Macro Monday

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Little frog - spawned this year - on aquilegia leaf

Same little frog next to blade of grass

Dancing

Reading Jinksy's etheree and watching her wonderful video clip of a tango reminded me of dancing classes at school. It was an all-girls' school. I was educated solely with girls from the age of six to eighteen, sadly. L
Anyway, at the age of eleven we duly went off to the next stage of our state education and at the school I attended dancing was part of the process. We learnt country dancing (Strip the Willow and Sir Roger de Coverley), Old-Tyme dancing (the Veleta and the Military Two-Step), and ballroom dancing (the Cha Cha Cha and the Foxtrot). We galloped sweatily round the gymnasium, enjoying the exercise but not completely enamoured of the particular form of exercise and the brain power required to remember the moves. I would rather have been climbing ropes or vaulting.
One of our PE teachers was a very good ballroom dancer but I'm afraid we callow lasses didn't appreciate that as we watched her spinning skilfully round the hall with her female partner. All the staff members were women - the advent of two male teachers a few years later caused a great buzz of unnecessary enthusiasm. Wet lunchtimes meant we could not go outside and so dancing was arranged in the assembly hall and we always wanted the polka – that was fun!
When I was eleven I was one of the smallest girls in the school. By the time I left I was among the tallest. This meant that in ballroom dancing I had to take the man's part. This played havoc when I actually had to take the woman's part but by the time I started going to village hops and town dances most of the dancing was solo. This was just as well because I was always among the wallflowers until the final, desperate, traditional 'Last Waltz' began when every lout youth in the room homed in on the unloved to claim a dance. Being clammily clasped by an inebriated boy who was keen to boast that he had a girl-friend, however tenuous the relationship might be, was not a dream ending to a night out. I liked dancing, though, particularly on my own! I loved the Charleston but there wasn't much opportunity to dance that. I really enjoyed the Twist.
When we were about fourteen or fifteen the school organised a 'formal' dance and we all dressed up in our finest. My mother made me a very pretty dress and the highlight of the evening was noticing what everyone else was wearing. We were used to seeing each other only in hideous green uniform in the school buildings. We danced together decorously, the bolder girls inviting teachers to partner them. I wonder what those women made of the event? Many of them, though they seemed ancient to us, were probably in their late thirties or early forties and had probably lost fiancés in the war. It must have been bittersweet for them as they twirled around the parquet flooring in the embrace of adolescents, some of whom, in time-honoured manner, had crushes on them.

Joyce Grenfell brilliantly demonstrated the experience of dancing with another woman
When we reached the dizzy heights of the fifth form and were almost adult sixteen-year-olds – or so we thought of ourselves! – our school arranged a joint dance with the boys' grammar school. Oh, the delirious excitement of it all! Some of my contemporaries already had boyfriends at the school so they were paired with them. The rest of us losers were allocated partners, sight unseen. It was nerve-wracking waiting to discover one's escort for the evening and, in the event, mutually disappointing, I'm sure. We gazed enviously at our superior and rather smug sisters who had come with partners they'd chosen for themselves, tried to be polite and longed for the evening to end. I was relieved that my escort was taller than me for I was quite tall (did the teachers take height into account or were we put together alphabetically?) but the dancing was deplorable, on both our parts. He managed to keep his feet off mine, for which I was thankful, and while he wasn't actually counting the beats out loud his movements were somewhat staccato. I don't think the boys had received much dancing instruction but at least they knew they were supposed to be 'leading'. I knew I was supposed to be following but I was so accustomed to taking the lead that I was fighting him for the privilege. At some point there were refreshments but time has mercifully over-ridden all other memories of that evening. Certainly, it was not the stepping-off point to a beautiful friendship.
When the mood takes me these days I dance in the kitchen, on my own, or with a dog or rather surprised cat. Barry doesn't dance if he can avoid it, making an exception only for jiving, which he really enjoys. One of these days he will spin me out and fail to catch me as I return and I'll crash unceremoniously into the wall. No doubt he'll have a camera automatically recording  film the incident!

Unfortunately, we don't dance with anything like the flair of these two.

SkyWatch Friday Season 4 Episode 4

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These photographs were taken by Barry when he was sailing last week with our eldest daughter and her children.

20:02 27th July 2010

20:04

20:14

20:28

20:46

A memory jolt

When I read this post from Heather in Vermont it made me laugh and also reminded me of when my children were small, well, three of them anyway.

As they were . . .before the reminder! Is Gillian winking?

Barry didn't often go shopping with us unless there was something he needed to get that I couldn't buy for him. On one occasion he had to buy an overcoat but before we left the house he was surprised to hear me speaking very firmly to the children. They had not misbehaved in any way but I was just giving them the usual reminders to behave themselves while we were out. Of course, he had no idea this was the normal routine.

As they may have looked after the reminder! Expecting rain, Gareth?

When we arrived at the shop he was further taken aback when I told them all to sit on the (carpeted) floor. Without any fuss they all sat down, crossed their legs and folded their arms and waited patiently while their father set about trying on coats.

He was puzzled at what may have seemed draconian methods of dealing with his offspring but I think he had forgotten the time a few months earlier when Gillian had ended up in a shop window display, tangling with the clothes. (No-one offered to buy her!) He certainly wasn't there at a school assembly when Susannah marched onto the stage to be with her big sister, while all the other younger siblings sat obediently with their mothers.
Gareth and his sisters could never look only with their eyes - their tactile sense was very pronounced so passing close to anything that was remotely fragile was worrying. 'Mummy, what's that?' Prod, poke, crash! 
Actually, they never did break anything while we were out but table lamps in our house were doomed! Everything else lived up high out of harm's way. We considered having a pulley system whereby precious things could be raised to the ceiling during the day and then lowered in the evening when the children had gone to bed.
When Bethan was born a few years later, shopping was an altogether more relaxed affair.

Effectively, by the time Bethan was four years old she had two parents and three young adult siblings watching over her - poor child!

Keeping your eyes on one child is so much easier than constantly counting to make sure three are still present and correct.

A nightingale sang in . . .

If you completed the title with 'Berkeley Square' as I would have done, you might have been surprised to find that it was in a forest in Cologne. It doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?

Photograph taken in Berlin

Image courtesy of J. Dietrich and Wikimedia Commons

Barry sent me this url - http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=17185

 Apparently, in Thasos, a Greek island in the north Aegean Sea,  the nightingales sing both day and night - how wonderful that must be!

Midweek Blues

Thank you to Rebecca from 'The Dusty Cellar' for organising and hosting this weekly meme. Please click here to see more Blues.
There's a lot of blue in the garden in July and August.

Agapanthus comes in many shades of blue. (There are also white forms.) It's a generous plant, giving many weeks of interest, from the slow development of the buds to the gradual opening of the individual flowers in the flower head. It attracts bees and other pollinators.

On this stem most of the flowers are open and some are going over.

 This is a single flower from one of  the flower heads.

Cornflowers grow rather untidily - we really should have staked them as they keep keeling over into the pond. It makes life interesting for the fish and frogs! The colour is delicious and the insects like the pollen, too.

Nigella damascena 'Moody Blues'

Another blue, almost violet, from 'Moody Blues'

ABC Wednesday Round 7 C is for Cultivation

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Courgette flower unfurling . . .

 . . . and opening to attract bees and hover flies and butterflies . . .

A developing courgette almost ready to pick

Cucumber flowers

The cucumber plant climbs heavenwards, twining its tendrils round supports

Is it a gherkin or a cucumber? This baby cucumber is not yet ready to be harvested.

One large courgette - almost a marrow! - and two small cucumbers.

Our courgette plants are bountiful and the courgettes grow very quickly. Left for just a day or two, young tender courgettes soon mature.So, at the moment, it's courgettes with everything - raw in salads, roasted, stir-fried, curried  . . . I could pickle some. I wonder if I could make courgette jam?? 

Make the punishment fit the crime!

The ringleader of a gang that raped, drugged and forced a 14-year-old girl into prostitution was sentenced to 9 years in jail. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to 7 years. The rest of the accused men received sentences ranging from 8 months to 4 years.
Meanwhile, an antiques dealer who acquired a stolen copy of Shakespeare's first folio and allegedly hoped to sell it for around £1m was jailed for 8 years.
Ian Huntley who murdered two 10-year-old girls in 2002 and was subsequently jailed for life has been advised that he should not pursue his intention to sue the Prison Service for failing in their duty of care after his throat was slashed by another inmate. If the case were to proceed it could cost tax payers more than £1m in legal aid fees. If successful he might be awarded as much as £95,000. It is being strenuously stated that no compensation will be forthcoming but the prisoner is within his rights to proceed – that's if his fellow inmates, said to be enraged by his intention, don't despatch him first.
So, the interested bystander from another planet might assume that in the UK, at least, an old book is worth more than the life of a young girl and that a convicted murderer can sue his jailers because they haven't protected him from harm. Where is the common sense in this Alice in Wonderland series of events?

Soaking

Centuries Years ago, when first I was wed – my, that should be the first line of a song (sings softly to self, see * below, with notes) I started as I intended to continue. My Our life together would be ordered and comfortable and this was quite easy to start with because we didn't have many possessions and lived in Army quarters where all the basics were provided. The inventory was written in an odd, back-to-front way, thus:
Table, dining, oak, polished, officer's, one
Spoon, dessert, silver, six
Cup, tea, china, white, six
Knife, bread, one
Chair, dining, oak, polished, officer's, six
The descriptions may not be are not accurate now, I'm sure, but you might understand the general thrust. I wonder if The inventory must have changed according to rank, so officers' inventories differed from warrant officers' inventories which would be slightly different to other ranks'. What always struck me as very odd was the way the accommodation differed in size according to rank. For example, a general, whose children, if he had any, would be both older and undoubtedly attending boarding school, could have a ten-bedroomed house on a generous plot while a corporal, whose small children would be living with him, would be allocated a two or three-bedroomed house in a terrace with a small garden. Larger families might have the use of two adjoining houses which of course had two of everything – two kitchens, two sitting rooms, two fireplaces, two boilers, two bathrooms (- at a time when British people were still thankful for indoor sanitation and central heating was a thing to be dreamed of. For a short while we lived in a house like this while we waited for an 'appropriate' quarter. After a while we discovered that we were paying for electricity and gas used by our neighbours. Two houses had been opened into one, by unlocking an internal door, then separated again, but someone had forgotten to adjust the metering!)
I digress! One day I decided to 'tidy'. I came across a box full of scraps of paper. There were envelopes, old receipts, pages torn from notebooks, an outdated diary, elderly programmes of events long forgotten. They were all covered with Barry's distinctive handwriting – names, numbers, some addresses. I sorted them, keeping the bits that looked important and deciding that things written on paper napkins or blotting paper (remember blotting paper?) or the backs of ancient receipts could be disposed of. I was pleased with my efforts. A little later came the first utterance of a phrase I would come to dread, 'Have you seen . . . ?' It transpired that the box of oddments constituted Barry's sailing file and of course all those scraps were important, how could I not realise that? Why hadn't I asked? (He wasn't there!) Fortunately the 'rubbish' which was more precious than gold, judging by his reaction, had not yet been consigned to the dustbin so the task of going through it was less messy than it might otherwise have been.
This farce has been re-enacted in various guises in the ensuing forty-odd years. You'd think I'd have learnt by now but there is always a subtle difference in the replay. Now we live in a sea of paper and because the relevant piece can never rarely be found duplicates are sent for, reprinted, redownloaded (is that a plausible word?) to join an ever-growing impenetrable forest. The contagion has spread - to hats, gloves, keys, spanners, screwdrivers, glues, batteries, telephones, remote controls, instruction booklets, camera lenses, DVDs, seed packets, trowels – in fact, anything which is not nailed down is likely to be lost, mislaid, misplaced and frequently replaced. Duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates abound, never to be found, always to be sought. I used to think we had a poltergeist but no longer. Now I believe that inanimate objects grow legs and run away to hide and giggle at the chaos and confusion that proliferates.
DailyFrequentlySometimes Occasionally I rant and ravestamp my feet lose patience and decide not to clear up, not to pick up and put away. It worked in my favour once. I had allowed a stack of magazines to grow in our en suite (reading in the bathroom is a habit I deplore). For two years I steadfastly refused to move the pile until one day Barry said, 'Have you seen . . . ?' and I was able to locate whatever it was in the dusty heap. Mostly though, because I want to walk on the floor and not on a slippery path six inches above it, I do tidy up. The floors are swept or vacuumed every day even though they never reflect the effort, baths and sinks and loos are kept clean, and our clothes and the dogs' bedding are washed daily, which brings me to the title of this piece.
Sometime clothes need to be soaked to loosen particularly resistant stains, like grass, or grease. That's easily accomplished though not as readily as soaking dishes prior to washing in the dishwasher. I remember the first dishwasher we had. I was rinsing the plates and cups from a meal when Barry said, 'You don't need to do that – the dishwasher will do it.' I didn't agree but didn't argue, either. His sister-in-law, Margaret, had exactly the same response as him and when both our dishwashers needed attention because they weren't working efficiently in different parts of the country, the service engineer in both cases advised that dishes should be sluiced before being placed in the machine. It was obvious to me – after all, when washing up by hand items should be rinsed before going into the washing-up bowl. I notice now, several years on, that the dishwasher manuals recommend rinsing before washing so Barry and Margaret were obviously not alone in their innocent understanding that the dishwasher really would 'do the lot'.
My mother always soaked dishes and pans before washing up and I suppose I absorbed her habit. It is as natural to me to run water into a cup or bowl as to breathe (slight exaggeration there, maybe!) I stand alone in this. His mother never soaked anything and so Barry hasn't – until recently. Now and then I have seen him 'putting things to soak'. So if, after forty-odd years, he has learnt to do that, can I dare to hope that 'tidying up' and 'putting away' might follow? He once told me, rather defensively, that he always tidied his desk before leaving work, no matter how late it might be. Later he confessed, rather sheepishly, that 'tidying' to him meant sweeping everything into the desk drawers and locking them. The look's the thing!
Though I may appear to complain, I really would not have things any other way, for that would mean he would not be the man he is, infuriating though he sometimes can be. For example, about four and a half hours ago he disappeared into the loft to work on his model train layout 'for an hour', after which he would mow the lawn, take some exercise in the gym and walk the dogs with me. He has just reappeared. Yesterday he was backing up the computer chips from the engines – I had visions of tiny discs ½" in diameter being stacked on small thread reels! Today he is completing continuing the computerisation of the far from simple design. After that has been finished we he will design the background. When the project has been accomplished to his satisfaction it will be photographed for posterity.
*When first I was wed (GGEDC)
I lived in a shed (EFDCB)
Or that's the way it seemed then (DECCDED)

Revolving doors

Before I embarked on this piece of completely superfluous writing I thought I had better investigate to discover whether 'revolving door' had an official nomenclature in the way that a moving staircase is correctly called an escalator and a lift is properly an elevator. I discovered that it hasn't. Wikipedia informs 'H. Bockhacker of Berlin was granted German patent DE18349 on December 22, 1881 for "Tür ohne Luftzug" or "Door without draft of air"' and that 'Theophilus Van Kannel, of Philadelphia, was granted US patent 387,571 on August 7, 1888 for a "Storm-Door Structure".'
Thereafter it was commonly known as a revolving door.
Whether they revolve clockwise or anti-clockwise (widdershins, like witches!) depends on which side of the road vehicles are driven. Now I wouldn't have thought that vehicles would need to enter buildings at all, let alone through revolving doors, and I was right! In fact, I am at a loss to understand why the direction in which they turn would make any difference. I drive on the left-hand side of the road in a right-hand drive car. I gather that revolving doors in this country turn counter-clockwise allowing my fellow Brits and I to enter and exit buildings only on the right side of the door. Citizens of countries who drive their left-hand drive cars on the right-hand side of the road should expect their revolving doors to turn clockwise, meaning they enter and exit constructions only on the left side of the door. Apparently this is not always the case. Counter-revolutionary designers and builders at work there, perhaps!
I have thought for a long time that revolving doors might be useful in our house. There are quite lengthy periods when Barry, the dogs, the cat and I are the main inhabitants (I don't class spiders, silverfish and assorted other invertebrates as residents) but there are many occasions when so many people and dogs are seeking access to the indoors, or the outdoors if they're already in, that revolving doors would make sense. Actually, it's the dogs that would benefit most from such an installation in the sitting room as they seem to prefer solitude when they're going into the garden. This means that my time is taken up with opening and closing the patio door as they exit and enter in turn. I half expect them to queue at the door, next in line for the great outdoors. Sometimes I simply leave the door open but this can be rather uncomfortable in winter when the rain is lashing and howling winds cause shivers.
The front door arranged as a circulating entrance and exit would be useful for family. Five arrive, three leave, another one appears and then they all go. It's rather like the ebb and flow of the tide. Numbers can rise from two humans and five animals to seven people and seven animals (there's a pleasing symmetry to that!) then another two humans appear, sometimes with a cat, then another two, and one more and finally the last five arrive. We play musical beds, too, though not quite Cox and Box as people stay at different times for different periods. The house is very quiet when the last visitor/s leave and feels rather empty, notwithstanding four dogs and a cat, but I am always thankful that I don't have to run a Bed and Breakfast establishment. Catering for my family is a labour of love and though I generally like my fellow humans I don't particularly want to share bed and board with them.
I don't think revolving doors would look quite right in our house after all so we'll stick with the conventional accesses.

Macro Monday and Mellow Yellow Monday

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Marigold in shade in the front garden

Nasturtium - the flowers and leaves add colour and interest to a salad. They're quite peppery, particularly the leaves.

Cucumber flower with visiting black beetles.

Microfiction Monday #42

Susan from 'Stony River' organises and hosts this weekly meme. Thank you Susan J She provides a picture and the challenge is to create a story in 140 characters or less – including punctuation! Click here to read more marvels of microfiction – and perhaps join in. It's fun!
Here is this week's picture and my offering.

Desirable location. Needs some refurbishment. Suit first-time buyer.
Bob sighed, How much longer could he carry on writing lies for a living?
 (140 characters)

Teeth

When the mind is idle, not engaged in anything in particular, it wanders where it will and so I was suddenly aware that I was thinking about teeth this morning. I don't know why – it's not as if I have toothache or an impending dental check. Bethan came home for the weekend and she has beautiful teeth – the kind of dentition I refer to as 'American'. In fact, all my offspring – and their offspring, too – have credit-worthy teeth, as do most of their peers.
Anyway, I fell to reflecting and soon recalled the episode of 'Friends' in which Ross (David Schwimmer) whitens his teeth. There's nothing wrong with attempting to improve one's image so long as one keeps a sense of balance – Ross clearly overdid the enhancement! The video clip I was going to include has been censored or 'disenabled' - who knows why?
A few years ago, Barry and I went to a point-to-point on Salisbury Plain (which incorporates the largest military training area in the United Kingdom). It was a business affair, a 'jolly' to entertain some of the visiting dignitaries of the company. Naturally, as it was an American company, some of the visitors were American. The local people and the army participants involved in the point-to-point were Britons. The majority of the men, though not Barry, were dressed in tweed suits, some in plus fours, and all in shades of green and brown. Tweed is a rough woollen fabric and is prized as suitable clothing for outdoor pursuits like shooting and hunting because it is hard-wearing and moisture-resistant. However, we were not outdoors but were there to socialise and watch the horses and riders so the robust clothing seemed a little de trop. The women were clothed less formulaically. As with all gatherings of this nature there was a great deal of noise – one might describe it, not totally inaccurately, as braying – and much guffawing. Most of the Brits were entirely relaxed, strapping, healthy, well-built people, standing in a lovat sea, chortling gleefully and showing their strong yellow teeth, quite resembling those of the animals they had come to watch. Into this scrum stepped a dainty, whip-thin woman. She was clearly well beyond her usual comfort zone but was bravely entering the noisy throng, accompanying her husband and smiling rather nervously. She was extremely slender and tanned, stylishly dressed and beautifully groomed in a manner familiar to devotees of the Oscar presentations. She was polished and honed and ironed to the ends of her immaculate nails, a delicate hot-house flower in a garden of vigorous vegetables, but what was truly fascinating about her were her teeth. They were unnaturally, glaringly white, sunbeams glancing off them and dazzling all around her. (Okay, that last bit is an exaggeration!) They were obviously well-maintained, expensive teeth and no doubt in her natural environment they would not have been noticeable since everyone would have had mouths full of similarly blinding gnashers but among the hearty Brits they were quite remarkable. I doubt if she ever attended another point-to-point but have to admire her for making the effort to attend. No doubt she and her husband attended a reception at Buckingham Palace and that would have suited her far better, although the Royal teeth are similarly strong and yellow – and large! It must be something in the genes.