2006年07月の記事一覧 | Jeremy and Junko in Stratford - 楽天ブログ

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2006年07月の記事

全31件 (31件中 1-31件目)

1

Candles

It was Junko's birthday yesterday, and she, together with mother and myself, went to Muriel and Philip's for coffee at ten thirty in the morning. We had a nice time and were surprised when a sponge cake with lots of candles was produced. We sat outside and had coffee, but it was too windy to light the candles, so that part of the morning had to be done inside. Even there it was rather hard to light the candles because matches you buy these days seem to be so short! Anyway, once the candles were lit, Junko blew them out and we sang 'Happy Birthday'. Very nice.It rained steadily in the evening, which was nice for the garden. At present the weather is rather cool, which, after the record-breaking July which we have just had, is very pleasant. A small tomato in the greenhouse is beginning to ripen! Muriel has quite a few at the same or further developed stage, but she hasn't actually eaten any yet. But we are a week or two behind her. It's the same every year! I bought a digital terrestial TV digibox for mother a while ago. I finally managed to get it set up for her yesterday. She now has three remote controls - one for the digibox, one for the video and one for the TV itself. I know she finds it confusing, but what can you do about this sort of thing?

2006年07月31日

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Spanish food

Our friends from Spain, Ricardo and MariCruz, came to see us yesterday on their way back to their home-town of Salamanca. They have been in England for about a month. It was so nice to see them again. We know them because they lived in our house for a month a couple of years ago.They arrived at around four o'clock, bringing with them a selection of Spanish food, of which this is a photo. We chatted for a while and then decided to take dinner back to the campsite where their camping van was parked. We sat out in the evening sun and had a fantistic dinner around their little camping table, including spicy falafel and vegetarian sausages. Lots of cheese, too - stilton, camembert and a Spanish goats' cheese, which was very good. I took my camera, but as usual, forgot to take any photos. But I did take one of the food which they brought us as a present.We have here - a large bottle of Olive oil, a jar of chick peas, three bags of beans, some cheese and a piece of Spanish ham.Anyway, today's thankyou is to Ricardo and MariCruz for the food in the photo above.

2006年07月30日

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Splattered shirt

It's very strange, as I was hanging one of my shirts on the line yesterday morning, I saw that it had a large number of spots on it. Odd, I thought. I took it back to the washroom and put it in a bowl to handwash it. But the spots wouldn't come out. On closer investigation they appeared to be red paint. Now, I hadn't been using red paint, or indeed been anywhere near anyone who had been using paint of this colour. I wonder how they could have got there? The shirt is ruined. However, if there can be some good come out of an unfortunate thing like this, I had some time ago caught the side of this shirt on a door catch and made a small L-shaped tear in it, so at least it wasn't a really good shirt. None the less I am a little bit upset because it was a comfortable light cotton shirt which I wore often on these hot summer days. Where could this spattering of red paint come from?Our friends from Salamanca, Spain, are coming to see us today. I am looking forward to seeing them again. It doesn't seem a year ago that we saw them last. Doesn't time fly?It rained a bit last night. Engough rain fell to fill a water-butt. That's good. It has also turned a bit cooler and apparently the heatwave conditions we have had over the last weeks are, at least temporarily, over. It's Junko's birthday on Monday. We are going out to a friend's house for morning tea. That will be nice.

2006年07月29日

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Corner cupboard

I bought this corner cupboard the other day up at the dump. It cost two pounds. I am very pleased with it as I have been looking for something similar to fit into the breakfast room for quite some time, more than a year I guess.

2006年07月28日

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Wine and a modem

Some weeks ago I went round to one of my mother's friend's house. She was unable to connect to the internet. She had spoken to someone at the shop where she and her husband had bought the computer around five years ago. The man in the shop had said that he was ninety per cent certain that they had a virus and that they needed to buy another machine for four hundred pounds. Now, I was not at all sure of this, it was just too much like sales talk, so I decided to check the machine. The next day I took all my virus-checking stuff, and a program to test their modem. The machine was virus-free, but the modem was broken. I found an old modem for them and installed it the following day, and then I reset their internet connection. Everything is now working fine. This afternoon, the bell rang and it was my mother's friend. She had brought round a large bunch of flowers for Junko and a bottle of wine for us both. How nice. So, a big thank you to Muriel and a big thumbs down to the man in the computer shop!It is rather thundery and humid weather. Not very nice for us, but good for the garden I guess.

2006年07月27日

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Plastic

It's good news, for a change. At our local recycling centre, 'The Dump', we are no longer limited to recycling plastics number one and two (PET and HDPE), we can just throw any kind of plastic into the bin and something happens to it. I am not sure if it is sorted out later or whether it is all recycled in a mixed form, but whatever happens to it, it is a big step in the right direction.The rain of a few days' ago has brought cooler weather, which is nice for the garden.I picked four runner beans, yesterday morning, the first of the season. I am looking forward to eating them. Just boiled, I think.

2006年07月26日

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The truth about tomatoes?

I have always wondered about why supermarket tomatoes are so tasteless. Yesterday I read an article about tomatoes which contained these few sentences. So now, perhaps I know.Commercial tomatoes are usually picked green in order for them to survive the long distances to markets. In order to have them the appealing red colour by the time they reach the consumer, they are sprayed with ethylene, which turns them red. These tomatoes are called hard-ripened, as opposed to vine-ripened. These will not soften by storing them at room temperature and must be refrigerated to prevent them from rotting. However, vine-ripened tomatoes should never be refrigerated as cold temperatures interfere with the ripening process and zaps the flavour. Nor should they be lined up on the windowsill to greet the sun. The ripening process can be speeded up just like any fruit by placing them in a brown paper bag with an apple or a banana. I have known for a long time that oranges and similar fruit are sprayed with orange dye, but I was a bit surprised to find the same kind of thing happening with tomatoes!

2006年07月25日

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USB cable

One of the bad things about my computers is that, because my machines are one the floor under my desk, if I want to plug a thumb drive or my camera into one of the USB sockets, I have to scrabble around on the floor and fight my way through a spaghetti-like mass of cables and wires in order to get to the sockets. Mr Isomine, who stayed with us recently, saw me doing this and obviously thought I looked a little foolish lying on my back under the desk with a torch, and so, this morning, through the letter box, dropped a small package all the way from Japan. A USB extension cable! Male to female and a metre long. Most useful. An end to USB plug-in misery! So today's thankyou is to Mr Isomine.The weather is cooler now.

2006年07月24日

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Mystery fruit

The mystery fruit might be a 'medlar'. On the other hand it might not be, but it is quite similar. We cut it in half and this is what it looks like. It is rather pithy, with small pips. And it tastes horrible. But this is because it isn't ripe yet. I found the description and it seems to fit. But I think the pips or stones are too small. Perhaps it wasn't a mature fruit when it was picked. Anyway, here is another photo and the description.medlarThe medlar can be eaten raw, but only once it is bletted. Fruit is picked in late autumn and at that stage it is still very hard and greenish-yellow in color. When kept in a cool place,e.g. in layers of straw or sawdust, it will keep for many weeks, even months. During this time a process of fermentation will take place which changes the consistency of the fruit. It becomes soft to touch and brownish in color. At this stage it can be sucked empty, leaving the skin and stones behind.http://www.eat-it.com/CareGuides/medlar.htmlOur large water butt has got a tiny hole in it, right at the bottom. I had to empty it yesterday, before it emptied itself! I hope I can fix it. If not I shall buy a new one next spring.

2006年07月23日

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Storm!!!!!

Well, the hot weather really broke today!! After a warm and cloudy morning, the skies really darkened around half past one, and then the thunder and lightning began, shortly followed by around half an hour of torrential rain. These days we rarely have light rain, it's just these violent storms. And it makes collecting water difficult. I got soaked to the skin, absolutely, but managed to get our stock of water, which had been beginning to run a bit low, back up to one hundred per cent once again. It looks as if we should be all right for the rest of the summer now. I was just like a drowned rat after I had been outside shifting the pipes around to feed the various butts and then finally to let the excess flow directly onto the vegetable garden. I should think our runner beans will be pretty happy! We had some terrific flashes of lightning, and one thunder clap, which was very close, didn't make the normal ripping sound as it roared across the sky, it just made several very loud bangs, just like a cannon firing. Most unusual.After all that excitement, I had a nice warm shower. I enjoy summer rain.Thank you for the ideas on what the fruit was. I am still not sure. I spoke to a gentleman about it yesterday evening. He gave me a name, but unfortunately I have completely forgotten it! I shall have to ask him again today.

2006年07月22日

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What is it?

Junko bought this fruit the other day. We have no idea what it is. Can anyone help us identify it?Junko sowed some shiso seed in the garden, but it looks nothing like shiso now it has germinated and grown. Completely different. Junko has decided that it is 'rocket'! Actually, this is good because, although I like shiso, rocket is very nice in salad, and on these hot days you eat a lot of salad.We had beer and beans again last night. What luck!

2006年07月21日

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Beer and beans

Our vegetable garden is not wonderfully productive because the soil is rather old and poor. But Junko has got a reasonable crop of broad beans. She picked a few last night, boiled them, and then we ate some with a glass of beer after we got back from the supermarket, around ten o'clock. Very nice. Unlike in Japan, in Britain we eat the skins as well. We pick and eat the beans when they are small and the skin is still tender, but, even given this, I am always surprised that when these beans are eaten in Japan the tastiest and most nutritious part is discarded. Anyway, however they are eaten, the ones that we had last night along with a can of beer were delicious in the cool of the evening. You need something like this after a long, hot day.Returning to yesterday's subject, the new kitchen table. One of the nicest things about his table, and one which contributes immensely to the 'story' is that when we had bought it, a lady, who had just bought a pedal car for her grandson, looked at the table, and then at our Mini and said 'You'll never get that table in that car!' I replied that I thought I'd try and that I had a good chance if I took the legs off! When we failed to fit it into the back seat, she most kindly offered to put it in the back of her car and drop it at our house. We gratefully accepted her offer, loaded into her car (after first removing the pedal-car), dumped her rubbish, and then she followed us home where we unloaded the table near the house. It wasn't far out of her way as she was coming into Stratford anyway, but what a help it was! So, thank you very much to the un-named lady in the large dark-blue estate car.

2006年07月20日

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New table

We went up to the local recycling facility yesterday, to take some cans, wood and other general rubbish. This 'dump' is a really fantastic facility. It's free to dump pretty well any rubbish you want (they won't accept tyres and asbestos). You have to separate it into its correct category before you throw it away, but after that it is recycled. There are separate skips for wood, green waste, paper, cardboard, copper, aluminium, other metals, phones, printer cartridges, plastics, glass bottles, cans, flourescent tubes, monitors and TVs, paper, cardboard, vegetable oil, engine oil, batteries, soil, concrete and an area for other electrical items which are either stripped of their valuable parts and recycled or shipped overseas for repair and reuse. Of course there is also an area for general rubbish, which still, sadly, goes in a hole in the ground. But there is less and less of this general rubbish as each day passes. I enjoy seeing the rubbish separated and recycled in this way, but most of all I like the recycle shop. People are encouraged to stop and donate anything that can be sold before it is thrown away. We've bought quite a few things there in the past, and yesterday we bought a nice kitchen table for ten pounds. The proceeds from the recycle shop go to a local charity, which runs the shop.It still needs a bit of polishing, but Junko and I are pleased with it. We plan to refurbish the breakfast room shortly, so perhaps this will provide the initial stimulus.The chairs, by the way, also came from the same place. We have collected them over the past couple of years. We have recently painted the blue one and the two red ones, and are waiting to get round to doing the light green one. You might be interested to know that those chairs are around a hundred years old. They used to be really common as kitchen chairs, but you very rarely see them nowadays.Yesterday was the hottest July day ever in the UK. It is very worrying.

2006年07月19日

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Dinner

It has been very hot. Hotter than usual. We need rain and a bit of cooler weather.We had a strange dinner last night. Fried egg, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans and ............ brocoli. If you ignore the brocoli it was a full English breakfast. But why did we have it on one of the hottest evenings of the summer? A good question and one which I won't endeavour to answer.We have got quite a few small tomatoes on the tomato plants, they are still green of course. But they are getting bigger. It always takes a longer time than you expect for them to ripen, what a pity! They are very thirsty now, though, with this hot weather.

2006年07月18日

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A busy Sunday

Sunday was a busy day in Stratford, there was the horse-racing just up the road from us. And drag racing four miles away. There was a Mini rally somewhere close by, and also the town was full of 1960's scooters, covered with wing-mirrors as was the fashion at the time, later in the evening. Very nice to see these scooters and the old minis racing round the streets like they used to, showing us that motoring used to be fun. I felt the drivers of these cars and scooters were both irreverant and free, and I envied them!As it was a hot day, I expect the park near the river was heaving with folk just having a lazy Sunday afternoon. It's nice when the town is busy in this way, providing you don't have to go out in the car!

2006年07月17日

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Tomato surprise

Near one of the large out-of-town supermarkets in Stratford there is a DIY store. I often wander round the DIY store while Junko is doing her domestic shopping. Yesterday afternoon I was just going into the store when I saw what I consider to be something of an unusual sight. A gentleman had just bought a full-sized tomato plant, complete with quite a number of green tomatoes on their trusses. I wondered about the cost, but most of all I was surprised at the thinking behind this - surely one of the reason why people grow tomatoes is to watch the plants develop and enjoy seeing the flowers, the first tiny tomatoes and then finally have the satisfaction of actually eating the very first tomato of the season from your own plant! Biying a plant with the tomatoes already on it seems to me to totally defeat the idea of the exercise. Not only is it cheating, but aren't we supposed to be learning about our responsibilities, own skills and other related things by getting a harvest from having sown just the seed? This seems typical of life these days, we want the results of our labours without having done any work. This in iteself is bad enough, but it is the lack of knowledge of the process by which those results are achieved that is the truly worrying thing. Despite our advanced society, we are, in many aspects of life, becoming rather ignorant.

2006年07月16日

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Car problems

I was in the car near Stephan's house the day before yesterday afternoon when I heard a clunking sound from under the car. I pulled up to Stephan's house as it is in a side street, just to have a look and see what the problem was. I was surprised to find Stephan at home and together we tied the exhaust pipe back to its rightful place. After I had had a cup of tea and a piece of Sharon's cake, I drove to tyre and exhaust place in town and got the parts ordered to fix the problem properly. Thanks Stephan for giving me a hand a piece of wire. I took the car to the repair shop this morning and the job has been done, but although it seems to be fixed, I think there might be a reason why the brackets broke, so I will have to take it to my regular repairer and get him to give it the once over. I've got to get him to fix the headlight, too, and also do the annual safely check. So I might as well get everything done at the same time. All more expense, but this is what happens when you have a car.

2006年07月15日

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Artichoke and socks

Junko bought an artichoke the other day. She had no idea how to cook it, and neither did I. After looking in a cookery book she found out that she had to peel and trim it and then boil it for twenty minutes. By the time she had peeled it there didn't seem to be much of it left, especially when it had had its stalk removed. But still, it was put in the pan and boiled for the recommended time. When it came out of the water there seemed even less of it, and what there was was just a lot of tough, spongy fibres. We really couldn't find anything to eat on it anywhere. I wonder what went wrong?A week or so ago I wrote about tube socks. At that time I had just bid for ten pairs on ebay in the USA. I won them, paid through PayPal, and today they arrived. I haven't tried a pair on yet, but they look exactly what I wanted.I have had another bad day generally, but at least I have got some new socks.

2006年07月14日

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Stupid

I am very irritated with myself. I thought I had a hospital appointment for my knee at five past nine this morning. But late last night, when I checked the appointment letter to see exactly where I should go, I found that my appointment was in fact for Wednesday morning, not Friday. I can't understand how I managed to write it down on the wrong date in my diary, I can only think that I got it muddled up with my physiotherapy appointment. I am very cross. It is just another one of my many failings. I'm not really much good at anything.Another thing which has upset me was that I was moving something in the cellar and I squashed a large spider. That's really bad. I feel terrible about it, I am so sorry.

2006年07月13日

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Volcanoes

For the past year or so there have been four BBC TV channels which could broadly be described as entertainment channels. There are three or four other BBC channels as well, but these are mainly news and current affairs. BBC4 is a documentary channel. It runs from seven in the evening until after midnight and has an interesting approach to programming. Often the whole evening is devoted to one theme. For example this evening the theme is volcanoes. There is a documentary about Pompei, a 1970's comedy programme which was based on the everyday life of some weird folk who supposedly lived in Pompei, another documentary, this time about Krakatoa, then a Hollywood film, and finally something else related to volcanoes, exactly what I have forgotten. I like this themed approad.Recent evening themes have been 'the moon', 'potatoes', 'The Who', and 'Queen Victoria'. All have a similar mix of films, documentaries, cartoons, comedies, live performances etc. I'm looking forward to this evening's offerings.Another photo of the patio.

2006年07月12日

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Imagination

I wanted to show how hummus was served by my friend who had a hummus restaurant. I have got the same bowls as he used, and the hummus and pitta bread, but lack everything else! So you will have to use your imagination.You need to think about four black olives. And around twenty of the chick peas after they have been cooked.Then a small amount of salad - chopped tomatoes, a bit of spring onion maybe.Finally some nice olive oil.The olives go north, south, east and west. (Actually he used green olives from his family's farm in Palestine,m preserved in their own oil, but black olives will do)The salad, just a spoonful, goes in the middle of the bowl.The chick peas go round the outside of the salad.And the olive oil is sprinkled over the salad and peas.You then eat your delicious creation by splitting the pitta bread and scooping whatever takes your fancy from the bowl.I've just had hummus for breakfast, without the trimmings, but I used my imagination too. Hummus brings back many interesting memories of a time now lost.Anyway, here's the photo, minus the trimmings. The tablecloth is a Palestinian headcloth.

2006年07月11日

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Hummus

And this is what the finished hummus looks like. Not very spectacular I know. I had a friend who ran a hummus restaurant. I will try and take a photo of how he used to serve and post it tomorrow. Junko doesn't like my hat, and mother doesn't like my trousers and shoes. I am beginning to lose confidence in my clothes sense!

2006年07月10日

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Hat & Hummus

I bought a blue denim floppy hat for thirty pence the other day at a bootsale. Junko said it made me look stupid, so I gave it to her. It suits her. I wonder why it makes me look stupid? Actually, it's not the hat, it's the person under it that's the problem.Koala san is going to make some hummus with her infrequently-used food processor. She's got all the ingredients.Here's how to make it.Soak 220 grammes of dried chick peas for eight hours. Then boil them until they are quite soft, this usually takes around half an hour, but if they are old it may take longer. When they are cooked and still hot, drain the water off and chop them up in the processor. They should be as fine as you can get them.Chop three or four cloves of garlic up as finely as possible. Add it to the peas.Add a hundred grammes of tahini, about a teaspoon of salt (maybe less), two or three teaspoons of lemon juice, five or six teaspoons of olive oil an then mix it all. You will also need to add some water because you want a kind of runny paste. Keep on mixing until it is as smooth as you can get it.That's it.Then clean the food processor. haha.You should end up with almost a kilo of hummus.To eat the hummus, put some in a smallish bowl and scoop it up with warm or toasted pitta bread.I hope you enjoy it.

2006年07月09日

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Tube Socks

Some years ago, when we lived in a hot and sandy country, I always wore long white cotton tube socks. When we left that place and came to live in Stratford I brought a few pairs with me. I am not sure how long they lasted, but I haven't worn this kind of sock for a long time. The other day, when Junko was tidying out a chest of drawers, she found a pair that had been hidden at the back of a drawer. They weren't new, but they weren't in too bad a condition. I wore them yesterday and found them extremely comfortable - I remember now how much used to like them! Tube socks don't seem to be at all popular in Britain, expecially long white cotton ones. I know because I have been looking for replacements for quite a number of years and have failed to buy any. I looked on UK ebay, nothing. Then I remembered the brand name 'Hanes', they are American. I couldn't find any UK online shops selling them. I looked on a number of sites in the US, I could find the socks I wanted, but they didn't ship to the UK. Then I looked on the US ebay and found some. And the seller will post internationally. I am going to bid for them shortly. What great lengths I go to to get some pairs of comfortable socks! But it will be worth it. I really do realise how much I liked those old socks.My knee is still getting better. I am trying very hard now not to walk with a limp. It takes quite a bit of concentration and it's easy to forget not to favour the bad leg.

2006年07月08日

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Electrical items

I thought I would make a list of electrical things which have been manufactured, but don't do what people want of them to do, simply go out of fashion or are, as soon as they are introduced, bypassed by new technology. I hope readers will be able to remind me of other not such good ideas.bread-making machinesfilter coffee makersmp3 cd playerslarge capacity floppy disk driveskeyboard style remote controls for digital tvhair clippersteas maidsspa foot bathsvideo walkman garden vacuum cleanersand I have never been certain why anyone would want to possess an electric carving knife.I would like to put photos in this diary more often than I do. But it takes time to get them all organised and uploaded to my own website (I don't think I have got any more space left in the Rakuten photo area). And I know that a number of readers use their phones to read the entries and are unable to see the photos anyway.

2006年07月07日

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Mixed weather

Yesterday morning was rather still and drizzly, but by the late afternoon the sun had broken through and the breezed had picked up, making for a lovely early evening. And being such a nice evening we were able to sit outside under the wisteria and have dinner.I had made about a kilo of hummus earlier in the day and we had that for dinner with pitta bread. Strange about this hummus, when I made it I thought I had put too much salt in it. When I asked Junko what it was like, she said she thought it needed salt. You never can tell. Yet when we ate it for dinner it seemed perfect. Odd.Here is a photo of the runner beans and the main receiving water butt. The beans have flowers, but as yet no baby beans. We spotted some blackfly on the stems yesterday, so they had to be sprayed with soapy water. I crushed as many as I could with my fingers first, as well. Let's hope that has got rid of them.

2006年07月06日

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Broken headlight

Junko and I went out to Stephan and Sharon's house yesterday evening for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. Just a quick social visit. It was very nice. On the road to their house, which is only a mile or so away, they are doing some resurfacing with new chippings. The speed limit is 20mph, but nobody takes any notice. We had a pleasant little evening but when I got back itno the car to come home I found that I had only one working headlight. The nearside light had a small hole through the glass, caused, I have no doubt, by a chipping from the road repairs. Irritating. Though it could be worse, it could be a broken leg and not a broken lamp!We had more rain early yesterday evening and I am pleased to report that all our water-saving containers are at pretty well 100% capacity. This amount of garden water should last us about a month - Junko's flowers and vegetables will be really happy. More heavy rain is forecast for today. It's is just typical, we have nothing for a month and then a whole month's rainfall in two days!This is a photo of our kitchen.

2006年07月05日

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Soaked to the skin

At last we have had some rain. Throughout June we scarcely had any rain at all, so little in fact that I managed, even with my extensive rainwater collection system, to collect not much more than a bucketful of water. As a consequence, what with Junko's hanging baskets, tomato plants, vegetables in the garden and her extensive range of flowering plants in pots, we were coming towards the end of the saved supply of water. I guess we had only a few days' left. All that changed yesterday evening, however, as the drought broke with a terrific thunderstorm. As the thunder crashed around me and lightning lit up the early evening sky, I was outside desperately filling buckets and every available container. My water-saving system is not designed to deal with such a large volume of water in so short a time as we had last night - I guess we had half an inch in around ten minutes - so I have to transfer it a bucketful at a time to the more distant water butts. This means I missed quite a lot as the collection butt overflowed before I could empty it, and it also meant that I got soaked to the skin. Still, it was warm and it was nice to have a hot shower afterwards.Prior to the weather breaking and the heavens opening it had been a hot day. I drank over four litres of water.I can almost walk normally again. I can still only go up and down the stairs one step at a time, though.It seems that KOALA san only reads diary entries which have associated photos, so, to ensure that this one is read, I am attaching two photos of the patio. This shows the work I have recently done in the way of improvements. The wood I collected from a few doors away made the retaining wall at the back.

2006年07月04日

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Tomatoes

Junko has been carefully tending half a dozen tomato plants in the greenhouse. She grew them from seed. There have been quite a few casualties along the way, some were eaten in their infancy by slugs, and a couple more succumbed to caterpillars eating their stems when they were really quite large. And I am sure that of the remaining six yet more will suffer from some particular tomato-plant disease such as 'blossom end rot'. However, all is well with them at present, but the strong sun we have had recently has meant that I have had to shade them during the hottest part of the day. I am pleased to report that yesterday I found two pea-sized tomatoes on the plants. Of course there is a long way to go before they are edible, but it's a start! (We went over to my sister's at the weekend, her tomato plants don't look quite as healthy as ours, but they have quite a few tomatoes on them already, and they are the size of golf balls - still, we mustn't be jealous!)My knee is progressing well. I still feel the need to use my crutches when I am in the street, but I don't use them at all when I am in the house and the garden. If you had told me a week ago that I would be as mobile as I am now I wouldn't have believed you, no way, so that is very good. My next physiotherapy session is on Friday and I am hoping to make the ten-minute walk to the hospital unaided.

2006年07月03日

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Plates

Last weekend I bought these plates. They are at least fifty years old. Most people would display them, but I bougth them to use. I don't much care for ornaments, particularly ornaments that were originally made to be used, like these plates. I enjoy eating off them, and if they get broken that's just too bad. The five of them cost me £1. Was that a bargain? I think so! They are 'willow pattern'. The idea came from China, I think. Old plates are only decoarted with blue because that was the only colour they could use at the time.We were supposed to have a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon/evening, but nothing materialised.

2006年07月02日

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A change of subject

I am tired of thinking and writing about my knee, so I will write about something else today.I was shocked to learn the other day about how dangerous airbags in cars are, if you don't wear a safety belt. Apparently, if you have even a slow speed accident and your body moves forward, the speed at which the airbag inflates and crashes into your body, especially your head, is quite likely to give you a fatal injury. Not only is this piece of information shocking, it is a real surprise to me that almost nobody knows this. Many people in this country don't wear seat belts, especially those in large 4x4 cars, because they think that their vehicle is fitted with airbags and therefore extremely safe. How wrong they are.Mr Isomine has gone back to Japan. We shall miss his weekend visits.Stephan dropped in for a brief visit yesterday morning. He said that his wife, Sharon, was not well at that particular moment. Junko and I both hope that she is felling better now.Just a brief note about my kneee - it is much improved on yesterday.

2006年07月01日

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