30.04. A new lily

It’s the last day in April! Where did last month go?? I have no idea, except I know I used a lot of it in my new garden, and some of it in the 3 different hospitals I regularly go to, and I also spent a lot of last month in bed – as usual – but apart from that, I think the month has gone very quickly. I past a milestone last week, writing my post number 50 :-) and after 4 months of blogging I am pleased to say I think I will continue with this...I enjoy making these blogs, I hope you enjoy reading them!

29.04. Meditation for pain

Hello, how are you? You know, sometimes I wonder who you are; my visitors....although I do know a few of you. I know my Mum, who checks my blog every morning to see if I have written anything; hi Mum!...and I also know a few other of my visitors, who are spread around in Britain and in Norway. But the rest of you I don’t know who are, even though I know most of you live in Germany, USA, Britain, France and Norway. I try to imagine who you are though, what you might be interested in hearing about, what kind of pictures to put on the posts etc. That’s why this blog so far has been a mix of things I do and make plus some posts in between with a more of a philosophical theme, trying to cater for a wide audience, but still keeping within a kind of a theme. There are many things you won’t find here....you won’t find anything related to sports, ever. And nothing to do with computer gaming. And there are a whole lot of other things too you won’t find here I suppose. But you will continue to find things related to creativity, photography, art and crafts and gardening, but I though perhaps

26.04. Red lily beetles

The heat wave is over, for now, and we are back to normal temperatures for the time of year. It’s quite a difference in just two days; from 28 degrees on Sunday to 17 degrees today...it was chilly out there today! I did, however, brave the chill, put my usual garden-cardigan on and spent a couple of hours in my gardens.

23.04. My gardens

Today has been another glorious day, I know I keep repeating myself – but honestly, it was 28 degrees at 3 pm! I have got quite a lot done today, mostly in my new garden next door, with staining the log rolls for the second bed, a slow process which has to be repeated several times after the logrolls are in the ground to make them last as long as possible.

22.04. Sizzling hot April day

Hello! Is it nice weather in your part of the world at the moment? If you live in the UK, especially in the South East, you probably have been enjoying the same glorious weather as I have the last few weeks, if you live somewhere else and have been expecting great weather, but haven’t seen any lately; now you know where all the good, warm weather has ended up! The news here has been filled with reports about people who booked their holiday for Easter for going abroad, people who booked it months ago, when we had the coldest winter in 100 years. Now they are calling back home to family and friends in the UK, complaining that the weather is better back here than where they are on holiday, in Southern Spain, Turkey and other Mediterranean countries! Well, we certainly were due some good weather, I just hope we won’t get all in one go, like we did last year in June. It was great for about 3 weeks, and that was it. I wouldn’t mind having this weather until late October :-) Only minor issue is the cost of all the water I have to pay for, to water my garden, but that is a minor issue, because in this warm weather I don’t need much gas for heating, so I save a lot there.

18.04. More Bonsai

Hello, did you read my post yesterday about my Bonsai tree? When I was researching on the Internet trying to find out why all the leaves were falling off, and whether I was doing all the things I could to treat it right, I saw an article about how you could make your own Bonsai trees. The article claimed that in principle, any tree or bush could be turned into a Bonsai tree, if you restricted its growth and pruned it correctly. That might be almost true, but there are trees and bushes that would never do well being treated like this; they would just become too stressed. I got of course very fascinated by this article, and being the kind of person I am, I just had to have a go!! So today I have made a Bonsai garden :-)

17.04. Bonsai disaster

When I had breakfast this morning, two elderly women stopped outside my house and started admiring the flowers in the window baskets on the wall of the front garden. They talked to each other and smiled and stood and pointed and gesticulated and one of the women leaned over and started talking to and smiling towards the plants. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I could hear her voice, even though the windows were shut...I live in a Victorian house, I can hear the footsteps of people walking past on the pavement! Anyway, I am all for being nice to your plants, but her behaviour was pretty peculiar. I have blinds in front of my windows, no net curtains; I can’t stand net curtains, so during the day the blinds are down but open so the light can flood in – that gives a bit of privacy, but people can still look in if they really want to. After dark I close the blinds and it blocks everything out. OK, back to these two elderly women. I got up from the sofa and walked to the window, taking care not to get too close as I

16.04. Stepanotis in flower

There’s been a small miracle in my bedroom lately. No, no...not that kind of miracle, I haven’t finally got myself a boyfriend; no, this is more in the region of a horticultural miracle – that’s probably the only kind of miracles you can expect at my humble abode :-) Let me explain....Many years ago I bought a houseplant called Stephanotis floribunda, you might know it as Madagascar jasmine, not to be confused with the many types of ordinary Jasmine you can have both in your garden and as houseplants. Other names for this houseplant are Waxflower, Hawaiian Wedding Flower, Stephanotis jasminoides and Marsdenia floribunda. In warmer climate this plant grows outdoors and can be a 3-4 metre tall climber, in our part of the world it is kept as a houseplant and mainly cherished for its highly scented flowers. Back to my purchase from 2004...I just had to try to grow it outdoors...yes, I know, pretty mad when all instructions say it has to be kept frost-free, but we had had many winters in a row without any frost by then so I thought I would give it a try. I re-potted the Stepanotis in a large pot and let it grow quite big during the summer and autumn, so it perhaps would have a chance of surviving. And it did survive...until March the following year! That’s when we got a few nights with well below minus, and most of the plant was dead next morning. See, it almost survived the winter! Well, I cut off the few pieces that were OK, put them in water and let them root, and then potted them on later.

13.04. Meet Ayla the AR

I saw an interview with a writer on the telly here the other day, a writer named Jean M. Auel. She is most famous for a series of novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. She has just published her sixth book in this series and the interview was about this new book. Her first book in the series called ‘Earth’s Children’ came out as early as 1980, and I read it a few years later when it had been translated into Norwegian. You might have heard about it, the first book was called ‘The Clan of the Cave Bear’ and was filmed with Daryl Hannah as Ayla. The next couple of books came out at regular intervals, number 2 in 1982, number 3 in 1985, number 4 in 1990...and then there was a long wait for the next book. I thought I had missed the book launch, or perhaps because I had moved to Britain maybe these books weren’t as popular here as they were in Norway. But finally, in 2002, book number 5 was released, and I read this one in English. I have to tell you these books are not exactly small things you tuck into your pocket on the tube...they are huge! And so is book number 6 too, just published, 9 years after number 5 and long awaited :-) The book is 660 pages and just as much a brick as all the other ones, but I bet that when I get to the last page I will feel exactly the same way as with all the other books in the series; wishing that there were many more pages still!

12.04. Action for Happiness

Wherever you are in the world right now, reading this post, I bet your daily news are filled with reports of war in the North-African countries, earthquakes, radioactive pollution and countries in serious financial destitution. Isn’t it depressing?? Well, only if you let it depress you. There is very little you and I can do about any of these issues, unless you happen to be David Cameron or any of the other prime ministers around the world. Of course it could be possible that David Cameron reads my blog....hmmm, fascinating thought...anything is possible...but not very likely I must admit, so to all the rest of you, don’t get too upset if you can’t fix the world; try to fix the things you are able to on a more homely level – that’s probably going to make you much more happy. The following words are very true, even if they are nicked from a theologian (named Reinhold Niebuhr).

10.04. Garden news

It’s been a glorious day today, with 24 degrees and nice sunshine. I have done absolutely no gardening, just lounged about and been lazy :-) I did take some photos earlier today though, and I managed to take a new photo for my profile too – something I had planned to do for a long time. My garden has new things happening almost every day at this time of year, and I try to take a walk and look properly every day to not miss out anything. But I was really surprised when I discovered today that one of my trees was in flower!

09.04. Cats in ads

Hello, would you like to see a really cool ad? It has been going on TV here in the UK for a while, but you might not have seen it, or maybe you are a visitor from a different part of the world and therefore haven’t had a chance to see it? Or perhaps you just don’t watch a lot of TV...or perhaps you have seen it before, but if you have I am sure you found it so hilarious that you would like to see it again, forward the link to your friends and possibly come back here some other day just to see it one more time? Yeahh, I think so :-) Oh, and by the way, all the films here can be watched in full screen view (the button in the lower right corner of the movie), and if you get any annoying ads, just click the x inside the ad and it will go away. Here it is, enjoy!

08.04. The week gone?

Oooops, where did this week go?! Last time I sat down to write here was last Sunday, and I have barely been on my computer all week! I have been to the hospital 3 days this week, the third day today, and today I went to see the physiotherapist. That 30 minutes visit took me almost 6 hours, between hospital transports from home in to Central London and back again through the Friday rush traffic, but there was also waiting here and waiting there so when everything is added up it took 5 hours and 50 minutes from when I left home till I was back again. Madness...so much wasted time I could have spent sitting in my garden enjoying the sunshine. After a day like that I am no good for anything really, but I thought I should try to get a few words down here at least.

03.04. Finished next door!

Hi, I had actually decided not to write anything today, have a break and just watch TV – being Mother’s day and all :-) But, having been outside in the gardens most of the day, and taken several good photos, I really couldn’t miss the opportunity to show you what I have done....so, here is a short post after all!

02.04. Honey Cake

Hi, how are you today? I made a promise yesterday that today’s post was going to be about something edible, with a subsequent recipe. As you probably have guessed from the title, the recipe is for a honey cake, one of my old favourites, and one I have baked many times. My father is very fond of this one too, unfortunately my parents live in Sothern Spain and I live in London, UK so I can’t just pop over to them with a cake now and then! But fortunately we have reasonably prices for sending small parcels, less than 2 kg, within Europe, so a couple of weeks ago I sent off 2 honey cakes with Southern Spain as the destination :-) I am pleased to report that the cakes have reached their destination without anyone en route feeling tempted to nick them...I suppose mobile phones might be more tempting to nick among the postal staff, but I am sure that in every warehouse these two parcels were stored, the staff could smell the cloves and the ginger coming from the parcels! By the way, mobile phones are no longer legal to send via British Royal Mail...precisely because so many “got lost in the post”, i.e. got nicked by the staff after having been X-rayed and the parcel content was revealed. The answer to the problem by Royal Mail has been to ban all mobile phones in ordinary parcels. Perishable food is also banned, but I don’t consider a cake perishable, obviously Royal Mail didn’t either, since they let them through the rigorous custom security check. Anyway, here is the recipe:

01.04. Three months' visitors

Hi there, 1^st April today, 3 whole months of this year already gone – no April fool this one, it really is April already! I honestly can’t understand how the days can fly past so quickly; when I was younger I always thought I had plenty of time to do everything I wanted to do – whenever I wanted to, even back when I was still working. Now I don’t seem to get done even half of the things I’d really like to do, never mind all the other things :-) But one thing I have kept up with these 3 months is my blog, although as I suspected...the pace I set out at in January was far too ambitious. But 8 posts in February and 9 posts in March are not too bad either – I think that’s probably a more realistic level for the future.