Bill?

Just wondering if anyone has heard from Bill? Or are you out there, dear chap?

Coo! Purple potatoes to go with the oven gloves flambe

I thought I'd discovered a new potato for Purplecoombe but Hub3 says its blight!

Oven gloves flambee

I was standing in the kitchen tonight, leaning on the stove, waiting for the dinner to cook when Husband came in wearing One of His Looks. Oh heck, what had I done now?

He pointed to my hand, which was on fire (well, the oven glove it was wearing was). I was wondering why it felt a bit warm! I was also wondering why I could smell burning... He grabbed the glove, with its really quite impressive flames, and doused it in the sink before leaving the room, eyes raised to heaven.

Time, I think, for a glass of wine! Incidentally, I don't often burn the food, just the gloves...

Gardener's World

Just been eating fillet steak a la maison in the Conservatory. The rain beat down on the glass, but those funny lot at Gardeners World carried on regardless! Not bad really, at least there wasn't a bit of decking in sight. But oh dear, I can't afford to buy conifers as tall as that even if I wanted to. And the Green garden - lots of bits of colour which they seemed to think weren't colour? And now the wine that went with the steak has taken over and I can't think of all the other comments I had to make!
I feel another garden walk coming on. I am delighted that so many of you seem to enjoy my strolls around the garden. If only you knew how much work goes into it!! Been out there weeding this afternoon either side of 4.00, in case you didn't know. I could feel all of you doing the same thing. What is it about a garden? A very very special place, even if the S.E. wind is blowing hard and the rain coming at intervals, with sun between. I may have said it before, but it bares repeating, God is very close in a garden, as He is in our little church, with the sound of the birds. Don't forget to shut the door as you leave. If a Swallow gets in it is hard to get it out and it tends to die.
See you soon for the next stroll but not just yet.

SKOOL DINNERS ARE CHANGING!!!

It has come to the attention of the Board of Governors that the Skool Dinners are not quite meeting the requirements of the illustrious inmates of the establishment. Therefore, to prevent outright rebellion, a few alterations have been made on popular demand. The menu shall now read:

Breakfast: Flip au Jacko: raspberry jelly whipped with Carnation and scratch, brown sugar and butter porridge on the side.

Elevenses: Oatcakes Surprise (sorry Pondside!)

Lunch: Skool sossages standing on their heads in extra eggy batter delicately (hemhem) fragranced with Irish whisky.
Angel Delight with capers.

Tea: Jam (scrapings from jam pan, once Cook has removed her feet) on savoury oyster scones.

Le Dejeuner: Moules, chips, chicken and salad, with Belgian beer or red wine as preferred. Scratchings as optional side dish.
Sago pudding sans lumps, with chocolate chips and lashings of golden syrup.

Supper: Wine and chocolate!

Also, on emptying Blossom's kit-bag of the squaddie and the firemen, who should we discover lurking at the bottom? None other than the lovely Jean Christophe Novelli himself, so things will be looking up soon, although he must be detained in the Office for a thorough 'debriefing' before he can take up his new duties as the Skool Chef. We expect a lot more volounteers for veg-prep and pan scrubbing duties in the future.

All further suggestions will be considered - please continue to drop them into Cait's Skool Dinners suggestion box below!

I have weeded.

....and I'll be blogging in a minute too, and on there you can check out the size of the bag of weeds I collected. You will notice only one glove, this is because I totally wrecked the other one. Fortunately I had two pairs ( I now have one and a half pairs! ) I did stand back at 6.00 p.m. and admire my weed free borders, and said "thank you" to Lesley, even though we never met, because she is directly responsible for my garden looking so good.

Final Farewell

I joined 100 people to say my final farewell to a much loved friend.

We drove along the quiet country lanes to the village church, passing the field near Lesley’s house, there standing guard in the sunshine was the white peacock.

To the sound of 30 choral voices, the perfume of spring flowers, the words of her much loved children we said our final farewell.

I left a small terracotta pot of my own flowers picked this morning with a card which read

There is a hole in my heart and my life where you lived.
Once a long time ago you held me tight until the pain went away,
I hope I held you tight until your pain went away.
It was a privilege to have had you in my life and to have been your friend.

Thank you all so very much for your prays, your thoughts, your friendship and your weeding, may all of those who left our world this week be surrounded by as much love as Lesley was.

Blossom

Confessions of a serial mower - Blossom

For Lesley I have weeded, and mowed and planted out my sweet peas on their wigwam on this bright, sunny breezy day. Whilst in the greenhouse I found this cactus lying up a corner where I had dumped it last year because it looked so sickly!! I have never seen it bloom before and here it is, for blossom, in full bloom.

Almost time

A weeding we will go.

Confessions of a serial mower - a coincidence

Odd things often happen to me, but this one today was extraordinary.
To cheer myself up and to buy a little something new for the summer I popped into a nearby market town where they have a lovely boutique. I explained to the friendly lady who was serving what I wanted and said it was my anniversary tomorrow, and that I wanted to trendy myself up a bit.
"Its my anniversary tomorrow as well she said"
"Really I said" "How many years have you clocked up"
"23 she said"
"Gosh, same as me I said"
Saturday, 19th May, 1984.
We giggle and laugh and then it transpires we married in the same same town and register office, she at 12.00 noon and I at 1.00 pm. She remembered me turning up in a white VW Golf convertible!!
I kid you not, I had never met this woman before, she used to live the other side of the county, and there we were, joined by coincidence.
It was one of those "purple" moments that we seem to share here so often.
As far as I know, she does not know Princess Ann though!!!

Skool Dinners

I have blogged and have included the following call to arms.

A Call for 'Recipe and/or Favourite Ingredients' Suggestions.

No-one has commented on the boring Purplecoo skool dinners by the way. Who is going to be brave and stand up to Headmistress? Has it to be me? See my blog for suggestions, ideas we could pass on? Let us know your favourite must-have ingredients and also your favourite meals.

As for breakfasts, I volunteer to make the porridge in future, I don’t want to brag but I am a connoisseur and you would never guess that I use soya milk. Some of us are lactose-intolerant!

I promise to add golden syrup and also masses of chocolate chips? And generous lacings of Irish whisky?

We have a big 'comments' list to beat. We can do it. Let's whet our appetites and fight for good skool meals.

Calling all you Expat women bloggers at the purple coo!!!

I have enlisted un peu loufoque with a group called EXPAT women who have a website and with whom one can link ones blog.. there are other things besides on there too, the aim being to link expatriot women around the world so if any of you are Expat women and are interested do have a look at...http://www.expatwomen.com/

Sadly although I did ask they do not supply free camels to successful submissions. Quelle damage!

Weeding of Remembrance

Weeding of remembrance


Blossom - from all of us we will be thinking of you at 12.00 today - Lesley's memorial service.

And at 4.00 pm today lets get out into those gardens and join together in our weeding of remembrance. Let us celebrate the lives of all of those we have loved and lost and give Blossom and Lesley's family a great big purple hug.

If you can't go and physically pull up a weed at 4.00pm then stop for a minute, close your eyes and do a bit of mental weeding.

Ok girls - trowels at the ready - virtual and real - and see you all at 4.00.

this isn't a proper post just a moan...

Don't have time or headspace for anything. My beloved 8 year old is still ill and I am exhausted. She isn't getting better and the fact that it's not serious nor life threatening isn't cheering me up one jot. She has been off school for 4 weeks now.

Hate to moan about this but would oh so love someone to come and take over for a bit. This is when I really do miss my mum! And I do appreciate that other people have really serious illnesses to contend with but I hate watching my little one washed out and in pain and sad. She misses her friends and they miss her - goodness knows how far she's falling behind at school. So we have booked a cheapie week away at half term somewhere hot - my lovely GP said she'd might as well convalesce there as here. And feel guilty about that too.

Sorry, moan over.

Going back to roots!

Tomorrow my sister and I are going on a little expedition to visit our grandparents grave and other long departed family members. A week ago I wrote to the owners/occupiers of their (our grandparents) house and asked if it would be possible to see inside. I sent photocopies of photos of grandparents, when young and old, and a photo of our parents taken in the garden there. I also sent copies of a few old documents with the address on it, including the receipt for our parents wedding flowers. The owner rang me up yesterday and said we can come round. I am so excited! She also told me that the stained glass window that grandpa had put in specially is still there. I am so glad - it can't have been cheap. I havent been in that house since my father sold it when I was 12, after tenants had been in it for some years. I haven't stayed in it since I was 9. I wonder how it has changed. Grandma's mangle won't be in the kitchen, thats for sure!

I will blog about our day next week.

Today's one to ponder

OK, so this probably won't stimulate quite such frenzied scribbling as our celebrity countdown but, well, who knows? Having spent half an hour attacking a bush (don't ask me what) which James had started to trim and left looking like a relic from the punk era....I got to thinking about gardening. I know tons of you are hugely knowledgable and enthusiastic so.....

Your absolute top THREE garden plants - and why they're such superstars. I was going to say just ONE but figured there would be an uprising.

Now onto the veg patch - once again THREE only....

Pictures would be good.....talking of which, what the heck is this plant? It's taking over!

Urgent Meeting

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL GIRLS

There will be a meeting in the Common Room at 11 this morning to discuss how we are to spend the £17,550. Please arrive promptly.


[Full explanation on Bits of Nonsense Blog]