Horses and Horticulture

I’ve been rubbish recently. Rubbish at writing here, and, if I’m being honest, rubbish at getting anything done whatsoever. I’m still in a lot of pain with my back injury, which justifies some of the laziness, but definitely not all of it. I’m still not doing full days in the office, and I seem to have got into the habit of coming home and lying on the sofa. And that’s it. For the rest of the day.

This isn’t helping with the generally rubbish feeling about being stuck at home for most of three months, so the past few days I’ve been trying to make a bit more of an effort. I’ve done some baking, including these cheese and sweetcorn scones – they were very good but aren’t brilliant after the first day, so  you just have to eat them all immediately. Not a huge hardship. I also made a batch of pizza dough for dinner Sunday night – our little routine is that I make the dough (with the dough hooks on my stand mixer – I don’t even need to get my hands dirty, I love it so much), and City Boy takes responsibility for the toppings and baking, with strict instructions NOT TO OVERLOAD THE PIZZA. Failure on my behalf to mention this in the past has resulted in a nice thin base that doesn’t cook properly below 2 inches of topping.

I even dragged the sewing machine out to alter a few bits of clothing, but after I turned a dress into a too-short t-shirt (say that quickly ten times) and the machine chewed up the hem of a pleated jersey dress I decided that I was pushing my luck and put it away again. Instead I turned to some soothing, non-taxing knitting – adding a section to a garter stitch blanket that I’ve had in a drawer for a couple of years. Once I’m finished with this bit it marks the half-way point, so I may have a blanket by 2013.

I’ve just found out that I’m going to be having a little bit of surgery on my spine next week, so I need to get some good books and some knitting planned for both whilst I’m in hospital for a few days and the recuperation period at home. I need to get everything ready in advance, as I won’t be able to pop to the shops for a circular needle in the right length or an extra ball of yarn. I’ve got a wedding coming up in August, and I have a new dress to wear, but I’m thinking I’ll need some kind of wrap or shrug for the evening. I’m a little bit apprehensive about the surgery, but this should sort out my problem, so it’s good news and I’m feeling positive about it.

City Boy managed to get me out of the house on Sunday to watch the showjumping phase of a pentathlon in the picturesque setting of Greenwich Park. It was a lovely afternoon, even if the staff on the door were mean and wouldn’t let me take my coffee in, and City Boy treated me to a lovely pub supper in Greenwich after.

Despite my general apathy, I have managed to motivate myself to potter in the garden. As we have a little courtyard style garden, pretty much everything is grown in pots, so keeping up with the watering is essential. I’ve surprised myself with how much I’ve been enjoying the garden this year – I never pictured myself as particularly green fingered. In fact, I may be enjoying it too much – I recently had a conversation in my sleep with a bemused City Boy that went something like this:

Me: You can’t do that, you haven’t got any canes

City Boy: huh?

Me: The canes, where are the canes?

City Boy: umm...I think you’re sleeping. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.

Me (getting exasperated): For God’s sake! The canes.  For the tomato plants. Where are they?

City Boy: Right.....

Me (waking up and getting completely confused about what I’m so desperate to explain): Never mind, I’ll explain later.

And back to sleep. City Boy claims he knew immediately I was talking in my sleep because it was the first time he’s known me to raise my head from the pillow as soon as the alarm goes off. Cheeky bugger. Clearly I need to do something a bit more exciting if I’m dreaming about tomato plants. I am however very excited about the appearance of my first courgette flower this week – stay peeled for exciting times at The Littlest House.

A birthday at the Littlest House

Disclaimer: This post is unashamedly and entirely about my cat. If you’re not interested in cats then you’ll probably want to go and read something else. Google ‘mother-in-law email’ if you haven’t already read it – it’s hilarious.

Our little Mia Cat turned one on the 21^st June – I’d marked it on the calendar. I didn’t think she’d insist on celebrating, but City Boy, without any prompting by me, bought a fish cake* for her on his way back from work. What a big softy – I have no hope of having unspoiled children with this man.

*A cake made of fish that is, not a cake that looks like a fish. It even had parsley sauce, but she didn’t seem overly concerned by the green bits.

She’s kept us amused this last year, this funny, naughty little goblin cat who loves to play under dripping water, who occasionally and arbitrarily refuses to eat unless she’s hand fed the food from her bowl and who demonstrates her love for us by leaving earthworms on our pillow.

She chirps when she jumps like a squeaky toy and she sings to the pigeons. She purrs ecstatically when she’s allowed her to tangle her face and paws in my hair and growls when strangers knock on the door.

She steals toys from children and would watch videos of birds on youtube all day if permitted.

She’s never once bitten or scratched a person, even in play, and is so gentle and kind that even the vet has remarked on her sweet disposition. Yet, upon spying any strange cat she turns into a spitting, hissing devil-cat and has chased tom cats twice her size out of the garden.

Happy belated birthday little Mia Cat. I’m pretty sure that your one birthday wish would be to get rid of the annoying stripy cat who persists in hanging around, and I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything about that for you. You’re pretty much stuck with him I’m afraid.

At least I have hot water

I’m not supposed to be writing this. I’m supposed to be knee deep in mud in Somerset, pint of cider in hand with unwashed hair. Instead I’m lying on my back contemplating a weekend by myself.

I was all set to go to Glastonbury festival, but it was decided that it perhaps wouldn’t best for the recovery of my back injury to spend four days wading through mud and sleeping in a tent, so I sent City Boy off with his friends and a selection of baked goods on Wednesday night.

I’m feeling a little sorry for myself and – I’m not going to pretend I’m at all gracious – I hope it rains all weekend and their tents get flooded.

I’m also feeling a little tired. City Boy thought 3.30am this morning was an ideal opportunity to fill me in on the day’s events, and the kittens thought that me swearing at the phone meant it was morning, and I should get up to feed them. In fairness to them, I do use my phone as an alarm clock, so normally when I curse at it it’s because I have to get out of bed.

They alternated sitting on my head with leaping on my toes for an hour, after which they obviously passed out from hunger, having gone four hours without being fed. Two hours later, at 6.30am, an odd noise woke me...

...thud...

...thud...  

The little bugger had climbed up onto the dresser and was pushing coins off one at a time onto the wooden floor. There was no hope for any more sleep so today I’m surviving on coffee and the promise of a lie in tomorrow.

I’ve finished the horrible work related thing that I’ve been avoiding the last few weeks, so I’m hoping to get some time to finish up a lot of the fun projects that are in various stages of completion.  Having said that, there are changes afoot and I even had an interview at another company on Wednesday. I cannot put down in words how much I loathe interviews. It’s been four years since I last had to do one, so I’m treating Wednesday’s as a practice and vowing to answer their stupid questions with a straight face next time.

“Can you describe, without moving any part of your body, a particular swimming stroke so that we can tell which you’re describing?”  

Kitten Kisses

Thoughts over Breakfast

Yesterday morning I woke up to a knock at the door and that sinking feeling you get when you realise it is in fact much later than (you thought) you had set the alarm for. It was the washing machine repair man, arriving for my 9am – 1pm slot at 9am. That NEVER happens when you actually want it to. I had also intended to do a quick sweep through the house before anyone not living here is allowed in, but obviously didn’t have time, so he must think I’m some crazy woman who opens the door in her dressing gown with matted hair and smeared eyeliner and keeps laundry on the kitchen table and cat biscuits strewn across the floor. Which is true, but I like to pretend otherwise to people I haven’t met before. No wonder he declined my offer of coffee.

In addition, when he asked to use our loo Mia Cat trotted in ahead of him and prostrated herself in front of the toilet. I was going to go and move her, but he was already going through the door and there was a little lost in translation between us so I didn’t say anything, and I thought that he might think it was really weird if I followed him in to the bathroom, so just pretended I hadn’t noticed. I hope he wasn’t one of those people that expect privacy. On the plus side, our washing machine got mended really, really quickly.

This week I’ve got something work-related going on that I really don’t want to be doing, so I’ve been quite productive with non-work-related stuff. I’ve been knitting – hoping to finish this little something before the weekend for my mum’s birthday. Otherwise I may have to actually leave the house for the first time in 3 days and go shopping.

I’ve also been easily distracted by the garden – everything is suddenly growing and I can hardly keep up. We’ve had lots of creepy crawly visitors, which the cats think is fantastic. I got an enormous spider deposited at my feet as a present yesterday.

At the bank holiday we decorated the living room, only a year after we said we would. I’ve got some before and after photos to sort out soon. I can't take too much credit for the hard work - I’m still a little incapacitated, so my role was more that of creative director. I am getting better and I hope that I’m able to shave my own legs some time soon. I think City Boy does too. The good news is that I have codeine.

When I hobble to my physio every few days and she greets me with ‘Hi, how are you?’, I’m not sure whether that’s just polite conversation to which I should reply ‘fine thanks’ and ask after her well being, which seems slightly incongruous given that I’m obviously not fine otherwise I wouldn’t be there, or whether I’m supposed to launch into a list of what exactly hurts that week, which seems premature when I’m not even through the reception.

On a completely unrelated note, an advert for the next season of Dexter just came up - that's very exciting.

Kleptomanicat

Mia Cat has a new favourite toy.

She adores her new bouncy ball and carries it around in her mouth.

We didn't buy it for her.

She found it in someone elses garden and carried it home over the fences.

She stole it from a child.

Quilts and Kittens

I've started planning a new quilt.

And I was so close to finishing the last one. I've made the quilt sandwich and it just needs quilting and binding. I left it neatly folded up in the corner awaiting its turn, where someone discovered it.

What are the odds that I'll be able to keep the paw prints off this next one?