Bunnies For Peonies

Sometimes you see something that you just makes you think of someone else. If it wasn't the day before payday then Peonies might well have got this* for Easter...

* Knitted rabbit kit. It comes with natural wool and pattern and stuffing. Knit your own bunniez.

{Image from Blueberry Park}

On Waterloo Bridge

On Waterloo Bridge where we said our goodbyes,
the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I've fallen in love

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. you're high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You're a fool. I don't care.
the head does its best but the heart is the boss-
I admit it before I am halfway across

Wendy Cope

Whilst watching The Delicious Miss Dahl tonight she quoted from this poem, one of my favourites and one which I was given on a poster from the underground as a birthday present just before I left London. And although it made me slightly nostalgic to hear Sophie recite it, I somehow feel more at peace with having left London. A part of my heart will always be in London, but another part, I think, belongs on Exmoor.

F* this... who gets paid to write this cr*p

If this were a blog I would have stopped reading after the third sentence. Yet, somehow, it is being published by The Times. Of all the interesting, thoughtful, well written diaries of marriages, this is the one they chose. {It's only saving grace is that once The Times starts charging £2 a week for the privilege of seeing their site perhaps it won't come to so many people's attention.}

I quote: "It’s about six o’ clock. I’m filling up the car with petrol and trying to send a text on my new mobile. When I tap the touch-sensitive screen the wrong letters pop up, and finding the contact list is like a complicated IQ test.

I’m about to pay when I realise with a sickening thud that I’ve put petrol in the diesel estate. I’m hoping that the amiable Asian man behind the till will be able to siphon out the diesel with an old bit of pipe for a fiver. He says: “Don’t start the engine”, and then, paradoxically, “get the car off the forecourt as soon as possible”. He adds that the AA will charge £200 to fix it.

I manage to call my husband. He replies with a gruff hello. When he hears my appalling news he sighs, mumbles something about staying with the car and hangs up. A few seconds later, I press my finger on his name again. I have no membership details for the RAC. It’s dark now, and cold. I sit in the car but am too afraid to turn on the engine in case the car blows up. I read the back of a packet of crisps twice. He calls back and says the RAC will arrive in a couple of hours. So I walk home. We wait for the RAC and we wait. At 9pm the nice Asian man calls to say he will fine me £500 if the car is not moved.

My husband heads to the garage. An hour passes. I ring him, but there’s no reply. I text. Nothing. Then I ring. By now it’s 11pm. Perhaps he’s been mugged. I imagine a policewoman will turn up to inform me of his death. He can’t be still waiting for the RAC. It’s about 11.30 when I notice a text from him. It’s cryptic: just details of the RAC. I’m convinced it’s a desperate plea for help. He’d just managed to press one button on his phone before he was stabbed. I am about to sob with grief and remorse when he walks through the door.

I rush towards him. I have never been more pleased to see anyone in my life."

{Kate Morris, writing a Diary of Marriage in The Times}

What utter boll***cks. What happened to being self-sufficient. To writing about something more interesting than cars stuck on forecourts. Even I didn't bore everyone* with my story of car troubles, even though it was easily the most drama I'd experienced since the argument we had with Virgin the week before last**. Come on The Times. Give some coverage to a decent writer/blogger.

*Except on Twitter, obvs. But that's different. More transient. Falls down a page faster. That sort of thing.

** Country living. Every bit as exciting as you can imagine.

Blossom, weekends, marriage.

Blossom at Porlock Weir against a thatched roof and leaden skies. We are learning to be happy in our new weekend surroundings. Enjoying gardening, reading, cooking and wandering through walled gardens in the spring rain. Of nearly empty pubs on a Sunday afternoon, of baking lemon rice pudding and eating it served in glass tea cups. Of pulling off the side of the road after a Saturday morning in the office and sitting, in the sunshine, watching lambs running and playing. We are learning to be older and married. Content in each other's company. Listening to each other's lives, our plans, our worries. Sitting in contented thyme-and-mint-candlelit silence for earth hour, whispering of the day that we might extend our family of two. Maybe even get a dog. But all in good time. Of Cornish yellow daffodils and Cornish purple anemones, jostling together in a jug in the kitchen. Of weekends. Together.

Delicious Miss Dahl

Slowly getting used to having a proper grown up job but today I left the office feeling like, well, crap. Tired. Hungry. Emotional. It was all I could do to get myself home. I must have driven on auto-pilot.

Macaroni with vegetables in creme freche is my comfort food and, having made it perhaps 10 times since we moved here, I can work the Rayburn without burning anything. So, bowl of pasta in one hand, cup of tea in the other and an Easter Egg for pudding, I settled down for an indulgent mid-week comforting supper.

With 90210 for company. So many beautiful boys. That is what is missing from my (mid week) life. That and sunshine.

And then, last night's episode of the Delicious Miss Dahl. She may have got bad reviews, been compared to Nigella and not own her kitchen but I don't care. It was pure escapism and much better to watch than Nigella ever is. Gorgeous vintage kitchen and comfort food galore. I almost got up to make peanut butter fudge there and then but I shall save it for the weekend. I had also never realised how beautiful she is. If I could speak like that and wear a fringe as she does, marketing my new department would be a piece of cake...

25 days and counting

Can it really be 25 days since our landlady cancelled her broadband and we began the arduous task of setting up our own account? So far, aside from the very many days it takes for the process to begin, it's all going well... And I write this wirelessly from the kitchen, beside the Rayburn.

Spring has well and truly sprung here on Exmoor. The fields grow greener by the day and each day a new field is full of lambkins to distract me on my drive to work. Great banks of daffodils are brightening up the place and the pubs are filling up with ramblers and people away for the weekend.

I have been trying to keep up with my blogs and twitter on my Blackberry but intermittent signal means I am far behind with my reading. I also have many many photos which I have been dying to share with you all but sadly the internets were not having it. Until today. Which is a good day.

{Steam train on West Somerset Railway from Blue Anchor beach*}

*More photos and so on to come on Somerset Bound

Things I have been up to...

'Yoga' at the top of Dunkery Beacon, the highest point on Exmoor, 5pm, Sunday 7 March 2010.