LATE SOUNDS ,SWEET AND SOUR!

I spend a good deal of the not wide awake and in the summer time when the night air is warm I always have my bedroom windows wide open,with the breeze blowing through the room it sometimes feels at times as though I am out side in the dark orchard.




Ten until midnight voices are the main feature, people arguing. Very occasionally a fight breaks out mostly boy girl arguments...very dull as I rule and on one memorable occasion a poor soul totally inebriated and hopelessly lost banged on the doors of various houses in the lane for hours until ,worn out he fell asleep in a garden shortly before the police arrived to put him in a safe place while he sobered up.



After midnight the voices cease and cars,usually being driven much to quickly whiz up and down the lane. Aeroplanes are fewer but still noisy.Gradually these sounds cease and then for me the night begins.



Sounds unheard during the busy noisy day are wonderfully audible. Soft summer evenings bring the sibilant sound of the leaves rustling softly, soothing and calming after a busy day.

Nights can be so still that even these sounds disappear and nights such as this the rustling is made by hedgehogs foraging below my windows. Foxes call to each other,a greeting,a warning and cubs snarl as the play fight among my flower beds.



Blackbirds rally do sing in the dead of night ans we have Nightingales too...bliss.



Ear splitting crashes are not uncommon when the badgers visit,their favourite trick is to upturn the flower pots in search of chaffer grubs;so many pots have been smashed in this way that I am replacing them with plastic ones,not as attractive but much more durable.



Annoying sounds like the high pitched hum of mosquitoes worry me no longer as last year I equipped us all with mosquito nets...no more bumps in the night! From time to time an ambulance or a police car scream by after which the silence is ,for a time absolute,but never for long.



A moth battering its poor wings against the window glass can be deafening and should a flying beetle manage to get in to my room bumbling and bumping about the ceiling I have the amusement of catching them and releasing them again.



In the light of the street lamps bats try their luck among the many insects drawn to the brightness,some of the hornets are almost as large as the pipistrell bats which haunt our lane in their dozens.



Four in the morning brings the return of the aeroplanes,not many at first but the number increases as the time passes,now the cars return,using the lane s a short cut to avoid the traffic lights. Delivery drivers,milk men ,post men join the procession until at last the lane is busy again with people taking Rover or Trixy for an early morning walk. Night is over and the noisy day begins.



From five to seven with the television on I sleep.



The past week has seen a departure from this comparatively “easy country charm” for every night for the past six days the burglar alarm at the house opposite has blared,bleeped and flashed for hours. He house holders are away,and the police;who have been called several times a night by several sleepless householders) do not,and I quote”Usually turn out for burglar alarms on private dwellings,”

Makes you think doesn,t , all those companies selling security appliances which only serve to keep the neighbours awake.

The person I spoke to when I called asked me if I could see any lights on in the property,my view of the large house concerned is the rear view of the house and I could see no sing of either lights or life.



The person informed me that unless I could see something like a flash light beam she could not pass the message on to a patrol. I pointed out that

1. I could only see a small proportion of the house so that only the Gods knew what was occurring at the front .

2. The occupants could all be lying with their throats cut.

3. Surely no self respecting burglar would signal hiss presence by flashing a torch about for all to see.

Unimpressed by my remarks the person asked if I could go out in to the street to have a look,so of course I told her that I was disabled and not in the habit of mooching about the lane at two in the morning at the best of ties an certainly not when their might be burglars about.

She sounded quite put out and made me feel that *I was being singularly unhelpful and that since I was unable to help any further at the moment I should call back should anything else occur. This seemed tantamount to asking me to stake out the place... no thank you.



For the past few nights I and the rest f the residents in along the lane have resorted to earplugs and to hell with the police! If they cannot be asked we are sure that we are all better off in bed. There is just one thing which worries me, no one has seen the occupants who are reputed to be on holiday.....or their staff who are not...odd don't you think?

CARROT AND LENTIL SOUP

With the return of the yukky weather the craving for hot soup has also returned and as today is a bread baking day I decided to make a summer soup which we all love.




1 lb carrots peeled and thinly sliced

half a pound of red lentils

I lb onions peeled and finely sliced

3pints of vegetable stock

salt and pepper

bouquet garni made of thyme marjoram and tarragon.

Half a pint of cream

2 cloves of garlic crushed

Peel and chop the carrots

2 oz butter

1 tblsp plain flour

2 teaspoons mild curry powder if liked mixed with a little water.



Heat the butter in a large heavy bottomed saucepan ,dust the onion rings in the flour and cook very slowly in the butter until soft and golden,this takes about ten minutes.

Add the sliced carrots garlic , bouquet garni and stock then season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil then add the lentils and simmer for thirty minutes until the carrots are soft and the lentils have begun to dissolve.

Blitz the soup in a liquidizer of pass through a sieve. Mix the curry in to the soup and simmer gently for a further thirty minutes then add the cream. Serve hot.

I find the soup quite flavoursome enough without the curry but if you like a little heat it certainly gives the dish a real lift.

At home I would serve this soup with crust home made bread but croutons are also quite acceptable and garlic bread sticks also make a change.



An old primary school friend of my sons visited us this afternoon,he is one of the few people who are taller than my son which singles him out from the crowd. We are all very fond of this young man and it makes me very happy that whenever he come home to see his parents he always looks us up too. He spent a great deal of time at our home as a child, he was a dear little boy and has grown into a fine young man who we are proud to know.



Today I began to make the winters supply of Apple and Thyme Jelly and to my shame I was obliged to purchase the apples my own crop having been a dismal failure. No one hereabouts has any Bramleys.H owgates or any other cooking apple and the price in the shops reflects the apparent nation wide shortage.

This years chutney will most likely be made of damsons instead of apples as by the time I have made the Apple and Blackberry , Apple and Elderberry and Apple and Rose Hip the expense will be enough.



Damsons are so plentiful that excepting for some serious mishap Damson Wine made by my neighbour and Damson Gin made by myself should be abundant. Much of our home made produce is given as gifts at Christmas and on other occasions and ,also to local charities which we supply with hampers to be auctioned at village fairs etc. it is a good way to raise money ,last year one lady alone purchased twenty pounds worth of tickets for one of our hampers.



Well done to all those competing at the London Olympics,we were especially delighted when Mo Farah won gold as he went to the same school as my son and is just a year younger. Apart from being a great athlete he is a great role model who,s love of sport kept him on the straight and narrow. We need more lads like him!

ALL GROWN UP

Remember when buttercups were tall and their golden pollen,


Stained your dress as their waist high glory, gilded the afternoon.

Small bosky places were filled with mystery and became in turn

Caves, palaces and dungeons deep as deep, and an old oak stump a castle keep.



Blue distance on a hazy August day, a faraway land where perhaps,

A fairy Queen held sway. Perhaps in that strange distance

Elephants and lions roared and ruled .Another day, Red Indian brave, s stalked

The soft eyed deer, or terrible dragon, s walked.



Nothing lost upon a child’s eye, bright as a robin’s and as quick

To see anything good berries for a crown and golden wheat straw.

Apples, ransom for a King or a fearless outlaws hoard,

Won with great valour and a wooden sword.



Tell me now, what is it that you see, over by the woods edge

Arthur’s seat perhaps or just an old dead tree?

AAAAAAAAAARRGH !

Damn me for the fool that I am,damn and double damn!


I stupidly gave my repeat prescription to Pa after I had collected it on Thursday as he was to take it to the pharmacy for me first thing on Friday morning; pa being Pa he forgot.

This morning he set out to the pharmacy only to return half an hour later to ask me where the prescription was?

Curse me for a blithering idiot! Why did I leave it in his care? It was I suppose the triumph of faith over experience as this is the third time in a row that he has managed to mislay this important document.

He searched, I searched, we both searched every place that it could be a dozen times and the we search all the places that it could not possibly be over and over again.

In total I spent over an hour on this bootless project and as I was turning out my desk(where I knew it wasn't for the umpteenth time, he found it, stuck he said on the top of the refrigerator.

How did it arrive in that unlikely location? Your guess is as good as mine but by the time he left for the pharmacy again I was practically gibbering!

Over the years this performance of mislaying things at vital moments has been Pa's party piece and as I age I find his lackadaisical attitude more and more frustrating.

I cannot count how many times Pa and I have come to the end of a lovely meal on a special night out and when the time arrives to pay the bill …..here we go.....the frantic searching of his pockets begins.

He empties everything out on to the table trawling through the detritus muttering “I know I have it here somewhere”I have sat dying with excruciating embarrassment so often I have forgotten exactly how many times Pa has done this. Eventually of course he always found the damn thing but that is beside the point; the evening was always ruined!

I solved the problem eventually by refusing to go out to dinner with hi, ever again!

God help me, the number of times we have gone through the check out at the super market , the girl on the till announces the exorbitant sum we have manage to spend and of he goes.

Searching his pockets, my hand bag, scrabbling around in a mass of old receipts like a demented chicken scratching about for a worm. Only after an age of cringing embarrassment suffered while other shoppers tut tutted did he find the wretched thing in and obscure pocket of his jacket. I no longer take him shopping....ever!

Once we set off on A holiday to Pembrokeshire and half way their the car broke down.
Guess who had not remembered to pick up his A.A card? Got it in one.

That sorted while we waited for a tow home I was on the telephone arranging for a hire car to be delivered to our home so that we could set out again leaving our own car safely at the garage.

No problem I caught the car hire firm just as they were closing and they kindly agreed to deliver the car to our house where we would meet them, I paid over the phone with my own credit card.......yes we used them in those days... the went back in triumph to Pa and my son to tell them that I had saved the day. Pa seemed a little distant but we were half way home before he admitted that he did not have his driving licence on him, and in fact had no idea where it was,

Now you should know that I always asked him before the start of a journey to make sure he had this vital document. All the way home I was frantic and when we arrived at four in the afternoon we spent the next two hours tearing the house apart in trying to find the blessed thing............... We found it........in Pa's wallet where it had been the whole time stuck behind an old train ticket.

Hungry, drained and totally exhausted we set out for Pembrokeshire again at six thirty in the evening and although it was fun chasing the sun set all the way to the Bristol channel I was smouldering with a rage so severe that it took half a bottle of vodka to calm me down .

So why do I trust him with my prescription? Insanity I should think!

During the course of this week alone he has lost t the insurance certificate for the scooters and several appointment cards for hospital, by set of screwdrivers and a ball of blue tack.

Does he do it deliberately? Do you know that after forty years of marriage I cannot tell, BUT; should I ever be able to prove that he does,his end will be swift and my sentence a long one!

RETROSPECTIVE

I had not time to write today so I decided to regale you with on of my rather rude folksy poems...sorry in advance!


When winds howl wildly round at night


And you huddle before the fire.

Remembering the good old days,

Memory is such a liar.



You don’t remember all the times

When in the dead of night,

You had to brave the dark back yard,

If you wanted to have a shite.



You don’t recall the many times,

A hundred times or maybe more,

When you shivered in the frosty rimes,

That blew beneath the toilet door.



The times you had to whistle as

You sat on the old bog seat

Because if someone was about,

They could hear you down the street.



Remember the wad of paper

Remember the dreadful hum

And never forget the news headlines

That were smeared across your bum



So when you sit in state upon

Your comfy indoor throne

Remember the past and be thankful you have

A bog to call your own.

FULL CIRCLE

Many years ago on a wet summer holiday I introduced my son to a game called Hero Quest, a sort of Conan the Barbarian a board game with miniature figures scenery dungeons swords and sorcery.


During the following years Pa and I painted literally hundreds of these tiny figures,not to mention horses castles dragons and demons. My sons friends practically lived at our house during these years and the pain of treading upon a plastic dwarf soon took the place of the Lego morris dance whenever one stepped on a piece unawares.

Gradually as the teen years crept up on us the dungeons and dragons vanished and were replaced by space creatures,metal spiders tanks rhinos and the miniatures as usual needed painting,Pa and I began again with the magnifying glasses and the tiny paintbrushes.

College then university and by now it was considered that playing with miniatures was for the kids and fantasy role playing took over,reigned and ruled until last week.
Suddenly the sophisticated Kamikaze Dugeoneers realised how much they had missed the miniatures and the scenery,since when an endless stream of parcels,books and gaming tables have appeared at the door.

Seemingly endless telephone calls in to the early hours and internet chat has obsessed my son completely and from what I gather his cronies are even more smitten than he spending hundreds of pounds on ready painted figures, citadels, trenches and trees.

In the twenty two years that my son and his friend have been absorbed by these various games they have come full circle and they are as excited as children about their Sunday game. I always loved the intricacy painted figures and Am glad to see them again but I am even more pleased that these highly detailed and decorative objects can now be purchased ready painted as these days my eyesight is not what it was all those years ago.

When we are children little boys are given railway sets to play with and Pa still spends hours with his model railway. Boys are given toy cars,footballs and Hero Quest games and they continue to play with these toys in one form or another all through their lived.

Girls are given toy irons and kitchen appliances,baby dolls that wet their nappies and dolls houses to keep in order, it is unfortunate true that girls to are obliged to play with such toys for the rest of their lives. It seems unfair and yet although I detested dolls and girls toys have enjoyed being a wife and mother and have a passion for cooking so I suppose we must call it fate.

A TRIUMPH FOR COMMUNITY MUSCLE

After several years of campaigning, lobbying the local council, the London Assembly and MPs, I can announce a great breakthrough which will make an enormous difference to the tree stock in our borough.

As you know, we have been at war with Laings, the contractors chosen by our Local Authority to 'maintain' our parks, green spaces and cemeteries. In the course of their work, much damage has been done to the trees and wildlife in and around Isleworth as a result of their total lack of knowledge regarding matters ecological. Since our Local Authority abdicated all responsibility to Laings and no longer have any Tree Officers of their own, you might suppose that they would have ensured that the contractors they appointed would have their own experts. However, you would be wrong – until today!

For several years they and their sub-contractors, Continental Landscapes (more like Continental Moonscapes) have hacked and slashed their way through our parks and graveyards without any consideration for the wishes of the public but more importantly, the needs of the environment. As a result, some areas, such as All Saints Graveyard, lost most of their wildlife, with many trees hacked down or disfigured by bad pruning. The wonderful old cedar had its lower branches hacked off, and will bear the mark of this vandalism for the rest of its days.

The final straw was last week; the strimming of a small plantation of trees in a conservation area in Park Road. One of these trees was a rare Black Poplar, such as those provided to London Boroughs by the Queen to mark her Diamond Jubilee.

At last, thanks to the many people who over the past months have written, called and otherwise harassed Laings, they have finally listened to reason, and appointed a qualified arborealist, Raymond Bennet, who will be responsible for managing the local trees in future, using his own team. ISCAG members met with him today at Silver Hall Park, where much damage has recently been done, in order to discuss future plans for the park and other green spaces, and we can now hope that the trees in our parks and gardens will now be safe.

However, the fight continues. The removal of trees and undergrowth on Syon Lane still reflectes the 'scorched earth' policy favoured by our Local Authority; these green corridors are vital for the well-being of the wildlife in our area, as they are the means of travel used by small animals, and the undergrowth houses nesting birds and hibernating insects.Trees on the roadsides will stillbe at the mercy of Laings, and they will do as they please with no-one to question them.

Another major issue is the use of strimmers and brushcutters, the result of which I have unfortunately seen with my own eyes, in the form of dead hedgehogs or abandoned birds' nests. Recent strimming at Silver Hall Park resulted in the death of several Moorhen chicks, killed while the parents helplessly tried to protect their nests.

No feeling being can find this acceptable; but it must be recognised that while Laings are at the forefront of this carnage, they were given a carte blanche to do so by our elected representatives. This poses a question.

Why on Earth was an organisation with no expertise in this area given the contract in the first place! By wilfully ignoring all attempts by the people they purport to represent to alert them to this problem, they show much to be desired as our 'elected representatives'.

ISCAG continues the fight, as does the newly-formed Friends of Silver Hall Park, and the Friends of St' Johns Park. We will fight until what remains of our precious green space, and the wildlife within, is safe for those who will come after us. We will protect it from the excesses of the contractors, and will oppose any further building in the conservation areas, some of which are currently under threat.

All those who have helped us – whether by fundraising, writing letters or signing petitions – earn our greatful thanks. Please continue in your efforts, join us if you can. You will be most welcome! If you wish to set up a 'Friends of...' in your area, we can help to set you on the right road.