Sunday March 31st 2019

Country Life.  But not as you'd know it. 

Doesn't everyone have a few seedlings on their sofa supported (and to prevent spoil) by an edition of Country Life magazine? No!. Well we must be strange. Actually we are strange as a passing horticulturalist to this homestead would see every windowsill and space festooned with seedlings. Julie's overriding passion is to raise plants from seed. Having no glasshouse (still in kit form after 4 years) then the next best option is - cover the house in seedlings. It's an image I shall warm to in the cold winter months.

Saturday March 30th 2019

Another fantastic day in Somerset. We'd been shopping and as I sat luxuriating in the warm over the yard-arm sun, nodding off gently to the sound of woodpigeon scoffing the last of the grain, these tulips caught my eye. I was never that keen on tulips as a rake or a buck. Always seeing them as the unfashionably too late for the ball after the triumphant arrival of the narcissus spring. Recently however, cajoled by my superior gardening partner, strange and wondrous beings have filled pots around the domicile. Colours of warm honey mixed with satanic leaning inks fill various containers. Reds deeper than a Cardinals cape inter planted with the zingiest of day-glo yellow and greens. With the sun filtering through the newly opened cups, a polychromatic scale of light and dark infused the hue before me. I sat and watched for a goodly while. 

Friday March 29th 2019

And so it is writ in the Bible, Matthew 7, 7 to be precise. 

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you"

And I dearly wish to ask, why here? This might be the day that for two years we've been waiting to arrive so we can leave the EU, Brexit Day, but as that is not now happening for reasons too long and laborious for here, this morning I found myself in Taunton. Bath Place to be exact, the site of the erstwhile road to Exeter, now a thoroughfare of independent shops. Above a second hand clothing boutique, this caught my eye as being a more positive way to spend the day. Hanging about, watching the world go by. what better was to spend a Friday. But why is it there? I should have asked.

Thursday March 28th 2019

I could be a writer. I am a writer, as words have been published and also as an online chatterbox, I publish myself. This morning after breakfast Julie stepped over the threshold of the Spa at the hotel and I settled myself down to write this and the backlog of blog postings for the day. This was my view, and is still my view as I type this. The only other people here in the Garden Room are a duet of ladies of a certain age, previously nurses, one recently bereaved, having a morning coffee and trying to remember the name of an actor with funny lips. Michael Portillo was recalled, but apparently that's not him. So now they're trying to remember what they meant to say to each other regarding a visit to Bristol yesterday. 

But the pithy part of this writing is that being in a 'shabby chic' hotel its more relaxed than a Playdoh model in the sunshine. I like it here. It's completely understandable why writers come to hotels to write. No distractions other than interesting people to observe. Such as the young couple who have just arrived in the lounge and sat at the only table where two empty mugs are in situ, which they then moved. These chairs, were recently vacated by another couple. So the question is, why these two chairs? There are a number of lovely squishy chairs in this room but that pair of high backed chairs seem very popular. I may write short novelette about this one day, I have the Title, the Blue Chairs..... no a better title, Two Chairs!!

"The room was bright. Sunlight flooded into the duel aspect windows, onto a pair of blue chairs. High backed Georgian style chairs, hard by the window. Resolute they silently play host to the dreams of people" ...to be continued!!

Wednesday March 27th 2019

Birthday Girl. 

Born March 27th 1959. So today was, yes, that big birthday no one is allowed to mention. Like Macbeth on stage never mention the M word or the big 6-0 today. That said it is Julie's special day so anything she wished to do was possible. Thus after a lovely sleep in the hotel, we headed off to Rumwell Farm Shop just south of Taunton. Pushing a big breakfast over the threshold, with the day more clement than clement, we headed up onto the Quantocks for a perambulation. It was glorious up there, slightly breezy around the knee region, but fabulous. Over two hours we were up there, pretty much on our own,  before descending into Nether Stowey and a perusal around Coleridge's Cottage (there's a whole blog there). Julie special day ended with a £9 burger and pint evening at a farm shop near to Nether Stowey, where we chatted to one of the guards on the West Somerset Railway who comes to this Wednesday event every week from nearby Cannington. Most of the other people there were Welsh workers from EDF staying in caravans on the farm site while contracted at Hinkley Point Power Station.  I know how to treat a lady !!

Tuesday March 26th 2019

Phew made it. A half day today at work before Julie and I head off to the Mount Somerset Hotel for three days to celebrate her Birthday. I had a plan for things to do this morning at work, all of which was either scuppered or fell apart for mostly tedious reasons to do with the regular Tuesday meetings we hold. However rushed or not, at 1pm I shot out of the demesne of incarceration and headed home to pack and plan. Before that however a nice cup of tea in the garden. The weather has turned beautiful for Julie's birthday week, hotter than Italy so we are told. And beautiful it stayed as I lay in the bed looking at this view from the hotel room. Smashing, and only 40 minutes from home. No long journeys, no traffic jams, just three days of R&R ahead of us.

Monday March 25th 2019

I'm avoiding all mention of the dreaded Brexit on this year long blog, whatever the outcome, what will be will be, life just carries on. But this cartoon in the Telegraph caught my eye today. Love her, or loathe her, Theresa May has the constitution of an ox. How anyone can deal with the onslaught of hatred towards her and keep going is anyone's guess. That said, the battering everyone has had over the Brexit pantomime, really has battered our trust in the role of the Establishment. Interesting times.