March 2021

Another Month – I’m no longer counting.

First of all, welcome to my time zone. A challenge achieved. When I didn’t put the clocks back last Autumn I thought it would be something I’d manage to do for a couple of days. The confusion of it seemed obvious at the outset. Although I don’t have many appointments these days, I do have some. And there are a few things I like to watch on TV in real time. How could I be so out of synch? Probably the most important thing was that Pavel agreed to do this with me. I’m absolutely sure it would have been impossible with two of us on different times in the same house! Well, we did it and you all joined us in our light evenings a week or so ago. I would do it again. I settled into doing such things as having lunch while everyone else was having coffee and I ignored the raised eyebrows (you know who you are) when discussing anything to do with time with friends. I don’t have an image to celebrate this bit of nonsense so here’s a photo of a sundial I made.

If you remember, this all started off as a project related to reaching 70. Another school friend just did that too. Annie Wilcox lives in Canada now and is vegan. For her 70^th she sent 70 vegan recipes to her friends. She says the recipes produce delicious offerings and are not complicated. Therefore here I am with another challenge. I will, from now on, cook two vegan recipes from Annie’s list for as long as I agree that what I’m producing is delicious! Thank you Annie for the inspiration. In the meantime I cooked:

A rather nice and unusual sweet potato macaroni cheese

And these meringues which were a total failure. Fiona keeps the photo of them to look
at whenever she wants to laugh….

I’ve made a bit of progress along the canal as the map shows. An aside – I discovered the canal is 35 miles long and so doing it in ‘there and back’ chunks means 70 miles. So I’ll go back and repeat the parts that have only been walked once. This month the walk was from Bridge (No 84?) to Goytre Wharf; Goytre Wharf to Pontymoile Basin; and Pontymoile Basin to Five Locks. There we ‘officially’ met up with brother Malcolm & Linda who brought us (thebest) fish and chips from Page’s in Cwmbran – this is a recommendation – and we wandered back to our starting point. I’m quite disappointed that I’ve not seen a kingfisher on the canal walks. Other people seem to quite often.

Talking of birds, I sent for some proper colouring pencils but they didn’t arrive in time to colour a bird this month. So I chose a wood pigeon which really only needed pencils…… And I’ve started the bird tapestry but not done enough to warrant a photo.

I’m not sure that this warrants a photo either!

I made two donations this month. One to Coffi Cymru/Living With Dementia which is a group organising get togethers for local people with dementia. The other to The Parkinson’s Society. I donated to a local Parkinson’s group earlier in the year, but this month my friend Jane’s mother died with Parkinson’s and her daughter-in-law decided to ask for sponsors for her challenge to climb Skirrid – a local mountain – every day in March. I love other people’s challenges and this one was much more demanding than any of mine and so I wanted to support her. And anyway, it was for Jane too.

I forgot to report on Matt’s CD last month. He’s not sending me new CDs this year, but his favourite ones instead. He knows I won’t have them already. So, February and March – I think I’ve got this right are Neutral Milk Hotel and Deer Park. Matt must be getting old too because he gave me Neutral Milk Hotel a few years ago when he came to stay in luxury instead of a Green Man Festival tent. I like both, and I do so like getting some music each month that I wouldn’t otherwise know about.

Neutral Milk Hotel on the left obviously

Books. Two again. One for bookclub – Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I’d not read about it. But I had read Elif’s little gem – How To Stay Sane In An Age of Division, so I was optimistic. She didn’t disappoint. A book about Leila’s memories that come to her as she is dying. Which may sound depressing, but it’s not. It’s about friends, their friendships, and extraordinary lives. I very much liked it.

I read Belinda Bauer’s Exit, which was a swapped birthday present. Susie originally bought me Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, but I’d read that over Christmas and since the wonderful Book-ish was Susie’s shop of choice I was able to do an easy exchange. I decided on Exit because it’s partly about elderly people getting tied up in a murder. It’s fun and I enjoyed it, but it’s not quite a good a read as Thursday Murder Club.

The favourite monthly CLOUD, POEM and PIECE OF MUSIC from the breakfast time routine:

My choices are often short. Not next month though… it’s only 4th April and I know which one it will be.

It was a difficult choice of music this month but I loved that when I listened to Libertango by Astor Piazzolla I could see the dancers. Then I found this on YouTube.

That’s all for now! I gave up chocolate for Lent under the influence of Joanna who I know has been doing it at least every year since we met in 1984. I thought it would be something to do in lockdown (and a challenge!). Emma helpfully pointed out that it was the complete opposite of something to do…… Anyway, I did it. Happy Easter.

January – Month 12

This is a very important entry of two halves. First of all this month’s achievements which I have to say, feel like a bit of a barrel scrape and, as it’s month 12 (how did that even happen?) ‘The Audit’.

This month
On January 1^st I took up two, one a day ‘new’ activities. Inspired by Annie Wilcox I bought A Cloud A Day and every morning, with breakfast, I read about a cloud.

This then inspired me to go back to something I failed to complete a couple of years ago – Clemency Burton-Hill’s book A Year of Wonder.

*This is the book if you want to learn something about classical music*

In it she writes about a piece of classical music for every day of the year and someone has usefully put together a Spotify playlist to go with it. It’s another breakfast activity, and a real joy. If a particular piece of music is not a joy – because not all of it is – Clemmie makes it one with her writing. I’d like to add a gentle acknowledgement to two friends Sue and Fiona who are also listening, and with whom I have an, albeit brief, exchange of opinion on what we’re listening to. Winter lockdown isn’t tremendous fun and this fleeting daily contact is just lovely.

I decided that I should post here, my favourite piece of music and my favourite cloud from the month. Here they are:

*I think it was the blue sky as much as the cloud!*

An aside – If you don’t know anything about Clemency Burton-Hill, look her up on Wikipedia and listen to her recent Women’s Hour interview. She’s amazing.

Staying with the music theme, I have to report that MATTHEW HAS NOT SENT A CD THIS MONTH. There you have it. I paid too. Now laugh! I’ve forgiven him and he says that one is on the way. He asked me to rank the music I’ve received over the last 12 months. You’ll notice that there are 12 EVEN THOUGH I HAVEN’T RECEIVED ONE THIS MONTH. That’s because I’ve included Bruce and put him first because that’s where he belongs.

Birds! I went for a walk and heard, as well as saw, a woodpecker. Can you:

Tap, tap, tap

I almost took part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. I say almost because it turns out that I did it wrong because you’re supposed to count number of birds not just the type. So, for my readers only, I saw blackbirds, jackdaws, sparrows, blue tits, robins, thrushes, and pigeons. That’s it. I was very disappointed that the tiny wren who dances around the garden from time to time didn’t make an appearance.

The canal. No walks this month as we couldn’t get to the starting point without an unofficial drive. I did, however, find out that there’s a map of the canal and I’m using it to highlight the walk. You can see how much has been achieved. The orange sections are those where we’ve had to walk ‘there and back’ because of lack of transport. It’s a great map – all 167 bridges have names!

A couple of recipes – lentils cooked in coconut milk. More than edible but ‘presentationally’ dull…

and something called Hoppin’ John cooked to use up a lot of spring greens delivered in the veg box! Unexpectedly delicious.

Books – The two bookclub books this month couldn’t be more different. The Wall by John Lanchester, a dystopian novel which describes a scary Britain protecting its borders after a climate change catastrophe, and The Wintering by Katherine May, a book about preparing for the ‘down times’ in life. I thought I wouldn’t like this at all but I absolutely loved it. Maybe because of the times? I liked The Wall too, but it I suspect it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

This month’s donation went to the Abergavenny Food Bank.

THE AUDIT
It’s happening. In a few days time I’m going to be 70. Instead of ‘celebrating in style’, at least the style I’d hope to have planned, it will be champagne with Pavel at home. Maybe I’ll get dressed and put on shoes and if so, I shall wear make up.

This blog and the tasks/challenges I set myself were all about having a bit of fun because of my birthday. Yes, I’ve had a bit of fun, but not exactly the fun expected!

70 tasks. Without going into detail they break down as:

47 completed

13 pandemically failed to complete

9 actually failed to complete and

1 was not allowed to complete

What I’ve really delighted in are the readers who’ve said ‘oo why don’t you do this? Or you’ve inspired me to do this!’ And things like last month when I mentioned decorations from the Sacramento Street Christmas shop in San Francisco when Yvonne undressed her tree and sent me a photo of all the decorations she bought there, with the comment, ‘I can’t toss (them), it was a hell of an era.’ So then I emailed Christine, my flat mate from above the Christmas shop and we had a little reminisce.

I’ve wondered about carrying on with the blog and the tasks, and I’ve decided that I’m going to. Until all 70 things are ticked off. I’m nothing if not obsessive. What’s the point of having a list otherwise? As I add the pandemically inspired ‘extras’, who knows, there may end up being 80 or more tasks and…. well, you can see where I’m going with this!

There may not be a monthly update but there will be updates. If you’ve read this far you’re on my mailing list. Do let me know if you want to be deleted – I won’t mind at all. But thank you for staying the course this time around!