Effing Visitors

Time flies.
Time lingers.
Time is elusive.
But mostly it just stalks you, and gobbles you up when you're not looking.
I have been gobbled.

The trouble is, it also leaves you gagged. It's like bumping into someone you haven't seen for ages, and the silence draws out between you, stickily, rooting you to the spot with an inane smile but nothing to say.
Where do you begin? The intervening days, weeks, months don't lend themselves to broad sweeps of the brush, yet the minutiae seems irrelevant, trivial.
'How've you been?' you ask lamely.
'Fine - great! Well - you know...busy...'

I haven't intended to be away from these pages. In an ideal world, I would sit down on Wednesdays and Sundays and fill in the gaps - dash off a few lines summing up my week, my life, my plans for world domination; stir in some photos and hopefully a pinch of spice and try to get it to the boil before life embroiled me again.
But then, in an ideal world, my house would be spotless, I'd live somewhere warm and dry and my bank manager would call me 'Sir'.
For some unknown reason, nothing ever works like that.
Why is that, d'you think?


Fantasies aside, I'm not really sure where the last few months have gone.

What was Henri doing in the cherry tree? Posing

I went to England for while, and when I got home it was blossom time - which suits the posers in my household to a T. But have you ever noticed that the clock moves at very high speed during April and May? The days, which allegedly are getting longer, in fact get shorter than ever. There is never time for anything, and the weeks whizz past with unseemly haste and no decorum.

Goldilocks on the terrace

Model Dog sashaying past the tulips

I don't think the In-Charge really noticed the blossom at all. He has been working like a demon, practically walling himself into his college studio. His Grad Show was last week, he is taking part in another Exhibition which opens this weekend - Sligo Emerging Artists, and has just submitted some work to a third.

He's there, at the moment, hanging - not himself, hopefully - but lots of pictures: drawings and paintings. I saw a good few of them for the first time this morning, and will be very disappointed if I don't see them on the wall later in the week.

It's not that I don't trust him, but quite frankly, I wish I was there, hanging them myself. He is all too likely to dismiss his own work and put it to one side. Left to his own devices, he wouldn't even have taken most of them to the gallery this morning.
In my experience of the In-Charge, taking them is no guarantee of hanging them.
Eejit.

The best and loveliest thing that has happened this year was way back in April. I'd just returned from a visit to the UK, and on the Saturday morning set off for the market, as is my wont.
'Will you be gone all morning?' the In-Charge asked.
What kind of question is that?
When did I ever return mid-morning on market day?
When I did get back, there was an unknown British car in the yard and my heart sank. I was tired, and unexpected visitors were not what I wanted, especially as the house resembled a bomb-site.
I sat in the car for several minutes, watching the hens and gathering strength. It would probably be someone who'd grown up here, or stayed with us when we were a B&B. We get visitors like that quite often, which is lovely in general - but just not that particular morning.
The In-Charge appeared. 'We've got effing visitors,' he said tersely, confirming my worst fears. 'You'd better come in.'
It took several more minutes to get myself sufficiently motivated, but I finally pinned a smile in place and went inside.

There have not been many occasions in life that have rendered me totally speechless, but this was one of them.
My son - my darling, gorgeous, and not-been-seen-for-over-a-year son, the very same, was sitting at the kitchen table, along with his adorable ex-girlfriend and her own little boy .
A surprise visit, cooked up between them and the In-Charge (the rat).
And not a bed made, nor a cake baked, nor a single barrow of rubble cleared from the bomb-site.

But what bliss.
He's been in Miami and the French West Indies since October, and was working constantly before that, so it's been a long time. Too long, but here he was, for his birthday weekend.

The sun shone, the sky was blue and we went to the beach, picnicked, ate cake and drank champagne. All the things you should do.
Total heaven. And the best bit of all was seeing them back together again and meeting her dote of a son.
The best 'effing visitors' in the world.

  

Of Birthdays, Tulips, Princesses and Cats

Today - tonight - would have been Top Dog and Under Dog's fourteenth birthday.
I can still hardly bear to think of them, even though it's almost a year since they died.
I have spent most of the year, I find, expecting Top Dog to suddenly appear, especially when I've been away. Driving home from the airport, I have to remind myself that he won't come running out to greet me.
I am sure everyone feels the same, about anyone they have loved and lost.
It's a tough one to get used to.

Top Dog and Under Dog sleeping the sleep of the just. As they do now.

I came across their collars the other day, folded together in a drawer, their mother's collar with them.
I could have wept.
The resonance of them still fills the quiet corners of this place.

But it has not been a mournful day. Far from it - despite the lowering sky and steely edge to the breeze.
I have been out in the yard potting up tulip bulbs, the ever-faithful Model Dog at my side.
The TeenQueen doesn't really like such pointless activities, especially if there are no bones involved, so after a while she opted to keep Model's bed warm in the cosy kitchen.

Potting tulips is such an obvious thing to do, but somehow it has largely eluded me until now.
Of course, they look wonderful in vast drifts as well, but, lovely as it is, I'd need a tad more space, and maybe a handful of full-time gardeners to achieve something like this.

Thank heavens I didn't have to plant these

Over the years I have planted I don't know how many tulips in the flower beds, and for one season they rise, stately and beautiful, but generally they don't put in many subsequent appearances. Our climate is too damp, or perhaps the slugs and snails eat them, or mice, or people steal the bulbs from under my nose - who can say? But last spring, on Gardener's World, Carol Klein said she always planted tulips in pots,  and at last I woke up to the blindingly obvious.

Pink tulips with a touch of orange - amongst my favourites

The massed effect, without disembowelling the flower bed, trashing bulbs already planted in the one spot you choose to excavate, and driving yourself into Bedlam.
I can't wait for them to bloom
Meanwhile I'll make do with fabulous paintings to brighten my days.
This one cheers me up no end.

Judith I Bridgland's wonderful painting of Tulips and Cherry Blossom

And these tulips, by another Scottish artist, Fiona Sturrock, never fail to cheer me up.
Her next exhibition runs from November 15-17 at Edinburgh Art Fair at the Corn Exchange. I wish I could go and see it.

Tulips and Lemon by Fiona Sturrock

Tulips by Fiona Sturrock

Tulips in Antique Jug by Fiona Sturrock

Beautiful, all of them.
Oh, how I wish I could paint.

The tulips weren't the only bright note to my day.
At lunchtime our friend Colin dropped by, as promised, to deliver a special present.
Three of Napoleon's grand-daughters.

You may remember Napoleon. I will never forget him, and like my lovely dogs, I miss him regularly.
He had so much character, and, despite his small stature (we can say that out loud, now that he's gone), he dominated the hen's paddock.

The Emperor Napoleon with his Little Empress

He caused me untold anxieties -as on the day when he was not to be found - anywhere - and, by dint of climbing a ladder to look over our high walls, I espied him in the wild churchyard behind our garden. I had to walk round, pick him up and carry him home through the street.
There are other, far more terrifying incidents that come to mind - one involving a dozen bullocks - but that is by-the-by. He was a dear creature and I loved him. I don't know if he loved me, but he was devoted to his wives, Josephine, then the Little Empress and finally Mrs Smith (aka the Golden Princess or Dolly).

I am thrilled to bits to have three of his grand-daughters. Although they came from his third marriage, they bear no resemblance to Mrs Smith, but look like Napoleon dressed in the Little Empress's attire.
They all have rather dinky little hats - somewhat more feminine than the Emperor's tricorne - and the larger of the three certainly has her grandfather's bearing..
I shall look forward to seeing how they grow up.

Napoleon's grand-daughter - she has his air

Is that a smaller version of a tricorne I see?

Tonight they are tucked into the spare pen I built for the Escapees. They are a little uncertain of their new home, and have spent the afternoon being stared at through the mesh by all and sundry. At dusk, I found them sitting on their roof in the rain, rather than cuddling inside. I put them into their shelter, and hope that by now, they are all fast asleep. Tomorrow they might feel up to staring back.

And last but by no means least, I have received queries as to why the cats never appear.
It's not because I have done away with them, nor have they left home via the churchyard.
It's just that I don't see much of them. Now that autumn is turning into winter, they have become lazier than ever. After their breakfast they retire to bed and don't get up again until supper time. And after supper they retire to bed... you're getting the idea.

Pushy has been performing quality control on the new pole warmer.

Pushy warming the pole warmer

And Hobbes is gearing up for a leading role in 'Red Sails in the Sunset'

Barley sugar ears

As for little Pixie - as she is very nearly blind, she can't see how lovely she looks on this Peruvian throw, but luckily, we can.

Pretty little Pixie in pink