B F, you are bringing back some memories! We lived on a narrowboat for a while at the turn of the Millennium, and I remember the ducks running up and down the roof. Thankfully they decided not to nest on it, as I doubt they would have enjoyed our weekend trips upriver.
We had a lonely swan in the marina, which we named Fruit Juice as (s)he had an ankle tag with FJ inscribed on it. One day Fruit Juice bit my husband's fingers as he was dangling his arm out of the window for some fresh air.
My favourites were the moorhens as, unlike ducks, which seem to expect their ducklings to follow them about and find their own food, they would take tasty morsels back to the nest to feed the young, which looked like big fluffy balls on legs.
A friend and I were out and about in town last night at our bi-monthly Artwalk: various exhibitions, performances & talks in many and varying venues open late for the purpose. One venue was at our local medieval bridge chantry chapel. On crossing we spotted a pair of swans and a nest with 6 eggs. An unexpected find. I hope it's safe as it's fairly common for passers-by to chuck rubbish off the top of the bridge.
There's been a lot of activity at the feeder (and on the deck) today: in descending order of size: a squirrel, pigeons, grackles, mourning-doves, cowbirds and chipping sparrows. And a hummingbird (just now)!
The feeder was empty when we went out this morning, but because the grackles chuck it about so much, there was a fair bit on the deck, and the smaller birds have cleared some of that. We came in about 3 hours ago, and D. filled up the feeder, and it's already half empty. It's an expensive hobby, running a birdie bistro!
The swifts are back in the square outside our house...though not as many as usual. They swoop screaming in the evening and nest in our eaves. Even though they poo on my balcony table I still love having them. The cats spend hours watching them through the attic windows!!
Well that’s a H&S policy written & being reviewed. Sitting in a pub garden on a nice summer’s day with 2 lovely fellow-committee members- what’s not to like. Just need to get all the documents through the committee (not an easy task) before The AGM in Oct. it’ll have been a long year.
It's a lovely day here: 21° and sunny, but for some reason I don't feel like ambling - I'm feeling somewhat lethargic. I made a potato curry for lunch, which we had with a couple of shop-bought samosas - maybe that explains the lethargy.
D's gone in to the office to do a few bits and pieces, and the plan is that he'll pick me up and we'll go down to that caff in Harvey Station that does the nice PIES - I hope he's not planning on taking the route we took last time, which was more pot-hole than road.
I have, however, readied myself for the open-toed season by painting my toenails*, so by the application of Murphy's Law, we should probably get sn*w.
* I wonder if the bending and stretching involved counts as "exercise"?
Too hot for my liking for much of today, but made good use of the day and the weather by doing four loads of washing and drying them all out on the clothesline.
Made panzanella for dinner. Really looking forward to making it with home grown tomatoes and cucumbers in a couple of months. Maybe sooner, as some of my outdoor tomatoes are already flowering
Crusty baguette with smoked duck pate.
Beef braised with whisky, topped with crispy bacon and pecans: sliced roasties* and buttered leeks.
Strawberries and cream.
That sounds absolutely delicious, Firenze - are there any leftovers?
No sn*w (crosses trotters), but I did get some exercise in the form of sharing the lawn-mowing. Our lawn slopes quite sharply down to next door's house, and we've worked out a modus operandi where D. does the sloping bit* and I do the flat bit at the top.
By the time we'd finished that it was too late to go to the PIE place, so that'll have to wait for another day.
* I find it hard enough to walk on the sloping bit, let alone control a lawnmower on it - I assume that D's bigger feet give him a better balance ...
I recommend Pilates foot exercises for improving balance - they are easy and involve rolling your foot over a ball, making toes and ankles more flexible. Amazingly effective.
It was hot yesterday, but I entertained myself by dealing with the hedges either side of the path leading to my front door. This particular block of flats has hedged narrow front gardens for the downstairs flats, meaning that the path to the front door of the upstairs flats passes between overgrown shoulder-high hedges which provide inadvertent showers from cuckoo spit and soakings on damp days.
Part of the service charge pays the so-called gardeners who turn up semi-regularly with a flatbed truck of machines, wielded without evidencing much skill, mowing the grassy areas whatever the weather or anything planted in them and hacking back all above ground height noisily with powered weapons. Most of the nicer shrubs in the landscaping have given up after a few years of this treatment, leaving the less attractive hardier thugs. We've even lost a well established buddleia, but the brambles are doing well. If the landscape crew were horticulturalists they'd know generalised hacking back is often counterproductive. But this is what you get if services go out to tender.
Tidying took a surprising amount out with secateurs, mostly pruning the bay tree that's being hacked into a squared off hedge along one side, creating a slightly better shape, but also trimming the beech hedge that was encroaching across the path. The other side wasn't so bad, only needing clipping. It's so nice to have the path back to flagstone width.
The bay tree was planted for a previous tenant, and was kept pruned into a lollipop shape until he died. A decade plus and several tenants later I'm eyeing up the top shoots debating how many Christmas trees I can get out of it in December. I used to keep this hedge under control and maintain the garden with the bay tree when the previous tenant was alive - he had a heart condition but wanted his front garden pretty.
Thinking about it, I stopped dealing with the hedge when the psychotic neighbour started demanding it be done immediately at any inconvenient moment so I pointed out it was the responsibility of the garden crew; we were paying for it.
mostly pruning the bay tree that's being hacked into a squared off hedge along one side,
I hope you are using some of the leaves for cooking purposes.
Both of the last two places we lived had a mature bay tree to plunder for the kitchen. When we moved I picked a bagful of bay leaves to bring with me, but they are almost finished.
Trees don't do very well here because of the wind blowing in off the channel, everything more than a metre high leans over at 45 degrees, so I gave up hope of having another - especially as garden centres tend only to have 'lollipops' - at exorbitant prices. However, I saw some rooted bay cuttings for sale, about 9" high, and reasonably priced, a few weeks ago.
I treated myself to one, and it is in a pot in as sheltered a spot of my garden as I could find. I hope to be be picking leaves from it next year.
What I will do with it when it outgrows its pot is another matter, but I hope to have a good few leaves in store by then, and maybe another rooted cutting coming along.
Mr Nen is a bit of a slash-and-burn gardener and has to be restrained from generalised hacking back and complete clearing of flowerbeds, plants and weeds alike. At the moment he's forbidden to go near any of our shrubs and trees because of nesting birds.
I am not a fan of wisteria (looks fabulous for a fortnight each year and a bundle of wood and leaves the rest of the time) but one of the houses in our road had a lovely one growing up one wall and along the roof of the adjacent garage. The house has changed hands in the last few years and they have clearly had it inexpertly "pruned." No flowers to speak of this spring, which is a shame.
Of course I saved some of the bay leaves - I not only went through the bay tree prunings to select the best leaves, but gave some to the neighbour whose front garden it is in and kept enough back for anyone else that wants some. Many of the leaves were too soft and small to be much use. The other thing I did was bag up the prunings and left them out of the way near the hedge so any creepy crawlies could escape to safety. I need to move them on to today's job then ask the landscape crew to take them with them when they come this week.
Today we're planning to liberate an old unusable bin store again, so it can be used as a space to store bikes and outside toys. I always wanted to put a roof on, but this time the trees are providing far more cover. We did this a few years ago, with the landlord's permission, until it got broken into taking anything worth having, including mine and my daughter's bikes. It's needed again now for another neighbour's bike and far more protected since the tree has grown so much bigger.
Unusable as a bin store because it's set back some distance from the road into the gardens and the path to the store is too narrow for the big wheelie bins. The bin stores that work are in the car parks. So far I've found the padlock keys and used enough WD40 to remove it from the hasp locking the door, turning two sets of clothing green from the door in passing. We now need to climb in and prune hard to go any further.
Mr. T used to love cutting things back, as he called it, but now he is no longer, I have let everything grow. The garden is far too big for me to manage on my own, so the end is being left wild and untamed! Hopefully the bees and butterflies will eventually love it. I have someone who comes and mows my lawn once a fortnight, and he will do anything else I want, provided it involves something mechanical that makes a lot of noise! I let him loose on the ground elder with his strimmer (though I had to show him which was ground elder and which was ferns! Now the pesky stuff is coming up again I need a large can of Roundup to spray all over and hopefully dissuade it from clogging up the paths. I have tried digging it up but the roots are vast and go well towards the centre of the earth!
Baby Blue Tits have left the nest box now, but not sure what has happened to the Chaffinches. Or exactly where their nest is/was.
We had a bay tree in a pot when we lived in Belfast, where our garden was very sheltered and faced south, so it was quite happy - it was lovely being able to go out and pluck a leaf or two to put in a casserole!
I don't know whether outdoor herbs would work here - our main deck faces north, so anything on there wouldn't get much sun. We've got a tiny little deck at the back door; it's really just the landing at the top of the steps, but it has a wooden rail round it that might lend itself to some sort of box arrangement. It would, however, depend on my ability to remember that it was there, and act on that remembrance ...
Also, we'd have to make alternative arrangements for the winter, as I don't imagine herbs are very fond of -15°C.
_____
We're happily still in Ascensiontide, for which there's so much lovely music, and this morning's offering was Blow's O pray for the peace of Jerusalem (with solo piglet), which was rather fun.
It seems it’s been a good gardening day - so far I’ve had 2 stints at t’allotment, first to water the plants I put in on Friday but didn’t really need to as they are doing rather well, so I shovelled and shifted manure for an hour - we’d had a big drop that everyone could help themselves to, so I did. I couldn’t do longer than that because I went to a short communion service, then orchestra rehearsal, then ushering (the charming “we’re going on a bear hunt” - ahhhh). But I came home via the manure heap to shovel and shift for another 2 hours. The resulting 2 large heaps don’t look like much and might not go far, and are a bit *ahem* fresh but they’ll be good in a couple of years time. Already blackbirds are investigating the heaps for goodies.
I felt cod & chips were in order as I couldn’t think what to cook, but regret that now. I need to be better organised - I have a relatively quick turn around (to include a very necessary shower) before taking my flute to the guest evening of a West Gallery group that i think I might join, if they’ll have me. Sitting around hasn’t been for today - they will be plenty of time tomorrow when I am invigilating all day.
@Bishops Finger - that is indeed the very piece, although we did it a little faster that that rendition.
ION, there is such a thing as a free lunch, because we got one today. We usually cook for Sunday lunch, but as we had Evensong this afternoon we didn't really have time to go home in between services, so we went to East Side Mario's, and when D. asked for the bill, the waitress said that a gentleman had paid it. We have no idea who he was: we didn't see anyone we knew when we went in, but whoever he was thank you - you're a total gent!
We've occasionally been the recipients of "paying it forward", where the driver of the car in front of you in the drive-in at Tim's pays for your coffee, but getting lunch with a glass of wine ... my ghast is flabbered!
ION, there is such a thing as a free lunch, because we got one today. We usually cook for Sunday lunch, but as we had Evensong this afternoon we didn't really have time to go home in between services, so we went to East Side Mario's, and when D. asked for the bill, the waitress said that a gentleman had paid it. We have no idea who he was: we didn't see anyone we knew when we went in, but whoever he was thank you - you're a total gent!
We've occasionally been the recipients of "paying it forward", where the driver of the car in front of you in the drive-in at Tim's pays for your coffee, but getting lunch with a glass of wine ... my ghast is flabbered!
I had my ghast similarly flabbered when I was touring just north of San Francisco - such generosity! It made the meal so special and memorable, even though I didn’t know until after the meal when I tried to pay.
Yes, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them at a festival somewhere along the way - I can’t say I like her voice too much, but it’s great to hear the traditional pieces played with gusto.
I enjoyed this evening’s rehearsal and have been invited to the next (not open) one, so I feel very privileged. And membership isn’t up to me - it’s by invitation so I’d better be on my best behaviour.
A very pleasant long week-end was had by us by the sea in Normandy. This involved reliving my childhood by eating mussels and chips, and going for a ride on a boat. We rented a very satisfactory little apartment for a grand total of €50 a night. The weather is always a bit risky in Normandy, but we got lucky with glorious sunshine.
Less fun was the train journey back, which took five hours because of an electrical failure. Captain Pyjamas was not a happy camper by time we got off. (Yes, we were that family with the howling baby, but it wasn’t our fault, guv. Stuck on a train for five hours, baby’s gonna cry. Blame the SNCF.)
It's a warm, slightly close day here: 19° and sunny-ish. It was warm last night (it didn't get below 11°): we left the bedroom window open for the first time this year.
I'm contemplating an amble later, but we had a very late and very large* lunch, so I'm giving myself a bit of recovery time.
* We had bought a couple of what looked like quite small lamb-shanks and I cooked them last night in a casserole in the oven, reheating them today, and they seemed to have grown - I think one would have fed both of us.
They were really rather good though, and I'm now in the process of turning the bones (and some others I had in the freezer) into stock.
Busy day here as end of module assignments have arrived in my in box and I’ve spent the day verifying work ready for marking over the next week or so. But managed to fit my 10, 000 steps in by going for an early morning sunny walk.
Lentil dahl, poppadoms and yoghurt for tea, followed by a slice of Viennetta.
Looks like its going to be another hot one today. One of our cats (Jasper, the ginger male) is running in and out and through the living room squeaking. I think he's trying to tell me that The Very Bad Cats haven't been fed yet.
Looks like its going to be another hot one today. One of our cats (Jasper, the ginger male) is running in and out and through the living room squeaking. I think he's trying to tell me that The Very Bad Cats haven't been fed yet.
It is going to be yet another wet one here. When you southerners are on hosepipe bans and using your shower water to flush the loos, we can sell you some very nice fresh water. Three weeks now of weather that is more wet than dry...
Daughter came home from uni last night with what seems to be a year's worth of washing (I know it can't be - she's obsessively clean). I have washed it and it will hang outside until it is dry if that takes a fortnight! No room for so much wet washing indoors.
My study day today, having caught up with my work emails. I had intended to spend it reading a book on models of mental health, but have been distracted by planning a church mini group instead.
Instead of formal bible study groups, my church has a revolving programme for which church members volunteer to lead a group for a term. It might be a knitting group, it might be a bible study, it might be voluntary work; guidelines are flexible. It gives the opportunity for lots of different people to lead groups rather than relying on the same individuals. Being a large church there is a wide variety of choice each term.
So I’m toying with the idea of a 5 week course on death and dying as I think that will be beneficial for the congregation. I’ve got a plan of 5 weeks; intro, death, dying, bereavement and resurrection. I want to run it as a death cafe, where there is open discussion about our thoughts and feelings, ending in a bible reading. I teach a module on death and dying so the idea of a death cafe and discussing related theory is no problem but I’m no theologian. I’m currently drawing up a draft plan so I can approach someone to work with me on that side.
Yes, thanks, I have those resources - I bought a copy for our minister as he hadn’t heard of death cafes (we’re an independent church). Have you tried it out? I will probably use some of the cards to prompt discussion.
Going to a Quaker death cafe at a Greenbelt sowed my original idea of hosting one, I’m very into removing taboos about health related issues.
On a different note, this local news has I think surprised many people: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48512697. Personally I think it's a great decision (I live not far from said motorway) but many folk are extremely upset and angry. There may however be a judicial review.
On the one hand road cancellations are an inconvenience, but it must be apparent that road building is but a "sticking plaster" that staunches the bleeding without repairing the wound. There is already one relief road around Newport, avoiding the infamous tunnels. How many will be needed?
Yes, we have a route from our valley to the M4 avoiding the tunnels too.
It offends me seeing the work on the Heads of the Valleys road down Black Rock gorge - yes, the road can be landscaped and prettified, but I feel a deep sorrow that the rock formations that have been excavated can never be put back ☹️
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We had a lonely swan in the marina, which we named Fruit Juice as (s)he had an ankle tag with FJ inscribed on it. One day Fruit Juice bit my husband's fingers as he was dangling his arm out of the window for some fresh air.
My favourites were the moorhens as, unlike ducks, which seem to expect their ducklings to follow them about and find their own food, they would take tasty morsels back to the nest to feed the young, which looked like big fluffy balls on legs.
Did your ducks talk all the time, like ours do? Jemima rather reminds me of this somewhat politically-incorrect (!), offensive, and perhaps NSFW, song by the late Jake Thackray:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=leON-71pRns&list=RDleON-71pRns&start_radio=1
The feeder was empty when we went out this morning, but because the grackles chuck it about so much, there was a fair bit on the deck, and the smaller birds have cleared some of that. We came in about 3 hours ago, and D. filled up the feeder, and it's already half empty. It's an expensive hobby, running a birdie bistro!
D's gone in to the office to do a few bits and pieces, and the plan is that he'll pick me up and we'll go down to that caff in Harvey Station that does the nice PIES - I hope he's not planning on taking the route we took last time, which was more pot-hole than road.
I have, however, readied myself for the open-toed season by painting my toenails*, so by the application of Murphy's Law, we should probably get sn*w.
* I wonder if the bending and stretching involved counts as "exercise"?
Made panzanella for dinner. Really looking forward to making it with home grown tomatoes and cucumbers in a couple of months. Maybe sooner, as some of my outdoor tomatoes are already flowering
Crusty baguette with smoked duck pate.
Beef braised with whisky, topped with crispy bacon and pecans: sliced roasties* and buttered leeks.
Strawberries and cream.
*like extreme hasselback potato.
No sn*w (crosses trotters), but I did get some exercise in the form of sharing the lawn-mowing. Our lawn slopes quite sharply down to next door's house, and we've worked out a modus operandi where D. does the sloping bit* and I do the flat bit at the top.
By the time we'd finished that it was too late to go to the PIE place, so that'll have to wait for another day.
* I find it hard enough to walk on the sloping bit, let alone control a lawnmower on it - I assume that D's bigger feet give him a better balance ...
Our teacher is seventy years old - so no excuses!
Part of the service charge pays the so-called gardeners who turn up semi-regularly with a flatbed truck of machines, wielded without evidencing much skill, mowing the grassy areas whatever the weather or anything planted in them and hacking back all above ground height noisily with powered weapons. Most of the nicer shrubs in the landscaping have given up after a few years of this treatment, leaving the less attractive hardier thugs. We've even lost a well established buddleia, but the brambles are doing well. If the landscape crew were horticulturalists they'd know generalised hacking back is often counterproductive. But this is what you get if services go out to tender.
Tidying took a surprising amount out with secateurs, mostly pruning the bay tree that's being hacked into a squared off hedge along one side, creating a slightly better shape, but also trimming the beech hedge that was encroaching across the path. The other side wasn't so bad, only needing clipping. It's so nice to have the path back to flagstone width.
The bay tree was planted for a previous tenant, and was kept pruned into a lollipop shape until he died. A decade plus and several tenants later I'm eyeing up the top shoots debating how many Christmas trees I can get out of it in December. I used to keep this hedge under control and maintain the garden with the bay tree when the previous tenant was alive - he had a heart condition but wanted his front garden pretty.
Thinking about it, I stopped dealing with the hedge when the psychotic neighbour started demanding it be done immediately at any inconvenient moment so I pointed out it was the responsibility of the garden crew; we were paying for it.
Both of the last two places we lived had a mature bay tree to plunder for the kitchen. When we moved I picked a bagful of bay leaves to bring with me, but they are almost finished.
Trees don't do very well here because of the wind blowing in off the channel, everything more than a metre high leans over at 45 degrees, so I gave up hope of having another - especially as garden centres tend only to have 'lollipops' - at exorbitant prices. However, I saw some rooted bay cuttings for sale, about 9" high, and reasonably priced, a few weeks ago.
I treated myself to one, and it is in a pot in as sheltered a spot of my garden as I could find. I hope to be be picking leaves from it next year.
What I will do with it when it outgrows its pot is another matter, but I hope to have a good few leaves in store by then, and maybe another rooted cutting coming along.
I am not a fan of wisteria (looks fabulous for a fortnight each year and a bundle of wood and leaves the rest of the time) but one of the houses in our road had a lovely one growing up one wall and along the roof of the adjacent garage. The house has changed hands in the last few years and they have clearly had it inexpertly "pruned." No flowers to speak of this spring, which is a shame.
Today we're planning to liberate an old unusable bin store again, so it can be used as a space to store bikes and outside toys. I always wanted to put a roof on, but this time the trees are providing far more cover. We did this a few years ago, with the landlord's permission, until it got broken into taking anything worth having, including mine and my daughter's bikes. It's needed again now for another neighbour's bike and far more protected since the tree has grown so much bigger.
Unusable as a bin store because it's set back some distance from the road into the gardens and the path to the store is too narrow for the big wheelie bins. The bin stores that work are in the car parks. So far I've found the padlock keys and used enough WD40 to remove it from the hasp locking the door, turning two sets of clothing green from the door in passing. We now need to climb in and prune hard to go any further.
Baby Blue Tits have left the nest box now, but not sure what has happened to the Chaffinches. Or exactly where their nest is/was.
I don't know whether outdoor herbs would work here - our main deck faces north, so anything on there wouldn't get much sun. We've got a tiny little deck at the back door; it's really just the landing at the top of the steps, but it has a wooden rail round it that might lend itself to some sort of box arrangement. It would, however, depend on my ability to remember that it was there, and act on that remembrance ...
Also, we'd have to make alternative arrangements for the winter, as I don't imagine herbs are very fond of -15°C.
_____
We're happily still in Ascensiontide, for which there's so much lovely music, and this morning's offering was Blow's O pray for the peace of Jerusalem (with solo piglet), which was rather fun.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=R0sJkm1C57I
No solo piglet, though!
Now the thought of that made me happy ....
I felt cod & chips were in order as I couldn’t think what to cook, but regret that now. I need to be better organised - I have a relatively quick turn around (to include a very necessary shower) before taking my flute to the guest evening of a West Gallery group that i think I might join, if they’ll have me. Sitting around hasn’t been for today - they will be plenty of time tomorrow when I am invigilating all day.
@Bishops Finger - that is indeed the very piece, although we did it a little faster that that rendition.
ION, there is such a thing as a free lunch, because we got one today. We usually cook for Sunday lunch, but as we had Evensong this afternoon we didn't really have time to go home in between services, so we went to East Side Mario's, and when D. asked for the bill, the waitress said that a gentleman had paid it. We have no idea who he was: we didn't see anyone we knew when we went in, but whoever he was thank you - you're a total gent!
We've occasionally been the recipients of "paying it forward", where the driver of the car in front of you in the drive-in at Tim's pays for your coffee, but getting lunch with a glass of wine ... my ghast is flabbered!
I enjoyed this evening’s rehearsal and have been invited to the next (not open) one, so I feel very privileged. And membership isn’t up to me - it’s by invitation so I’d better be on my best behaviour.
Less fun was the train journey back, which took five hours because of an electrical failure. Captain Pyjamas was not a happy camper by time we got off. (Yes, we were that family with the howling baby, but it wasn’t our fault, guv. Stuck on a train for five hours, baby’s gonna cry. Blame the SNCF.)
It's a warm, slightly close day here: 19° and sunny-ish. It was warm last night (it didn't get below 11°): we left the bedroom window open for the first time this year.
I'm contemplating an amble later, but we had a very late and very large* lunch, so I'm giving myself a bit of recovery time.
* We had bought a couple of what looked like quite small lamb-shanks and I cooked them last night in a casserole in the oven, reheating them today, and they seemed to have grown - I think one would have fed both of us.
They were really rather good though, and I'm now in the process of turning the bones (and some others I had in the freezer) into stock.
Lentil dahl, poppadoms and yoghurt for tea, followed by a slice of Viennetta.
Mrs. S, who ate two slices and wished she hadn't....
That’s kind of him!
Daughter came home from uni last night with what seems to be a year's worth of washing (I know it can't be - she's obsessively clean). I have washed it and it will hang outside until it is dry if that takes a fortnight! No room for so much wet washing indoors.
Instead of formal bible study groups, my church has a revolving programme for which church members volunteer to lead a group for a term. It might be a knitting group, it might be a bible study, it might be voluntary work; guidelines are flexible. It gives the opportunity for lots of different people to lead groups rather than relying on the same individuals. Being a large church there is a wide variety of choice each term.
So I’m toying with the idea of a 5 week course on death and dying as I think that will be beneficial for the congregation. I’ve got a plan of 5 weeks; intro, death, dying, bereavement and resurrection. I want to run it as a death cafe, where there is open discussion about our thoughts and feelings, ending in a bible reading. I teach a module on death and dying so the idea of a death cafe and discussing related theory is no problem but I’m no theologian. I’m currently drawing up a draft plan so I can approach someone to work with me on that side.
Yes, thanks, I have those resources - I bought a copy for our minister as he hadn’t heard of death cafes (we’re an independent church). Have you tried it out? I will probably use some of the cards to prompt discussion.
Going to a Quaker death cafe at a Greenbelt sowed my original idea of hosting one, I’m very into removing taboos about health related issues.
ION, it's a cloudy day here, with a leaking sky.
I blame trump.
On a different note, this local news has I think surprised many people: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48512697. Personally I think it's a great decision (I live not far from said motorway) but many folk are extremely upset and angry. There may however be a judicial review.
I am trying to avoid such exposure, and will now have to go and lie down.
Is that when someone turns in their grave?
It offends me seeing the work on the Heads of the Valleys road down Black Rock gorge - yes, the road can be landscaped and prettified, but I feel a deep sorrow that the rock formations that have been excavated can never be put back ☹️
Set meself up for that one, no?