- There was another gorgeous butterfly in the garden earlier, but it scarpered before I could get the camera. “Not ready for my close-up, Mr de Mille”, I heard it mutter as it fluttered away. Mostly black, with bright red flashes on its wingtips. Any clues?
- Back in May, I turned the central heating thermostat down to 180C: it’s just clicked on (5.35 pm)! Outside, it’s 150, and hasn’t been much more all day. How am I supposed to get those tomatoes ripened??
- The letter ‘i’ on my keyboard is making an ominous clunky noise. Could this be due to the residual presence of dried red wine?
- Rummaging through a drawer for an old butter knife, as one does, I came across the fork from a cutlery set I was given at my christening, back in 1942. (The rest – knife, spoon? – is lost; as is the butter knife.) It’s solid silver, little lion on the back to prove it, and is engraved with my initials. I found this quite moving for some reason. I also discovered that, if you tap it on a hard surface, it plays a very interesting chord.
- Does anybody speak cat? I can communicate with most dogs, but cats are mysterious. I was sitting out under my bus shelter when a tabby who frequents the garden crept out of the shrubbery. In the past, any friendly approach by me would be rebuffed with a startled stare and a dash back into the bushes – but this time it crept up, miaowing threateningly, came close enough to be briefly stroked, rolled over on its back and allowed its tummy to be tickled. Then it jumped up and ran away like a scaredy-cat. It might just be hungry, of course, but it’s not going to get fed around here. Or it needs counselling. Mysterious.
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Ours gets turned UP to 18C in January,
ReplyDeleteOur central heating is OFF at this time of year. The bedroom window is still open at night and we've still got the summer quilt on. I refuse to believe that summer is over already!
ReplyDeleteThe duvet got put back on at the weekend & the heating has been on two evenings since! We might be 1000 feet up on Dartmoor but it is jolly unseasonable. But perhaps we're in for an Indian Summer (are we still allowed to call them that?)
ReplyDeleteWell, there were about four questions in this post, and I didn't get an answer to a single one of them. Huh.
ReplyDeleteThe only black and red butterfly I know is the red admiral, but I'm sure you'd have recognised that.
ReplyDeletePick them and ripen them on the windowsill? If you do one truss at a time, you can control it. And if the weather does warm up, they'll ripen outside. With this wet, they may get blight and then you'd lose them.
I don't think so, you probably just talk about yourself a lot and have worn it out.
Today, I found some nice silver teaspoons with my daughter's initials on. It seems that my husband had bought them years ago at auction but had never actually got around to giving them to her. She's very pleased with them now.
I'm afraid I don't understand cat at all. I like cats but they're a mystery to me too. I do speak a bit of cat, so they understand me to an extent, but it's not a two-way thing.
Hello. I wandered over from Lo's latest ode to followers. I must make a comment on the cat--it now trusts you, even if merely to be at your bus shelter regularly. You will not regret treating it with respect.
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