Seabiscuit

I have just finished 'Seabiscuit' by Laura Hillenbrand. It is a fantastic true story, well told, and I was very involved with it (OK I cried at times). Then I read Laura H's article about her illness (CFS) which is another moving true story, of determination against the odds and terrible setbacks to produce a best-selling, award-winning book. She is still ill. I do hope she finds ways of recovering like I did.

I am getting better after a long CFS-like recurring virus since April. I am relieved I can use the Lightning Process to get rid of it, even after I'd left it awhile to try and clear up on its own. I am plugging away at my walks and short drives, and seeing people in the village, and I'm seeing positive results again - phew!

I've just had a successful visit to my sister's, and a great time at her 60th birthday party. Now I'm back into producing more cards of my paintings and promoting my cookery book (Eat to Beat Fatigue), as it's been entered for the People's Book Prize (for August) - vote here if you'd like to see it win, during August and September - www.peoplesbookprize.com.

Laura Hillenbrand's story and her book have moved me. Not the drama and the struggle but the characters' creativity and enjoyment of life, even when they are in pain. Keep on trucking!

New leafcutter nest!

The leafcutter bee has found a bigger space for its nest - another pot of verbascum. The seedling was wilting and had been broken off - I dug and found this. I don't want to uproot it for the sake of a clearer photo, but it is a capsule made of leaves put sideways on, some way down in the soil. There may be more - I'm leaving them be this time.

Insects galore in my garden

I live in a cottage in a garden that used to belong to a bee-keeper, which means there are plenty of plants around which flower in succession for a variety of insect life, especially bees. This year, however, I feel more than ever that I am just incidental to the other life here – it has taken over!

First the bees swarmed round a chimney, and strayed into the sitting-room. I looked up the Beekeeper’s Association on the internet and found that there was a beekeeper who dealt with swarms of bees allocated to each postcode in my county. Lucky me! Mine had to travel some distance, and was very friendly and reassuring. He strode into the sitting-room, opened the window, and said, “Off you go, ladies!” I had to tape newspaper to the outside of the non-opening windows then they all flew straight out of the open one. He couldn’t remove the bees, as they’d already gone down the chimney, but he taped up the underside of my stove’s chimney, as bees can get through quarter-inch gaps, and told me how to get rid of the bees if I needed to. I haven’t needed to so far – they are nesting in an old flue, blocked up, and haven’t paid me a visit since then, though they can be seen flying round the chimney during the day. Because of varroa eroding a bee’s resistance, they will apparently be dead within 18 months, so I hope they live well till then.

I spoke to the beekeeper about my other problem – the wasps nesting under the back porch. Theoretically this shouldn’t be happening, as they have nested there before and been poisoned there too, but these have come back and built new cones onto the nest – a real wasp ‘des res’ with extensions! He said I could get rid of them, but that it might not be worth it, as by September they’d be dead anyway. And I’d watched a ‘Springwatch’ programme which enthused about wasps being natural pest preventers and much maligned.. so they’ve stayed as well, and haven’t been a problem so far. I do avoid eating jammy scones outside the porch though…

Then as if all this insect action wasn’t enough, I took a seedling out of its pot in the greenhouse and all these green leaf capsules fell out. I was a bit horrified at first, thought ‘mullein moth’ and put them in the bin. But that evening, another thought, ‘leafcutter bee’, (see right) came to me and I looked that up on the internet and found to my horror that a bee had carefully constructed those capsules and laid an egg in a sac of nectar inside each one. The capsules were each lidded with beautifully-cut round leaf lids.

Next morning I took the capsules out of the bin and planted them ‘in a south-facing frost-free place’ as advised, near a large ornamental grass, which I hope will protect it. I tried to bury them in twos, one on top of the other, as per the diagram I looked up on http://crawford.tardigrade.net/bugs/BugofMonth23.html
That I thought was that – until I saw the leafcutter bee herself, come back to a ‘south-facing, frost-free’ environment – my greenhouse! She spent a lot of time burrowing in the seed modules underneath various precious seedlings (She's in the module on the right in the righthand photo). Then she left – last seen frantically gathering nectar and pollen on a scabious. I look for her every day. Her energy and industry inspires me. If she comes back I will sacrifice the seedlings she's burrowed under!

Art explosion!

After I came home, I got going with promoting my prints and cards which I had just had printed. They look great - I need to paint more. I went to a local art exhibition in Litchborough and sold cards from the vestry of the old stone church - very peaceful atmosphere and friendly, though not that lucrative - I spent the profits on lunch!

Let me know if you would like any prints or cards via Comments. This is 'My Village from the Stile', copyright AJH 2009.

A Happy Easter in the Chilterns

I stayed with at my sister's over Easter. She and her husband live in the middle of the Chiltern Hills, where they run a luxurious but inexpensive B&B in a little barn, surrounded by fields, beechwoods and swooping red kites, who nest opposite. It's very peaceful, as it's on top of a hill down a 'no through road'.

We walked to a view out over the escarpment that ends the Chilterns - an Iron age fort called 'Pulpit Hill', to see out over the Vale of Aylesbury (no town, just patchwork fields and sky). Cowslips and violets were growing everywhere in the chalk, and the cherries were just out. It was great to be able to go out on a walk with Susan (and more practice at outings for me!).

I walk 3 miles!

This may not sound like climbing Everest, however I haven't done this for more than 20 years, as I've had ME, which prevented exercise. Yesterday, I walked to the nearest pub - a lovely spring walk across the fields. There were sheep, lambs galore, hedges coming into leaf, and ancient ridge and furrow fields; I could imagine being a medieval villein and having a strip of land to plough - bigger than an allotment, but not much. My friend Brian had given me his number and offered to pick me up at the pub if I found it too far to get back, which was great as I relaxed about that.

After an hour's lunch and lounge, I walked back. Into the wind, however a lot of little hills to shelter behind occasionally. Wonderfult to see where I'd come from and in the distance, the church and village buildings that were my destination - I have regained that power of being able to walk across a landscape. Staggered back to my village and jabbered away to Brian about the walk and anything else I could think of, out of relief and excitement.

And that's it! One of my longest goals since having 'ME mark 2' was to get to the pub - I never imagined being able to get back again on my first visit by foot! ME mark 2 involved being nearly housebound and slowly building up walking so I could get to the shop and back (468 steps!) which took me 2 years or so to do regularly, even with rests on the way. I walked with a seatstick, so I could sit down when talking to people (my ME quirk was to only be able to talk when sitting down!). I dreamt of walking over the hills like I used to, and studied maps many times to measure how far I'd need to walk. Then I did the Lightning Process, and got rid of the seatstick! I had to work at the talking bit, and doing more walking, but it was a lot easier. Now I can feel my body responding to being pushed in a healthy way - it gets tired, however it bounces back. Now for the other pub - 3 miles each way!

Current projects

I can see why people end up having several blogs. Like Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, there are many facets to everyone, which you could have in different compartments. My current preoccupation is painting. I am painting a snow scene from photos of 'that snow we had' and although it does depict what I want, I want more. I'm glad I tackled painting the Green and the people building snowmen and throwing snowballs (yes, it's next year's Christmas card!). And I want to do some wilder stuff next! The painting is now laying dormant for a couple of days so I can see it afresh later to finish it off.

I've also had some prints and cards made up of what I think is my best painting - can't wait to see the proofs. I 'do nerves' about making money out of this - and I'm sure I'll get used to it!
Some of my paintings are on my old website (see link on the right). Let me know if you are interested in prints/cards of the 'stile' painting.