London in the sunshine

Yesterday was warm and sunny, so I travelled into London - the weather has been too cold for me to make many visits to the Cathedral this year. Time to take a few photographs from different angles, taking in the spring blossom and flowers. I try to catch a red bus in as many shots as I can. The spire next to the Cathedral is now part of the choir school - I believe.

I sat out in the warm sunshine and then went to Evensong at 5pm. I now know the score - if you sit under the Dome on the left, at 4.45pm the Wandsmen allow some 60 into the choir stalls. As ever the choristers singing was just great and the peace was good. Often those sitting next to me speak to me, but not today. On one side was a Chinese lady and on the other a young man from Eastern Europe. Both smiled but had little English. I smiled back - as you do.

Heather suggested I came home by a different route - the 76 bus to Tottenham Hale Bus Station and the 123 to Ilford. It took about two hours - but I went through places I did not now existed! Stamford Hill, for example, where the Strict Jewish Gentlemen wear black suits, white shirts and top hats. And the small boys the same. And some of the shops! I am going back again during the daytime to get off at one or three bus stops to explore. One block of flats had allotments in front - with crops growing up poles. I managed to have seats at the front on the top deck on both buses. The young lady on the 76 next to me spent most of the time on her mobile, but as she alighted she turned to me and wished me a good evening. The man on the 123 sitting next to me slept all the way to Ilford.

50 ways to kill a slug

I am getting over my 85th birthday. The many posts on FACEBOOK, the cards, the telephone calls, the kindnesses. Today a birthday present arrived in the post from Margaret - a book entitled '50 Ways to Kill a Slug'. Margaret wrote inside that when she saw this book, she thought of me - and I guess Margaret meant that in the nicest way.

I have started reading the book (which comes in a delightful shade of green, what other colour could the publisher have used?) and am impressed with the excellent advice amongst the humour. On page 25 I learn that there are certain plants that slugs hate - and I am pleased to say that I grow some of these. Mint, chives, garlic, geraniums, foxgloves and fennel. I will make sure that not only do I grow these, but I will ensure that they are placed strategically around the damper parts of my estate. Slugs dislike the smell.

Elsewhere there is the suggestion that you should chuck slugs into your neighbour's garden, but I get along very well with my neighbours, so I will not be engaged in such frolics. No sir! They might throw them back.

I gather that later in the book there might be some recipes. I am not a fussy eater, but slugs are not on my list of things I would like to try before I pass away to the garden in the sky.

Snow - again!

Last weekend we had brilliant sunshine to display the 6,000 spring bulbs at St. Peter's Aldborough Hatch. A week later we have snow. I ventured out at 9am this morning with the camera to are these shots in the churchyard, the shrubberies and my front garden. It was very cold and I was glad to be home in the warm. I will stay here now.

We wil have snow!

It is grey and miserable outside as I start to write at 6.37am. I have consulted Siri on my iPhone (Alexa is having a lie in as it is Saturday and she has had a busy week with James Blunt, Procul Harem, Petula Clarke, the Choir of St., Paul’s Cathedral and others). She - Siri that is - tells me that it is "currently sleeting and 2 degrees in Ilford. Expect snow starting in the morning. Temperatures are heading down from 2 degrees this morning to 1 degree this afternoon.” In fact, the sleet has stopped!

In the Bransgore area of Dorset (where eldest son Graham lives) "it is raining and 5 degrees. With sleet and snow starting this morning and temperature dropping to minus 2 tonight”. Colder tonight on the south coast than in Ilford!

In Oslo Norway (the home of youngest son Richard) its is "currently clear and minus 11. Tonight’s high will be minus 3 degrees and the low minus 12”. No snow there then, but mighty cold. 

Siri does not recognise Chigwell in Essex - but gives me the weather for Trigwell - wherever that may be! But I guess it will be similar to Ilford. 

In Lynton Devon where my granddaughter resides they will have snow this morning but the temperatures will drop tonight to minus 3! Even colder there! Wow!

I have had my iPhone mobile for almost 18 months and only discovered Siri when Grandson Marlon showed me a week or so ago. I can now ring friends on my contact list by asking Siri to do so. I take her into the bathroom when I have a shower, place her on the shelf outside and if I get stuck in the shower cubicle, I can ask Siri to call Heather to the rescue. 

Socks is now fully recovered from his bout of fur loss. Two visits to the Vet and a steroid injection have done the trick. Otherwise he is very healthy for a 15-year old. Mind you, he should be because I buy only the very best gourmet and soup meals from Pets at Home, often spending almost as much on him as I do on myself next door at Aldi! A spoiled cat, but he is very good company - except that he wakes me and insists I rise at 6am, even on a Saturday!

So wither today? I need to put up posters about the Great British Spring Clean in Aldborough Hatch around the Church Halls (see posters attached for your information). I may leave this till later in the hope that it snows and I can take some photographs of the brilliant display of Tete a Tete daffodils in the churchyard in the snow - 6,000 bulbs planted over three years are now in full bloom. I have attached a shot taken last Sunday - more are out now.

I also need to go shopping - but that may have to wait till Monday. You may be amused to know (and yet you may not) that yesterday I ordered online from Lakeland a new squeezee floor mop for my lovely cleaner, Daphne. It has a proper sponge to take up the water - the replacement I bought in Ilford a month or so ago has very thin sponge-like stuff that does not work properly, but it only cost me a fiver whereas the Lakeland version is a deluxe purchase. Daphne explained all this to me - and rather than purchase locally something that will not last, I have gone to the very best shop for this kind of thing - and Yvonne’s favourite. I did not fancy carrying it from the nearest Lakeland shop in Stratford Westfield - on the train and bus! A bit over the top, but it will mean I will continue to have clean floors in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. 

Reverting to the Great British Spring Clean in Aldborough Hatch, this is on Saturday 31st March. Jenny Chalmers, Chairman, Aldborough Hatch Defence Association, is organising the event and I am doing some PR. We met yesterday with Chris Gannaway to iron out the details - Jenny makes a mean cup of coffee and splendid cakes and biscuits. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible. Redbridge Council are loaning litter pickers and we have our own from previous clean-ups. Filled sacks will be collected from outside the church halls by Redbridge Council the same afternoon - so will not be there over the bank holiday weekend. Last time we found a remarkably high number of Vodka bottles in Oaks Lane. I wonder what we will find this time? Do please try to spare an hour or two. Let’s go out in force and show the litter droppers and the fly-tippers that we have had enough.

Friday

Friday to Borough Market, where I bought some raspberries for Heather, a BM tea Towel for myself and a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie from the kindly Mrs King. Home by bus to the Bank then Number 25 to Ilford. Great fun if you are a people and place watcher as I think I have become in my old age!

Redbridge roundabout where the M11 meets the A12 - shot on Tuesday last as the snow disappeared. The second photograph is the Picture of the Week in the ILFORD RECORDER today 8th March. Well done Transport for London for planting the bulbs over the years and for replenishing the stock and planting new trees. 

Bulbs are starting to bloom in the churchyard

After the snow encased the bulbs as they pushed bravely through the grass in St. Peter's Churchyard Aldborough Hatch, the show is beginning - with some 6,000 spring bulbs planted over the past three autumns. I would guess that withn a week or so they will all be out!

I have Ciri!

My friends will recall that I had a problem earlier this week when I found myself trapped in my shower. I have now discovered that I have a foolproof method of contacting a member of my family should this - or anything similar - happen again - provided I have my mobile near at hand and switched on. I tried it last evening. I took the mobile into the bathroom, placed it on a shelf and entered the shower cubicle. Once inside I called: "Hey Ciri, Call Heather Barrow" and Ciri did just that! I then tried Graham and it worked for him too - although he was in Dorset and driving one of the boys to indoor cricket so would not have been of much help, although I guess he could call the fire brigade.

And to who do I owe the help to find that I have Ciri on my mobile? Why Heather and Marlon, who helped me last evening by driving Socks and me to see the Vet Lady. Socks does not like the cat basket and hates the car drive - so they came to give me support in catching him and putting him in the basket - and comforting him in the car. He seems to like the Vet Lady and does just as he is told - he even explored her room whilst she loaded up the syringe. Socks is suffering from fur loss - but is recovering after this second Vet visit.

So now I have Ciri as well as Alexa. What more could I ask?

I will take my mobile into the shower from now onwards!

I would guess that there are very few folk who take their mobile phone with them when they take a shower - but I will be doing so from now onwards! Not into the shower cabinet completely, of course, for that would be stupid - getting the mobile soaked in water would be asking for trouble. Instead I will leave the mobile outside the cubicle, but tied to a length of string so that should I need to make a call, all I would have to do is pull on the string and the mobile would come roaring into the cubicle. I could then sit on the seat - for I have a seat, in case you are wondering - and make a call.

Why, I hear you ask, is this necessary? Well, last evening I decided to take a shower. On entering the cubicle I slid the door to close it when it jammed shut! Looking up, I noticed that one of the two top rollers had broken - with half still in place and the other half on the floor outside.

I tried to open the door by sliding it - but it would not budge. It was at that moment when realised that I could be stuck in the shower all night as I live alone - just with Socks, who was having a good sleep after his supper and could not care less about me. No-one would know - until Heather made her usual telephone call on her way to work just after 7am in the morning.

I kept calm - honest! Taking careful stock of the situation, I realised there was no way I could climb over the top of the shower cubicle. So I decided to attempt to ease the door back to open. At first it would not move, so I tried to lift the door by sliding my hands in at the sides - and that worked! Taking my time and not panicking, I pushed and pulled the door to give me a gap of about six inches or so through which I could squeeze. Being slim off stature pays.

I rang Tom the Plumber today. He happened to be working nearby and was here within five minutes of my call. Expecting that he might have to order the rollers, Tom said he would contact me when their arrived - but he was back within the hour with two sets - and as I write he is fitting them now. What would I do without Tom and his son Ian? They have saved me a number of times this winter - from an airlock, a cold water tank that needed some work in the loft, from a near frozen boiler outlet. Phew!

The Beast from there East brought winds direct from Russia -  minus four with the wind chill taking it to minus nine. As the result, I have not been out to take photographs for some days - but now on 3rd March here are some shots in the garden.