Silly Day
I’ve been ordering Christmas presents.* It doesn’t get much sillier in August. I say nothing about the likelihood of any of them getting packed up and sent off to arrive in time for Christmas however.** The first few years I was living in England I used to get things posted west by the end of October.*** That was a long time ago. I’m doing well these days to have stuff wrapped and labelled and ready to be taken away if someone shows up in person. But I wasn’t ringing bells six hours a day back then.
Okay, maybe not six hours a day. But I’ve rung bells of one sort or another every day since last Wednesday and I’m going ringing again tomorrow.† And today I rang twice. Yesterday was another flapdoodling late-running wedding†† and today we had not only our usual home service††† but a special one‡ at Old Eden. So I bolted out of the first service to run in the hellhounds before I had to go to the second one, after which I was ready to take the afternoon off.‡‡ Hence the Christmas orders.
And then I looked at PEGASUS, and then I looked at the sunlight—sunlight! Sunlight!—and then I put the harnesses back on the hellhounds and we went up to Third House and I planted one rose‡‡‡, one penstemon§, two phlox§§ and a handful of those stalwarts of cottage garden eek-what-do-I-do-with-this-gap summer planting: Cosmos sonata.§§§ With a certain amount of help from hellhounds.¤
And now I’m wondering if I could possibly squeeze out a page or two of PEGASUS before I go to bed.¤¤
* * *
* And while I name no names there is a charity web site that I Will Never Visit Again. I’m a member and I get their paper catalogues, so I was already programmed to buy stuff from them when I went on line, or I would have turned around and come right off again. It’s one of those situations that when you click on a category it encouragingly says 1,864,902 items found, it gives you six per page, and one roll of wrapping paper can take up two pages because you can get it flat or in a roll and the roll can be in several different lengths and then of course you’ll want the matching name tags . . . and each one of these choices is a DIFFERENT ITEM. You can also get it as part of a Variety Pack . . . and then the Variety Pack shows up each time one of the individual gift wraps is presented singly: you can get it flat, or in a roll of several different lengths or with several others in a Variety . . . AAAAAAUGH. Not to mention that there are dozens of repeat items . . . just because. And when you try to use the paper catalogue numbers their search engine keeps saying ‘no, sorry, our database doesn’t contain that page, you’re just going to HAVE TO KEEP LOOKING THROUGH THE 1,864,902 items in that category. Oh, go on, it’ll be fun.’ I’m sure I could have found the plastic battery operated jousting knights^ and the robin wrapping paper^^ elsewhere. Who the grrrmmPPPH created the damned site? Goblins? Is this another of the Borg’s subprogrammes? Are they passing out IT/web site programming destructo-licenses free with the large economy size bag of dog food?^^^ Or for forty-seven coupons off the backs of Never Sleep Again Mwa ha ha ha ha brand instant coffee? What?
^ I’m reasonably sure the recipient of this awesome gift does not read this blog. I may buy them again if I see them somewhere else. They are very awesome.
^^ Over here, for you elsewhereians, the British robin is one of the major symbols of Christmas. Holly, ivy, mistletoe, robins. I imagine most British people named Robin grow out of robin-themed Christmas ephemera, but I only started when I was 39 and I’m still having a good time. There’s a lot of robin wrapping paper out there. Not to mention tea towels, coffee mugs, biscuit tins, etc.
^^^ Don’t do it. It isn’t good dog food.
** I think I don’t have any left over from last year. But I wouldn’t guarantee it.
*** A convincing argument could be made that every ill chance that has befallen me since is down to the lords of misrule finding this particular behaviour unacceptable.
† Kent. Colin’s tower. Niall and I are going.
†† And there isn’t even a window into the church from the ringing chamber at Old Eden. One of the things that makes time pass at late weddings at our home tower is looking through the window and making remarks about people’s hats. The thing is we need a window into the church, so we can see when the proud pair come prancing down the aisle and it’s time for us to pull off. As it is—and this is, unfortunately, the case in a lot of churches—you have to post your spriest ringer somewhere that he or she can either see the aisle or can be nodded to by one of the ushers told off for the job^, and then he has to pelt up the 6,412 stairs to the ringing chamber and grab her rope. Those of us lying at our (extremely bored) leisure will have leaped to attention ourselves at the sound of the panting breath and pounding feet.
^ This latter is to be preferred, as most ringers do not ring weddings dressed for the wedding. There were a lot of shorts and sandals in evidence in the ringing chamber today.
††† The truth is I have mixed feelings about no longer being the one who always gets to ring the treble. Being a treble-only ringer was restful. Sunday mornings are bad enough without evil long-thirds Grandsire singles. What really tickles me though is watching people like Niall and Richard fighting over the treble. Mine! No, mine! I’m older! I’m feebler!
‡ For the Affiliated Poltergeist Cribbage League and Debating Society. Something like that.
‡‡ And next weekend is going to be even worse. We’ve got three weddings. Three! We’re victims of our own success! And they’re all here, or Old Eden. I’d say no if it wasn’t us.^
^ Or Colin. He’s my Kent band. I am nice to Colin.+
+ Relatively speaking. Remember I’m a hellgoddess.
‡‡‡ Duchesse de Brabant http://www.classicroses.co.uk/roses/d/duchesse_de_brabant.html
And no, this isn’t the start of the new season’s orders: this is someone who has been sitting around in a pot for the last couple of years. Sigh. Actually she does perfectly well in a pot, but I meant her to go in the ground.^ Like two years ago. And she is not the only one.
^ It will now turn out that having coped with the last two winters unprotected in a pot—teas tend to be borderline tender—she’ll suddenly go all chilly and traumatised this year in the ground.
§ An extremely gallant Hidcote Pink http://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/perennials/classid.3374/
which has also been in a pot for two years, and it does not like pot life. But it has been grimly growing and producing flowers and saying, Gasp! Gasp! Please plant me! So I’ve given it a firm but tactful trim both top and bottom, provided a good feed and watered it in well . . . and if it croaks now I’m going to be cross.
§§ Sherbet Cocktail^ http://www.phoenixperennials.com/nursery/plant.php?plantID=3079
Another frelling plant that needs to be staked. Which I didn’t do, of course, so I’ve got the twistier one of the two leaning into/against one of the Big Boring Green Shrubs that my predecessor was so fond of. I’ve had a lot of BBGSs out but there are a few that are so jolly and verdant I can’t quite bring myself to. This one already has two clematis climbing over it to mute its effect a little. I’m sure it won’t mind a phlox twining about its ankles.
^ Sherbet cocktail? Ewwwwwww.
§§§ http://www.dobies.co.uk/ProductLarge.aspx?pCode=Cosmos+Sonata+Mixed+Seeds+420315
They have the further great advantage of being extremely hard to kill.
¤ Go. Lie. Down. The funny thing is that they’ve long since stopped trying to help me at the cottage^, even when, having totally run out of anything resembling space to DO anything in anywhere else in the garden, I invade their little courtyard to do potting-up and potting-on things. Chaos will come out and hang over my shoulder and suggest improvements, but he’s not a total pest. At Third House, they’re both total pests. I periodically despair of convincing them that while the human gardens, the hellhounds lie around in the grass and soak up rays. But then I think, this is all part of why I have dogs, and I sigh heavily, and take them with me again.
If I were a little more regular about spending time at Third House’s garden I might be making more progress. On a number of fronts. Hey! There are fewer pots lined out on the paving stones than there were at the beginning of the summer! –Of course as soon as I get the rest of ’em in the ground I’ll bring the next wave of overflow from the cottage. . . .
^ Well. Let’s say they’re resigned to being rebuffed.
¤¤ Alternatively I could sing. I have less than forty-eight hours to learn the tune of something. They were singing Panis Angelicus at the wedding yesterday. I twitched a little but I did not say to the assembled ‘oh, I’m learning that because I’ve started taking voice lessons.’
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.