tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12407785113476118102024-03-14T09:31:37.072-07:00SmitoniusAndSonataSmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.comBlogger469125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-39215701742129434132019-10-09T09:29:00.001-07:002019-10-09T09:29:57.804-07:00Danger Might Lurk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A dear friend came back last week from a quick trip to Sicily and being both generous and well brought up had gifts for us all. Mine was a heavenly lemon-scented bar of soap which joined the stash in my underwear drawer but not before I noticed the warning on the back of its pretty label<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> "Prodotto Cosmetico </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Tenere lontano della portata dei bambini. "</span><br />
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Yes, that's right . Keep out of the reach of children. In case they melt? Anyway no worries, my stash of gorgeous soap is only for me and children just get scrubbed with the ordinary stuff<br />
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Autumn seems to be beginning,<br />
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There are hardly any big boats going past any more<br />
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The municipal flower beds are getting a bit scruffy<br />
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and it rains every day.<br />
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But there's an upside : stalls full of corn cobs and pumpkins at the Friday market, curly kale's back in the shops and lots of apples and pears. The house smells of cinnamon again… It's time to fatten myself up for Christmas...SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-18578619389405078032019-09-29T12:30:00.000-07:002019-09-29T12:35:35.113-07:00Strenuous ExercisePart One:22/9/2019<br />
I've spent the last month exercising my muscles. Well, some of my muscles….<br />
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When I broke my little finger at the end of July, they put a couple of metal threads/wires/screws ( depending on who's talking about them) in the knuckle to hold it all together and they are due to be removed on Tuesday. I was given an exercise programme of extensive finger wiggling and told to stick to it faithfully. It doesn't seem to have made any difference at all but we'll see when I have the check up. I don't think Fagin would be impressed.<br />
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I'll just be happy if I can knit and do some plain sewing (makes me sound like a Victorian maid). I shall be just as useless at jigsaws as ever and my pastry making was never prize winning anyway, but it would be nice not to <i> fumble </i>when fishing my travel card out of my pocket. I've been going to the Hand en Pols man, he's one of a team of specialised physiotherapists and, as his title implies, seems to spend all day making people wave and wiggle their fingers and, astonishingly, it doesn't seem to have driven him mad.<br />
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Meanwhile I've been glued to Netflix, library books and all the news about Brexit. I'll probably be stunted and boss-eyed by Christmas. I did manage to get to Amsterdam last week to meet Younger Daughter for lunch and a trip to Foam,the photography museum and their wonderful exhibition of Bressai's photos of Paris by night. <a href="http://www.foam.org/" target="_blank">Foam museum</a> Her boyfriend then cooked a delicious supper for us before I fled back north. Every time I wonder whether to renew my Museum Card or year's train card I think of days like this and know how much I'd miss them There's an exhibition of Childhood in the 19th Century in the Teyler museum in Haarlem that looks fascinating, for instance ….<br />
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Sitting on the balcony this morning, enjoying the sun, I was amused to hear a fragment of conversation as two women wandered past, "She's a strange shape now she's 83..." The mind boggles. I do hope I'm not exercising the wrong muscles?<br />
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Part Two: 29/9/2019<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDdz1EiAH5uKCTRwNalRACzQHismwEw67K3a2EAZxEqXybgVlawFxs3yg3mN_WSGsCZN4TFHkNpRg80RH9ASQFE7DsJh9I_dM3J8S47TryoMOXau8VFZfvwcxbcaIfR36XGCuyn9oa3ATv/s1600/IMG_0268.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Well, so much for last week. When I went to have the metalwork taken out of my finger, the nurse told me it had been left in too long and would have to wait to be taken out by another surgeon ... in two days time. By now she was calling it 'pins'. Local anaesthetic, twenty minutes of digging by two surgeons and two nurses, three stitches and an impressive bandage later I can finally celebrate. ( The two pins were each 3 1/2 centimetres long, as thick as darning needles and are now in a plastic pot on my kitchen window ledge ready to impress family and friends) .<br />
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And I'm due back at the Hand en Pols man on Thurday. This dratted pinkie seems to have become my new hobbySmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-618805154072433362019-08-26T09:57:00.001-07:002019-08-26T09:57:31.071-07:00Just A Little Longer....Received this overnight...<br />
"Bank Holiday Sunday at Safari Park, West Midlands. We all agreed that safari parks are over rated. Stuck in a long line of traffic with two fidgety boys in the back. Squinting to see the lions hiding in the bushes and trying not to run over the friendlier sheep and the African cows with giant car-scratching horns, or the rhino who wants to lean on our car."<br />
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Rather Middle Daughter and family than me... it's really rather warm today, too … fine for hiding inside with the curtains drawn but not for running about being enthusiastic. Here, someone's having a birthday and we can hear a street organ playing round the corner with the Dutch version of Happy Birthday, followed by all the Abba hits. In the old days the organ would come round the houses and you'd hear it often … now it's not so common to get him specially, though he's often in town. Really, I suppose it's just that town's much more crowded. Must be a special birthday.<br />
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The summer's nearly over. The students are back and crowds of new teenagers are milling about in red, purple or green tee shirts. Mind you, perhaps not the group who have taken over the top flat over the road…. they had a party last night. They were dancing on the roof around midnight …. and no it's not that sort of roof, it's rather pointy.<br />
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The ice cream shop's doing a roaring trade and the chip shop is opening again today. I've taken all the extra summer books back to the library and reached episode 49 of of the current telenovela but, looking outside, its still a little to soon to start Autumn. Next week, perhaps.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-23184180481463752202019-08-20T11:25:00.000-07:002019-08-20T11:25:07.450-07:00It's Always Good To Embrace...I must be the only person in the world without a message on my teeshirt. Not that I can't think of a few … something uncivil to Johnson, perhaps. Or something liberating for one minority or another if it could be done without sounding vaguely patronising.<br />
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This strikes me as a good idea, too, even though it sounds slightly odd … and I'm not sure about the hair-do...<br />
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But I do like a good message</div>
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And I never get tired of a good old joke. </div>
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SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-4065903509351505422019-08-09T12:37:00.000-07:002019-08-09T12:37:04.364-07:00Despite The Finger...Well yes, I'd broken the little finger on my left hand. A bit painful but only a minor annoyance, especially since, these days, plaster of paris stays on for only a few days. It's just that my timing was all wrong... within a few days a few of us were supposed to be sitting in a converted barn in Brabant, the other end of the country. The two youngest members of the family were really looking forward to this … not so much the tastefully converted barn as the fun park nearby, as was their youngest aunt who'd been promising them this for ages.<br />
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The only snag was that it seemed that first my finger needed to be rearranged parallel to the others rather than at right angles, by a plastic surgeon. And, since a Brachial plexus anaesthetic was to be used, I needed someone to be with me. ( The limb in question goes so numb that there's a danger of dislocation. ) It all required some rushing about by YD, who managed to go from two days above Germany with her boyfriend in a helicopter to chaperoning me and my numb left side and filling my freezer with chili and curries in Friesland to installing everyone in the barn and whizzing round fairground rides, avoiding only the ones where one hangs upside down squeaking.<br />
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The barn was lovely; there was even a piano, sadly out of tune to Smaller Grandson's disappointment.<br />
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Endless cats, endless tractors, a lovely garden and a giant sofa. An extraordinary number of freshly laid eggs. A raucous magpie. Nonstop talking. Lots of apples. And an open shower in the middle of the giant communal bedroom upstairs.<br />
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There was also a day in Den Bosch, where Elder Grandson fell in love with a dial Phone telephone box in the Design Museum … "Did you ever use one like this? Gosh, really?!<br />
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and everyone ate too much. Lots of lovely statues were seen, including a rather Harry Potterish giant golden dragon . Giant chocolate choux pastries filled with cream were carried back in pink striped boxes and various tiny dogs were admired, especially the ones in coats.<br />
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The next day we all packed up rather sadly and they went off to a couple of days in Amsterdam, while I came back north to start on the prescribed finger exercises ( to be done seven times a day!) and to begin on the lentil and spinach curry.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-82547366730094193582019-07-23T15:55:00.001-07:002019-07-23T15:55:50.899-07:00i must stop doing thisno, no capitals and only a photo if the wind blows in the right direction…<br />
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<br />
i've done it again, fallen off my bike and broken something. i mean, i don't do it every three months or so but this is the second time since i've been writing this blog<br />
.attention seeking, perhaps.<br />
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this time it really wasn't my fault or that of the other woman who fell off with me , either.<br />
we were waiting to cross a small side road when a car cut straight across in front of us, got out and checked his paintwork, bellowed 'sorry dames', got back in and drove off at speed , leaving the two of us and two bystanders stunned. i thought i was alright and actually rode off, but within half an hour i realised that , thanks to the new blood thinners, my left pinkie wasn't just a bit sore, it stuck out at a right angle and was dark, dark blue and sausage shaped. and a neighbour decided to drive me to the emergency dept. luckily reminding me , before we left, to take my ring off.<br />
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since there was a procession of genuine emergencies all evening, i finally insisted that she went home and i ended up hanging around till midnight, being bumped by sick children and 90 year-old grandmothers of fifteen. but eventually the fact that my pinkie looked as though it would explode led to about ten x-rays and a ginormous heaving and hauling by two nurses which has made it all look a bit better and feel more finger-like in an odd shaped plaster of paris. it does definitely feel a little better this evening but i'm to be checked out tomorrow by the pre-op people and will be put in a more permanent one on Friday.<br />
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all because speedy gonzales took a corner far too fine. i hope he goes bald and bandy legged by the weekend. and no, i didn't know the other woman…but i do hope she did better than me.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-82504286393907543012019-07-14T09:47:00.000-07:002019-07-14T09:47:53.494-07:00The Capsule WardrobeDo you remember when a key article every summer in every women's magazine was " What To Pack For Your Holidays "? Then it just depended on whether you were headed to a week in Frinton, a fortnight in Torquay or a month in the Highlands. Whatever the destination, sunburn would probably occur and a rain hat might be carried by at least one of the party.<br />
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Not everybody went to the sea-side of course. Maybe your granny lived in the country, maybe you had an aunty in Ireland but nearly everybody went somewhere. And , wherever you went, you took a heavy suitcase with you and there would be at least a couple of new things in it. <br />
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I was thinking of this on Friday as Younger Daughter and I wandered through the Amsterdam Uniclo on the way to my train. It's recently opened and I do like their clothes but I couldn't help feeling that, now I don't work, I really don't need to buy anything anymore. I've got a couple of warm coats and plenty of jumpers. I've still got dozens of T-shirts, since working with small children we'd be covered in sticky finger prints regularly. I've got plenty of jeans. I don't get dressed up any more.<br />
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I'm obviously getting old.<br />
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But really, more than anything else, we'd just spent an hour in the Historic Museum admiring a tiny collection of their Georgian and Victorian clothes. Only 75 items in all, each exquisite. And I found the Perfect Dress. If I could I would just wear this for ever more....... Isn't it heavenly?SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-37996715698825440312019-07-04T07:48:00.000-07:002019-07-04T07:48:25.940-07:00Yawn...Have you noticed? When someone asks you these days what you do with all the spare time you've got now you're retired, it's no use just saying that you read or knit. Unless you're walking to Compostela with Miriam Margolies or doing a Ph.D, no one will be remotely interested. You can try to mention a talk you went to ( was it<i> really</i> in February? ) or a magnificent exhibition but nothing short of reporting that you've been volunteering at the South Pole will do. And it'll be useless without photos. <br />
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In my defence, I must say I have done the odd interesting thing when young… but since I don't have selfies of them I suppose they don't count. Even when Smaller Grandson went to a nearby Elizabethan Manor with his class a couple of weeks ago, they all stood there visibly dressed up as pirates … Middle Daughter even made a red coat and an eye patch for him ...so they were definitely there. Lots of snaps of tricorns and stripey teeshirts. I can remember the odd memorable Christmas … being in a banana plantation one Christmas for instance or people skating over lakes on another but I can't whip out my 'Phone and<i> show </i>them … ? So was it even real? <br />
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Many years ago, I was very fond of an old lady who'd been everywhere, long before the days before gap years. I remember watching television with her and every so often there would be an "I've been there" from her chair, usually over Pondicherri , Mombasa or Cape Town. Generations of the family could do it .Come to that, my grandfather could say it about Archangel or the Dardanelles .<br />
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Never mind, life now offers other excitement… I've had housepainters on the balcony all morning. Full volume weather reports, local traffic reports and local ads. adding a bit of background to all the goss. from the local football club, where they're going on holiday and what they did last weekend, with photos … and tacky railings./ So remember, the next time you're queueing up for the peak of Mount Everest or windsurfing off Patagonia, take a PHOTO.<br />
( A statue of Thomas Cook at Leicester Station)SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-19677649572013837962019-06-29T13:14:00.000-07:002019-06-29T13:20:09.994-07:00I'm Real ! Blogger Agrees At Last<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A bird's nest, washed out of Smitonius's hedge during a huge rainstorm this week, eggs and all. She was amused to see , woven into the nest, a pink ribbon pinched from a little bag she'd been going to put a jewellery order in.<br />
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I've spent idiotic amounts of time trying to sign into my Blogger account for the last couple of weeks and had virtually given up, almost convinced that I didn't actually exist . An impression re-enforced at the hospital this week, when the young nurse tried to take a blood sample from my arm and failed three times. She rushed off to enlist the help of a colleague and I was left, wondering whether I was empty... Luckily her more experienced colleague managed to get enough to prove that I wasn't.<br />
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Anyway… now I've been graciously reinstated , I can't immediately think of anything at all. Perhaps binge-watching Nailed It ! on Netflix hasn't helped. Perhaps it was the heatwave that has been driving all western Europe to gay abandon and to cavort in fountains … except that we here on Holland's north coast haven't been any hotter than normal, the heatwave missing us altogether.<br />
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Never mind, it's pleasantly warm today and I've finally made myself a watermelon smoothie and a tortilla de patatas to celebrate. So now all that remains to do is to watch the boats on the river, read yet another whodunnit and admire my growing collection of lavender and its clouds of bumble bees. I'll see if tomorrow my brain can dredge up anything slightly more interesting to post...SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-65156827055380576042019-06-12T01:53:00.000-07:002019-06-12T01:53:28.315-07:00Breaking Out ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It took me all week<i> not</i> to do that jigsaw … exhausting! It's firmly back in its box and will be going back to the recycling center next time I go. Still, it did force me out of the door and onto a train for which I'm grateful. Just a dash to Groningen, since I'd left it to mid-morning, but I had enough time for lunch and a wander. I found a rather fine poster for a vintage shop and must go back some time when it's open. <br />
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By the market, my favourite climbing rose was having a good day … had I left it a couple of days later it would have been reduced to a couple of twigs; one storm after another this week has battered everything flat.<br />
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As always I dropped into the North African shop on the way back to the train and was fascinated to overhear a discussion between the owner and a possible buyer. Purchaser was wondering if he could redesign the front to make more sales room; 'modernise it all a bit'. He was told that the shop front's protected , "because it's been like this for the last twenty years." Considering the church round the back is at least a couple of hundred year old, the man looked a trifle puzzled but , of course, the street just used to be an alleyway. Anyway, I realised then just how long I've lived here; I watched the facade being done. When we first came it was the only place to buy olives, proper tomatoes, good lentils and feta and, home-sick as I was, it was a lifeline. It's funny to look back and think that the only way to get chorizo was to go to Amsterdam! And Manchego cheese is still really only to be found at Christmas.<br />
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It's impossible to think of life now without these things. I settled down the end but have always enjoyed trips to Groningen … in fact, I've just talked myself into another tomorrow. Lots of birthdays next week and presents to be found…. SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-2449024278026188142019-06-02T11:39:00.000-07:002019-06-02T11:39:40.647-07:00Still Shoeless, of Course<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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But I have got another Pyrex dish, seven more secondhand detective books and two jigsaws. In my defence I should say that I had taken five cookery books and a raincoat <i>to </i> the charity shop when I went... as Kondo-ish as I'm likely to get.<br />
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One of the puzzles is guaranteed to send me boss-eyed; by Tuesday I'll be seeing little red triangles on everything. Charity shop jigsaws only come in two kinds..."Views" like German Castles, Greek Temples or Shakespeare's Birthplace …<i> or</i> "Busy" like Biscuits, Fish Scales or Ferns. Well, this one is a Mayan mother with her baby, wrapped in a blanket, mostly blanket. Endless stripes and a straw hat. I think it's supposed to be soothing … we'll see. Anyway, I've got a big jar of olives and a chicken roasting in the oven. So happy me. <br />
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Boats chugging up and down the river. A large, lurid pink Geranium called Marjorie, a big bag of Minneolas and Summer's beginning.<br />
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Now the Keep fit group has shrunk for the Summer, the local paper is the source of all gossip again. It's funny how much has changed in the last few years. These days the mayor seems to attend endless 100th Birthday parties and Golden Wedding Anniversaries but a couple of weeks ago he outdid himself. A local couple celebrated their Platinum Anniversary and her 108 year-old father was there to raise his glass to them, too. My youngest aunt, who's going to be 80 next week, seems positively frisky in comparison … mind you, she and her husband still go on hiking holidays. Don't think I've ever hiked …..<br />
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SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-75537776641795891402019-05-05T11:37:00.000-07:002019-05-05T11:37:58.736-07:00The Rain's An Hour Late...<br />
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Ten past five and it suddenly pours with rain for six minutes … Sitting comfortably on the sofa with some coffee, I'm not unduly bothered but do wonder if it's a sign of things to come. I check the online edition of the Guardian again and it quite definitely says that it was going to rain here at four. Where will it end? And then it dawns on me... I'm not going ga-ga. I've been taken prisoner by the web. <br />
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Fortunately, after a couple of weeks of feeling like death after a bad reaction to some pills, I'm feeling almost human again and can put the laptop down and join the real world again. Perhaps plan a day out. An hour or two on the train, a good lunch and buying some new shoes will be quite exciting enough to start with … and I'll throw caution to the winds, not checking the weather before I go. <br />
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<br />SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-20328827417023833792019-03-24T15:35:00.000-07:002019-03-24T15:35:24.200-07:00Everything...Yesterday had everything …<br />
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An elephant dressed in Kevlar and lace, a quickstep with a terrier, a lead, his owner and her rollator ( it became rather macrame-like till we could all realign ourselves ), coffee with Shakespeare's Wife on the train, the chance to play with a four year-old and a silver foot ball and to top it all, a magic cookery book… <br />
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Or maybe, had the sun not been shining, I would just have written that the Groninger Museum had decided to stage an exhibition of everything animal-related hidden in their vaults, including the life-size elephant, a dragon and a conveyor belt. That the terrier had wound himself so successfully round the rollator's wheels that his owner was stranded between me and the bus and it seemed rude to shove her aside rather than help. That Germaine Greer's book, grabbed from the pile by my bed, was entertaining with breakfast on the train. Or that waiting in a draughty bus station, the little boy was having a wonderful time shooting penalties with a tiny football made by his big brother out of rolled-up silver paper from a few chocolate bars.<br />
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And the cookbook? My favourite secondhand bookshop had it in their 50 cent box, obviously unaware of the magic recipe inside … Above a yellowing early '60s illustration of something orange-ish, it promised everyone's warming favourite, Tomato Soup. The list of ingredients is economical in the extreme: 1 litre of cold water, 5 tomatoes, 2 cloves. And the method? Boil for 35 minutes. Season if necessary. Yum! SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-70413327979654353192019-03-13T15:02:00.000-07:002019-03-13T15:02:07.568-07:00Plumper<br />
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When you're asked what you did at the weekend and you have to admit to going to a lecture on how to wean your pet onto a vegetarian diet, you'll get funny looks.When you do, just smile in return and change the subject. Don't tell them that you'd only been siezing the chance to sit down for a few minutes.<br />
<br />
In fact the whole thing was rather accidental. I had a free train ticket to use up … it hasn't been the weather to go anywhere recently … and somehow Veggie World, a vegan and vegetarian festival seemed to offer an interesting afternoon out and the chance of endless, interesting nibbles.<br />
<br />
I tried everything from non-dairy grated "Parmesan" non-cheese ( really non-nice!) to nuggets made from beans, quinoa and an alarming amount of chili ( not for children, then ), lactose free yoghurt, a gluten-free vegan lasagne (disappointing) and mountains of hummus and vegan mayonnaise, even an everything-but-sugar-free Caesar salad dressing which rather oddly seemed to glow in the dark.<br />
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All the cakes, biscuits and pies were very nice as were all the juices and soups. All the teeshirts, posters and cookery books were beautifully designed and everyone was cheerful and obviously well fed.<br />
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I'm slightly reassured that Small Grandson who, at seven, seems to have already decided not to eat meat won't expire but, though I've cut down on the amount of meat I eat, I'm not ready to join him. When someone makes some really convincing bacon, I might think again. But I can certainly recommend it as an afternoon out.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-64878747024905801392019-03-02T08:03:00.000-08:002019-03-02T08:03:58.847-08:00Thought For Today: <span style="color: #cc0000;">"Life is a near-death experience. Stumble around in giddy gratitude while you still can'' </span><br />
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This quote from Jen Sincero popped up in a book by Lisa Genova today and I thought I'd share it with you. I usually avoid all these homilies like the plague and don't have embroidered cushions exhorting my guests to count their blessings dotted about but this appealed because it describes this week perfectly.<br />
<br />
The sun shone, the birds sang and all the early bulbs are flowering. Sitting outside Starbuck's in the sun, hearing about Friend's homework and her teaching practice with young teens, I gave thanks for being old enough to retire.<br />
<br />
There are things about retirement I don't much like. It can be very quiet at times and you miss the mid-morning gossip, but I don't miss the endless meetings about whether we should insist on every child only bringing fruit for snacks or allowing bread and butter as well or just not having any rules at all and running the risk of biscuits or<i> croissants.</i> The political correctness got a bit wearing and, in fact, the one boy who I saw helping his mother last Christmas in the supermarket had invariably had an iced bun in his snack box when he was three. Rules<i> per se</i> don't bring out the best in people and the average pre-schooler's morning doesn't normally revolve round having a banana or carrot sticks. I expect this lad was carrying four shopping bags and herding his mum to the bus stop out of affection.<br />
<i></i><i></i><br />
But retirement does have its advantages … I find I quite like life on the wild side. I like being free to do what I please a lot of the time. I might well go in for some giddy gratitude tomorrow ...SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-62578255500331310922019-02-11T11:53:00.001-08:002019-02-11T11:53:29.376-08:00It Happens To Us AllIt's finally happened. I've turned into my mother, as we all do eventually.<br />
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While she was still alive, we'd usually all come together for Christmas, squash into our old house, eat too much, reminisce and enjoy each others company. Since there weren't quite so many of us then, we could all just about fit into the same car and go off in the afternoon for an outing. My mother would sit happily in the passenger's seat, listening to the radio. <br />
<br />
Our local radio station had its firm favourites and a short playlist. That year it, like the rest of us, had been impressed by Titanic. Wherever we went, the blasted song would come on before we'd reached the end of our road and my mother would pipe up , "Who's that singing?". And everybody would chorus, "It's Celine Dion, Granny".<br />
<br />
The other day I was sitting in the hairdresser's, trying to remain positive about my fringe, when there was something about the song on the radio … "Who's that singing?".<br />
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Yes of course, it was Celine Dion and her new song, whatever it's called…….<br />
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<br />SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-59228769966119726332019-02-05T10:11:00.000-08:002019-02-05T10:11:00.544-08:00It Hasn't Snowed All Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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No, it hasn't snowed once today. Had it not been freezing, I would have drunk my coffee on the balcony. Yesterday we only had a lot of wet white stuff that melted on its way down, at about knee height . The crocus are waking up in the park. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.<br />
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Winter even makes getting dressed in the morning rather boring . Hugely heavy thick green jumper or hugely heavy thick grey jumper? ( Am I the only person left, old enough to remember when sweaters came in a wide variety of colours every year? When we didn't all look as though we'd Xeroxed ourselves?)<br />
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Last week it snowed every day and I spent most of it under a blanket, reading a pile of paper backs. I can really recommend 'The Watchmaker from Filigree Street', 'Half-Sick of Shadows' and 'Moon over Soho', having thoroughly enjoyed them all, especially the first.<br />
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But now I'm all magicked out, I've mooned over a huge pile of American museum catalogues, made a variety of vegetable soups and have started to make myself bacon sandwiches again ( definitely frowned on by the cholesterol police ) so I'd better have my hair cut and go for a Day Out. The Femmes Fatales exhibition in Den Haag sounds good … the Dior exhibition in London sounds good, too, but unfortunately Days Out can only really last 24 hours in the real world. Never mind, it's Blood Orange time again and three different people today assured me that the snow's finished for this year so it's onwards and upwards. <b>?? </b><br />
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Smitonius kindly emailed me a shot of her baking and I thought I'd share it with you to spread the cheer. If I've been overoptimistic and it snows again tomorrow I'll make some muffins and eat them all before the day's out … after another bacon sandwich.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-13069777716216729772019-01-25T10:54:00.000-08:002019-01-26T01:09:24.852-08:00Perhaps A Little Self-Restraint ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Px52iCzPMFPX1bqRpc4-9YD_nWtxgRbzNG7hGea8pVcdILsbHPKFfBDdqjSyq0LwBJaBpGxDo8w3nZ13wQaOfm3AtpUssQI6yMxII74VDmKJRE0hvGgOe51VeE8uEGhnfnSmvwX2jeDh/s1600/IMG_7859.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a>The party-ing is over. Huge fun while it lasted; a surfeit of fattening food … TWO Christmas puddings, eight sorts of cheese, three sorts of ham, far too many biscuits and Janet's Bubble and Squeak …. but it seems sensible to stop now before I go pop! </div>
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Though, since it's snowed this week, there's a little voice in my head saying, "You need your calories, my girl" and I think of walking through the snow to school when I was quite small, sucking a boiled sweet my mother had given me 'to keep me warm' (ironically she later became a dental nurse).<br />
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<br />
Fortunately there's a bigger voice pointing out that if I want to button up my jeans, I'd better not eat a large bowl of porridge, two bananas and a leftover sausage every day for breakfast … oh, alright, just this once, then… <br />
Trouble is having vivid memories of being housebound the last time we had days and days of black ice, I've stocked the flat with enough food to feed the neighbourhood for a fortnight.<br />
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Luckily there have been a couple of good exhibitions locally and wandering round the Fries Museum's <a href="mailto:info@friesmuseum.nl" target="_blank">Rembrant And Saskia </a>, Love and Courtship in the Golden Age a couple of times has kept me fit. Add to this a quick skip round Nubia, Land van de Zwarte Faroa's in Assen's <a href="http://www.drentsmuseum.nl/" target="_blank">Drents Museum</a> and I'm still only slightly chubby. And I've got a lovely post card of a white Nubian cat on my fridge door.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-42014517306074570652018-12-11T06:20:00.000-08:002018-12-11T06:20:14.833-08:00Are We All Sitting Comfortably ? .....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Has everyone written and posted all the Christmas cards, ordered the turkey, unearthed the decorations, disentangled the tinsel and bought and wrapped all the presents?<br />
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Well , good for you. Think of me as you sit purring, sipping a coffee and eating a mince pie or two. I'm the person you see out of the corner of your eye at the cash desk, muttering to herself and clutching two tins of biscuits and a fancy shower cap.<br />
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I knew December was coming. It always does after November. There's no excuse………….<br />
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P.S. With thanks to Younger Grandson's archives. He would like me to point out that he's grown since….SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-68908539079214690632018-11-26T15:03:00.000-08:002018-11-26T15:03:33.156-08:00Take Off<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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An article in this weekend's paper explained why the train from Leeuwarden to Groningen suddenly slows down to a crawl and can dawdle along for five or ten minutes before speeding up again … The train to Utrecht sometimes does the same . Come to that Dutch trains as a whole are prone to it and it's simply because we're all in a queue. Apparently more than eight thousand animals were reported on the tracks from January to September this year alone. More than two thousand deer and an astonishing one and a half thousand swans plus hares, cows and the odd lama.<br />
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Well, I can vouch for the swans since the driver sometimes tells us passengers what's happening, though when it's a sheep it's not usually considered exciting enough to interrupt the conversation. Swans tend to see the track as their own airport runway and like to take off from it. What sheep, deer , cattle and an alarming number of dogs and cats are doing is unclear or, come to that, the red panda seen in Rotterdam racing along the line. Best of all was the kangaroo seen just south of here a few months ago. Too fast to catch, he was finally beaten by the clients of the Spoorzicht ( Railway view) Cafe … they lassoo-ed it.<br />
( with thanks to Saturday's De Volkskrant. )SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-66222878042700448972018-11-21T11:30:00.000-08:002018-11-22T06:25:06.787-08:00Free-Space<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Thanks to Free-Space*, I've got two tea-bag size bruises, one on each knee.<br />
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Like everywhere else our town is evolving. The old library , together with the equally old bank building behind it, is becoming an off shoot of Groningen University, something to do with commerce or tourism , I think, and once the builders have gone will have students running up and down the steps all day. So recently the streets and spaces around have been reorganised. Buses, cars and delivery vans still use them … and so do people both on and off bikes. But FREELY! No more white lines or traffic lights, no boring traffic signs .<br />
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The traffic, apart from buses, can drive in the general direction of its destination as long as it looks where it's going. And that's where I and a young girl went wrong. Both trying to go along the top of the bridge in a hurry but in different directions , we collided. Mind you, she wasn't to know that I'd just come back from England where everybody'd been driving on the other side of the road or that I'm not really fit to be let out alone on wheels at the best of times. Anyway, a nice young man picked us both up and we both hobbled off. And I'm going back to cycling through the red light district again; it's much easier to navigate during the day.<br />
* Officially called Shared Space, apparently.<br />
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Since it's suddenly winter and nearly freezing, I'm back to cooking industrial quantities of baked apples and the flat smells of cinnamon, I've hauled out the Annual Scarf … well, the Triennial scarf actually since it's been on the needles for ever … and Masterchef and Strictly Come Dancing are on television again. I can't watch one more young chef forget how to make Beef Wellington when watched by Marcus Waring … I can do that myself. And it's easier to cherish the belief that I can tango when not actually watching people doing it.<br />
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Thank heaven for Netflix.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-40428278935033532352018-11-09T14:53:00.000-08:002018-11-09T14:53:06.823-08:00Remembering ....When I was little, the occasional riotous behaviour of my father and uncles and their friends seemed rather fun and I used to feel sorry when Granny and the aunts would look disapproving. It's only years later that I realise just how much all these young men spent their twenties putting themselves back together again after the war.<br />
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I've recently read my eldest uncle's diary, in which he describes how he found himself catapulted into the war and how, at first, being at war just meant scrubbing a decidedly scruffy boat from one end to the other endlessly. His main worry was how his mother would cope without his wages, which helped her feed and clothe his younger brothers and sisters. That it would be years till he found himself at home again never occured to him or that he'd be at sea, in one way or another, till his sixties.<br />
<br />
Much as I loved him, Matthew was no literary giant and the diary wasn't an easy read but a lot was fascinating. If nothing else it explained his lifelong reluctance to bow to authority.<br />
<br />
He mentions their attempt at tailing the Graaf Spee and how it was perhaps as well that they never got too close given that their 6 inch guns had been installed in 1901 and definitely not up to the fire power and range of any modern ship. Perhaps it was just as well that my grandmother didn't know anything about what exactly her eldest son was up to just then. Never one for quietly accepting her fate, or anyone else's, she'd have been banging on the Admiralty doors, demanding better arms for them all at the very least.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-21303527509579281372018-10-15T10:21:00.000-07:002018-10-19T11:14:30.011-07:00Frogs And Suchlike<br />
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The 'fridge echoes. I've hunted the cupboard shelves. Quinoa (Heavens, how old is it?), a half full, plastic container with a hand-printed label saying "VERY wholemeal flour" which I remember made some depressingly healthy buns and some elderly raisins. A tin of sardines in water, but I'm not <i>quite</i> that hungry. Oh, I have found a small tin of sweet corn … is that nice on toast?<br />
<br />
Perhaps not. And a pot of Marmite dated January 2003, does everybody British have one of these ? Trouble is, I don't like tinned food so I rarely buy it except for tomatoes which I then keep for an emergency, but I've even eaten those. And all the pasta . Since I have now dared to get back on the bike again, I'd better find a couple of shoes that match and go to the shops.<br />
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All I really want is some grapefruit juice now I can't, of course, but a bag of mandarins do. Three pots of cottage cheese and a pork chop. Peanut butter, some smoked mackerel and sweet peppers. Meuslibollen ( yes, they really do have meusli in them and they're lovely with cheese in ). And some more tinned tomatoes for the next emergency.<br />
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The reason for the food shortage is Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour. Thoroughly enthralling and the reason why I've been glued to my sofa. But I have been doing a jigsaw, too. A recycling shop challenge which might or might not be complete, though since it only cost 25 cents it probably isn't. The edge pieces are all there anyway and hundreds of frogs. <br />
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(Sorry, I've resorted to the manufacturers online catalogue photo since posting my own photos has become very hit and miss.) And I'd like to post this before 2019.<br />
P.S. I've finally finished the puzzle and it was complete !SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-5914078592385120052018-09-23T07:24:00.000-07:002018-09-23T07:24:46.714-07:00Well, That Made A Change.You know those surprise weekend breaks that people have been rushing off for for the last couple of years? To Munchen or Bratislava ? Well, I had a variation this week .... <br />
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Food-wise it couldn't be recommended, eight cheese rolls being rather too much of a good thing and I don't know about you, but I prefer to take my toothbrush and a nightie away with me , but everyone was terribly friendly and the coffee was very good. It was a couple of rather busy days, not recommended if you wanted a rest, but it did make a change. <br />
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Last Saturday I felt a little peculiar and I still felt strange on Sunday, so when Youngest Daughter phoned on Sunday evening I couldn't really talk to her. Then Friend 'phoned and I didn't do much better but had luckily already decided to talk to the doctor on Monday or Tuesday. It's all right. Next time I'll just call an ambulance straightaway and put everyone's mind at rest. I'd had a TIA. <br />
I now sound fine, have had every test known to man and seem to be condemned to taking another form of Statins but I've been told that I might not react so badly to these, they're milder. <br />
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Since it seemed that I wasn't going to get home till I did, I'm swallowing them and keeping my fingers crossed. These are quite gentle which might be easier for both me and my great-greatgrandmother to put up with … apparently even vaguely Keralan people can only tolerate them so well.<br />
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I definitely don't want to be difficult. (The young specialist looked about twenty but I feel she and her gang looked as though they'd be bossy and I was determined to get out before series 3 of The Good Place was going to begin.) Besides, I'd read all the magazines and I'd eaten two lots of salmon and broccolli… I felt I'd wrung the whole experience dry.SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1240778511347611810.post-82621431283953149712018-09-11T13:27:00.000-07:002018-09-11T13:27:10.318-07:00I Had No Idea ...<div>
Until last weekend I had no idea that my life was missing something so fundamental. Other people had cats or canaries, Guinea pigs or ant farms. A mouse in the skirting board. Dandelions on the lawn or mushrooms in the cellar… But Gloria and I soldiered on without any of these things.<br />
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And then I went down to Amsterdam on Saturday to have lunch and a wander round with YD. We went to Hortus, the Botanic Gardens, and mooned over endless beautiful ferns and palm trees of all shapes and sizes. We're not gardeners; between us we have five plants, one of which is the balding, albino Basil in my kitchen. But we loitered by the purple Velvet plants and the little signs inviting us to stroke them, and we crushed mint and verbena leaves. We stabbed ourselves with an armoury of needle sharp cactii and admired our reflections in lily pad filled ponds. We were enchanted by the Butterfly house and peered through the windows of the Caterpillar House ( No Entry, presumably in case one inadvertently treads on a few). And just as we were beginning to feel hungry and reckoned we'd seen our moneysworth of greenery, I saw what my balcony's been missing , an Elephant's Foot Palm, otherwise known as a Ponytail Palm.<br />
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I know that Gloria would love one as would the pansy that grew after I'd planted some paprika seeds and the pink daisy-things that seem to be growing horizontally next door …<br />
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I think I'm getting the hang of gardening …….</div>
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SmitoniusAndSonatahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11210817141287881808noreply@blogger.com4