Spanner in the works

The builder and the architect have fallen out.

It's week six of nineteen.

Let's just focus on the flowers

and breathe deeply.

Summer pudding

Raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants.

 White bread.

Fruit briefly simmered with some sugar.

 Bowl lined with slices of bread

and filled with fruit in two layers.

Lid of bread soaked with remaining juices.

Refrigerate with weighted plate,

next to jug of mint lime cool aid (mine)

and bottle of iichiko Bar (not mine).

Enjoying 2

Cat in cleared garden.

Making lemonade.

Light in the Smoke Bush.

Seeking cool shade.

Enjoying

Gypsophilla.

 Evening backlit sweet peas.

Spent poppies.

Looking in, instead of out.

Photosynthesising

Converting light from the sun into energy

to fuel my activities.

It's like waking up.

Light play

That's more like it.

 There is just the faintest promise,

the vaguest hope,

the smallest hint,

of a fine weekend.

On the plus side

my sweet peas have never been better.

Son sends a funny. . .

. . . chilled mother posts it

in lieu of thinking coherent thoughts

and puts a warmer jumper on.

Battered

I commuted for years, every day, by train, 

tube and bus, around town.

It was pretty tiresome as I recall, reaching a particular low

on the day I had to jump down onto the track at a London terminus 

when seven months pregnant, 

because of sudden horrific overcrowding 

on the station concourse and platform.

But I am quite certain it was never as bad as it is now -

routinely.

I have just endured a one hour assault on my senses.

A man bellowed directions into his phone,

'Noooh! Noooh! Shepherd's Bush.

NooH! Whaat? NoooH! Not Richmond!

You come out... meet me at the exit!

Meet me at the EXIT.

Shepherd's Bush.

NooH! Where are you?

etc. etc.

This then turned, inexplicably, to a graphic stream of invective,

at which point I moved to the next carriage.

A man with BO and a cough sat next to me.

When he left, he was replaced by a man eating

a fried chicken drumstick with his elbow in my face.

The man on my left fell asleep and lolled towards me,

I shrank towards the fried chicken.

A woman opposite glared and grimaced 

as if at some internal conflict.

The voluble Brazilian family were at least incomprehensible,

but one of them was filing her nails.

I haven't got an i-Phone to gaze at, or a working i-Pod

to cancel out the other i-Pods.

I couldn't read my book.

So I shut my eyes

and I tried to picture Romney Marsh churches.

It didn't really work.

So I'm getting it off my chest here.

You know it's been a bit wet when. . . 2

You deliberately train your clematis

over the washing line.

You know it's been a bit wet when. . .

your son finds a mushroom growing in his bathroom,

and I find a snail in the car.

How far would you have gone?

Well it makes a change from watching the rain.

Charging

I bought some solar powered tree lights for the wedding.

Leave in direct sunlight for 24 hours the instructions said.

Half an hour later.

One hour later.

And this was a good day.

Do you think they will be twinkling by October?

Will anyone be twinkling by October?

Resurfacing

It has been all action in my stretch of the street.

This would have been Paradise Row for my small sons,

who loved books about Diggers.

 And actually I found it pretty fascinating too.

The machinery is ingenious. 

A parade of the weirdest

but most specifically engineered hardware

has been sashaying and pirouetting,

rumbling and rolling

  

past my window for two days now.

 It was all beautifully choreographed.

 Nobody collided.

Not a bollard was displaced.

And then as if there weren't enough men in hi vis jackets

in the vicinity,

the orange crew arrived to work on the sad house next door.

I say work, but really this was far too diverting

and only their white haired supervisor-
a dead ringer for Leslie Nielsen-

kept his mind on the job.

Finally the largest beast was tenderly led away,

and put in its paddock to rest up for the night

and I was able to get my car out.