Joybringers

It was a beautiful day over at Quarry Bank Mill. We met up with the grandchildren and enjoyed a walk and a chase in the fresh air. William loves climbing and he feels it’s his duty when at the summit to refer to us all down below as ‘dirty rascals’. And, as the King of the castle, quite right too.

Meanwhile, Martha was being pursued along a watercourse by a troll, or was it Oma?

Despite the recent dip in temperature, which I’m sure is temporary, the flowers are still giving it their best shot, brightening the place up.

As we’re walking along, Martha announces that she wants to be eaten by a tree stump. That’s a strange ambition, we all insist. But, would you Adam and Eve it?

Now for some news from abroad. While Liesel was in Alaska, she finished her latest creative crochet project: a blanket whose forever home is with our really old friend Holly in Washington state.

Liesel’s got back into the routine very quickly with the WI, walks and meetings for coffee, not to mention the knitting group. I continue to plod around Northenden gazing forlornly upon the litter but not quite feeling the urge to do anything about it.

Liesel and I went over to Dunham Massey for  nice long walk, and again here, the flowers are blooming marvellous. As you’ll know by now, my horticultural knowledge is limited, by which I mean, laughable. But I do recognise and can name the odd bloom.

Yes, this one’s in a pot, but I must admit when I first saw it from a distance, I thought they were pulling a fast one, selling dandelions. But as least they give you some free peat with this item.

As we walked through the garden, we watched a young lady approach a tree. We thought she was going to give it a hug, but in the end, she just poked it. Well, hippy that I am, I felt sorry for the tree, so I gave it a hug and apologised for the human race.

Another tree that drew our attention was this Tibetan cherry, whose bark seemed to be soaking up the Sun.

One thing we hadn’t anticipated was seeing rabbits in the garden, eating the exhibits.

Apparently, there’s a small gap in the fence and the rabbits moved in. The volunteers agreed that while they’re quite cute, they’re definitely in the wrong place.

Of course, the highlight of the week was helping Martha celebrate her 6th birthday. There were twelve of us in the house altogether, and I think Martha had a ball. Well, not literally a ball, but she did seem to have a good time.

In years gone by, we’ve celebrated Martha’s birthday out in the garden. Not today though. Instead, we enjoyed watching the hailstorm outside.

Not only hail, and big hailstones at that, but we had lightning and thunder. So, by common consent, we stayed indoors and played with balloons.

William still thinks he’s Spiderman and he performs all his own stunts, leaping from one sofa to the other.

The children, that’s William and Martha and their cousins Annabel and Emily, had party food while us grown-ups enjoyed a very tasty and very spicy Chinese takeaway. The birthday cake was delicious, held together by a fence of both mint and orange flavoured Matchsticks.

This week’s radio show has the theme of Pronouns. As ever, it’s first broadcast on Wythenshawe Radio WFM97.2 on Friday at 2pm, online, TuneIn app, smart speaker and locally on 97.2 FM. It’s repeated the following Wednesday at 10pm. And I’ll upload each show to Mixcloud. So there’s no excuse for missing it!