Booooring
. . . because I’m going to start by complaining about being tired again. I think I’m not really over the stomach flu of whenever, and letting myself get so cold on Sunday looking at horses was really stupid. And I was determined to ride yesterday . . . and then I had this fascinating book to read when I went to bed last night . . . and still had to get up early this morning so I could get hellhounds run in before I went to watch Roland.
Roland, I may say, was a bright spot.* Jenny has put him in another absolutely plain, no-frills snaffle bit, and with a bit that makes him happy and her in the saddle he is very nearly a different horse:** all his body parts going in the same direction, and a dramatic drop in the rubber-banana factor. He’s still very sprawly, being young and enormous, but his balance is really not at all bad; he can do a twenty-metre circle without falling over, and I’ve seen much more alarming canters on much older horses. I didn’t even feel the need to plaster myself against the wall as he approached my end of the arena. He could, at this point, grow up to be anything: his natural balance and those long light strides might take him almost anywhere. I’m presently hoping that Jenny keeps him long enough to find out what he’s good at.
It’s also been a gorgeous day–Sunlight! Blue sky! White clouds! Glory glory hallelujah!–so I played hooky for a couple of hours this afternoon and pottered out into the garden,*** where activity began with pouring three inches of rainwater out of everything that would hold that much water. The consequences of my mad spate of plant orders are mostly still only arriving as paper confirmations†, all of them somehow longer than I remembered. But I also rescued the three trays of pansies that arrived just before the latest flood, and spent some time wandering around the garden poking pansies in corners and muttering. I go through this every year: I want to plant winter-flowering pansies over my spring bulbs, and the pansies arrive weeks before the bulbs do. I also nervously potted up my new little Phyllostachys nigra (black bamboo), murmuring health and well-being charms, and vacillating among varieties of compost and depth of drainage. I have previously successfully killed it and would like to start a new tradition.††
And then I went bell ringing. Which I want to tell you about, because I seem to have fallen through another developmental stage without noticing. But I’m too tired. So I think I’ll go to bed. After all, I have that really great book to read. . . .
* * *
* Not only on account of the neon orange aspect, which is somewhat dimmed by working indoors anyway. Jenny says she thinks she’ll go on working her monster three year old indoors for a while: the outdoor ring is large and not only Full of Things–Connie among others still tries to shy at the Strange Waffle Surface Black Plastic Panels that have been leaning against the boundary fence for as long as I’ve been riding again–but surrounded by even More Things like people’s gardens with Ominous Flapping and Swinging Things^ and barking dogs and, in the big field on the long side, cows. Oooooh, cows. But staying in the indoor ring means I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to get a good photo of him: in terms of things you don’t want to introduce your monster three year old to too soon, I feel camera flashes are high on the list.
And permit me to mention just in passing that this has been a day that needed bright spots. As just one example I came haring home with hellhounds after Roland because Computer Man was coming . . . and hung around and hung around and hung around . . . and finally called his office in no very good mood . . . and he had it written down that he’s coming here tomorrow.
^ Including the people themselves, of course, wielding laundry and hoes
** Still orange though
*** I have no option for providing important greater-world experience for young horses, however, having ten-foot walls around the cottage garden and a hedge at Third House.
† Oh, gods! Did I order from them too?
†† It will also provide a way-too-exemplary sample of my plant-ordering tactics. I decided I had to have Blueberry Ripple tulips this year, because they still amuse me, although they seem to have gone back out of fashion again more or less on first release. The only catalogue I could find that had them was one I wasn’t planning on ordering from at all. However I also have a deep resistance to ordering one thing out of any given catalogue, be it plants, books, clothes or little noodgy objects^, so as soon as I was going to have to order tulips from these people I was going to have to order something else. Uh oh. Yes. The finished list looks like this:
Blueberry Ripple tulips (8)
French vanilla marigolds (25)^^
Abutilon megapotamicum (1) ^^^
Ranunculus Pink Picotee (10)
Begonia Aromantics (5)
Phyllostachys nigra (1)
Oxalis Versicolour (5)^^^^
^ You know, the things that go on the fronts of bookshelves in front of the books. Yes, of course, I too swore I would never put objects, little or noodgy or not, in front of books on bookshelves. But what else are you going to do with the china horses from your childhood that you never quite got round to giving away? And how better demonstrate the hallowed preciousness of such items or of, say, the plastic wind-up Godzilla who spits sparks or the complimentary (empty) bottle of Ritz house champagne from your wedding night+ than by putting them on a bookshelf in front of the books?
+ I have kind of a collection of empty wine bottles from important occasions. . . .
^^ Some night I’ll do a rant on how in this great, green nation (1) gardens are getting smaller (2) plant catalogues offer ever bigger trays of ‘plugs’: I love pansies, but I don’t want several million of them with an extra 100,000 FREE.
^^^ This is clearly madness, it’s tender. http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/3.shtml But we usually managed to nurse it through a few years at the old house before it got too big to protect and winter nailed it.
^^^^ These are free because I’ve ordered so much. . . .
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I have previously successfully killed it and would like to start a new tradition.
Ooh, I have those kind of successes rather frequently myself…
little noodgy objects
Perhaps this should be the next thing after the Klutz Klub–you could have a Noodge-Off. Whoever can list the most eclectic collection of objects-in-front-of-books (with photos) gets….er… Sparkzilla’s seal of approval?
Snork! I’ll put it on the Contest List! :)
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I have previously successfully killed it and would like to start a new tradition.††
That’s me, Jeanine the Mass Murderer! I feel so guilty sometimes at how many plants I’ve killed. But then I go and buy some new ones to kill. Sigh.
*Plants die.* They do. Sometimes it’s because you haven’t done right by them but sometimes THEY JUST DIE.
****** Ranunculus Pink Picotee (10)
What do these look like? My tired old brain keeps throwing “buttercup” at me, but for the life of me I can’t imagine pink buttercups!
Well, they’re a bit buttercuppy, only . . . pink picotee. They’re also a MISTAKE, I ordered busy lizzies, but I’ve been too tired to track this down.
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“I think I’m not really over the stomach flu of whenever, and letting myself get so cold on Sunday looking at horses was really stupid. ”
I feel for you and hope you feel a lot better very soon. I too thought I was over my stomach flu, but found out, since eating a varied vegetable diet yesterday that no, I wasn’t as recovered as I thought. It didn’t stop me swimming in a cold pool today, but the sun was hot and shining and I felt it would be a massive shame not to take advantage.
“You know, the things that go on the fronts of bookshelves in front of the books. Yes, of course, I too swore I would never put objects, little or noodgy or not, in front of books on bookshelves. ”
I too swore this oath and broke it. Little statues, mementos, cards and boxes. I love boxes. Gorgeous minimal wood boxes, where the grain stands out. Fabulous marble boxes, enamelled metal boxes. Ceramic boxes. Unusual boxes. Antique cigarette boxes, scientific instrument boxes. Then a whole lot of not so entirely fabulous boxes that friends have given me because they love me and know I have this “box” thing (as well as a book “thing” and a music “thing” etc etc.) and have given me boxes that I am not that keen on, but I am fond of because the friends in question have given them to me. They all take up space on surfaces, in front of books, over books, in nooks and crannies. They gather dust and need cleaning a lot more often than books do. But they gather and I cannot throw them away, give them away or otherwise de-acquisition them. Sad, pathetic, but human.
So sad that people are giving you plants FOR FREE! If you don’t want them you can always put them out on a tray for passersby to take…
Yep. I’m there. . . .
(No, no, these are plants you CAN HAVE for free. I WANTED them!)
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I’m presently hoping that Jenny keeps him long enough to find out what he’s good at.
Does she usually sell them again very quickly? I think I get it, but I find the idea of getting a horse, teaching it and bonding with it…and then selling it! very sad. :(
She’s a professional trainer. She’s NOT buying it to bond with. She’s buying it to SELL: to train up so she can make a nice profit. She keeps saying this so often I know that she needs to tell HERSELF that too. :) She likes the training and hates the selling.
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She’s buying it to SELL:
Ahh. The trainer thing must have escaped me somehow. (Not that I’m sure what I thought she did. Teach people like you, I guess?) The whole “Horsie! Love!” thing, you know. :)
The selling would make me so sad!
Yes. One of the subsidiary reasons I’m NOT a professional horseperson. And Jenny *worries* about them after she sells them. . . . And yes, she teaches people like me, but she likes teaching HORSES. :)
Did you know you are the lead off in the acknowledgments in Jessica Day George’s DRAGON SLIPPERS book? “I would like to acknowledge that this book would never have been written if not for the following things: First, in 1989 my sister checked out from the library Robin McKinley’s fine Damar books and left them on the floor of our bedroom, where I tripped over them and then fell in love with them….”
I thought you should know (if you don’t already)
LOL! No, I did NOT know.
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Oh goody! Another dragon book to add to my collection (actually three books including one by Ogden Nash)!
Thank you Libby!
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You successfully killed bamboo? That’s impressive. It’s a downright weed–many people in southern California would kill for your secret.
Different kind of bamboo. The black stuff is mild-mannered. We had the thuggy variety at the old house and it was DANGEROUS.
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So yeah, everyone probably knows about this but me, but I refuse to allow that to dull my excitement.
http://www.bookcrossing.com/
Yes. It also makes you feel better when you leave one behind when you DIDN’T mean to. :) I’ve had the suspicion that it was created by someone because they kept leaving books on the train. . . .
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“…the plastic wind-up Godzilla who spits sparks”
EEEEEEE!! I wonder where mine is…. It’s not with the Narnia action figures….
It’s not with the Narnia action figures….
**Snork.**
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I’m sorry to hear you are still feeling below par and hope being tired is just . . . being tired. Which is enough of a drag in itself. I went to bed early, for me, last night, thinking that I would have a chance to read in bed, and went to sleep after about three paragraphs. This is so unfair. If I had been putting dog food away or packing a suitcase I would stayed awake.
****It’s also been a gorgeous day–Sunlight! Blue sky! White clouds! Glory glory hallelujah!–so I played hooky for a couple of hours this afternoon and pottered out into the garden****
Good for you. We had the same kind of day here, after rain so the ground is workable, and I should have been clearing out a border, but I had to go look for a pair of black shoes instead. On the plus side, I found them–and they were the first pair I tried, too, I’m sure my husband does not believe this–but it’s another good day in the garden wasted, and ion addition to the borders and the grass seed there are leaves to rake. Oh well.
Is your abutilon megapotamicum similar to the abutilon pictum etc. commonly called flowering maple? (I have just been out to White Flower Farm’s website, which is why I know the species name.) I couldn’t tell from the picture on your link. These are lovely when in bloom. I like them a lot, but I belong to the Black (or at least Grey) Thumb Club when it comes to houseplants, and that’s what one of these would be at my house.
****the things that go on the fronts of bookshelves in front of the books****
Yup, guilty here, too. Shelf space is at a premium here, what can I say?
I’m sorry to hear you are still feeling below par and hope being tired is just . . . being tired. Which is enough of a drag in itself. I went to bed early, for me, last night, thinking that I would have a chance to read in bed, and went to sleep after about three paragraphs. This is so unfair. If I had been putting dog food away or packing a suitcase I would stayed awake.
&&&&&&&& LOL! Yes, exactly! Some nights when the house is really getting a little . . . scary, I’ll fold laundry or heave heaps into corners and things and it WAKES ME UP. (Then I go back to bed with the book . . . )
****It’s also been a gorgeous day–Sunlight! Blue sky! White clouds! Glory glory hallelujah!–so I played hooky for a couple of hours this afternoon and pottered out into the garden****
Good for you. We had the same kind of day here, after rain so the ground is workable, and I should have been clearing out a border, but I had to go look for a pair of black shoes instead. On the plus side, I found them–and they were the first pair I tried, too, I’m sure my husband does not believe this–but it’s another good day in the garden wasted, and ion addition to the borders and the grass seed there are leaves to rake. Oh well.
&&&&&&&& Yes, there’s always the DOUBLE pleasure of having got into the garden . . . and having got into the garden, if you follow me. :)
Is your abutilon megapotamicum similar to the abutilon pictum etc. commonly called flowering maple? (I have just been out to White Flower Farm’s website, which is why I know the species name.) I couldn’t tell from the picture on your link. These are lovely when in bloom. I like them a lot, but I belong to the Black (or at least Grey) Thumb Club when it comes to houseplants, and that’s what one of these would be at my house.
&&&&&&&&&& No. Yours is hybricum or some non-word. And the flowers are quite different. I’m suspicious of the whole grey thumb thing. Being a house plant is hard. Some plants survive and some don’t.
****the things that go on the fronts of bookshelves in front of the books****
Yup, guilty here, too. Shelf space is at a premium here, what can I say?
&&&&&&&&& I say it too. :)
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^ You know, the things that go on the fronts of bookshelves in front of the books.
YES.
But what else are you going to do with the china horses from your childhood that you never quite got round to giving away?
YES
I see the sunshine and blue sky reached you successfully. Excellent. I think our reciprocal rain got lost in the mail though. :/ Oh well. Hay cutting and silage making happening like mad over here before it all dries off too much.
My tulips are just finishing and the roses are starting (amazing how early I can get them to start when it is warm and I didn’t prune them!).
Just to muddy the catalogue waters a little, I bring to your attention Broadleigh Gardens (www.broadleighbulbs.co.uk) which has the perfectly exquisite tulipa viridiflora ‘spring green, which mix beautifully with t. gavota. Also Bernwode plants (www.bernwodeplants.co.uk) whose catalogue is a delight of erudite plant scholarship and contains such things as ‘Darling of April’ (aka common primrose), Old Yellow Dusty Miller, Ranunculus Acris Hedgehog and St Patricks Cabbage or None-so-Pretty. Enjoy. I shall now induct the phrase ‘noodgy objects’ into my day-to-day vocabulary. Most of mine (childhood white china horses etc, but also C19th delicate 1/2 cm miniature carved bone dominoes in a little Chinese ‘cage’) have been passed on to Tabbi (14) in what is known as ‘the treasure cupboard’. It smells of long afternoons spent in my grandmother’s house. My personal favourite of the modern noodgies is my puppet raven, Branwen (which I use for school author visits). She sits in front of Herodotus and gaelic proverbs, wearing a turquoise flowered hat I bought in a mad moment at the Glastonbury festival. Suits her much better than me ;-) I have now finished H and C again, and it occurs to me that I should much like to go and live with Luthe for a while. I’m sure I would get much more writing done on the Great Work of Fantasy Fiction. Only 5k words so far this week….
I’ve been ordering from Broadleigh twice a year for over a decade. :) But I’d forgotten about bernwode–I used to use them–I think I may have ordered apple trees from them at the old house–but they aren’t doing general plants any more and *I’Ve* got as many fruit trees as I can fit in. . . .
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I hope you feel better soon – I have managed to avoid the various cold-flu like things going around the school, but it’s only a matter of time before a child coughs on me at the wrong time…
“and letting myself get so cold on Sunday looking at horses was really stupid. ”
We used to have a saying at the barn I worked at once upon a time – “Playing with horses is worth [insert nasty consequence here].” We used to have contests to come up with the worst thing we’d put up with in order to stay with the horses. A friend won that contest when a 17 hand Shire cross stepped on her foot and broke most of the bones, and she hobbled back into the barn to groom him the next day.
PS- Chalice arrived yesterday and I stayed up *waaaaaaaaay* past my bedtime to read it. Fascinating books indeed!
Thank you!
–Yes, I have to admit that cross as I am, I’M GLAD I WENT, on Sunday. I just wish I’d been BRIGHT enough to take more clothing.
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Random comments:
1.
>you are the lead off in the acknowledgments in Jessica Day George’s DRAGON SLIPPERS book
That’s a lovely dedication! Someday I hope I’m fortunate enough to trip someone, too. :)
2. I am delighted at the thought of a spark-spitting Godzilla monster.
3. What I don’t understand is using bookshelves to display the objets d’life INSTEAD of books as decorators so often seem to. My shelves are already stacked two or three deep with books and there are piles of books with no home. To use bookshelves merely as display cabinets seems a waste, though if you’ve room to incorporate the two, that’s brilliant.
4. I keep forgetting to post Klutzim stories, drat it all. Must do soon so as to acquire shiny bookmark!
While your horse talk is giving me the terminal heebies (I work at a stable full of American Saddle Breds, and it is getting to me) what really interested me was your horrible tease about you very interesting book. Why the secrecy? C’mon, give!! I just read a very interesting book too. Very, very interesting.
See how maddening that is?
*You’re* not paying attention. I’ve already told you–I’ve got the ms. of Peter’s new book to read. It’s only the **ms** however–don’t expect it soon.
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Ahhhh, “tender.” I feel for you, but at least you’ve got the relatively gentle English winter. I live in USDA Zone 5. For three years running, I acquired a flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa). For three years running, I cried bitter tears in the spring as YET AGAIN it failed to overwinter. (The last one even blossomed, but then we had a very late killing frost.) I’ve wrapped it, I’ve put it in a protected spot… sigh. Next time I find one, I’m just going to pot it and take the dratted thing in in the winter.
Have you ever tried planting your tenders in a cold frame? If it’s something not too big, you don’t even have to move it… just leave the window up in the summer, and then trim back and close it in for winter.
And now I’m off to unpack the 500,000 narcissus and species tulip bulbs i just acquired….
Haven’t got room for a cold frame. Besides, I’d BREAK it. :) But Third House has a tatty little summerhousy shed thing that I’m going to use for overwintering this year and we’ll see.
Um. You’ve thought about drainage, haven’t you? I’d say that a flowering quince would stand a bit of frost if it had REALLY SHARP DRAINAGE. Awful lot of things will put up with cold if they don’t have wet feet.
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Bulbs! I swore I was going to plant a bunch this year but now it may not happen–then again it might. Went to the docs today and my skin graft has completely taken! Woo and hoo! And I’m even allowed to walk on the leg (as tolerated). So I might be able to get out there and plant–bending in certain ways is still a problem. Then again I could round up the husband and get him to do the planting while I pointed in a She Who Must Be Obeyed sort of way…
I feel better. Can you tell?
YAAAAY. It’s all those candles we’ve lit that made the little tiny tipping point difference, you know. :):):)
I favour the Ordering the Husband about method, but it might be good for morale if you made him bring you some pots with compost already loaded and put a few bulbs in yourself. I was out in the garden this afternoon in SUNLIGHT and it was DIVINE.
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