Sunday 26th March 2017

Mothering Sunday

First Day of British Summer Time

We wake up at six, but it was already seven. The modern clocks had already changed, the old fashioned manual ones were easy, but the clock radios@ tricky. Jools began the hunt for the instructions.

There were cats to be fed, coffee to be made, and then marvel at the site out the back of the house, as the imperialis standing tall and erect, but all bar one that are out are the orange ones, just one yellow and no red. Oh well, just was well the orange look stunning on their own.

Jools was still tired after her day out in that London, and with the orchid season not yet open, I said that we should stay around the house, do chores and get the garden ready, because soon enough I will become obsessed. And being an international break, there was no MOTD to watch, just the whole of the England game on TV that evening. What joy.

The task at first was to empty the collection of pots we have, transferring the plants into the old raspberry beds, then the trimming of the grass round the fritilary beds, and the apple tree before mowing. That took best part of an hour, and then the age old ritual of getting life out of the motor mower. One sharp tug should do it.

Two sharp tugs.

Three hard yanks.

Several rude words.

Another couple of pulls.

Nearly caught.

And put, put, put, roar.

It's alive!

And away I go, weaving in and out of the beds, over the strip of no man's last which marks where the cable was buried for power to the shed. Avoid the area where yellow rattle were sown. Avoid the Bee Fly, chase the cats with the mower. And in half an hour the job was done, and how wonderful it looks, especially from a great distance when the lumps and bumps for the trenching is not so obvious.

I go to look at the time, and shocked to find it half twelve and dinner time. I go to butter some rolls, fill them with some cooked meat, make a brew. And jobs done.

We sit on the patio, gazing upon our field of labour, and feeling really pleased with what we have achieved.

I retire to the living room to write yesterday's blog post, listen to the radio, and in about an hour make more coffee, to be served with a slice of "Sicilian Lemon Tart". Now not sure if the lemons were from that island, or the tart. But it looked nice, only to be too sweet and gooey really. Still, plenty of coffee to drown it with, and then settle down for the warm up to the football.

Only, Wembley seemed to be half empty, and I thought the kick off was at five. But there seemed to be nothing happening, so maybe I was wrong. And then the teams were in the tunnel, shaking hands, and getting ready. I put on the radio, as nothing is worse than an ITV commentary, and so made myself comfortable.

And I might as well have spent the afternoon watching paint dry, so dull was the game. At half five I go to prepare the potatoes and get them cooking, for chorizo hash, and at half time prepare the onions and peppers, so that as soon as the game finished, I could get cooking and we would eat within half an hour. England won 2-0, but it was a dull, slow performance, and I really should have done something else rather than watch.

But dinner was good, accompanied by a bottle of pink fizz, and the latest Desert Island Discs.

Robot Wars to finish the day, and somehow that was ten in the evening, though in fairness, we had lost an hour with the clocks going forward, but where did the time go?