I am not a gambler, but may have to change. My Gamblers' Pot Luck Collection of bulbs has just arrived. More planting my bones and muscles complain. Treats ahead the rest of me cries.
It is a very clever idea. The garden company makes packages of the bulbs they have left in uneconomical numbers and sends them out to people who are prepared to take a punt. You have no input into what you receive, but they guarantee that for $45 you will get at least $90 worth of bulbs.
And I am not arguing. Today I received:
3 City of Vancouver Tulips (white)
3 Ad Rem Tulips (bright orange)
5 Yellow Hoop Petticoat Narcissus
5 White Hoop Petticoat Narcissus
5 Pinky-lilac Meadow Saffron bulbs
3 Honey Hush Daffodils (yellow petals, pink cup)
3 Mirar Daffodils (yellow petals, orange cup)
3 Changing Colour Daffodils (white petals, pink to white cup)
3 Honkey Daffodils (white petals, orange cup)
3 Falconet Daffodils (yellow/orange)
1 Spycatcher Daffodil (white petals, yellow cup)
1 Asto Daffodil (white petals, white cup, split corona) and
5 Texas Gold Dutch Iris.
Many of them are sprouting and need to go in the ground fairly quickly. Not quite sure where they are all going to fit either. But fit they will.
Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie
Friday, 29 April 2011
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Yesterday's Treat(s)
Yesterday while having breakfast we were watching a cocky having his.
And then, having finally got all the bulbs that have been delivered in the ground, we had an outing. And went somewhere I love.
Lake Burley Griffin is about half an hours drive from us and there are frequently greedy swans and kangaroos to be seen. So we packed some bread up, took my camera and headed off.
We were mugged. They couldn't get to us or the bread fast enough and were not gentle taking food from fingers. The swans appeared to be the bully boys and were not letting the magpies, crows or moor hens get any food. And when we threw it further away the swans chased after it, honking indignantly. I think at one stage we were surrounded by eight swans.
And then we wandered about 100 yards away to this:
I think that only cats relax more thoroughly than kangaroos. And I am so often grateful to live in the bush capital and have treats like this readily available.
And then, having finally got all the bulbs that have been delivered in the ground, we had an outing. And went somewhere I love.
Lake Burley Griffin is about half an hours drive from us and there are frequently greedy swans and kangaroos to be seen. So we packed some bread up, took my camera and headed off.
We were mugged. They couldn't get to us or the bread fast enough and were not gentle taking food from fingers. The swans appeared to be the bully boys and were not letting the magpies, crows or moor hens get any food. And when we threw it further away the swans chased after it, honking indignantly. I think at one stage we were surrounded by eight swans.
And then we wandered about 100 yards away to this:
I think that only cats relax more thoroughly than kangaroos. And I am so often grateful to live in the bush capital and have treats like this readily available.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Meltdown Over
I expect it will come back and bite me again some time but for the moment I am moving forward again. Thanks to everyone for your support. I would like to say that I won't do that to you again, but I almost certainly will at some stage. I find that the negative emotions like grief, fear and anger are lurkers in the undergrowth. The phrase that's life leapt to my mind then. Why do we only use that phrase for the days when everything goes pear-shaped: when you step out of bed into a pile of freshly deposited cat vomit, all your bones hurt and none of your clothes fit? It would be nice to use it in the context of the days (admittedly rarer) when everything comes together, and everything including body and mind works as it should.
And joy and bliss. All the bulbs that had arrived are now in the ground. Despite me backing into a rose bush and to quote the smaller portion scratching my lower back/upper bum 'in a way which would have made Jazz proud'. We had to squeeeze to get the last tulips in, but they are now in place. Some time later this week another box of spring flowering joy will arrive (the Gambler's Pot Luck collection), but it is likely to be small (only 50 or so bulbs) and I know where they are going to go. And yesterday afternoon the smaller portion and I fixed the lining on the car ceiling so that it no longer droops down and dangerously obscures vision. I was on call for LL last night and it was reasonably quiet and I got most of a night's sleep. Back on a roll again.
Today I plan nothing more strenuous that sweeping the veranda, feeding the birds and reading. I have started a biography of Alfred Bestall, the creator and illustrator of Rupert Bear. And I have loved Rupert since I first stole my brother's Rupert Bear Christmas Annuals all those years ago.
And joy and bliss. All the bulbs that had arrived are now in the ground. Despite me backing into a rose bush and to quote the smaller portion scratching my lower back/upper bum 'in a way which would have made Jazz proud'. We had to squeeeze to get the last tulips in, but they are now in place. Some time later this week another box of spring flowering joy will arrive (the Gambler's Pot Luck collection), but it is likely to be small (only 50 or so bulbs) and I know where they are going to go. And yesterday afternoon the smaller portion and I fixed the lining on the car ceiling so that it no longer droops down and dangerously obscures vision. I was on call for LL last night and it was reasonably quiet and I got most of a night's sleep. Back on a roll again.
Today I plan nothing more strenuous that sweeping the veranda, feeding the birds and reading. I have started a biography of Alfred Bestall, the creator and illustrator of Rupert Bear. And I have loved Rupert since I first stole my brother's Rupert Bear Christmas Annuals all those years ago.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Emotionally Wobbly in a Recalcitrant Body
Yesterday I did my usual shift at Lifeline. Family holidays are difficult times for a lot of people so, with Easter looming, I was expecting it to be a busy shift. And it was. Busy, and bruising. Despite glibly thanking MS for making me forgetful, two of the calls will stay with me. In both cases I was in awe that the callers were still functioning. In their circumstances I suspect that I would be velcroed to the carpet under the bed and flatly refusing to come out. And there was nothing I could do for either caller except listen to and to some extent share their pain. It didn't feel like enough. It isn't enough.
So I came home, knackered and still bleeding for them and for other people I had spoken to that day.
I knew that I would have trouble sleeping. So I read some trash which should have sufficiently occupied my mind. It didn't. On line to check out some blogs. And joy, Elisabeth had a new post. Her work is an education and a joy, and her prose beautiful. But yesterday and still today it hammers on my buttons. She was writing about death and dying, specifically about her mother who is in very poor health and whose death may be imminent.
So I went back to bed, and tossed and turned. I remember looking at the clock a little after 3. At about 4.30 I woke myself, my partner and both cats shrieking as a particularly nasty cramp/muscle spasm locked my calf tight. It still feels bruised and walking on it is painful.
A few hours later I gave up and got up. Thinking, thinking, thinking. My mother died just after Easter 2004. Memories. She had a massive stroke nearly a year before and had spent much of the intervening time in hospital, before moving temporarily to a nursing home. While in hospital she played hospital staff against family and attempted to play family members off against each other. As one example I was very, very tired having visited her each day and told her that I was not coming in the next day - I was going to have a rest. Shortly after nine the next day the hospital rang to say that she was in tears because I had said I was never coming back and that they thought I should come in and reassure her. I went.
She was adamant that she wanted to go home, and despite the fact that she was going to need 24 hour a day care the hospital administrators helped her to achieve her aim. Significant household modifications had to be made and private nursing care arranged. And yes, I was responsible for arranging both.
She had been home for nearly two hours when she had her first fall. She had always sat on the floor and, when her carer left the room she tried to sit there again. The carer rang me and I went down and helped her back into the chair.
The next day the carer rang me again. Mama had rung up her local supermarket and arranged delivery of bottles of wine and cartons of cigarettes, despite being without either for over ten months. The pattern continued. The carers would ring me several times each day and often I would have to get to mama's home (two buses away) and sort out a compromise.
Ten days after she returned home the carer rang me to say that she was very far from well and refusing medical treatment. When I got there it was obvious that she needed treatment so I called the ambulance, who took her straight to hospital. She was very, very angry and told the ambulance officers and the carer that I was being selfish and just wanted her out of her own home. True, I did, but that wasn't why I had called them. The hospital rang me just before 1am that morning to say she was dying. I rang my youngest brother and my partner and I met him at the hospital. She died shortly after we got there without ever gaining consciousness. And in our last interaction we were both angry. And I wonder whether if I had known she was so close to dying I would have allowed her to die at home. I will never know.
I did a lot for my mother over the period from my father's death to her own, but I did not do it with a good grace. Her alcoholism and manipulation made her very, very difficult to like. She went from a woman I aspired to emulate to one I was afraid I might become. And I still feel guilty, despite knowing that guilt changes nothing.
So, why am I pouring all this out? I read a truly lovely post this morning from Marie reminding me that I don't need to appear to be invincible. Just as well because I am not. Both yesterday's calls and my mother are haunting me.
So I came home, knackered and still bleeding for them and for other people I had spoken to that day.
I knew that I would have trouble sleeping. So I read some trash which should have sufficiently occupied my mind. It didn't. On line to check out some blogs. And joy, Elisabeth had a new post. Her work is an education and a joy, and her prose beautiful. But yesterday and still today it hammers on my buttons. She was writing about death and dying, specifically about her mother who is in very poor health and whose death may be imminent.
So I went back to bed, and tossed and turned. I remember looking at the clock a little after 3. At about 4.30 I woke myself, my partner and both cats shrieking as a particularly nasty cramp/muscle spasm locked my calf tight. It still feels bruised and walking on it is painful.
A few hours later I gave up and got up. Thinking, thinking, thinking. My mother died just after Easter 2004. Memories. She had a massive stroke nearly a year before and had spent much of the intervening time in hospital, before moving temporarily to a nursing home. While in hospital she played hospital staff against family and attempted to play family members off against each other. As one example I was very, very tired having visited her each day and told her that I was not coming in the next day - I was going to have a rest. Shortly after nine the next day the hospital rang to say that she was in tears because I had said I was never coming back and that they thought I should come in and reassure her. I went.
She was adamant that she wanted to go home, and despite the fact that she was going to need 24 hour a day care the hospital administrators helped her to achieve her aim. Significant household modifications had to be made and private nursing care arranged. And yes, I was responsible for arranging both.
She had been home for nearly two hours when she had her first fall. She had always sat on the floor and, when her carer left the room she tried to sit there again. The carer rang me and I went down and helped her back into the chair.
The next day the carer rang me again. Mama had rung up her local supermarket and arranged delivery of bottles of wine and cartons of cigarettes, despite being without either for over ten months. The pattern continued. The carers would ring me several times each day and often I would have to get to mama's home (two buses away) and sort out a compromise.
Ten days after she returned home the carer rang me to say that she was very far from well and refusing medical treatment. When I got there it was obvious that she needed treatment so I called the ambulance, who took her straight to hospital. She was very, very angry and told the ambulance officers and the carer that I was being selfish and just wanted her out of her own home. True, I did, but that wasn't why I had called them. The hospital rang me just before 1am that morning to say she was dying. I rang my youngest brother and my partner and I met him at the hospital. She died shortly after we got there without ever gaining consciousness. And in our last interaction we were both angry. And I wonder whether if I had known she was so close to dying I would have allowed her to die at home. I will never know.
I did a lot for my mother over the period from my father's death to her own, but I did not do it with a good grace. Her alcoholism and manipulation made her very, very difficult to like. She went from a woman I aspired to emulate to one I was afraid I might become. And I still feel guilty, despite knowing that guilt changes nothing.
So, why am I pouring all this out? I read a truly lovely post this morning from Marie reminding me that I don't need to appear to be invincible. Just as well because I am not. Both yesterday's calls and my mother are haunting me.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Cats, the Royal Wedding and Gardens
An interesting mix, but my day has involved them all.
Jazz decided that 5am was a suitable time to get me up. Which he does by reaching under the bedclothes and slashing. Jazz, aka Sid Vicious, aka Spike. When my feet hit the floor he started to purr at mega decibels. Which brought Jewel into the bedroom too. Also purring. Happy chappies, though their happiness diminished when they realised that they were not going to be let out straight away. I am so cruel. So cruel in fact that I am considering upgrading their Cat Condominium to one with more levels. Perhaps.
A little later I checked my emails. To discover that a friend had sent one about the Royal Wedding to 'those who care'. Given that disinterest is a charitable way of describing my relationship with our Royal Family this struck me as odd. But I followed the link and giggled throughout (while mentally apologising to my friend). Not only do I think that the Royal Wedding would be better run on these lines, but those couples who are going to slavishly follow the example set by William and Kate could learn from it as well.
The smaller portion was still slumbering on. So, into the garden. Pruning and weeding to make room for more bulbs. By the time I came in for a cuppa himself was up. So we headed outside and put the last of the first bag of tulips in. Two hundred tulips planted yesterday and today. And then, oh joy and bliss it started to rain gently. Very good for the garden and the perfect excuse to stop for the day.
In a little over a week we (mostly the smaller portion) have put in 403 daffodils and jonquils (3 were given as freebies), 50 Dutch iris, and 200 tulips. We have another 215 tulips to go (15 freebies) and whatever turns up in the 'Gamblers Pot Luck' collection I ordered. Maybe another 50 or so bulbs in there. And while I am very, very stiff and sore it has happened. And will probably be completed over the Easter weekend. I am gobsmacked. And then all we need do is wait (and weed) for an explosion of colour and scent in early Spring.
Jazz decided that 5am was a suitable time to get me up. Which he does by reaching under the bedclothes and slashing. Jazz, aka Sid Vicious, aka Spike. When my feet hit the floor he started to purr at mega decibels. Which brought Jewel into the bedroom too. Also purring. Happy chappies, though their happiness diminished when they realised that they were not going to be let out straight away. I am so cruel. So cruel in fact that I am considering upgrading their Cat Condominium to one with more levels. Perhaps.
A little later I checked my emails. To discover that a friend had sent one about the Royal Wedding to 'those who care'. Given that disinterest is a charitable way of describing my relationship with our Royal Family this struck me as odd. But I followed the link and giggled throughout (while mentally apologising to my friend). Not only do I think that the Royal Wedding would be better run on these lines, but those couples who are going to slavishly follow the example set by William and Kate could learn from it as well.
The smaller portion was still slumbering on. So, into the garden. Pruning and weeding to make room for more bulbs. By the time I came in for a cuppa himself was up. So we headed outside and put the last of the first bag of tulips in. Two hundred tulips planted yesterday and today. And then, oh joy and bliss it started to rain gently. Very good for the garden and the perfect excuse to stop for the day.
In a little over a week we (mostly the smaller portion) have put in 403 daffodils and jonquils (3 were given as freebies), 50 Dutch iris, and 200 tulips. We have another 215 tulips to go (15 freebies) and whatever turns up in the 'Gamblers Pot Luck' collection I ordered. Maybe another 50 or so bulbs in there. And while I am very, very stiff and sore it has happened. And will probably be completed over the Easter weekend. I am gobsmacked. And then all we need do is wait (and weed) for an explosion of colour and scent in early Spring.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Sunday Selections
Sunday Selections, brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, is an ongoing theme where participants post previously unused photos languishing in their files.
Anyone can join in, just post your photos under the Sunday Selections title, link back to Kim, then add your name to her Linky list at Frogpondsrock.
This week I thought I would indulge my love of birds. And a big thankyou to Marie, whose post yesterday reminded me.
Birds who frequent our house include these:
They are more usually this colour, but not so bedraggled.
The one at the back that looks a little like a budgie on steroids is an Eastern Rosella. We are truly lucky and often see six or seven species of native birds each day. And it has given us a whole new understanding of the term 'pecking order'. Size is by no means everything. Aggressive small birds see the bigger ones off the feeder regularly.
Other birds I have fallen in love with include:
And to get away from Antarctica and back to Oz
Anyone can join in, just post your photos under the Sunday Selections title, link back to Kim, then add your name to her Linky list at Frogpondsrock.
This week I thought I would indulge my love of birds. And a big thankyou to Marie, whose post yesterday reminded me.
Birds who frequent our house include these:
 |
| The Corellas seem to love apples (green) so they are a fixture on our shopping list |
 |
| Female King Parrot being hand fed |
 | |||
| I don't know where the white galah came from: We have only seen him a couple of times. |
They are more usually this colour, but not so bedraggled.
 |
| Dry Galahs |
The one at the back that looks a little like a budgie on steroids is an Eastern Rosella. We are truly lucky and often see six or seven species of native birds each day. And it has given us a whole new understanding of the term 'pecking order'. Size is by no means everything. Aggressive small birds see the bigger ones off the feeder regularly.
Other birds I have fallen in love with include:
 |
| Chinstrap Penguin |
 |
| Gentoo Penguin |
 |
| Stormy Petrel |
And to get away from Antarctica and back to Oz
Friday, 15 April 2011
Failure
This morning for something completely different we have been in the garden.
The smaller portion has planted over 100 bulbs. Daffodils, a mixture of the doubles and the split coronas. I have planted maybe twenty and done some weeding and wept some bitter tears. I can't keep up. I am sore, frustrated and beating up on myself better than anyone else can.
And yes I know I am not being reasonable. He planted in areas I had already weeded. He can get up and down again without pain.
But feelings (for me anyway) are not reasonable. I still compare myself to a person without a disability and come off badly. And my expectations are perhaps too high. Aaaaargh.
I am inside having a cup of tea and calming down (a bit). Possibly two cups of tea. After which I am going back outside armed with secateurs and loppers. I intend to wrestle the stinking honeysuckle into submission so I can plant the last of the daffodil bulbs where I want them.
And tomorrow I will start again.
The smaller portion has planted over 100 bulbs. Daffodils, a mixture of the doubles and the split coronas. I have planted maybe twenty and done some weeding and wept some bitter tears. I can't keep up. I am sore, frustrated and beating up on myself better than anyone else can.
And yes I know I am not being reasonable. He planted in areas I had already weeded. He can get up and down again without pain.
But feelings (for me anyway) are not reasonable. I still compare myself to a person without a disability and come off badly. And my expectations are perhaps too high. Aaaaargh.
I am inside having a cup of tea and calming down (a bit). Possibly two cups of tea. After which I am going back outside armed with secateurs and loppers. I intend to wrestle the stinking honeysuckle into submission so I can plant the last of the daffodil bulbs where I want them.
And tomorrow I will start again.
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