The Widow...

...has made Jam. And Damson curd.
Need some fancy labels.
John picked the damsons, right at the end of his active life, from our lovely damson tree. The freezer is still pretty full
I had forgotten just how messy jam is!

The Remedies of Dr Bach

I have used these for some years, recently more off than on. John would take them if offered, and my good friend Lizzie would dowse a suitable one and then I would go to the tin and dispense... Good for emotional stuff, stuckness, loss of confidence, you know, all that hippy woo, or would be, except that they work. The one you have come across is Rescue Remedy, they even sell three formulations of that in Tescos

And the tin was a bit of a mess, and impossible to dowse over, so I made a clean-up, and a re-stock, and a new/old box.

I don't quite remember where this box came from - I buy up what I politely call Dead Men's Boxes from time to time, usually hugely jumbled, messy heaps of spares, old screws, bits of paper and trash with a smattering of treasures included, from retired or dead sewing-machine mechanics. If I'm lucky, I get to meet them and they are usually happy to see me go away with a car-full and a bit lower on cash. If not, I meet widows or sons with slightly baffled expressions (why would this lady want these?) and these lots tend to be messier and cheaper.

So this lovely box is made from the base of a small (German?) sewing machine, with a slightly random lid attached with brass hinges. The lid is missing a bit from one corner and is a totally different wood, but that's OK. Inside, it had horrid plywood dividers, which I removed and burned. And this delightful label...

...which gets to stay. I polished and sanded and waxed just enough to make it shiny and not so much that the patina (and the tea-cup mark) were lost, and made a tray from very thin ply enclosed in fabric, so two layers - there was only just room, so the ply is very thin...

Here. with the top layer removed. I also have and use Bailey's remedies now, and I have a few of these. They seem to work together pretty well, and I can dowse the whole box happily...

My old Bach list is now thumb-tacked inside the lid, and I am happy with this altogether...
I buy these from Yorkshire Flower Essences and I have always been impressed with their service and care

So, all tidy. Something for me. Don't do nearly enough for me these days..

Two days off, apart from the phone, I think. Naps, eat nice things, slow down...

Angry Part the Second

Still simmering, but putting that energy to good use in a good many ways. Burned a lot of rubbish. Shifted and sifted a lot of crap, and nothing sits on the stairs. Next, the big pile of belts, manuals, case parts. It's all so damned slow.

Found that I can dowse, and teach the skill, not that I doubted this for a moment.

Working on the Wise Woman, because, by all the gods and fishes, she is just so powerful..

And claiming my life, my space, my time, my sanctuary, my work...

Onwards and onwards, I think, with steam coming from my ears...

Angry

Because I have lost so much that didn't need to be lost. Because surgeons follow stupid sets of rules about what needs to be done and how, instead of asking the patients what they want and what they can deal with and live with, so they waste a life that didn't need to be wasted.  And because we had four years of a nasty oozing wound for no good reason. And a year of chemo, for no good reason, and obfuscation and mealy-mouthed euphemistic "palliative" "care", and referalls that didn't and long, long waits in waiting rooms with no amusement value whatsoever...

Because I have lost something infinitely precious to me, the qigong; because my stupid teacher wanted a class full of ladies who want to fuck him rather than a room full of good students who look after each other and appreciate the heritage, and because then I got self-conscious and lost the will to practice.. And because his teacher could not forgive something not my fault, and just made meanness and more meanness that I didn't deserve.
A waste of time and energy and this magical infinitely powerful stuff which was so good for me.

Because my house is a mess and full of crap that I don't like or want, but which seems too good to get rid of.

Because I can't find any damned thing when I put it down, and I spend so much time each day looking for lost things, a waste of my energy and time and frustration

Because the idiotic bad back is causing me so many knock-on problems - the drugs are not good for me, they put weight on me and are addictive (and I have had to chase the prescriptions so many times), the pain is disabling, the lack of mobility is disabling, the lack of flexibility and strength is disabling, the uncertainty is causing me despair..

And because the world is so obsessed with one medical thing, that I can't even discuss any of my problems with a doctor. Surely they aren't all out of the office?

Because I need to be competent and keep my business going and I run away from big orders and witter about...

And because the todo list gets longer and longer and I really can't prioritise.

And I'm angry, because pretty much all of this could be solved (not the idiot surgeon, that's too late) if only I just got on with everything..

So, time to catch my breath, kick the collective ass a little, tidy up, throw stuff away, finish all those stupid jobs, get the stocktaking properly under weigh, and stop crying.. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself...
After all, no-one else wants the job...

Compost

The plan was to build John a Man Cave shed at the bottom of the garden, and that he would put his lathe and big drill and everything in there and potter. And, perhaps, get a bit of peace and quiet. We had costed up the shed and thought about all the important stuff, like a Thinking Armchair.
Then, in May, when it looked like he might only have a few days to live, we made the decision, more on his side than mine, that this was the end of his working time, and he was, whatever else happened, retired for good

And he came home. Now, part of the plan was to move the compost bins further up the garden, putting them behind the two arches that split off the vegetable garden, and making new bins from nice pallet wood. One was part-made. I finished it, and looked at it in it's new place, and put it firmly back at the bottom of the garden where the old one had been.

And there it has stayed
.
And, until yesterday, it leaned nicely to the left, which was annoying, and not up to John's fairly rigorous standards for woodwork (I did make the sides myself, but he had cut and painted all the wood)
So, I've been shifting and sifting - see the new veg bed above. The compost is lovely, apart from the huge amount of twigs...
You can't get the staff these days (I paid someone to shift the right bin to the left last year. This year, no such available staff)
You cannot beat home-made compost for growing good crops, and mine has every scrap of kitchen waste, grass cutting, and tops of nettles (no roots!), soft weeds, all manner of stuff.. I found a rat skull in the bottom of the new bin...
When we came here the garden suffered badly from having had the topsoil disturbed and the clay subsoil exposed. After two years, no more digging (I use a fork only, and do not walk on the beds)

By last night, the new bin was empty enough to tip the whole thing over, roll it onto it's head, and let it dry out a bit

This morning, in a fit of enthusiasm, I levelled the ground (and dug out 4 more barrowloads of good compost), laid four leftover pavers into the base, applied the spirit level, and tamped down (by jumping up and down), then rolled the bin back into place... Look! No lean!

Now I just have to shift all the Stuff from right to left again, and the Stuff at the bottom of the right-hand bin may be usable almost at once. The secret to all of this system of compostery is patience. Shift only once a year, fill the right bin, empty the left...
I hope John is / would be approving, apart from the little voice I could hear going "Don't lift the stones" at the back of my head.  Didn't lift, rolled...

I hope you are proud of me, my lovely man. I am trying to keep standards high.

It's been four months...

...since I became The Widow, and it's time to review.

Am I managing OK? Mostly, yes, although I do get angry and sad when no-one is looking sometimes.

Can I see the future clearly? Not yet.
It's been rather hard to "own" the house and the garden, although I am beginning to find my way around both. With some heavy labouring help (before the Big Pause) I have the vegetable garden arranged, and each day I dig a little more and shift compost. I have lots of beans and peas and such to plant, but sadly, my plan for more fruit bushes must wait till next year, as I can't get any atm and it will be too late by next week.

The house is still rather cluttered and disordered, and I spend far too much time looking for things that I must have put "somewhere sensible" - need to organise my sensibles better.

My mind is disordered too. I get up when I get up, unless I have to do something early, and this is good. I go to bed when I'm ready, it's not like that was ever a problem. I do remember  conversation with the Lovely Man, a few years ago, where he noted that he still felt the need to stay up late (as this was grown-up stuff), but was feeling the need to lie down, too. I'm afraid I just gave him an old-fashioned look and went to bed..

I like bed. It's warm (my oil may be here tomorrow, hooray!) and the room has bookshelves with lots of to-reads, and the sun comes in in the morning and wakes me gently. On the other hand, it's lonely.

And it will take weeks to warm the house through again. Open fires and wood-stove time, still. I walked up the lane twice yesterday and brought back wood for a week's fires, just need to cut it up.

And business (or businesses, there are more than one) - how am I doing with those?

The sewing machine stuff is a bit dried-up, but I expect it will come back. Meantime I really need to make myself understand that it is what I do, and get on with the endless sorting, stocktaking, cataloguing, counting, photographing and uploading that mean sales. It's hard to get interested lately.

(As an aside, it's the small stuff that really messes me up - as I write, the cat has just thrown up all of her breakfast on the kitchen floor. I'm not good with cat-vomit, it was always a job that John did.  Oh, well...)

The sewing side is on hold - I have ideas but no motivation, am just making stuff to keep the machine warm. HB's blocks are soothing and not-too-important, and I can't do anything with them except make, and encourage people to join her Block-of-the-Month thing.

And at the moment I'm not spending too much. Haven't been shopping for a week, I'm going to attempt this tomorrow as I really need milk and fresh vegetables. I have enough protein in the freezer to last another month.

As to the future? I am beginning to think there may not be a future, and that the world has been changed forever. This will definitely be a recession decade, perhaps that's OK for someone keeping old machines on the road, but not so good for everyone else. So many of the little businesses I use will not recover, may not re-open. The High Streets of the country, already somewhat diminished and charity-shopped, will be like ghost towns for a very long time. And those who do benefit may not, in the long term, be nearly so well-off as they think..

Let Us Consider The Current Crisis

Maybe the world has gone a bit mad - I went to Tesco's yesterday, the shelves were bare of pasta, tomatoes, toilet rolls, biscuits, flour, potatoes.  Oh! Oh!, disaster.. Now, nothing I wanted was missing - is it me? OK, lots of those things (flour, potatoes) were not on my shopping list, and I have a couple of packets of toilet rolls, same as always, but there seemed to be plenty of lovely food. Green veg, onions, cold and raw meat, fish, all manner of stuff in and out of tins.. Hmmm. Is everyone going to eat pasta with a boring sauce? or throw all this madness away in 6 months time?

Class went ahead today. There were 6 of us, so HB made a very very small profit. We put out a handwash bowl and sat somewhat apart, but everyone was glad to get together. How much mental health will be damaged by isolation? How many suicides? How many sadnesses.

So, I suspect this will all peter out in a few weeks; my hope is that we can make something good from the bad - social distancing is the wrong words, should be physical distancing. We need to communicate - send emails, postcards, texts, keep the isolated in the loop. And share - patterns, recipes, love and common-sense. If the world learns to keep the colds and flus away from the vulnerable, to wash their hands and to apply common decency to all we do, all to the good.. Look at the Italians - singing on balconies!

And, no commuting drive, time to sit in front of the fire together, fuss your cats. I’m attempting to get the house sorted, the bike ridden, and the garden gardened, all in small increments…

And lots of ironing

And to communicate...

Cat is happy...

Yes, that's my hat underneath her