HELP! I’m stuck, I can’t get out!

Normally the days and the weeks fly past me in a flash, as if a tornado has swept me off my feet on a Monday, spun me around from Tuesday to Thursday and let me plummet down to earth on a Friday but for some reason or other I seem to be stuck between Tuesday and Thursday. Each morning I wake up and it’s still the middle of the week and it doesn’t matter how hard I push it, it’s still the middle of the week!

I’m having a groundhog day, constantly on repeat and I’m starting to think it’s just me. As I sit here looking over the top of my glasses, gazing out of the window with my arms folded I think I’ve worked it out…

School breaks for the summer holidays next Friday which means turning feral for six weeks, no more school runs, pe kits and packed lunches but then there is also that moment of disbelief, ‘Where did that year go?’ A whole year stored in a split second of my memory, like a zip file. So maybe I’m trying to slow things down and put off the inevitable.

I’m all for living in the moment but Tuesday to Thursday feels so last year and I’m ready to press play and jump into Friday now please.

The Girl, the Horse, the Fly and the Washing Line

At the bottom of my garden stands a tall and slender silver birch tree where the blue tits come and raise their families each year. On the other side of the garden stands the hazel tree where the squirrels feast on its nuts and bury them around the garden, often forgetting where they have stashed them from the amount of hazel trees I now have growing in my garden and flower beds. The silver birch and hazel tree are perfect for tying a good old fashioned washing line to. There is something quite satisfying making the bed with clean fresh sheets that have been blowing in the breeze and drying in the bright, warm sunshine on a summer’s afternoon.

However, this week when I popped down to the bottom of the garden to bring in my washing I was ambushed. Did she see me or smell me? Did I set off a trip wire? Was she lying in wait for me? I’m not sure if it is just one female horsefly or if there is a gang of them but the ambush is relentless. She approaches silently and sveltely, landing on my shoulder just out of my vision. It’s only when she bites do I know she is there. I flick her off and she takes immediate umbrage and angrily heads straight back for me. This time she lands on my knee and yet again I am unaware until I feel her bite. I flick her off again, she circles around me, she is not giving up as she keeps trying to land for another attack. She’s persistent and with her sights locked onto me she’s on my face, my neck and then there we have it, bite number three on my back. That’s it, she wins, she can have the bottom of the garden and my washing line, I’m going indoors.

So if you go down to the woods today be sure of a big surprise or at least go fully clothed, balaclava tightly sealed, the lot!

There’s More Than One Path in Life

It was such a beautiful day yesterday and we wanted to make the most of the sunshine on our Friday evening.

‘Let’s go to the beach after school, collect friends on the way, swim and eat fish and chips?’ The saying ‘Carpe Diem’ rang true.

We stopped off to collect our friends, threw our swimming togs and towels in the back of the car and off we went. We chatted ferociously, catching up on each others news and stories, filling in the gaps from when we last met.

On our journey the road splits and I always have to really think of my end destination. If I go right at Woolworth’s corner it takes me to Lyme Regis. If I go left at Jack Cornelius Toy Shop, it’s West Bay. We fancied a sandy beach so Lyme Regis it was. In between the chattering and laughing I came up for air and realised we had gone the wrong way. Where we should have gone right I had turned left. But hey ho, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the quickest route to Lyme but it was a trip down memory lane.

We passed West Bay, boating on the river and getting caught in the reeds, Eype, the deep shelf and under current where one can go from paddling to swimming in the blink of an eye, Symondsbury, great wedding, Seatown, Iiving in a caravan for three months in between house moves, Charmouth, great dam building from my childhood to Pip’s and then finally our destination, Lyme Regis, sandy beach, pink, yellow and blue beach huts and great fish and chips.

When I drive this route my mind flashes with memories of all my ages. From a small child to teenager and all the decades that have passed. I can see the paths I have taken, twisting and turning, dead ends and u-turns but always with friends, happy, rewarding, good and true, all filled with laughter and perhaps a few too many ice creams, but hey, who’s counting?!

Oooh I Love a Good Wedding Me

I lean more to being a hermit than I do to being a socialite these days, but spending time with friends and family on a summers afternoon with a glass of champagne in my hand is right up my street.

I can only imagine just how much effort and planning has gone into this wonderful wedding, no doubt blood, sweat and tears and I am honoured to be invited to witness their commitment and love to one another on their special day.

In a bid to make an effort I’ve had my hair cut, pedicure and manicure and I’ve even bought a new frock. One of those floaty ones where you don’t have to hold your tummy in all day and I can stretch my arms without ripping the back of my dress.

Pip has a new suit and looks rather dashing in it, but if you could have heard us squabbling last week whilst trying to get him to try it on you would have thought he was in physical pain! Pip is at that age where he really isn’t interested in clothes and would quite happily wear his old shorts, dirty t -shirt and a pair of crocs. I suppose in his defence, short of taking his rucksack with him it is like wearing the restrictions of a school uniform on a weekend.

So here’s to the happy couple, they met at school but went their separate ways and even with life’s twists and turns the stars aligned and their paths crossed again never to be broken.

Don’t you just love a happy ending? 💗

Will the UK have a heatwave this summer?

‘QUICK, the sun’s out!’

In the UK we live in eternal hope for a good summer. Every summer is compared to 1976, but come on, that was nearly 50 years ago and how much of the detail do we really remember?!

We have age old sayings like:

‘In like a lamb, out like a lion’ that’s for March in hope of a good spring in April.

‘Oak before ash, we’re in for a splash. Ash before oak, we’re in for a soak’ That depicts how much rain we’re going to get in the summer.

As we wait we feel a host of emotions ranging from hope, excitement, anticipation and optimism and when our hopes are dashed with a week long weather front of cold winds and rain we loop back round to hope, excitement, anticipation and optimism refusing to accept what the weatherman is telling us.

Our obsession with the weather is ingrained in us, it’s part of our pleasantries in conversation. Whilst teaching online I hear myself asking people from all over the world, ‘What’s the weather like where you are?’ You may well laugh but I have learnt a thing or two! Have you ever heard of the Pineapple Express? Clients from California experienced one this year.

I’ve learnt from my clients in Canada that Alberta have wildfires at the moment with thousands of people being displaced.

It goes without saying that Australia is hot and if I want to have a guess at what’s coming our way, I just look through my clients window on zoom with her floor to ceiling views of the Atlantic in Ireland.

So when it comes to the British summer it’s a bit like a house guest. We want to know when are they coming and how long are they staying for.

Have a good weekend, my strip of seaweed says it’s going to be a scorcher!

Memories and Souvenirs of Life

We all collect things in life and attach ourselves to all manner of things, keeping memories with momentos, souvenirs and photographs.

Last Sunday Andrew, Pip and I went for a walk to Barrington Court. We set off early and trundled through the country lanes and buttercup fields, passing the sheep with a limp, the barking dogs at the farm gate defending their territory and the swooping swallows in the clear blue sky above us. We chit chattered away the promise of an ice cream lured Pip on to our destination.

We arrived in good spirits with the thought of ice cream at the forefront of our minds. As we lay back in the National Trust deck chairs we devoured our ice creams in the warmth of the spring sunshine with hardly a word spoken. Now with the mission accomplished we had the journey home, which seemed a lot further than we had just come. We had barely started when the conversation turned to ‘I’m bored’, ‘My legs ache’ and ‘How much further to go?’

Seeing the hill up ahead I knew distraction tactics were going to be required and fortunately a stone was all it took.

‘Can you kick that stone into the pothole?’ ‘Over the drain?’ ‘The next two potholes?’ Pip kicked the stone for a mile, up the lane, across the top and down the lane. The stone has now been named Steve and has become a new cherished member of the family and a memento of our walk to Barrington Court and back.

p.s. Regarding last week’s blog about the burnt rice, Andrew would like recognition for his devotion and hard work scrubbing and scrapping my saucepan clean, so thank you Andrew from the bottom of my heart and the bottom of my saucepan.

How To Make a Plant Based Teflon

I have discovered that rice cooked at a high enough temperature and for long enough creates a plant based Teflon coating on any stainless steel saucepan!

Now I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet but I am quite a good cook you know. However being a menopausal mum I do have the attention span of a gnat. For example, cooking Pip’s fishfingers, the first 3 minutes I’m attentive but nothing has happened and so I multitask and find myself emptying the school bag and sorting out the washing. A flash of panic startles my brain, ‘Oh no the fishfingers!’ Uh oh, I’ve burnt them! Oh well, I’ll turn them over and try again. 2 minutes in and Pip is asking me, ‘Mum, come and have a look at this’ so off I go and the fishfingers are now burnt on the other side aswell. On the rare occasion that I don’t burn the fish fingers they actually look undercooked to me!

One particular occasion whilst cooking supper as a menopausal mother gnat, I popped the rice on to boil and then promptly went off to my studio to teach an evening session of Pilates.

We did our usual balance and warm up routine (the rice has now boiled dry) and then down onto the mat for our workout. Meanwhile cue the burning of the rice. It has a strong distinctive smell yet it took some time to waft from the kitchen, through the sitting room, across the hall way and up the stairs into the studio. As we lay there taking deep relaxing breaths together the smell suddenly jolted my memory. I leapt into action, quickly telling my clients to ‘Carry on I won’t be long.’

The smoke was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, thick dark smoke, the smell catching at the back of my nose. As I raced into the kitchen wondering what I was going to be faced with I was mightily relieved that the kitchen wasn’t on fire. I was also mightily surprised that Pip hadn’t even noticed the smoke filling the sitting room from floor to ceiling as he sat there watching the tele!

Triple Sneeze and Pelvic Floor!

As you know May is my favourite month of the year but with the hedgerows and fields bursting into life comes the plumes of pollen wafting and swirling into the air. As a child it never bothered me, in my twenties, thirties and well into my forties I was still foot loose and fancy free, but now in my fifties I can well and truly say I suffer with hay fever. It starts with a tickly cough followed by itchy eyes and then the sneezing starts. Today in the car I had a triple sneeze attack. Gripping the steering wheel, gripping even tighter with my pelvic floor, the sneezing was upon me. The automatic response for my body to close my eyes really isn’t helpful when I’m driving and in the midst of the sneezing I wondered if I was ever going to come up for air let alone what side of the road was I going to be on?!

Thank goodness for Pilates I say!

‘Oh how wonderful is May, spring rights the winter wrongs’

Quote adapted from Jennifer Gunner

May is my favourite month of the year, I love the vibrant greens in the hedgerows where the blue tits build their nests, the blazing yellow of dandelions and the apple, cherry, plum and pear blossom bursting into flower right in front of my eyes. My crab apple tree over estimates every year just how much fruit it can physically bear. This year it will be laden yet again, it’s branches bending and hanging to the ground groaning under it’s own weight, waiting for the black birds and squirrels to come and feast.

The other wonder of May is NO MOW MAY. Admittedly my lawn does look a mess right now but in the space of a couple of weeks it will take on it’s own beauty. I will mow a winding pathway down to the hen house and another to the hammock and the rest I will leave to the bees and the ladybirds.

Dragging and lugging perhaps the heaviest lawn mower I have ever owned out of the garage, pushing it along the gravel path as it digs in under it’s own weight is no mean feat. The best time to attempt lawn mowing at my house is in the middle of a hormonal rage. I need to muster up the strength of a gorilla, the determination of a rhino and the endurance of a horse if I want to mow the front, back and side garden in one hit.

So for me NO MOW MAY has my vote and I’m considering starting up a DON’T DO JUNE campaign, do I have any takers?

Cute Factor

I live in the country, in a little cottage surrounded by fields, hedges and a WHOLE LOT OF WILDLIFE . Hornets, horse flies, bats, squirrels, frogs, newts and mice to name but a few. They come with the seasons and take no notice of my screams and screeches. I’m toughening up through necessity rather than choice. I still need rubber gloves to pick up a frog but when Puss brings in a mouse and lets it go, I can leap off the sofa, onto the floor and catch it with my bare hands in two seconds flat. The challenge is to catch the mouse before it gets under the sofa.

The boundaries I set mean nothing to the wildlife and I often wonder if I’m the intruder and not them. Have you ever seen those little clear perspex boxes you can fill with bird seed and stick to your window so the blue tits and finches can come and feast when they are busy nesting. Grabbing a quick snack as they flit from tree, hedge, nest and back again. They can be quite fussy, only picking out the seeds they want and throwing the other seeds to the ground. However, Mrs Blackbird and the pigeons are below enjoying the blue tits cast offs. Pip and I named it the Bus Shelter. All was idylic, the sun shone, the blossom bloomed and the birds tweeted until one evening there was a knock at my window … and again …. and then a tap, tap…. I peaked through the curtains but I couldn’t see anything and so I went back to the sofa. Knock, tap, knock, there it was again. I grabbed my torch and looked again and there was Ratty sitting in the bus shelter. Well more wedged into the bus shelter happily gorging on all of the seeds. It would be the equivalent of me launching myself into a huge tub of Quality Street. There I would sit in amongst the strawberry creams, toffee pennies and the purple ones, the smell of chocolate sending me into a dopamine trance like state. He wasn’t budging for anyone, life was good, life was easy.

We co existed for some time. Spring continued and summer followed until one day I noticed a young rat climbing up the japonica bush next to the bus shelter and then I noticed another and another. Six I counted in total. “How many is an infestation?” I asked Andrew one day. “That many” he replied.

The Bus Shelter has been removed and replaced with a suet block that hangs from a thin branch that can only take the weight of a bird and not a rat. Ratty has upsticks and relocated. I haven’t seen him in the chicken coop or the compost heap so for now he must be hanging out at the neighbours.

“It’s Not Golf Belle!”

I have no real memory of PE lessons at primary school but I do have images of brightly coloured bean bags, skipping ropes and a cotton pants and vest combo with a pair of daps from Woolworths (in other regions you would probably have known these as plimsoles).

PE at secondary school however was a much more structured affair as my PE teacher Mrs Hodge, a stern wiry woman sporting a black tracksuit and whistle around her neck imparted her knowledge on all sports. Although Mrs Hodge was never seen wearing anything other than her black tracksuit, I never saw her run, hold a racquet, throw or catch a ball. I don’t recall her demonstrating the high jump or how to run, spring board and catapolt oneself over the box in gymnastics. Instead I do remember her standing on the side lines blowing her whistle and shouting.

For hockey her instructions of encouragement and technique were, “It’s not golf Belle!”

For swimming in the cold outdoor pool it was “If you don’t get in, I’ll push you in” as we all lined up standing on the edge, our numbing toes clinging to the concrete edge of the pool and the waft of chlorine making our eyes water.

On the day we were introduced to netball I think I must have been slow out of the changing rooms because I never remember being told the rules yet everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. Every lesson I remember being handed a bib with letters on, WD, WA, GA and having 20 seconds to work out where I was supposed to stand and what I was supposed to do before Mrs Hodge blew that damn whistle. Yet another PE lesson with Mrs Hodge standing on the side lines blowing her whistle at me!

I never recall Mrs Hodge shouting “Well done Belle” and I never won a trophy at prize giving, but I do remember beating the boys’ cross country time in 1984. However, Suzie had an asthma attack half way round and so she kind of stole my lime light.

I’m wearing the wrong leggings again!

Every morning when I’m getting dressed for pilates I open my drawer of leggings and stand there gazing at them. They are all rolled up neatly in rows, a rainbow of colours, patterns and plain. I stand there trying to decide what colour I’m feeling like today. How difficult can that be? Just pick a pair and get on with the day Belle! But no, decisions, decisions.

I have two rows, the front row for leggings that fit me and the back row for pre menopause, bought on impulse, should throw away. Even in the front row I have leggings for when I feel slimmer than other days. Maybe I should start another row for fat days and slim days. Notice I don’t say thin days!

My eyes cast over the back row, spotting a new pattern or colour that matches my mood for the day. It’s been a while since I’ve worn them, it’s feels like I’m wearing something new. 10 minutes into the session doing the Roll Down I then remember why I had put them in the back row. The waistband is too low, the legs have lost their stretch or the knees have gone baggy. Picture Nora Batty from Last of the Summer Wine, that’s me.

My choice from the back row this week was on Tuesday, the pale blues and bursts of crimson and pinks called to me. Deep in my sub conscious I went back to my early 20’s when my boyfriend’s mum had made me a matching duvet and curtain set from fabric I had fallen in love with at Bridport market. What was I thinking wearing a pair of leggings where the waistband sits well below my tummy button and pretty much on my hips? That was so my 30’s and definitely not my 50’s. I can’t pull them up without them being too tight in the crutch and I do actually look like I’m wearing a pair of leggings made out of curtains.

They have been returned to the back row of the drawer until I have forgotten why I don’t wear them and the whole process can start again!

Whilst some holiday in Barbados …..

Not only do my clients on zoom share their sitting rooms and bedrooms with us every week we also get to go on the most wonderful holiday destinations with them. Not literally but virtually.

Using her iPad she props us up against her beach bag and downward dogs on the beach whilst a gentle breeze brushes against her bare skin. The parasol casts welcome shade over her iPad screen.

However, for us back here in the UK this week we have turned the heating back on, doubled up with socks and slippers and hoped that the internet wouldn’t crash with the high winds and rain. The lane outside my house looks like a wedding has just taken place as the first blossom from the magnificent magnolia tree is scattered far and wide.

Next week our holiday destination will be Dartford in Devon. My client has said, ‘Well the rain will be different from the rain at home!’