey Beach 1937 Where Ray Smith became a Christian

Small girl MargaretViola Holding, my mother, at Criccieth Beach Mission (Hudson Pope)1926

Since Ray Smith came to St Oswalds Filey on Sunday last and told us how he became a Christian in Filey 74 years ago on August 15th -he even remembers the date, I have not been able to get it out of my mind. We think that it must have been marvellous that 200 people attended each CSSM beach Mission Meeting in 1937. My aged parent became a Christian in 1928  at a CSSM beach Mission in Criccieth North Wales after hearing Bryan Green give a talk.

Not everyone has a story (testimony in church speak) of the day they became a Christian, but everyone has a story of their faith Journey and the people they met along the way.

When  my own faith came ALIVE FOR ME after going to church for 20 years, Dorothy Thiajaraj  told me that she and Iona Birchall had been praying for me for 3 years! All I did was say to God 'if there is more of you I WANT IT', and I was filled with the Holy Spirit in a new way on a March 25th (Lady Day and my aged parents birthday1978ish )

My spouse has a similar tale to tell. He walked to the station at Wandsworth Town  every day in his City Gent days . Often Mark Birchall would catch him up  and talk. Colin said he had a job keeping up with Marks fast pace and strides (M was very tall). Mark encouraged Colin to go to the  lunchtime Service at St Helens Bishopsgate. The church was full to busting with solicitors clerks, stockbrokers and Gnomes of Zurich  Threadneedle Street. This became the grounding , the teaching and the sowing of seeds that would bear fruit 20yrs later when Colin amazed me by saying  that he had in fact that day PRAYED THE PRAYER. He had been going to church for 40 yrs  , he would say now that like me HIS faith had come 'alive'.  Mark Birchall died in 2004. I know hundreds of people will tell of his part in their pilgrimages.

Beach Missions and Youth Camps like the one here Filey , Criccieth and my own Sutton on Sea (my Childhood holiday place) still go on. Mark Wigglesworth , one of our Filey Parish church family , is as I write,  at Criccieth  helping to lead a Christian camp . He sent an email from his iphone in his tent -sending us all in Filey some  encouragement. 

I have said often how much I appreciate  the sheer audacity and encouragement to all Christian Bloggers given by the Old Geezer. His story may be read here  as he is one of the  Christian Bloggers that  has a link to his testimony.  He too is a Barnabas, an encourager. I felt so good when he became a follower of this blog. I had been blogging for 3 years without even realising I could have followers.

We all , if we are on a Christian Faith Journey have Barnabas friends.

  Thank God for them.

Therapy

I have had a really busy , busy week or so. I am not complaining, it is a blessing to have Family staying.

Therapy 1-Rudston field

 I have not had time to do the gentle usual things of the day, the crossword, The Archers, Google reader etc. I have not looked at Tweetdeck for a week. I have woken early as usual and remembered people . I have looked at the red dot on my bathroom mirror which reminds me to pray for cyberfriends (and you know who you are) as I put in my contact lenses. I can hear you thinking I'm a bit wacky. My children would agree. I tried to get them interested in the view of my favourite field track  near Rudston yesterday, they were trying very hard to agree that it was beautiful. 

The same with my favourite Potato field, perhaps I am on a nerd spectrum somewhere , as I just love  seeing it change every week. I havent actually been to aged parent via the potato fields and Roman villa site for 3 weeks now . 

Spouse has not been able to watch Neighbours for weeks, and I havent listened to my Bible on CD with breakfast as I usually do. I am up to David cutting off a corner of  Sauls robe as he (S) pees in the cave  a good part. We have managed our EDWJ in the greenhouse, and to pray for the day. Our routine will recommence next week.

Therapy 2 -Rudston Field

 BUT  I am rather weary , and have washed the same mugs up 10 times every day and got through 4litres of milk a day. I have seen BFG the video twice, Snow White, Cinderella, Prince Caspian and Lazytown .The house is full of Bakugan, Moshi Monsters and Sylvanians. 

I have also posted on the Filey Parish blog something intended for this one, and as we have a not to remove policy it will just have to stay there .

Shoo Flower

If you look closely you can see black spots on the cotyledon and  early leaves of the Shoo Flower plant. Thats how I always know what it is , even when only a cm high. My beloved Echium seedlings however have spots on their first but not cotyledon leaves and hairy leaves, very Jacob and Esau.

  I have had a Shoo Flower plant in my various gardens since 1981 when I was given the first one to keep in the greenhouse because it kept white fly at bay , hence its silly name.  The seed capsules (like Cape gooseberries) are very easy to store and filled with hundreds of seeds, like other members of the Potato family. So back-end I just fling the seeds all over the garden and wait for the spring excitement of seeing where they come up.

Whether it does repel white flies I don't really know ,as I always seem to get white fly eventually , especially here in the Frozen North as ventilation of the greenhouse is a delicate business. It might be 29 degrees in Brighton but it will be 21degrees in Filey. When the sun is out and the greenhouse reaches 29 degrees I am probably in Beverley and even forgot to open the door and have to do rescues when I get home.

I love this plant. Mine are all about 4'high now so I only have a few. 

AsideWe have a tiny garden and I have half a dozen 'Only the lonely ' Tobacco Plants, already each is 2'across. I have dozens of Echium pininana x wildpretii  plants all growing inches over night it seems , tall and sturdy . I want to get them through the winter, well at least one of them so that I can brag about it on my Facebook Site. I have 6 different varieties of Echium at the moment, . Only one is  hardy, my E. lusitanicum spp polycaulon. 

Back to my Nicandra , My best Shoo Plant. If I am very careful and manage to dry it properly it will be tall enough and branched enough and interesting enough  and light enough to be the Christmas Tree substitute in the downstairs sitting room . 

Cast of Musical 'Armada' -John Dee in centre

Sometimes  you  learn by coincidence and this happened to me  with the name of Tudor astrologist  John Dee. I am trying to remember whether I was listening to Radio 4 or listening to the TV whilst C watched and I was here on the PC, when John Dee was mentioned and I started listening.  What struck me was that the narrator was saying that Queen Elizabeth 1st never made any decisions without consulting the  occultist. C has always been very keen on anything to do with the Tudors, every film and TV series, book and magazine is devoured.  I must have listened vicariously to Bette Davis, Cate Blanchett, and Glenda Jackson and Helen Mirren scores of times without hearing a word ,from my corner of the sitting room and facing away from the set. But remember HE does not do Wallender or University Challenge . He is therefore very disappointed that His Heroine could not make decisions using her brain , as he has always assumed. She has I am afraid joined the ranks of Indian businessmen  with their fortunetelling before deals, Madame Arcarti and all other send-ups and  his reticence to buy a Rosa diablo, Gloriana  has fallen from his grace. I add here that my own god-daughter has unfriended me on Facebook just because I warned her of doing online Tarot Cards, as any Christian Godmother would do I hope.

Queen Elizabeth  in Armada

We were in York having lunch in the Spurriergate  Centre just as the York Musical Theatre Company were  giving the people that lunch  a sampler of their musical Armada  which is next week 28/29/30th July at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. Our daughter in Sussex is a keen  singer and was Mabel in G and S Pirates recently, and we know just how hard a cast will have to work  , not least those making costumes and working behind the scenes and front of house. I hope the production of Armada goes well, the costumes were great and a preview of the sound may be heard on their own website. John Dee plays a part in this musical, so I am off to look him up and see what I can find out about him from the books on Tudors in this house. Usually I get all my facts from Horrible Histories or Sellar and Yeatman. I want to get them straight this time incase we end up talking about him in our homegroup  or  reading Blessings and Curses again.