How has it come to the end of August already? My sister is posting back to school photos of my small nephew as he heads off to his final year of primary school, Things 2 and 3 are informing me that they require bags and shoes and stuff, and I am hoping for an onslaught of schools bookings as we launch our first teacher newsletter featuring our shiny new sessions. If you happen to *be* a teacher, you can find them here.
It was also a short week, kicking off with the bank holiday. My Beloved has been gently nagging me about a HUGE and enthusiastic bramble which has been making inroads into my little patch of garden. I had noticed it, particularly as it was sending runners across the deck outside my shed in a very Sleeping Beauty’s castle fashion, but I was pretending it wasn’t there in hopes that the Blackberry Fairy would take it away. The bramble was also near the mysterious ‘ole that something has been excavating in the corner, so I grabbed a spade to put some of the earth back in the ‘ole to discourage whatever it is, some secateurs and gloves, and the green bin to put all the bits in.
The bramble was tough and invasive, and had sent very long runners out in a tentacular sort of way across quite a large chunk of my corner. Some of them were trying to take root themselves, striking out and forming their own independent thorny republics. It was a rather lengthier task than I expected, to say the least, and while I was doing it some bitey thing bit my leg twice, which made me quite thorny as well. I was talking to an NHS person a few weeks ago and she said that mosquitoes are very fond of O-positive blood – apparently we are universal donors for bitey bugs as well as people. This explains a lot. The bites were exceedingly itchy and swelled up to enormous proportions. This is why I do not do gardening.
The ‘ole was next. It appeared one day, and is too big for a rabbit or a rat, so we are wondering if a foxy is trying to take up residence. If so, he’d missed his chance and the ‘ole was surrounded by furry red-tailed bumble bees being very industrious. They are welcome to nest, but I did put quite a lot of earth back where it was supposed to be which they weren’t too happy about. Bees, eh?
Other things making me happy this week (mostly by not biting me)
- Deciding what this year’s crochet Christmas decorations will be, starting with some very cute chilli peppers. Later versions did, of course, have eyes.
- Catching up with my QB predecessor Kate and talking about rest (and cats and work!) over coffee at Bench
- Taking Ian and Stacy from the V&A Academy around our new site and picking their vast brains about creative courses online and in real life
- Gorgeous swim with Jill on Saturday morning
- A mooch around the charity shops of Epping, scoring a couple of Marina Lewycka novels as I’m really enjoying the one I got from the library
- The final day of our play project with families from The Parent House – joyous, chaotic, colourful, and a great way to introduce our local community to the site and find out what they want from us. The sun shone, Valentina is the undisputed Queen of the Snack, Thing 2 came along again, and we had an amazing day. The site has never been so colourful!
- And last but not least, the arrival of A & B, aka Grandthings 3 & 4, thanks to TT1 Amy and her partner Callum. Can’t wait to meet them!
Today I can be found at Angel Canal Festival talking to people about the Centre, and hoping the thunderstorms hold off…
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading
The Good, The Bad and The Little Bit Stupid – Marina Lewycka
1983 – Tom Cox
The Covent Garden Ladies – Hallie Rubenhold
What You Are Looking For Is In The Library – Michiko Aoyama
Four Seasons in Japan – Nick Bradley
The Days Are Just Packed – Bill Watterson
What Kirsty did next 