CYCLE 2 DAY 12
Today was a very good day. I woke early and found my youngest daughter surrounded by techno stuff. Laptops, I-pads and loads of bits of computing gear. Fairly soon she and her boyfriend were in the office on my system as well. This was operation Glastonbury. I talked about it briefly in yesterdays blog but this was the moment of truth. Would they and the syndicate that they belong to be able to get all the 15 tickets they needed to get all of their Glastonbury group to the next festival? Tickets went on sale over the internet at 9am on the dot. The atmosphere was tense, they were very well organised with an interactive spread sheet, and then they were all action. Lots of tapping noises, humming and haring with an odd muttered word. Then a breakthrough whoop! The first six were sorted and now they needed nine more. Within minutes it was mission accomplished, not even 9:30 had clocked up. Time to relax and to have a leisurely breakfast. Almost straight away the news channels were carrying the news that all 135,000 tickets had been sold in 34 minutes to the lucky (and well organised) people who were amongst the 2.4 million who had registered their interest in the tickets. So the day started well and then got better.
Of course I watched some world cup rugby but once that was out of the way it was time to go and inspect the newly installed pond , wich had been left to settle over night.
I set to and begun to fill in the gaps around the edges and to tidy the general look of the pond before begining to “landscape” it. The idea was to use the old pond ( just a large container with water and chocked with water plants) as a back drop and to build a pathway from it to the new ground level pond with logs and branches. It went quite well, I think. I have to say again that none of this could have happened without my daughters boyfriend’s hard graft of digging the hole for the pond to go into and the initial bedding it in. Once again thank you!
Once I had “scaped it” the pond needed to be left to settle and to mature until the plants and pump that I have order get delivered. So nothing to do now but put the tools away and get on with other things. Or so I thought. I had finished putting spades and buckets back in the shed when a movement caught my eye. I was taken aback to see a frog sitting in the pond! I ran for my phone to take pictures telling everyone, very excitedly “Frog”!
I have no idea where it came from. I can only assume that it was living in the damp undergrowth of the ferns and probably could not believe it’s luck to suddenly find a new pond on its door step. It swam a bit and sat with its nose out of the edge of the water for a while but then it got out and crept of into the undergrowth. I think this is a wise frog as there was nowhere for it to hide in the new pond and my guess is that it felt too exposed. My hope is that as the pond develops its ecosystem, plants first then insects then whatever comes after that, that the frog will return, bringing friends, and become part of the pond community. I shall just have to be patient and wait and see what spring brings.
There is something about being delighted by nature that gives me a spring in my step and lifts my energy levels. Without a second thought I retreated indoors and in amatter of minutes had bought a new tumble dryer. Bought it, booked a delivery time, and arranged for the old one to be recycled along with the packageing from the new one. Life is just too short to be worrying about how to get piles of wet to damp washing dry during the autumn and winter months when it is pissing down with rain for days on end, especially with people working and going through clothes at pace who also all go to the gym regularly. Our householdf tends to have names for some of its appliances, I think it likely that this tumble dryer may end up being called Frog.
So lunch came and went as did my youngest daughter and boyfriend as they headed of home. At least they know that they are good for Glasto in 2020. We headed for the gym via the local supermarket. Having collected dry cleaning printer cartridges and mostly important for me deodorant we headed for the gym. Since experiencing hot flushes I am paranoid that I smell of stale sweat so having deodorant in ample supply is important to me. We hit the gym, I clamber up on a cross trainer, turn up my I-pod to maximum and go for my calories target for the day. Its a Sunday so the target is 800 calories in the hour. I like it when my Fitbit celebrates me doing 10,000 steps but I like it more when I hit my calorie target. I feel quite smug that I hit my target until I remember that 800 calories is only 10 chocolate digestives! Feeling exercised and fresh from the shower we head home to some chores. I am preparing for a meeting tomorrow in London again, while my partner changes the spare bed for our guest tomorrow and tidies up. We have dinner and I settle done to do more work related stuff and write todays blog. I realise that I am no Alistair Cook of Letter from America fame but writing this blog makes me realise once again how incredibly articulate, cultivated and intelligent he was.
An early start tomorrow so I shall head for bed, but my day belongs to frogs. The delight of being visited so unexpectedly has stayed with me all day and gives me great hope for the spring.
