Mothering Sunday and Loo Rolls

Bit of a strange day today; sadly our dog died having become ill overnight, the Vet did the kindest thing and we await her ashes.

Cindy, a Spaniel, was 14 years of age and part of the family, very close to the children and as soft as a brush. She had deteriorated in the last two years or so becoming deaf and increasingly blind, but she was still active.

Years ago, she was one of twin bitches kept together by someone we knew and was being attacked by her twin sister bitch. We took Cindy, the docile one of the two, just a year old, a few months after moving into our present house. She'll be missed.

Mother's day today and both mothers had a visit and we took them some potted plants to brighten their days. My mother is progressing well after having a hip replacement and is walking about even visiting Tescos yesterday with the trolley as support.

I didn't know this until I read it on Wikipedia, but Mothering Sunday has a religious origin going back to neolithic times and as the Romans converted to Christianity, the masses would go to the local cathedral to honour the Virgin Mary and the mother church and the modern revival of the day came about in World War 2 and has been popular ever since, not least by shops!

Here's the thing, although I have no figures for the UK, according to IBISWorld, for Mother's Day, the Americans spend $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on pampering items such as spas etc., and $68 million on greetings cards. Phew.

I thought I would give you an update on the toilet roll situation. I've stopped collecting now and put them to good use and here they are...

They are potted up and standing in the greenhouse with sweet pea seeds in them and hopefully in about two weeks time, they'll be poking their little green leaves through. I lost all my Begonia tubers this winter which is a shame, but I got twelve free with some plants I bought - so all is well and they are now in their pots. I've managed two half days in the garden this weekend and I've scared the sun and the neighbours with wearing my shorts - that's got to be some sort of record - mid March, but with virtually no breeze, it's been pleasantly warm.

The compost bin has been mostly emptied, a new border has been created around a fountain we bought last year and the fresh compost has been dug in ready for some red geraniums late spring early summer. I've even given the grass its first cut and (don't tell any gardening professionals) it was a very low cut and managed to get all the remaining straggling leaves, twigs and other rubbish off the grass and it looks very presentable. I promise to raise the blades for cutting for the next few weeks. It really does have some moss in it which is my fault for cutting so low, but I'm thinking of getting someone in to give it a treatment; they come and put stuff on your lawn which can't be bought four times a year. My brother in law next door has it done and it looks great - no moss and wonderfully green.

I didn't get to bed until three-ish this morning after doing a paranormal investigation in an old building in the old part of Hull. It was a very interesting night, although there were very few spirits around, it was a good atmosphere and a good little team of ten thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm going to sift through all the photographs and video footage to see if we captured anything. The beauty of digital cameras and their instant accessibility to pictures allowed one or two of the team to see that they had captured some unexpected and unexplained anomalies on their photographs.

Hope you've had a good weekend, have a great week.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.