Five things make a slice of English summer

[shewhomust]

1. I put off defrosting the fridge until I could put it off no longer, and every time I took something out, a pool of water spilled from its lid onto the floor. I am not proud of this. Since the fridge claims to be 'self defrosting' (hah!) there is no way of speeding up the process, but it started on Friday morning and was complete by the time I got up on Saturday.



2. Friday was Summer Phantoms: as I wrote on Gail-Nina's website, it was hard to believe that the three readers had not colluded a) to produce three completely different stories and b) to go against our expectations of who would do what. So Gail's retired teacher and pillar of the church encountered a scene with Sean's touch of the macabre, while Sean's classic fantasy fairground offered prizes of impeccable mythological significance (will you choose the pomegranate or the ring?) and Simon efficiently scooped up the task of lightening the atmosphere and leaving us laughing.



3. After which we ate at Mario's. Since we were last there they have moved across the street and slightly closer to the Bigg Market, and they no longer offer the all-day antipasto platter (which staved off indecision by offering a little - though not so little as all that - of everything). Other than that, they are as before, friendly and informal, accommodating to the member of the party with her arm in a sling (nasty fracture caused by a fall in Edinburgh), giving no hint that we had outstayed our welcome though we were, as usual, the last customers to leave,



4. That month in shewhomust's garden... I missed the last garden waste collection, being on Lindisfarne, and returned from a week away to find that the garden had run amok: tendrils of bramble, which I thought I had done a good job of cutting back, were reaching across the path, and trying to creep in through the kitchen door. I went out this afternoon with gauntlets and secateurs, and filled my wheelie bin in the space of an hour.



5. Almost as soon as I had finished, the sky darkened, and we had another thunderstorm.

Comments

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Our garden is always in that state; I'm hoping that in my own fully medicated state I may now find the energy to do something about it.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Sympathies. I, too, have been battling a garden run amok. Our house (our house!) was left to seed during the paperwork/purchase process and the garden has had no attention in at least a month, during the high growing season. I'm trying not to despair of getting on top of it all.

And oh boy do I plan to make some changes - I do not intend to spend countless hours every day gardening. Apparently the occupants before those who sold to us loved to garden and were out there daily. The previous occupants just hired help. We learned this from our new neighbors who have been here for almost 30 years.

Not sure yet if I should just hire people to clear out the worst of it and start fresh, or try to do it myself. It's the Forest Primeval out back.

Maybe I'll take some photos and post this myself. It's too late to take photos of what I've already cleared, which is a shame because it looks so much better now.

/end rant

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's a constant battle!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, do please post photos! Longing for more News from the House...

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I loved the Phantoms at the Phil that I got to attend, and dinner at Mario's afterwards was also wonderful: it was the first time Chaz told me he loved me.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Well, that would make any evening special.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

It’s the ad-man’s dream – a product with no distinctive flavour to get in the way of the marketing but: only a whisper away from pure ethanol butt; however distilled this seems to be crucial to the process when it comes to geniality in produce: (full disclosure: the master distiller Charles Smith is my uncle) and still, Grasovka is my personal choice for a premature death (or, as ex-spouse used to say in his broad, crude Franconian dialect that he used mainly for conical relief if only filled with the right amount of fluid of -naturally- a Franconian blend such as found in the carceri of the Würzburg castle in caskets invited pre-senile Bett-Flucht which would mean, in Engrish, pre-senile bedflight (as from a county not preferred no more and with wings) if indeed it has to be done. Then again, who are we to be in a hurry? Also, always afraid of sounding impertinent but I feel inclined to remark, as once my sister did when I wrote an essay on washing up, how 'you are the funniest when angry' always supposing one were right on that and in case not, at least it works for one's theory, or does it not? Loved this;)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

you are the funniest when angry

But I am always angry...

Sometimes I worry that my readers cannot tell when I am being funny - and then I think of you, and stop worrying.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Maybe, that's one (but just one) reason I keep reading you with that strange (specifically Mollberg or not, is the Q.) mixture of ...well: exalted ...mirth, is roundabout but just one of the things I wanted to say. Glad, you think of me at crucial moments. Who would have thought.