Hello,
Firstly, welcome to those of you who are new to The Post House Chronicles, it’s lovely to find you here. If you want to know more about where you’ve ended up you could read this, otherwise feel free to read on.
April and May really are the very best months aren’t they? Everything properly greened up, the days ever longer, the birds singing their hearts out - it is apparently Dawn Chorus Day on Sunday should you wish to set your alarms and leave your windows open.
I tried very hard to be a little more disciplined and productive this week, and though I’m not really sure how to assess my success the days have been - full although perhaps marginally slower on my part due to my ongoing degenerate spine.
Since the beginning of the year we have been living with a degree of uncertainty over Mike’s job, fortunately not concerned with losing it but rather where it was going to be located in future. Having been asked twice already to take on a regional role it was difficult to refuse again, and from August he will be located in Munich. I am genuinely proud of his career success, but I had perhaps relaxed into the idea that our relocating days were over and had rather hoped he could stay put as he slipped gently into retirement.
He has commuted weekly for the past eleven years now, not because we actively chose to live this way but rather to accommodate the girls finishing school where they were, and then somehow we just carried on. I don’t relish him being away so much, and now the girls have well and truly left home the house can feel rather quiet and empty.
When the move was first mooted I toyed with the idea of joining Mike for a couple of years in Munich, but in reality he will be travelling frequently and what would I do with myself there? And what about the house and garden? It all feels too difficult to leave or indeed to move out and let - and frankly I don’t think I have the energy for another big house move!
So once again the corporate world somehow controls my own vicariously, and after a very early start for an airport drop off (of daughter) this morning I found myself feeling teary and resentful of the situation. It won’t really be so different from the last decade, but somehow being a flight apart rather than a drive feels much more distant, and the hurdle of finding dog and garden care results in my travelling more regularly feel like hard work. We’ll figure it out of course and two years will fly by. But still, I feel a bit meh about it all today so I forsook healthy choices, enjoyed cornflakes and a couple of chocolate hobnobs for breakfast and headed out for a walk!
I am mostly ridiculously feeble when it comes to doing anything with power tools, persuading myself that Mike will do the job better than I and waiting for him to be at home. But this week, in light of the above, I decided it was time to get a grip and embrace the many tools at my disposal. First up was to install the new water butt that had been sitting in the hall since the weekend. I would like to say I was successful, I mean it is in situ and the butt is connected to the downpipe, but it has yet to rain and prove that the joint is good. Fingers crossed!
Second job involved the angle grinder, the tool of choice when faced with bits of ceramic material welded onto kiln shelves by unimaginably runny glazes in an over hot kiln!
Third were the power secateurs and a mini chainsaw. These are a recent investment which have given me a whole new scope of jobs in the garden; my arthritic thumb has meant that for some time cutting woody stems is quite painful - but this is a game changer and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed chopping and snipping my way through a large pile of prunings from last year which are destined to become an ash glaze.
It occurs to me that I am not the only woman I know who isn’t wholly confident with power tools - probably because we were given prams and ironing boards as children rather than hammers! I heard The Salvage Sister being interviewed on Radio 4 recently and wish there was something in person and more local. Are you a demon or a disaster with a drill?
The orchard, planted with cider apples in the early ‘80s, is looking rather sad. So many of the trees are dead or dying due to the enormous mistletoe burden they carry. When we moved here three years ago I did hope we’d be able to save them, but it’s too late really and any intervention would have cost thousands. I console myself with the knowledge that dead wood is valuable in orchards for its role in encouraging biodiversity, and we’ll let them gently go on their way.
I read somewhere this week that native bluebells (rather than Spanish sort) are an indicator of an area having previously been ancient woodland; the orchard’s border sport many of the blue beauties and make me question whether we should replace the fallen trees with native woodland trees rather than more cider apples? We are not, after all, cider makers and the orchard is too small for commercial makers to be interested in.
Suffering from post-bisque existential dread I still have a pile of wares waiting to be glazed. I have made more tests (without melting anything onto the shelves this time) and know I simply must gird my loins and get on with it! But, in a slightly procrastinatory way I am in the middle of an experiment with slip and soft clay on some vessels I threw this week and am itching to get them bisque fired and see if they look any good.
I surprised myself this week, having a large pile of reclaimed clay waiting to be kneaded and used I decided to have a go at throwing larger pieces that I do usually and rather enjoyed it. Working with two or three kilos of clay can feel daunting if you’re used to throwing with less than half a kilo regularly, it was challenging but mostly mentally since the basics are really no different - centre the clay, open it out, pull up the walls and add shape (ish).
The plastic palace hokey cokey (thank you to Pollyanna Wilkinson for the turn of phrase) is a twice daily occurrence now - taking all the seedlings outside for the day and back in at night to harden them off. The squash I sewed have all propagated happily and I’m now faced with the question of where I can plant them in due course. There are three large beds in the veg garden, but one has been appropriated for onions and shallots (I’m grateful he’s given up on potatoes) and the other two are destined for flowers.
I don’t want to create yet another bed and as I stare out of the window I find myself wondering whether they would get sufficient light beneath the hydrangeas? Alternatively, since the once ‘big empty border’ is now partially empty once again perhaps they could act as a placeholder there while I figure that whole mess out - and squash are surely preferable to Sticky Willy and Ground Elder!
The predicted rain this weekend will be most welcome here, the ground is cracked and with all the energy being pushed into lush spring growth everything is in need of a stiff drink.
As I turn the page of my planner to May I see that I have diarised emergency box; some time ago I heard Professor Lucy Easthope discussing the sense of having some basic disaster survival supplies stored in the home, and while I don’t think I could class myself as a survivalist or prepper given the current ‘situation’ globally (scrunching face and waving arms around vaguely) maybe it’s not a bad idea.
So, I will be spending the long weekend researching wind up radios and imagining gourmet meals created from tinned food - may your weekend be equally if not more thrilling!
With love,
Vx
ps. Thanks once again for the ♥️ - each one makes me smile. xx
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