So on Sunday Martin and I joined my sister and nephew to scatter the rest of my mother's ashes in a small welsh village where she grew up. It was the anniversary of her death and we'd already had a partial scattering on her birthday in June at a church near Thame that she and my dad used to visit every now and then to admire the roses.
We had hoped small welsh village equals quiet. We couldn't have been more wrong. In the last few years the local river at the bottom of the village has become a mecca for canoeists and we had forgotten it was bank holiday weekend. The car parks and green spaces were thick with 4x4s, wet suits and fibreglass canoes.
We went down the steps to the launching area and veered off to the left, stepping from rock to rock and keeping our feet just above the thick mud near the bank mud, passing under shrubbery and forging through greenery, until we found a little private outcrop and that's where we scattered her the rest of her ashes (once there was a lull in the throng of passing canoes). So my mother now rests in a quiet spot near the bank of the river where she used to play as a child.
After that we went up into the surrounding hills to visit the house where she used to live and saw the oak tree where she said she sat and ate jam sandwiches as a child. And a big old beastie it was too. Nice to see it still standing and from the size of the trunk it must have been at least a couple of hundred years old and likely much more. Then Martin and I walked down the hillside footpath that she used to take to get down to the town and river. The steps were relatively modern and made of concrete but so steep, almost 45 degrees, I can't imagine how she used to get up and down there. Perhaps wooden planks were laid to form steps, otherwise that would have been a frightening descent in wet weather.
The rest of the week was quiet but busy.
MIL went to stay with her other son. Since then we’re been eating mostly lamb and beef out of the freezer. We realised we don't tend to cook many meals with red meat when MIL is here, as her teeth are so blunt she can't chew it any more, however, we’ve decided that we want to eat more of it as we love it and don't want to be restricted to the small repertoire of easily chewed meals we seem to have fallen into, which mostly revolve around chicken and mince. I'll cook something else for her on the nights non-minced lamb and beef are on the menu.
As it is chilly tonight we’re having a lamb curry with potatoes and sultanas and a glass of red wine, while sitting in front of a roaring fire, the first since mid-spring. I’ve had cold feet all day despite wearing socks and slippers and there has been a chill in the air inside the house so Martin decided to fire up the log burner. The summer is coming to an end and the garden is going over. I actually don’t like this period of time of year, not quite summer but not quite autumn. Not cold enough for a duvet but a bit too cold for just a patchwork quilt and fleece. The plants are going over and we’re in a race to get the tomatoes all ripened.
The Nissan Micra didn’t make it past the MOT and needed quite a bit of work done, including welding. Luckily Martin could do it all, including the welding as he has a MIG welder, so it cost us about £50 in replacement parts but took a good day and half of labour to get it right so it passed. He was right when he said last week it is just not feasible to keep it anymore. All the major work has been done to get it into a good condition so it will make a nice little runaround for someone.
I managed to do another puzzle over the week, read one of my charity shop finds (Rhett Butler’s People) and spent some time on Ancestry updating my mother's family tree with some of the information she had acquired over the years. I go through spurts of interest with my hobbies, but despite the large number I seem to regularly cycle through them. In the next cycle I might get back to finishing that jumper 😁
There was no shooting lesson last week, I cancelled that as I was just too tired. I gave blood at the beginning of August and have still not fully recovered from where I was on day 3 post donation, despite taking supplements, so I have a GP appointment tomorrow to discuss anaemia. When I say appointment, I mean of course phone call. And when I say GP I mean paramedic/triage nurse. I know COVID is still hanging around but getting a GP appt is like trying to get rocking horse droppings. Hopefully I’ll get a blood test done soon to find out what my iron levels are.
So that’s my week. Another busy one coming up as we have the sheep arriving in about 10 days. Our ride on lawnmower has broken down and the part is obsolete, so we have to find a way to get the paddock mowed and sort out the electric fencing system before they come. Sheep can’t eat long grass, there’s no nutrition in it so it’s all hands to the pump to get the paddock into grazing condition in time.
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