Idle thoughts . . .

With apologies to Jerome K. Jerome for pinching his title . . .

I think we still buy things like groceries as if it was war time. “Better get some now as you don’t know if it will be there next week”. As I write my OH is outside in the kitchen clearing out things which have been in the fridge and are now rotting away gently. All bought with the best of intentions but never used. Although it is a bit late in life for us,we have to turn our minds more to the “just in time” philosophy rather than that of the well stocked larder. However, as always, a loss somewhere is a gain elsewhere – in this case our compost bin does well out of our mistakes. Whether we shall live to see the compost from this particular bin actually used, I do not know, but hopefully whoever comes after us, will.

My type of deafness, or ‘hearing loss’, means that I can only hear a certain range pf frequencies. My hearing aid, I believe compensates for some of these, but evidently cannot compass the full range available to the real world. Thus when our battery driven clock sounds its Westminster chime it becomes a sort of DING dong ding DONG affair – indeed, for part of it is it Ding, ___ , ding, dong, as some parts of the chime become completely inaudible to me.

Spring is trying to spring. Things are beginning to grow and shoot. Now, the effects of the severe winter frosts become apparent and evidently some plants and shrubs will never return. Those that are shooting are doing so quite cautiously, and some seem to have put forth shoots experimentally, and have decided to go into neutral for a season and await more of a temperature rise before going any further.

Our rhubarb has ‘sprung’ and I have had two days worth of stewed rhubarb already – my OH is not a rhubarb fan – and today I have done a bit more from our second plant, and I have thrown in some apple rings bought for prudence sake some time ago, but so far unused. They must be dehydrated, I think, because once in the pan they have swollen up to quite large apple slices. Our next door neighbour’s rhubarb is also growing mightily – a different variety – but he is housebound, more or less, and unless his children and grandchildren eat it, it will go to waste I fear.

About Ian

Retired Clergyman, and former RAF person. Lives in Kirkcudbright, SW Scotland. One wife. Two children, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren scattered across UK, Europe and the USA. Long time member of the European Movement, and latterly of the Scottish National Party. ""Here's to us; who is as good as us? Damn few, and they're all dead"
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