HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY

But wasn't it yesterday? said Pooh a little anxiously.

'Wasn't what yesterday?' said Owl.

'His birthday. Isn't that what you are writing about?'

'Well yes, it does seem like only yesterday,

but I am getting a little confused lately.'

Pooh looked on with a thoughtful expression.

'Well then I think you must make up for your forgetting

to write about it yesterday.

I daresay he is a Forgiving Sort.

Write something in capital letters

and he will hear you shouting.'

So Owl wrote with her long pencil,

HIPY HAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY

FOR YISTUDY.

And everyone hoped he would like his

nicely painted bedroom when next he came home.

The candle factory

In the Bleak Midwinter
Wordled and fiddled about with.
16 million HTML colour codes to play with.
Such fun.

Catching up

I should be planting bulbs

but I'm late.

I'd like to be the sort of gardener who 

can listen to exploding fireworks, 

smug in the knowledge that hundreds of narcissi,

tulips, and alliums  

have long since been interred in pots, lawn and borders.  

Sadly there won't be any hyacinths flowering indoors

for Christmas because I didn't force them in time

and I haven't even received my Paperwhites yet.

I'm going to have to plant these with more support this year

as artfully balancing them on pebbles

has more than once resulted in an unwieldy mass

of toppling foliage.

I have got a few sprouting crocuses and muscari.

Sarah Raven advised planting crocuses in a sunny spot

to encourage them to open fully.

The shyest of our visiting cats pinpointed

the ideal position under a silver birch

visible from the kitchen window.

By the time I got out there,

he'd skedaddled.

Let's hope the squirrels weren't watching where I put them.

Fleeting

I knew I'd be glad I'd bought the jug.

The niche

The whole house was covered in 

a fine gritty layer of tile dust

when we arrived.

I cleaned one niche

and picked the last remaining flowers

from the garden.

The bottle came in from the garden too.

Work proceeds at a glacial pace.

One day I will tell the story

of our niche in the country.

Flowers in the House with Jane.

Flawed?

Yes.

But not fatally.

If someone judged that this engraved claret jug

was worth stapling together when the handle broke off,

then I thought it was worth bringing home for £4.

Here is someone else who admires

the art of the creative repair.

Artful simplicity

After the alarums and excursions of the last few weeks

it is a relief to rest my gaze in some peaceful places.

Kettle's Yard, Cambridge,

where you are invited to sit on the chairs 

and read the books on the shelves.
Artful simplicity. Admission free.

Alastair Hendy's Home Store, Hastings
where you are invited to covet discreetly price-tagged
utilitarian homewares
laid out in carefully created room settings

and rather to our surprise,
to eat in the kitchen, if you happen on the place
on a Saturday or Sunday lunchtime.

So we did, and I had an excellent crab bisque,
served up in a little saucepan.

Nostalgia and simplicity.
The watchwords for advertisers in a recession.
I'm as susceptible as the next person,

but I did baulk at the wobbly Victorian wooden loo seat.

And please, never bring back Izal toilet paper.

Glad to be here

 I went up to town yesterday,

by train and then by tube.

A young woman ahead of me

was carrying a sleeping baby

in a buggy, up a flight of stairs.

The next ascent was by escalator.

She was still some way ahead of me

but I saw that she was struggling to balance it

and tipped slightly into the people walking up
before she righted it.

But as we neared the top 

I saw that people were not moving off.

They couldn't, 

because now the front wheel of the buggy was stuck.

We piled inexorably into each other.

And as it dawned on me, surprisingly slowly,

that something really bad was happening,

I said aloud, 'What shall I do?'

and at the very moment that I thought,

'there is nothing I can do,

how stupid this is,'

the blockage freed

and we toppled onto the concourse.

A wheel had come off the buggy.

We managed to fix the wheel back on.

The other passengers melted away.

Five minutes, at most, had elapsed.
By a miracle, nobody was hurt.
The baby was still asleep.

 

I had to go back up to town again today.
I took the train 
and then I walked.

Best man

That same weekend,

100 miles away,

the best man

 had a ceremony of his own to attend.