100 Days - nine and 30 : got to keep posting

People on the 30 Days Wild facebook group keep posting lovely photos of moths and spiders with egg sacs and striking flowers and unusual birds, and videos of moose giving birth in their garden. It's lovely but it makes my life feel drab. Here are four 'wild' cats having a bit of a standoff in the back alley, it's the best that Moss Side has to offer in the way of wildlife. Scrawny pigeons and raucous magpies dominate everywhere, the lone robin didn't sit still long enough for me to take a picture.

Which is kind of at odds with the rest of the day because I worked my day off and went on delivery down the bottom end of Didsbury and had a lovely leafy walk along the edge of the Mersey River. I did my second Sunday of collecting test kits yesterday, and having mastered the navigation app on the PDA I had a very stress-free shift and felt I was making some positive contribution, but it feels hard to hold on to it and I mostly come home at the end and just slump. Also confused by my inability to pull myself together.

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

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100 Days - 38 Damp Day

sycamore alexandra park

When I am among the Trees by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,

"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go east, to be filled

with light, and to shine.

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

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100 Days - day thirty seven

ivy-leaved toadflax

Today is World Environment Day. The planet is currently being destroyed; if you breathe air and drink water this is your problem. So I went and picked up litter in the park, because when you feel powerless what do you do. Despite the pleasures of sauntering across Princess Parkway and enjoying the clean air because of the massive fall in traffic levels (but that's not going to last), the rate of extinction of animal species is still increasing, when they're not burning the amazon they're just chopping it down, and the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is still on the up. 

Julie gave me a whole pile of plants: gooseberry, strawberry, courgette and mint:

And my lovely little oak trees are coming along well:

Reading lots of news today about the protests in America and some army general quoted from a poem that managed to feel appropriate:

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,

only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness;

So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,

only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

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100 Days - 36th day : pink hair joy

For the last couple of years I have had a small patch of dyed hair at the nape of my neck, that makes a lovely plait. 

I decided I am ready to wreck the whole of my hair with bleach for the joy of pink hair.

Brown hair:

Bleached hair:

Pink hair:

Three osprey chicks also bring joy:

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

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100 Days - day 35 : busy day

Oh, the wonders of the interweb. 1. Get up with grand plan to finally finish making the living room divider curtain (fabric only purchased about six months ago). 2. Wind more thread on bobbin and thread runs out. 3. Search sewing shops and find that Fred Aldous not only does click and collect but stocks the required colour. 4. So excited to find that I do not have to abandon grand plan that I jump on my bike and ride straight up without waiting for confirmatory email. 5. Wait outside for a few minutes in the drizzle and nice man comes to the door with my thread. 6. Ride home triumphant.

And the rest of the day went swimmingly. I spoke too soon. I failed to appreciated that a full width curtain cannot be drawn back when the curtain pole has a centre support bracket. We tried putting it up without centre support bracket. Not a good idea. Did not wish to attempt to cut huge curtain up the centre. Compromised by moving centre support bracket as far to one side as possible and used metal garden plant hanging bracket as a hook to hold the curtain back. Curtain looks luxurious and beautiful and complements the red walls and is altogether fabulous and even drilling holes for the brackets did not stress me out.

Lovely new sandals arrived, fair trade made in Peru, from Qaylla Andean Style on Etsy:

Watched Great British Sewing Bee and felt smug cos my sewing machine got used today. Then Monkey painted my hair and I painted her hair and tomorrow we will both have fabulous hair... watch this space.

Barely went outside so as a contribution to 30 Days Wild I recommend as my Book to Make You Think - 'How To Be Wild' by Simon Barnes from 2016.
(p.s. Third osprey chick hatched.)

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

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100 Days - 4 and thirty

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In other news, the second 'bob' hatched at the Loch Arkaig Osprey Cam:

Can you hug people yet? Apparently not. 

Tish hung up some of the bay leaves to dry. We have enough for, probably, the rest of my life (considering how often I might use bay leaves):

A downside of having windows open is the ingress of flies. We have a somewhat less than humane fly disposal system:

She lost interest when she thought it was dead (though I have seen her eat several) but then it crawled away when she was licking herself. Now she's just lying there watching it. It's nice to have some entertainment on slow afternoons.

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

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100 Days - threety three : wild days

I decided to join the 30 Days Wild challenge with the Wildlife Trust. It started badly going out to the yard this morning and realising, apart from the oak trees, all the pots just had weeds in them. Sorting inside the house has been very all consuming and despite assistance from Claire and Julie, and a lovely bench from mum, the outside has not improved much.

The other day mum sent me a honeysuckle because I had said how much that was something I wanted in the garden, but it was drying out by the back door. So I took the plunge and decided, with much chagrin, to cut down the bay tree. As you can see it was pretty big, and though I pruned it back last year, this spring it had taken over this space completely. Fortunately I managed to pick the day that the bins had been emptied so I have disposed of most of the carnage. Why does gardening for me always seem to consist of chopping stuff down rather than growing stuff?

The yard is now huge! I also took out another large sprawling thing that was tangled in with all the nice flowering stuff. Much sawing and sweating in the sun. The stump is more than handbreadth across, and I am not going to try and remove it.

Managed to not cut myself too badly:

Duly planted the honeysuckle (Tish bought a trowel a few weeks ago, so it was finally christened today):

Then I made a cup of tea and watched the bees. The bees have been giving me much joy, what with, you know, bees dying and all that.

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

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