After months and months of training for the Moonwalk, aching muscles, blistered feet and more getting wet than I ever bargained for when I started out, it was almost upon me. There was just one more thing I had to do and it was something I’d been putting off for a long time. This was the weekend I had to decorate my bra. Sewing has never been my strong point and, although I’m quite creative, I couldn’t seem to come up with a plan to fit the theme of outer space. Why do they have to have themes anyway. If they didn’t I could have just stuck some plastic flowers on and had done with it. Even knowing it was now or never I still managed to procrastinate.
5 May 2013
Today my exercise came in bark chip form. Two, hundred litre bags to be precise. The morning was spent dragging bags about, decanting the contents into a big old orange bucket and sprinkling it over the front garden. Two hundred litres doesn’t go as far as you would think and this is just stage one of the annual bark chip marathon, along the driveway. Still it looks and smells very nice, I do love that bark chip aroma and the rest can wait until we get more bags. Anyhow, I’m not sure my back or my knees could cope with more than two bags at a time.
Commando came back from his run just as I was finishing up and we went inside for a coffee break. While we were waiting for the coffee waiter, aka CJ, I saw the unmistakable reflection of Bard in the glass door of the laundry room as he came round the side of the house. With that long plumb coloured hair he was easy to spot. So we all had a coffee together and a catch up. Bard couldn’t stay too long because he was working this afternoon and so was Commando.
After our mini roast there was a mass exodus and it was just me. Me and a moonwalk bra to finish off. Rather than sew things onto my actual bra, I got myself a bra top I can wear over it, perhaps it’s cheating but at least I won’t have the knots and untidy stitches rubbing me when I walk. It’s more or less finished now and I’ve made a kind of mini skirt thing after all even though I said I wouldn’t. It seemed the sensible thing to do and it means I don’t have to pin my race number on my leggings where it rustles and gets annoying after about mile three. All that’s left now is to get some elastic to sew to the top of the skirt and I think I’m done.
It’s mostly lots of stars and things I managed to pick up in the fabric shop along with lots of sequins that I stuck on with special glue. Of course, I managed to glue my fingers to just about everything in sight when I was sticking them on and whether they will stay stuck on remains to be seen. There was also some glow in the dark paint that I got from a craft shop, it does actually glow too, I checked it out last night. It may not be the best outfit in the history of the Moonwalk but it’s not quite as lame as I thought it would be. Mind you, I think I may be leaving a trail of sequins behind me on the night. Still, if I get lost at least they’ll be able to follow them and find me.
It’s going to be a hectic old week with a trip to London on Thursday for auditions and another trip to London on Saturday for the Moonwalk. Somewhere in between the two I’m going to have to find some time to rest. Talking of resting, Mr Bumble spent her last weekend before the Moonwalk doing anything but. She’s just completed a forty mile walk, the Long Distance Walkers Association 40 Mile Challenge. In the end she actually walked forty three and a half miles in thirteen and a quarter hours. This was because she got lost, and there was me thinking I was the only one who did that. Now that is what I call a long walk! After all that she was upset she couldn’t do her thirty five mile training walk today for the London to Brighton event she’s signed up for because she has a bad blister on the bottom of her foot. She is one mad woman!
6 May 2013
May Day bank holiday! The sun is in the sky and it’s set to be a glorious day so what is my first thought? Well, apart from getting out in the garden, it was to have another crack at the high tech scales I got for my birthday and see if anything had changed in three days. Yes I know it’s only three days and not even three particularly good ones, no long walk, eating more carbs than usual with an eye on the Moonwalk on Saturday, but I was interested ok? According to the scales I’ve lost one point six pounds a little bit of fat and gained some water.
All this just goes to show the scales, no matter how high tech cannot be trusted. They are lulling me into a false sense of security so when my guard is down along with a few bars of naughty chocolate they will pounce and give me a ten pound gain. I know their game and I’m not playing into their hands this time, no siree, well, maybe just one bar of chocolate. Looking at my Moonwalk bra creation again in the cold light of day I’m beginning to wish I’d spent some time over the weekend getting a bit of sun on the midrif. All that white flesh between bra and skirt is not a good look. A few million sit ups wouldn’t have gone amiss either. Wonder how many I can fit in between now and Saturday night?
Yesterday, when I was digging about in the herb pot planting parsley I found two peanuts, still in their shells. The rascally squirrel we see in the garden from time to time must have buried them there in the autum I guess. He came to the garden so much we took to leaving little piles of nuts out for him but I wasn’t expecting him to be firking about in my herb pots, no wonder the poor parsley didn’t survive. The nuts are now sitting on the wall behind the pots waiting for him but he seems to have gone AWOL. While I ate my breakfast I sat watching the nuts waiting but he never came. I wonder if there are more buried in other parts of the garden and will I have peanuts growing in odd places?
Commando decided to go to the garden centre agin this morning to pick up some more bags of bark chip. Who would have thought one little garden could need so many? This of course meant I was on bark chip duty again, once I’d gone up the Big Hill to get milk anyway. When I was coming back from the shops the soft pink blooms of crab apple caught my eye in the shade of the large trees, then I noticed the hawthorn is finally flowering which was a good job because I’d left my coat at home. So now we can officially all leave our coats at home, just don’t blame me if it rains ok?
Before I started on the bags of bark I thought I’d take a look round at the flowers and see what was happening. This may well have been a procrastination technique to put off opening those bags. Bark chip spreading is hard work, it makes your back ache, your knees hurt and your hands go all smelly and I’m very good at procrastination. The bark does make the garden look nice though.
There are some orange petals just visible trying to burst out of a bud on one of my welsh poppies which is good news. They really brighten up the garden and they have self seeded all over the show too which saves me the job of planting things. The one ornamental onion, that was supposed to spread and turn into many but decided not to, has a lumpy bud on it, that’s sprung up overnight surely, or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention before. There are also buds on the campanula where my big fat Buddha sits. He always looks so much happier when he’s surrounded by flowers.
Some flowers are actually blooming, a few little lily of the valley, one solitary corn flower and some of the aquilegia are out but not quite open. Aquilegias are another flower that self seeds like mad, there’s even one growing in the gravel at the side of the house, I do like free flowers. Of course the Choisya is swarming with pretty little white flowers now along with bees who love that sweet honey smell between that and the rosemary all you can hear in my garden at the moment is buzzing. Petals are falling from the quince but there are lots more buds to come, last year I made quince jelly, I may have to make some more this year if they all set fruit.
After spreading two bags of bark and covering about two thirds of the raised garden at the front of the house I gave up for the day. It’s is not as much of a cop out as it sounds. It took me most of the day, with a break for lunch after bag number one and a coffee break half way through bag number two. That makes four bags in all on the garden now and two more to go. Maybe I’ll do those on Friday, then again, with Moonwalk in Saturday that might not be the best of plans. It was after four o’clock when I emptied my last bucket and I was pooped.
After all the hard work I finally got round to planting my garden centre impulse buys, a pretty little nemesia called berries and cream, the sage, parsley and lemon balm. Commando also succumbed to the garden centre impulse buying when he was picking up the bark this morning. We now have some new solar lights to go round the gravel path and some rock shaped solar lights for the back garden. Some of the old lights from the front still work so I’ve stuck them in one of the empty veg tubs for the time being to sort the wheat from the chaff and then I will decide what to do with them. At this rate you’ll be able to see my little garden from space.
Such lovely reminders of spring and the garden. I see you have a quince tree and mentioned whether it would set fruit. Does your quince bear every year or only occasionally?
It bears fruit every year. I’ve made quince and blackberry jam in the past.