Capricious April

“Oh, to be in England now that April’s there”  Robert Browning may have had a point, though he was writing from the lush warmth of an Italian spring, rather than the chilly dampness of a northern Scottish season. The last fortnight’s scattering of lovely sunny days may soon seem like a dream if the weather forecast for this area is to be believed. 

With luck the promised showers will be of rain, rather than the snow which accompanied our journey north at the beginning of the month, but wintry showers are not beyond the bounds of possibility by the weekend.

Thank goodness DH and I took advantage of the sunny weather to get out and about a bit. The landscape of the North-West Highlands is wonderful whatever the weather, but in sunshine it is truly spectacular and our respective cameras have been working overtime.

The road north on a snowy April Fool's Day

Ben Loyal the morning after our arrival

And a week later after a beautifully sunny Easter.

The Kyle of Tongue heading north to the sea

A symphony in grey - no leaves to soften the trees yet

Clouds over the mountains of Sutherland herald a change in the weather

A very different sunset this evening

Still, at least the disappearance of the sun gives me an excellent excuse to abandon gardening for family history research, which is proving ever more absorbing as I learn the techniques of finding and assessing the wealth of information available online. Knitting too is coming on apace, with the weekly knit & natter group enabling rapid progress on my latest pair of socks. 

I’ve also been busy reviving the almost forgotten art of knitting a new toe for the socks which DH’s iron toenails have worn into a hole. There’s too much work in a pair of hand-knitted socks to throw them into the bin at the first sign of weakness and it’s been fun giving a couple of pairs a new lease of life, even to matching the pattern of the self-patterning yarn. I knew it was worth keeping all those remnants of yarn from the many pairs of socks I’ve knitted over the past few years.

Now all I have to do is to spend more time on my shamefully neglected clarinet and my life will be in perfect balance again, which is more than can be said for Simon’s rather bedraggled cat.

Who stole February?

Or at least the first half of it…  The last two weeks have been very busy and the coming one will be even worse, with one appointment or another taking me out of the house for a good part of every day and a visit to DD at the weekend for her birthday. I feel tired already. All of this makes me realise that I’d better show a sign of life before search parties are sent out to look for me.

I’m pleased to report that the daily exercises are continuing to foster progress in my hand and wrist and thankfully clarinet practice is sounding a little less dire as time goes on. I’ve also been tackling the boxes of books which have been waiting for me to have two good hands to deal with them, though we now need more bookcases to house all their contents. I’ve even been starting to think about how I would like to develop our new garden, once the weather is warm enough to tempt me outside.

At least I don’t have a mischievous cat undoing all my good work, or I’d never finish anything.

Image via Wikipedia

Christmas busyness

After an unusually quiet beginning to Advent, life in the Transit household has speeded up considerably this week. This is partly, of course, because I have more to do as Christmas approaches and it all takes a long time to accomplish and partly because we’ve had several enjoyable days of visitors and visiting. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had the pleasure of long and chatty visits from two good friends, who came bearing very welcome gifts of home-made mince pies and stollen, exactly the kind of Christmas goodies I can’t make for myself this year.

Then on Thursday DH and I went to lunch with a former colleague of his who is a truly excellent cook. After a meal that would have put a West End restaurant to shame and a great deal of light-hearted conversation, all we could manage to eat at supper time were a few crackers with cheese.

Friday brought a kind visit from the vicar, who brought with her a lovely bottle of wine as a thank-you for my help while she’s been waiting for her new colleague to be appointed (we are a united parish consisting of a small market town and six surrounding villages). I still feel bad that I can’t help her at this very busy time, but some things really are beyond me at the moment.

Today I’ve realised that it’s only two days until we leave for our round of Christmas visits and I still have presents to wrap, cards to hang and the packing to do. Help! At least I don’t have a tree to decorate and a cat eager to explore it…

Image via Google

Thank goodness we don’t have a cat…

…or this would be a regular scene here at the moment.  

Enjoy...

A tale of four kittens

Long-time readers of my blog will know that the presence of kittens in the woodshed has become a regular, if not inevitable, feature of our summers in Normandy. However for the first few weeks of our stay it looked as though this year would be an exception. We saw the occasional cat making its way along the hedge or through the long grass, but there wasn’t even a glimpse of a kitten until one afternoon at the beginning of August, when DH called me to come to the window that looks across to the woodshed. 

After that nothing, until the very last Saturday afternoon of our visit when we were busy packing. Out of the blue the mother cat appeared on the doorstep with two of her kittens, who of course had to be fed. They stayed for a little while and then disappeared into their hiding place.

I’m handing over the rest of the tale to DH, who compiled a photo account for his mother which I don’t think can be bettered.

On Sunday four kittens suddenly arrived

and they even came into the house for some milk.

Four combined lappers soon finished the milk

and when they were full of milk they felt sleepy.

Then we noticed that one kitten was missing (look in the van).

Campervan carpets are warm and comfortable

and the view from this end is even better.

Where one kitten can go……..others will follow…….

I wonder how to drive this thing? ……

Masters of all they survey.

Time for a sleep on the verandah.

Meanwhile cattus sattus mattus……….

and Perpetua thought wistfully of how she would love

to take them home with her,

if catnapping weren’t a crime…..

Au revoir to Normandy

…for this year at least. The van is almost completely packed and I’m getting down to the final cleaning and tidying.  However, before the phone line is suspended, I just want to give you a few snapshots of this varied summer in France, with details to follow once we’re safely back in Wales.

It began with gardening 

and went on to involve making bread 

and jam (and, of course, socks).

It included a couple of fetes 

and a lot of awareness of the 70^th anniversary of D-Day 

and the liberation of Normandy.

There were meals with friends and enjoyable chats with our French neighbours,

together with a gift of her lovely roses. 

There was some lovely sunny weather, but also rather a lot of rain.

And it wouldn’t have been a summer in Normandy without kittens in the woodshed 

and on the doorstep.

So until we’re unpacked and sorted out, I’ll say au revoir and leave you with the latest antics of Simon’s wonderful cat.

P.S. I’m afraid the dratted spammers seem to have latched onto my blog again, so until they give up and go away, I’ve reluctantly switched on word or number verification for the time being.

It’s no use!

Despite the ever-lengthening daylight, there just aren’t enough hours in my day. Since our arrival on the north coast just over a week ago and very late at night, I’ve barely stopped. The first couple of days were spent unpacking and recovering from the long, tiring journey and then the social whirl started with my first visit to Knit and Natter last Wednesday morning. Since then I’ve been out for much of the day every day except Thursday and my first free day this week is Friday.

I have a post simmering gently on the back burner, but there are a lot of photos to be gone through and worked on and background information to research, so it will have to wait until I can step off the merry-go-round. Music practice takes up a chunk of every day and I’m busy keeping my promise to catch up with your blogs, which I’ve sadly neglected in recent weeks. I can hardly expect you to take the trouble to read and comment on my blog if I never return the compliment.

Ben Loyal with his cap of cloud

So to keep you entertained until my mad frenzy settles down again and I too stop chasing around for a bit, here’s the latest, and very appropriate, escapade of Simon’s Cat.

WordPress Wednesday

There’s a blogging meme I often see on other blogs called Wordless Wednesday. Knowing me as you all do, you’ll easily guess that wordy Perpetua doesn’t do wordless very well. However, I can’t resist borrowing and twisting the title to express my utter frustration at trying to comment on the WordPress blogs I follow. For the last two days it's been a case of sometimes I can, but mostly I can’t, and it’s been driving me up the wall.

A quick ferret around in the depths of the WordPress help forums has cast some light on the subject. Apparently one or more of the servers which carry communication between users with certain UK internet service providers and WordPress have been falling down on the job, resulting in much gnashing of teeth around these islands. Normal service appears to have been resumed, but I won’t hold my breath just yet. I’m glad it isn’t only Blogger that has off days.

When life is stressful, there’s one sure-fire way to relax and here it is…..

Image via Google

Brain on strike!

It’s Saturday morning, inspiration is totally lacking and I’m up to my elbows stocking the freezer with soups and stews, cooking not being one of DH’s many talents. So I’m turning to probably my favourite blogging standby, the wonderful Simon’s Cat. Enjoy…..

It’s off to work we go

Yes, I know that in the UK it’s a Bank Holiday weekend, but I have to grab my opportunities when I can. J Yesterday evening DH left for a three-day visit to his mother and this morning I leapt into action. Just as spring has been much delayed this year, so has my spring-cleaning. Normally I get down to it in February, when DH and his brothers have a family get-together, but this year the weather was so cold and miserable when he was away that I simply couldn't motivate myself to leave the fireside and venture into the chillier regions of our rambling house.

But now the sun is making intermittent appearances and the temperatures are solidly in double figures, I have no excuse. So it’s down to work and out with the cleaning equipment while I have the house to myself with no interruptions. Today I had a practice run in my own study and am in fighting form for tackling the obstacle course that is DH’s office, before moving on to the rest of the house.  

Memo to self – don’t forget to clean beneath the fridge….

Laughter is the best medicine

On this cold, windy and wet evening, as the weather tries to decide whether to rain or to snow, and as I try to sort out in my somewhat overfull mind all I was told at my appointment with the consultant yesterday, this little gem has just popped up in my YouTube subscription channel.  Suddenly the world seems warmer and my mind much clearer. J Enjoy!

When icicles hang by the wall

    And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,
    And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
    To-whit! To-who!—a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doe blow,
    And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
    And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
    To-whit! To-who!—a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

William Shakespeare  Love's Labour’s Lost, Act V. Sc. II

Four centuries on from Shakespeare’s description of winter’s impact on human life, it doesn't seem as though much has changed. From red noses to chilly fingers, from the need to keep warm to the plight of birds in a snow-covered world, from coughs and colds to roads and paths difficult to negotiate, Shakespeare’s world and ours are closer than we might have thought and I find that rather reassuring.

Love’s Labour’s Lost is a comedy and laughter always helps to ease us through the ups and downs of life, so here is a twenty-first century glimpse of the comic side of winter.

Time out

Since our return to Wales just over a week ago, I seem to have done nothing but chase my tail. Now, on a cold and increasingly wet Sunday afternoon, it’s time to relax. For me today that means a big pot of tea, some hot buttered toast with homemade damson cheese, and one of my very favourite cartoon characters. Ahhh, that’s better….

Summer at last

                                   It makes such a difference when the sun shines. J

Hungry cats (two of last year's kittens)

Comfortably replete cats

Washing

Mowing

Just enjoying the view

A little placeholder

….until my recalcitrant brain decides to function properly again and let me actually write a post. We once had a much-loved cat who behaved very much like this, though not with the same consequences, thank goodness.

Back soon….

  

P.S. Many thanks to Penny who first introduced me to Simon’s Cat.

Postcard from Normandy

Amazingly it’s already a week since we arrived in France and I simply don’t know where the time has gone. We have unpacked, cleaned, chased out spiders, bought groceries, dodged the rain and enjoyed a little sunshine and today I even managed to mow the first chunk of our big and overgrown garden. We have met up with friends, are enjoying having DH’s mother staying with us and have gradually relaxed after all the preparation and travelling.

Occasionally I’ve fired up the laptop and caught up with a few blogs, but the days have gone by at dizzying speed and it’s only now I’ve found enough time and brain power simultaneously to sit down and write. So what is the state of play here in the far south of Normandy?

Weather – mostly cool and damp, but starting to warm up a bit now. Summer may actually be on the point of appearing, so please don’t scare it away.

Fruit – after a dreadful spring, there are very few cherries and hardly any other fruit to come. I pity the poor cider makers when autumn arrives.

Flowers – the flower border doggedly dug last year by my indomitable mother-in-law has survived the winter and is responding well to my ministrations.

Most importantly for me and the cat-lovers out there, three out of four of last year’s kittens have called in to say hello and we again have kittens in thewoodshed. J In fact two of last year’s litter appear to have adopted us and we rarely go out of doors without one or other coming to investigate what we’re up to.

As I start to yawn and think longingly of my bed after all today’s mowing exercise, here are a few images of this year’s kittens, taken from a short video shot by DH through the bathroom window.

Gosh – August already!

Help, where has July gone? Life has been so busy lately, what with gardening (between the downpours) visitors, our local fête communale last weekend (for which the sun shone!!) and now having Grandson#3 to stay for a week all by himself for the first time, that time for blogging, or even just reading my favourite blogs, is practically non-existent. So while he is happily chortling at Wallace and Gromit with DH, here is a quick sign of life from the Transit household and a promise to catch up with you all as soon as time permits.

For the cat-lovers out there I’m happy to be able to report that all four kittens are well and growing rapidly, though we very rarely see them all together and sometimes don’t see any of them for days. We were extremely surprised and relieved when the tortoiseshell kitten reappeared after so long. She has turned into a real beauty, with striking, black-rimmed eyes reminiscent of a silent film star at her most sultry (eat your heart out, Theda Bara…) but, like her siblings, is still ready to turn tail and hide if we come too near.

For art-lovers I have other news, and that is that we now have two lovely small watercolour paintings of our French house and the kittens’ woodshed, thanks to my next-to-youngest sister, who came with her husband on a visit over the fête weekend. On their last afternoon she sat out in the garden with her paints to capture her vision of them, which I’d like to share with you. So, until next time, here is our small corner of Normandy as seen through the eye of an artist.  If you look carefully, you may even see the kittens. J