Be careful what you wish for

The clocks may have reverted to British Summer time but the weather has had other ideas; temperatures with a wind chill making it feel somewhere around freezing and an incredibly biting wind which has finished off fences already challenged by the recent storms we've endured.
But... I did ask for rain and I got intense showers of hail. Close. Then the audacity of some sunshine in between? Painful especially when I remember its only a few days ago I was sunning myself in the garden and burning my shins.
Never mind it will mean I will be able to get on with the garden tomorrow as long as the weather is kind that is. 

pictures caught between hailstorms

I couldn't resist it and took my phone out and quickly took pictures of plants showing their heads. Some have been in flower for a few days and some a few months. The spirea bush is in its Spring magnificence and the tulips are starting to show their buds. In some gardens I've noticed they are already out but as yet none in this garden have opened let alone shared what colours they are.
The garden on one side is ready for blooming but as yet they haven't received the composting they need. My two recycling/composting bins are full and I suspect half of their bulk equates to lovely homemade compost but as yet I have not released it; a job for next week. 
I've pruned the roses and lopped the buddleja to within an inch of its growth last year. I'm hoping they will all throw up nice long,fresh stems which will have good heads on top for the butterflies I get in the garden.
When I was sitting out enjoying the sun I saw a peacock up close and personal, and I have seen a few tortoise shells fly by so they are waking up from their torpor. I do hope this sudden change in the weather hasn't caught them too hard.

Usually visited by small solitary bees and some bumbles.
 Lovely to see the out and about

 

So we are now into the tenth day of personal distancing. I do wish they wouldn't call it social distancing it makes it sound as if we shouldn't speak to one another. Fortunately, the older people (my age bracket; healthy and not quite 70) are out for their one stint of daily exercise (no more that 30 mins is advised) or walking the dog. We pass each other on opposite sides of the street and say, 'good morning' to one another as we pass.
Interestingly, I have seen few, if anyone out for a walk who is under about 50 years of age, and even more surprisingly, no children. Their parents are going to be so pleased to give them back to the teachers after this extended period of time. I do hope they will look at teachers in a different light after this. Some of them will struggle with their own two or three, we had to cope with a minimum of thirty all at once and in a confined space! 
We shall see.
I listened to the daily briefing this afternoon and was really interested in what Jenny Harries had to say about the time line the medical professionals, who have their fingers on the pulse of overall numbers. She was at pains to say we were in this form of lock down for at least the next couple of weeks and some form of restricted movements could be in place for up to and perhaps longer than six months. 
Sadly that would mean yet another holiday I've planned will go by the board (that's in May) and will be pushing it for my cruise in September. Never mind, I will get the money reimbursed unlike a lot of people because I have gone through a travel company for all aspects of my holiday and I have full ATOL and ABTA protection. I do keep my fingers crossed the cruise to the Far East in January will go ahead but I do have a funny feeling this country and Europe will not be in the right place even then to have us traveling over there.
So on a very happy note; I've bought a new tent!!!
If I can't get abroad then I will go camping. I am a member of the Camping and Caravaning Club and it would be good if I started using it again. I have been a member for 10 years and as yet have only utilised it for one site, for one year. It may seem a waste, keeping up the subscription, but its a heck of a lot less than gym membership so many people forget they've got and pay for each month.

Happy days, happy dreaming and if the worst comes to the worst,

 it goes up in the garden

Spring, sunshine and a cracking garden?

In the space of a week, my garden has gone from a bog to a dried up river bed and being clay, has set hard. Turning the soil is impossible and any ideas of weeding is out of the question. The forecast says it will get colder and there may be wintery showers; ironically I'd like some rain please.
Mad isn't it, this year we have had floods and deluges of rain and in less than a fortnight we are battling the world wide spread of a very contagious virus, being forced to stay at home and forcing gardeners to stare a their soil in dismay....well at least down here, anyway.
I went for a walk (one of the ones we are allowed to do in a day) and watched a man struggling to get a rotavator onto his allotment. To be honest that would be one of the few things which would get through the hard pan at the moment.
I was really pleased with what I have achieved;

• pruned all the perennials ready for their new growth
• cut back the shrubs which need lopping each year
• pruned the roses ready for their new growing season
• dug and weeded the long border in front of the kitchen and living room windows (that took 3 days!) 
• dug the herb garden ready to plant out seedlings
• dealt with the vigorous sweet pea in the greenhouse 
• collapsed in a heap and enjoyed the sun 
• got sunburnt on my shins
• read the Camping and Caravaning magazine from cover to cover 
• did countless loads of washing plus all the necessary ironing
• AND watched every daily news briefing from Downing Street

 Not bad for a 10 days me thinks.
So, today is a quiet day. My shins sting from the sunburn and I have spent the last three days  dealing with what feels like a flu of some kind. I don't think its the Covid-19 as I've had this hanging round as sinusitis for some time, but the cough is coming out now so I am staying away from people as much as possible.
Living on your own makes that very easy and having bought in all I really needed, I was able to self isolate for a week and a few days. Today, however I needed vegetables (only rice and pulses left) and was delighted to find not only Sainsbury Metro round the corner almost empty, but there was a full shelf and good variety of vegetables.
I'm now very happy and can withdraw behind my front door once more.
We only have 200 cases reported in Kent and of those only 5 I think have died so far. Long may those figures continue. I have no idea what it is like in the town as I've not been there for over a week but if around here is anything to go by, the place must be deserted.
 

Google image

I am just grateful I have a house with a garden, no bills to hang over me like a sword of Damocles and no worries about income as I am already living off pensions and savings.
I am luckier that most and for that I am very grateful.
I am also grateful for the song of the birds in the morning and the emerging buds on the trees and shrubs. I am enthralled by the growth of the tulips and aliums and look forward to them opening their flowers.

courtesy of Gardener's World

I am delighted to duck as an oversized bumble bee flies past me and to sit with a cup of coffee and have a beautiful peacock butterfly land on the table next to me.
To turn my head to the sun like a sunflower and soak up the vitamin D and to enjoy the peace in my area.
I am blessed during this time of stress and worry for many. I have no worries, what will be will and I dream of camping trips and summer gardens, of visiting places and traveling to them; of traveling abroad and enjoying the sun, the culture and the people.
All in all, its a good life and this is sadly the first of many viral pandemics to come. Let's hope I die of natural causes and not succumb to one of them in the future.
 

A quiet read of the papers

Two loads of washing out and blowing in the wind and soon, I knew, I would be able to get all the ironing done and put away.
The painting of blue bells still waits for me to develop the next layers of water colour and I sit down with a really nice cup of coffee and my Upday News feed.
I'm not sure if that was a mistake or not, but one article after another just made my blood boil. 
I love certain news papers; Times, Guardian, Independent and Financial Times first followed by Science Alert, The Daily Mash, Techradar, iNews and various other not so familiar news feeds from around the world.
So today, what what I given?

• Business Insider: Trump has made it clear he wants to reopen the economy to boost his reelection chances, even if more Americans die.
• Wales Online: Workers inside JD Sports warehouse where people are still working (no regard for distancing at all)
• CNBC: Italy's death toll now 8 000
• Inverse: Climate scientists asking awkward questions about the covid-19 virus
• CNET: Coronavirus texting scams
• VICE: 3 GOP senators stalling the covid-19 bailout because they think the unemployment benefits are too generous
• Independent: Russia asking its 145 million citizens to stay indoors
• Medical Daily: Arkansas churchgoers contract covid-19 as virus spreads to more US states

I could go on but my brain reached semi-overload at this point when two more articles caught my eye, hence the rapid deployment to sitting in front of my computer with a cold cup of coffee and an agitated mind.
I realise America is a very different place from here and has very different social and government rules, but I was more than concerned when I realised something highlighted in an article by Robert Fisk, a world renowned Middle East correspondent.
He is based in Beirut and has lived in the Arab world for more than 40 years. He has covered all the wars and invasions, revolutions and occupations we have witnessed over that period and he is held in the highest esteem when it comes to his journalism.
The headline read,

This is what Trump is doing in the Middle East while you're distracted by coronavirus 

Are you aware he is having military exercise,

"Operation Native Fury"

with the UAE in a special, mock, war games theatre built by the UAE which has high rise blocks, mosques, apartment complexes, narrow streets and an oil refinery, the layout of which looking suspiciously like two cities, Shirez and Isfahan. 

Are you aware the Brigadier General, Thomas Savage does not appear concerned the Iranians will see this as provocative?  

That the troups are directly out of two areas, quote,

4,000 US troops had been sent into the Emirates from Diego Garcia and Kuwait, where they might have recently arrived from the three newly abandoned American bases in Iraq

which were closed in Iran?

That very publicly, Mike Pompeo has cut $1 billion of aid to Afghanistan even though there is a covid-19 issue there?

That Trump is overtly blackmailing through withdrawn aid to get his way is Beirut. He is upset both elected presidents, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdulla, claim to be the official President. This is not what Trump and Pompeo wanted because it upsets the deal America (Trump) struck with the Taliban to get prisoners swapped and peace restored?  That neither of the elected presidents agree with the deal?

A quotation from the article is as follows;

But US sanctions are clearly not going to be “revisited” in relation to Iran, which claims – not without some justice – that the ban on imports is hindering its own struggle against Covid-19.
The UN has called for such sanctions to be “urgently re-evaluated”, pointing out that human-rights reports have already described the malign effect of sanctions on Iran's access to respirators and protective clothes for healthcare workers. The Iranians, with the declared number of cases above 27,000 and more than 2,000 confirmed deaths, may have covered up many more victims – and this, remember, is a regime that couldn’t tell the difference between a Ukrainian airliner and an American cruise missile (and lied about it for two days). They clearly need help. American sanctions, however, matter more than the coronavirus in the Middle East.

Yes, we may have our eyes firmly on our own survival here in the UK, but there are many things still going on in the world; the Canadian pipeline, starvation in Yemen, the refugee camps to the south of Turkey, a perfect storm waiting to erupt with covid-19, earthquakes and recovery after the worst locust invasion if 40 yeas....the list goes on and whilst we look inward, the world and some dictatorial bully boys are still destroying that very normality we will need to re-establish once we are through the worst of this crisis.

And that was the first article!!

Its a virus not a food shortage

I had the misfortune of visiting our local supermarket this morning. It was just gone 11 am and I decided to stay local so as to stay away from the people stripping the shelves of the bigger places in Tonbridge.
That was a silly presumption because their selfish panic had lead them from one area to another. The car parks were groaning under the weight of all these super sized SUV vehicles and people with intense frustration and mounting anger, thronged into our very small, very local shops stripping them bare.
It was a sorry sight. Shelves stripped like a plant is after a locust swarm; once stripped they would take flight in their SUVs and settle on another crop to be plundered.

But then, as one woman said to me in the queue to pay,
 "these people grew up in the age when they got what they wanted instantly and any delay was not tolerated." 
Yes, I have to agree, it was something I remember seeing in schools as these adults grew up from indulged princes and princesses into demanding adults. They knew no difference and the prospect of having their liberty and possibly their food taken away further than it was, is proving too much for them.
The sales of no- perisably goods is increasing by 14% and new freezer cabinets are flying out the doors to be filled to overflowing with yet more hoarded food.....and yet, unlike the locusts, once they move off, the foods are replenished.

When will they realise, we are in the grips of a virus not a food crisis. 

God help us if we did have a food crisis, there'd be violence on the streets and the elderly would be allowed to starve unless someone stood up for them.
It is a sad indictment of our society. We have all this and yet there are people in Johannesberg who don't even have access to running water, they cannot socially distance themselves form one another because they live in overcrowded conditions, they share toilets and have no washing facilities, and we are complaining because we can't get the brand of toilet paper we want?
Now that is self-centred thinking and if there is one aspect of a person I will never tolerate is, 'I'm alright Jack, don't give a toss about you'.
That's not society, not the society I want to live in!

...and I thought I had problems

Sorry if the picture is filled with glare, but that's the reflection off the grass (ha,ha,ha) or should I say, soggy mud and the occasional tuft? All I can say is the small, black headed gulls seemed to be enjoying it and the tiny flock were happily hunting drowned worms and the like whilst attempting to float in one place as strong winds blew them toward the bank.
I decided there was little or no point in going for a walk again today, and went in a large circle around the town instead. 
I use the term, 'town' with great looseness as I would never regard Tonbridge as one, being such a small place, pinched at the waist by its single one-ton bridge (hence the name), but there was enough space for many to be out early this windy and somewhat chilly Sunday morning, shopping as if the world was about to come to a shuddering halt and there would be no food in the shops for at least the next month, or three.
Sainsburys and Iceland were being attacked by marauding masses, each with their over filled trolleys and foul temper. I don't think fighting had broken out but there were a lot of very angry people complaining someone had taken the last pack of toilet rolls.
Why toilet rolls for heavens sake? 
I ignored the whole dance of the tribes and headed into Waitrose for a more subdued shopping extravaganza for two loaves of vegan bread and a packet of coconut biscuits....last of the big spenders me. This entitled me to a free coffee which I gratefully enjoyed whilst watching the arguing couples leave Iceland.
What a performance.
Another wander and I headed back to the swimming pool just to have a look and a sit in a less frenetic part of town. 
On my way round I came across a mum and a little boy..

Mum gently steered her son along the submerged path and in their wellies they enjoyed a paddle in the puddle. 
I thought of my mother and what we would have done. Yes, we too would be paddling with the gulls, sticking to the path so as to have a relatively sound footing. Would my mother have hung on to me? Somehow, I get the impression she wouldn't, I would have been too busy getting soaked and falling over in the slippery mud which must have been coating the path by now.
Well done to that mum! Indulging her child like that will stick with him for a very long time and you never know, it might be a memory, like mine, which will be stimulated to surface in years to come when he too sees another mum doing something similar with her child.

A new winter?

Tonbridge High Street in yet another deluge

 

I went out for a walk but being sensible, I took the car down just in case. Buses are few and far between on a Sunday and I just had that feeling....

 

There were several things I needed; toilet rolls (why are people stock piling these?), shower gel (and that for heaven's sake) and, if I could find any, rice. 

I suspect the distribution centres are having problems with the flooding everywhere and as a consequence many supplies were just not getting through. 

However, this covid-19 virus is creating a sense of doom and panic among people and they are shopping in a similar manner to Christmas. The shopping trolleys are full to over-flowing and people like me who are going around viewing it as business as usual, but taking extra care with hygiene (washing hands etc), are finding it increasingly difficult to do this.

I'm not sure what these people think; its like a bad flu, and as yet we've not a way of controlling it in the vulnerable sections of the population. Yes, some people will die but no more than the flu does, or killed on our roads.

 

Whatever, let's get back to the winter.

 

Tonbridge town lock system pretty much hidden by excessive water levels

 

The second reason I came down into town was I just wanted to be nosy. I wanted to have a look at the town lock area as well as the Racecourse sports fields and the area around the swimming pool and Model Railway Club house. 

 

Being surrounded by tributaries of the Medway, the playing fields are one of the first victims to flooding should the water levels rise to any great extent. Originally a flood plain catchment area and probably water meadows once upon a time, this part of town frequently floods and rugby becomes more a battle of who can stay upright in the mud. What makes it a delight is watching those who have been playing, come onto the High Street, still covered from head to toe in mud and wearing their studs (because they too are an extension of the mud boots), and go into Greggs for hot chocolate and a sausage roll.

Funnily enough no-one bats an eye-lid at it.......mind you, no-one really batted an eye-lid to the hedgerow dweller who wore no clothes, never washed and had hair in messy dreadlocks down his back. 

Now if you're going to be troubled by anything and that doesn't get you, then nothing will! 

 

I must admit, though, the town lock hasn't been that full in the last 15 years I've been living here and is proving to be woefully short if it going to remain effective against the flooding we are experiencing now.

Whilst photographing at the lock, the tell tale spits and spots began to fall and rapidly translated into a deluge of water falling from the sky. 

I was glad of my 100% waterproof coat, but it didn't stop my trouser legs from becoming soaked and consequently, my shoes starting to fill with the water trickling down. 

I beat a purposeful retreat and sheltered in the entrance to the old Woolworth's building, still empty after all this time. Within minutes, the High Street itself began to flood, the drains just unable to keep up with the amount falling out of the sky. All I could do was wait and hope it would back off shortly and when it did I began the walk round to where the car was parked.

 lock gate itself almost submerged. 

The gate is slightly open so as to allow the water through

 

 

One observation made on the way many of us smile however. 

A very posh car, some oversized, four wheel drive, black, shiny and immaculately clean was parked in the loading bay area on the High Street itself. The alarms had gone off and those who were scuttling from the rain to areas of shelter looked and laughed, then commented with a rye smile," wonder if the driver knows all the windows are wide open?"

We stood and watched as the car, now experiencing the next deluge, was accepting water on the inside. If nothing else it lifted the mood of people.....at least there was one unlucky punter in a worse situation than us!

So, is this heralding the winter's to come? Are we moving into a more biannual rhythm where we get all the rain in the winter and then drought in the summer? Only time will tell but one thing is for certain, the weather patterns in the country are changing and I suspect we are seeing the start of a new cycle.

A soogy, sorry place

Bit depressing lately, what with the rain (oh, that rain) and the new virus spreading globally.
USA seems to have a couple of hot spots, even though the President was confident it wouldn't be a problem there. Italy has an outbreak which appears to be spreading and UK is bracing itself for more cases over the next three weeks.
Nasty. 
We've not really been hit with a new virus like this for some time and as with all new little darlings, they bring with them some deaths and quite a few people very ill.
Let's hope we remain free of this angel for a bit longer and it takes us into the warmer weather which must come at some point.
In days of yore, washing of hands was a skill taught to all children, and mothers would chime the standard phrase, "have you washed your hands?!" knowing full well, their little angels hadn't and were now scurrying back to do it. 
A quick lick of the cold tap and a cursory flick onto the trousers and they were off to do something more interesting instead.......but at least the initial training was there.
I've watched people in public toilets coming out of the loo and just standing in front of a mirror primping their hair or adjusting their make-up. 
Hand washing? Nope, not on their radar. 
As yet, I've not heard the singing of "Happy Birthday.." (something that is long enough to wash your hands) by the chaperoned children and many mothers are still too skimpy on the hygiene of hands.
I learnt a valuable trick on board a cruise liner;

• wash your hands with the soap provided
• dry your hands thoroughly
• apply sterilising hand gel
• open door with a paper tissue and dispose of the tissue in a bin.

Perfect. Works for me. I've added one extra step; when out and about, wear gloves. It cuts down on what contaminates your hands and in a strange way cuts down the number of times I go to my face with my hands. 
For me, wearing lipstick helps too. I don't want to smudge it so I keep away from my face as much as possible.

Anyway, enough of that, let's turn to my other passion (well one of them), gardening and all things Nature.

The pots I planted after Christmas have come into their own and have given me colour all winter. Even when it got really windy, they withstood the intense whipping of the winds around the corner of the house.
As you will notice in the foreground, my pelagonium is also in flower. Being indoors it has had a false start to the warmer weather and with continual feeding has embraced the concept of May-time very early.
 

It's such a beautiful one and one I am going to paint if I get the chance, and that's my other passion but also my greatest nemesis.
I don't believe one ever stops learning about painting or drawing. I also believe the one thing that stops many people trying is their fear of not being a Rembrandt straight away.
I've been studying these skills for years and I still feel about as good a Rembrandt as a ten year old's best offerings, but its never stopped me learning and slowly, over the years, I have begun to notice improvements.



Some of my work I cannot share here; they are birthday cards for friends and haven't necessarily been sent yet. But here are three I can share;

an imaginary place we were invited to produce, illustrating our use of perspective.

a classroom exercise of water colour, utilising our ability to over paint the density of the

subject so as to create realism

classroom exercise to show a combination of the three skills above.

Can I just apologise for the change in type part way through? For some reason, its fine in edit mode but as soon as I publish it goes into odd sizes. No idea why and am unable to clear it, sorry.