Today so far is fine. When it rained on St Swithan's day, I knew we were in for a drenching. Is it forty days since then. No but it a while since we had a bit of warmth. I would not like to have hay down or the turf to do this year.
Penryn is having a total update of the water supply. We are expecting to have no water later today although we get letters to tell us that we will be cut off for weeks. It will be done then anyway.
I want to put a rose over Pangur Ban. He would like that, a nice tea-rose. I must google to see if there is a rose with his name on it. There aught to be!
Wednesday 5 August 2009
Monday 3 August 2009
Raining today again!
My dear cat Pangur Ban died two weeks ago today. He was a birman. My friend Anne gave him to me when he was 6 weeks old. He had a hernia and said we should call him Hernie! Not a name for such a very posh cat, no. Pangur Ban it had to be. That was 1993.He used to come camping with us and he visited Exeter too. The children thought it was very funny that we had the kitten in our bedroom.
Pangur turned out to be a nurse cat. I realised it when I had pressures on me and I would get tired and not have the sense to rest. Pangur would become agitated and run from me and up and down the stairs until I had to see what he wanted. Then he stood at the top of the stairs. When I got there he kept leaping up on the bed and coming back to the landing. When I got to the bed he began to purr and I would realisehe was trying to make me lie down. He would sit on my chest for a minute and then go and sit behind the door. He did that quite a bit even in recent months. He knew when I needed a rest and I did not and do not yet know!
Pangur was the first pet ever I had. I was used to cats on the farm in Ireland and we did spoil them but they were more farm cats and they did not like being with us too much in case they would miss the wonderful night life that cats are renowned to have in the farming world. When I married Stuart, a story for another day, I inherited the care of Nipper, the cat belonging to Stuart's late mother. A ginger tom, well named. He had joined in the grief of husband and son and was hard to please when it came to people. It took me two years to get him to allow me to groom him. No matter how hard I tried, he resisted my advances until I stopped trying and after that I could not get him off my lap. Our house became the place where whoever was holding the cat could not be expected to do anything else! Gradually the two men caught on to this and I ended up making the tea from time to time. He teamed up with Monty stephens who called for him every morning and off the two would go on patrol returning for a late breakfast and a rest before the second patrol when Monty arrived and waited patiently for Nipper to get ready.
Pangur was topcat in the house and in Poltisko Terrace. He did not team up with any of the other cats although I saw him training Harry Potter one day when Harry was about a couple of months old. It would not surprise me to see him emege as topcat one of these days. KJenny Dreoilin is here with me, now 10 years old. She is Stuart's cat. She does not know what to make of all this change. She is lovely and keeps a close eye on me. She loves company and talks all of the time.
Pangur turned out to be a nurse cat. I realised it when I had pressures on me and I would get tired and not have the sense to rest. Pangur would become agitated and run from me and up and down the stairs until I had to see what he wanted. Then he stood at the top of the stairs. When I got there he kept leaping up on the bed and coming back to the landing. When I got to the bed he began to purr and I would realisehe was trying to make me lie down. He would sit on my chest for a minute and then go and sit behind the door. He did that quite a bit even in recent months. He knew when I needed a rest and I did not and do not yet know!
Pangur was the first pet ever I had. I was used to cats on the farm in Ireland and we did spoil them but they were more farm cats and they did not like being with us too much in case they would miss the wonderful night life that cats are renowned to have in the farming world. When I married Stuart, a story for another day, I inherited the care of Nipper, the cat belonging to Stuart's late mother. A ginger tom, well named. He had joined in the grief of husband and son and was hard to please when it came to people. It took me two years to get him to allow me to groom him. No matter how hard I tried, he resisted my advances until I stopped trying and after that I could not get him off my lap. Our house became the place where whoever was holding the cat could not be expected to do anything else! Gradually the two men caught on to this and I ended up making the tea from time to time. He teamed up with Monty stephens who called for him every morning and off the two would go on patrol returning for a late breakfast and a rest before the second patrol when Monty arrived and waited patiently for Nipper to get ready.
Pangur was topcat in the house and in Poltisko Terrace. He did not team up with any of the other cats although I saw him training Harry Potter one day when Harry was about a couple of months old. It would not surprise me to see him emege as topcat one of these days. KJenny Dreoilin is here with me, now 10 years old. She is Stuart's cat. She does not know what to make of all this change. She is lovely and keeps a close eye on me. She loves company and talks all of the time.
Sunday 2 August 2009
Why am I the babbler?
There is a bird called a babbler. I once thought that I was a babbler and I googled it to see what it meant. Low and behold, there it was in Dostoevsky's book, Letters from the Underground! Yes, there it was. 'I am a babbler' it said. It seems not to be such a bad insight really!
Stuart loved birds. Those of you who know me know that I am his widow. Those who knew him will know that he was a very big fellow. so you will imagine him doing an impersonation of a Chetti's warbler. He did it perfectly! Stuart was tuned in to mother nature more than anyone I ever met. It is a great gift but I think that I could make a better effort from time to time.
I have heather in the garden. It is not raining this morning. There are five different types of bee on there this morning, about 200 in total and there are several butterflies. I am going to put in more heather on this side.And pave a small piece on the other side for a table and chair in winter when it is drier! What a lot of rain we had in July.
Stuart loved birds. Those of you who know me know that I am his widow. Those who knew him will know that he was a very big fellow. so you will imagine him doing an impersonation of a Chetti's warbler. He did it perfectly! Stuart was tuned in to mother nature more than anyone I ever met. It is a great gift but I think that I could make a better effort from time to time.
I have heather in the garden. It is not raining this morning. There are five different types of bee on there this morning, about 200 in total and there are several butterflies. I am going to put in more heather on this side.And pave a small piece on the other side for a table and chair in winter when it is drier! What a lot of rain we had in July.
Mussels!
My friend is writing about mussels in Penryn. I am unable to eat mussels as they do not agree with me. My friend Sally told me that 24 years ago she met a man in Serbia who introduced her to mussels cooked in white wine. This became their staple diet, breakfast, dinner and tea, until 20 years later they ran out of wine and she sobered up and found out that she did not even like him. She has since then never tasted another mussel. Furthermore she has gone back to work and put her two children through university singlehanded.
I keep loosing my blog page so I am making a concerted effort to keep track of it. I find it so hard to remember the various addresses. I feel sure that there is an easy way to keep track but I do not know it. Which takes me to my friend who has an open fire. Maev has a degree in interior design and she cannot think without a drink. This drink has to be wine and the wine has to be a very expensive Italian wine that only the Irish can afford. Maev's trouble began when she found that the only way to really get a fire started is to gather up the wine corks. You need about 10 to get a really good start to the fire. Then you need some chopped sticks from outside the off-licence where a young fellow is collecting money by selling these to fund his trip to go birding on st Agnes in October. So there is sustainability for you. Now who would tell maeve about firelighters or newspaper. It would dry up her ideas and her life, the off-licence would close and the stick seller would have to stay ant home and the scillonian would have to stop travelling, at least from Penzance, although it might run from Falmouth if Penzance does not want it!
I keep loosing my blog page so I am making a concerted effort to keep track of it. I find it so hard to remember the various addresses. I feel sure that there is an easy way to keep track but I do not know it. Which takes me to my friend who has an open fire. Maev has a degree in interior design and she cannot think without a drink. This drink has to be wine and the wine has to be a very expensive Italian wine that only the Irish can afford. Maev's trouble began when she found that the only way to really get a fire started is to gather up the wine corks. You need about 10 to get a really good start to the fire. Then you need some chopped sticks from outside the off-licence where a young fellow is collecting money by selling these to fund his trip to go birding on st Agnes in October. So there is sustainability for you. Now who would tell maeve about firelighters or newspaper. It would dry up her ideas and her life, the off-licence would close and the stick seller would have to stay ant home and the scillonian would have to stop travelling, at least from Penzance, although it might run from Falmouth if Penzance does not want it!
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