Great balls of fire

Yesterday, death by falling slate,

today, death by inadequate gas supply pipe diameter.

Yes, today's bloke announced with undisguised relish, 

'I'm afraid I've got bad news.

You've got 22 mm when you should have 28.

The boiler's only getting 13 millibars, when it needs 18

and if you're running the gas stove 

I wouldn't like to say how much it's getting.'

He then painted an apocalyptic picture

of foot high flames leaping from the gas stove

for reasons which now escape me,

and concluded,

'We're going to have to run a new pipe from your meter.'

He described how it was going to have to snake its unsightly way

through the garage and out across the flank wall,

finally descending to join the boiler at the rear of the house.

Then I remembered that twenty years ago

I had made provision 

for just such a disastrous scenario.

I had a trap door built into the floor,

so that the workings of the house 

could be accessed from below.

He seemed genuinely pleased about this revelation,

had a look,

then sent his son down.

'He's like a sewer rat he is,' he said proudly.

(The picture is terrible because I was suffering from

claustrophobia by proxy.)

So the good news is that there is enough room

to bring the pipe directly and invisibly

under the house to the boiler.

I await more bad news about how much this is all going to cost.

The roof over my head

This was puzzling.

This was alarming.

Slates were cascading from the 115 year old roof

into our narrow side access to the garden.

See how the top shard

resembles a guillotine blade?

Time to get another bloke in.

 A bloke with a ladder

and big boots.

But this one didn't speak blokish.

He was courteous, articulate, prompt,

reasonably priced, didn't bring a radio,

 and only wanted one cup of tea.

The tricoteuses can put away their needles.

A lucky find

I can never find the big mop-headed burgundy-coloured 

with curled petals chrysanthemums that

 Mrs Miniver brings home so triumphantly,

so when I saw these lovely physalis

crushed against some park railings,

I knew what I had to do.

It was only a matter of minutes,

and I had a cornucopia of my own.

So lucky that the florist had a lovely spray for £1.50.

This is the month

This is the month of quiet days, crimson creepers,

and blackberries; of mellow afternoons in the ripening garden;

of tea under the acacias instead of the too shady beeches;

of wood-fires in the library in the chilly evenings.

The babies go out in the afternoon 

and blackberry in the hedges; the three kittens,

grown big and fat, sit cleaning themselves

on the sunny verandah steps;

the Man of Wrath shoots partridges across the distant stubble;

and the summer seems as though it would dream on forever.

It is hard to believe that in three months

we shall probably be snowed up

and certainly be cold.

There is a feeling about this month that reminds me

of March and the early days of April,

when spring is still hesitating on the threshold

and the garden holds its breath in expectation.

There is the same mildness in the air,

and the sky and grass have the same look as then;

but the leaves tell a different tale,

and the reddening creeper on the house is rapidly approaching 

its last and loveliest glory.

From Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

Weighty problem

We bought a dear little woodburning stove today.

Here it is in the improbable setting of a woodland glade.

(I think the dog is like the sprig of parsley 

pictured on a plate with some fish fingers 

as a 'serving suggestion' only.)

It was a bit cheaper if we took it away ourselves.

The kind men loaded it into our boot.

Trouble is, when we got home

we couldn't lift it out,

so now we are obliged to drive it wherever we go.

Our predicament has all the hallmarks 

 of one of those salutary fairy tales

with a hefty moral at the end -

there's no fuel like an old fuel?

I suspect we will have to pay someone brawny

about the same amount as the discount

to heave it out for us.

Laid out

I went to choose a new bed today.

I made every mistake in the book.

I lay decorously on my back clutching my bag.

When I tried to act natural,

I was upbraided by an assistant

for not putting my feet on the protective strip.

I had gone without my husband.

My shopping was apparently not 

an adequate substitute for his manly frame 

and I was told to come back with him in person.

Already too tired when I arrived at the shop,

I could have been eased into the arms of Morpheus
laid out on a cold marble slab.

Second flush

Our house may not be ready for us to live in for quite a while,

(and the list of essential works is lengthening),

but each visit reveals progress in the garden,

which carries on growing

without any help from me.

Better

from the back

Felled

I am going to have to learn to pace myself.

There is garden hidden under this lot:

sycamore, ash, bay, bramble, bindweed, yew,

huge clematis, thorny old rambling roses, woody fuchsia, 

and a vigorous self-layering tree

which I have yet to identify.

But I didn't have to uncover it all in a day.

It would have been better to spend time admiring the hydrangeas

than giving myself this sore back.

More haste less speed Lucille.

Come sunny rays

and ripen

 these

 little

 green tomatoes.

Or there are going to be an awful lot of these.

Dragonfly day

This was our welcome

after many years of searching 

for a house

 which will be our home,

(a table and two chairs so far)

in our twilight years!

But first we have to get Vesta in -

see previous post.


Edited to add with thanks to Milly
for drawing my attention to 
the happy symbology of the dragonfly.


Also taken from this site:
Symbolisms of the Dragonfly

Vesta

Vesta (or Hestia to the Greeks) is the classical goddess 

of hearth and home.

Although she was very rarely represented in figurative form, 

here she is carved into the arch over the main entrance 

at Eltham Palace

the lavish Art Deco house built by Stephen Courtauld 

on the site of the 14th century royal palace.

In ancient Greece the Hestian soul was put into the house 

in the most literal way.

When a young woman married and set up home

her mother would light a torch at her own household hearth 

and carry it before the bride and groom to their new house,

lighting their new fire with it.

A similar custom can be found in Russia, where the household

spirit of the hearth was known as a domovik.

If the family moved house, they would carry brands

from the old stove and light the stove in the new house from them.

She is a sociable goddess: she presided over the preparation of meals

and the first mouthful of the meal was always

consecrated to her. In Roman times, 'To Vesta' was a common grace.*

Eltham was self-consciously luxurious.

In winter the rooms were if anything regarded as too hot.

All the baths could be run at the same time if necessary

so that guests could dress for dinner in comfort.

Cecil Beaton wrote in Vogue in 1933:

'The clock strikes, and there is a cocktail to impregnate one

with energy enough to move from the depth of the sofa,

to climb the stairs, and then there is the

extravagance of soaking in a bath cloudy with salts.

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother paid a private visit 

while still duchess of York on 12th July 1936.

She commented that she thought the modern part

a little overdone - but it was all very interesting,

and 'my goodness what a good feed we had!

And good champagne!'

It was a 1923 Veuve Cliquot and the menu

consisted of:

Consommé Estragan

Lobster Cocktail

Veau à la Mode

Petits Pois

Pommes Nouvelle

Bombe Mexicaine

Fondata 

 Madeira 

 Armagnac.

Even if you visited at teatime (4.30)

you could expect to be well warmed and fortified.

Mollie Butler (1907-2009) who married a Courtauld cousin

recalled arriving one Friday in the late 1930s to have,

'an enormous tea, with muffins and crumpets and everything.

And Ginie always had a tiny little bottle of brandy

on the tea table which she put in people's tea.'

The secret to a long and merry life perhaps.

* Spirit of the Home by Jane Alexander.

Is it autumn?

Or is it spring?