Bindweed and Beetroots

It was around ten days ago that I decided to manhandle a single bed mattress up the attic stairs. I could have waited for Bert to return from whatever errand he was on but I didn't. And even as I was hauling it up there I knew there would be a price to pay. The right shoulder was sore for a week. In the end, I had to resort to co-codamol and brave the wee lecture about addiction that the pharmacy assistant recites on each occasion (maybe once or twice a year) that I buy pain medication. I have this theory that painkillers, by alleviating the soreness, helps me to relax and it's the relief of tension that truly mends the hurt. Two days and eight co-codamol later I could feel myself beginning to feel better.

So out I went to clean the greenhouse which was overrun with bindweed and couch grass. Bad gardener! The grass was tough, not at all easy to pull but I yanked away with all my might. Guess I'll be dosing myself with tablets yet another night. Don't tell the wee lass in the pharmacy!

In other news, we missed Homeland* on Sunday night as Dr. Leitrim Sister was visiting. As was Prof. Swisser. Two doctors coming for supper! Bert wondered if he should mention his dodgy elbow but I told him not to be so puerile. What do Irish Academics eat, you may wonder. Well... they eat cheese and onion pie made with butter and newly laid eggs.  Professors also eat boiled beetroot, fresh from the garden, which Dr. Leitrim Sister wouldn't even lip. She doesn't know what she missed.**

* Watched it tonight.
** Pink pee.

Three Fine Days

Recently I have slipped back to that bad habit of getting up late. It is certainly delightful to snuggle under the duvet in the morning but getting up after 9 feels so wrong. The days are getting shorter now and it is a waste of the light. So I've given myself a jolly good talking-to and will be making every effort to climb out of bed at least an hour earlier.

Another change I have to make is to get outdoors more. I have decided that if the day is dry I will find something to do outside rather than lurk in the house. In the past two days have been working in my vegetable plot and in my flower garden. I have been foraging for blackberries. I have been watching the buzzards and I have been drinking coffee and reading the Sunday papers in the poly tunnel which is far, far, far nicer than drinking coffee and reading papers on the kitchen sofa. I have been wheeling barrows of dung , sowing and harvesting vegetables and collecting seed.

It is going to rain tomorrow. It is going to teem and lash and blow for it is Monday. Now I don't know if anyone else from Cully has noticed this but it always rains on Mondays, usually in the afternoon. I think it might have been fine for a couple of Mondays in May but not since. Even after a pleasant spell, like the past three days, I can be sure it will rain on Monday.

The reason I can be certain about this is because my oldest daughter and her family always come out here on Monday afternoons to work on their vegetable plots. And it is always raining when they are here. Luckily, for them, a good part of their plot is in the poly tunnel, so they don't get too disheartened.

I'm just sorry I cannot go blackberrying tomorrow. It is very fine and pleasant to wander up the hedgerows listening to Sebastian Faulks' 'Birdsong' with Judy at my heels and a bunch of cattle ignoring me.

Bert said,

That wee black bull. He wasn't harrassing you?

The wee black bull? Would he?

Aye. He's getting very belligerent.

I don't think I'd have been in that field with Judy had I known that the wee black bull was getting airs about himself.

So there it is. Two days out in the open air. Working! And I feel a lot happier even though I've got a sore shoulder (right side), a sore elbow (left side) and sore knees (both). At least I didn't get attacked by the wee black bull. That would have been hard to take and it only two weeks since I got tossed and trodden on by that pig.