The Dark Side…

In the last couple of days I had attempted to move my blog from WordPress to Google Blogger http://tojocl.blogspot.co.uk/ However I did not think much of the platform, so I will continue with WordPress until I run out of space for pictures.

Friday was my day off work and at the sunflower feeders there were many Goldfinch charms visiting and bringing their babies along. I also saw a baby Blue Tit and its rather dishevelled parent but I couldn’t get good enough footage of the new guy! I did manage to get some footage of ‘Jack’ Sparrow, he looks great! I’ve attached the video I made of the birds today. Hope you like?

In the post on Friday my new exercise bike was delivered along with my prize from Arriva, who all week on Facebook had been holding a competition for a free weekly bus ticket. I was Wednesday’s winner and I am ‘made up’ as I don’t have to pay for a ticket this week!! 

I also made my Strawberry Mousse Cake with Morello Cherry Drizzle on my day off. It had three different types of cream in it!! Very fattening! However the result was less than satisfactory. It was in reality an utter disaster! David, mum and myself all had a portion. The cream mousse didn’t seem to have set very much and didn’t taste of anything really and then when putting the cake back into the fridge. It slipped off the plate and I tried to catch it with my hand. 

Sunday was my nephew Nathan’s 4th birthday, (where have all the years gone?) My brother Stephen had ordered a bouncy castle for the garden party and we all had fun bouncing on it! 

 

Found the Nuts!

On Sunday evening, after all day feeling like crap as I could not find the nuts for my dining table that was lying in pieces in the new home. David searched in the draw of my bedside table and ‘lo and behold!’ there were the two bags of nuts and bolts! I do not recall putting them there for safekeeping.

On Monday after coming home from a date night to Cheshire Oaks Vue to see a free preview screening of ‘The Internship,’ David and I put up the table and chairs. See slideshow below on the finished product! I am very happy with the table, I think it  goes really well with the colour scheme I had envisaged for the room. What do you think?

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I just want to Cry… :(

This weekend we were making the final ‘push’ so to speak on the house. It’s been well over a  year since we bought the place and after all the work done on it (new roof, front and back doors, replaced bedroom wall, outhouse demolished and new carpets, painting and decorating,) I thought we were nearing completion.

Yesterday, Saturday we spent nine hours on wallpapering the feature wall in the dining room with the Sophie Conran wallpaper I bought last year!

Today I wanted to put up the black glass dining table I had also bought last year! I was so excited!!

But a spanner was thrown in the works as we collected together from both my house and mum’s, the table and chair parts but what evaded us was the nuts, bolts and instructions. There had been some as we checked them on arrival. However a year on and with parts scattered between two houses, the bolts were nowhere to be seen.

David had all the rooms in the new house turned upside down looking for them and we went searching in mum’s house, but to no avail. I really don’t know where they could be!

As you can imagine, I am very upset. The room I had envisaged since the beginning has been the last room to be completed and now has no main feature. I really am at a loss. 😦

The only thing we could do was put in the black, high gloss sideboard I had also bought last year. (I am very impatient as you can see!) I did not think it would take us well over a year to move in and now my interest in the house has hit rock bottom. I really couldn’t care less if we move in or sell up! 😦

Well I Didn’t Expect that to Happen!

About two weeks ago, I  got an email from Randstad about an Access to Work booking for a client who worked in the Royal Liverpool Hospital. The work entailed reading and replying to emails, taking minutes in meetings and general admin duties for their client. I was umming and ahhing about the post for about a week before I sent in my CV. ‘What the hell’ I thought, ‘it’d be better than going on the dole!’

Then last Wednesday I had a meeting with the lady in the Trust whom the work was to be for and she seemed nice. You can imagine my surprise when about two hours after the ‘interview’ I got an email saying I was successful and the lady wanted me to start the following week!

I have now had my first three days of work in the Royal and I have thoroughly enjoyed it! It has been diverse, different from the work at the University, but ultimately I still get to meet and work with lots of people. I have been working from 8.30 in the morning ’til 2.30 of an afternoon, so beating the rush hour! I hope that the work continues to keep me occupied over the summer!

I am now sitting back and relaxing, enjoying a nice glass of pinot grigio and looking forward to a restful day tomorrow, then wallpapering in the dining room over the weekend, in the final push to get the house ‘ship shape’ before we move in!

During dinner time this evening I noticed six Goldfinch adults at the sunflower heart feeders in the yard and amongst them there was a baby Goldfinch! My first of 2013! I have not been seeing many Goldfinches lately so maybe now they have weaned their young they are starting to show them the feeders? See below for a video of the newcomer!

 

I Am Vertical

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one’s longevity and the other’s daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them —
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

Poem by Sylvia Plath.

BBQ Time – Family Fun!

Since the UK has been covered with bright, warm sunshine for most of the week. We decided on Friday to have a family BBQ with myself, David, my brother Daniel and mum Heather. We cooked beef burgers and salmon on the grill and precooked Charlotte potatoes and mixed some salad. There was wine flowing and Daniel had music playing on Jade his laptop.

We all had such a good time that we decided to do it all over again on Saturday!

So David and I bought vegi burgers and spicy chicken for the main. Then meringue and strawberries to make a pudding of Strawberry Mess. With the grill smoking we all thoroughly ate like kings and had such a laugh!

Lonely Hearts Advertisement…

Since Caramel’s passing, poor Chocolate has been on her own. As her species name suggests (society finch) she likes company, so on Saturday David and I drove to Clipsley Pets & Aquatics in Haydock to see if we could get Chocolate a friend.

Chocolate seeking friend…

We were spoilt for choice as to what species of finch to get. I had my heart on getting a male Society for Chocolate and if there were some available, a pair of Gouldians too. However there was not to be Gouldians bought today. One day I will get them! But I spied a Society male singing and took note of his colourings. I then asked the lady serving if I could buy him and in a flash we had paid £7 for Chocolate’s Romeo! We even came away with some free treats for Riley and the cats! 

Introducing… Romeo!

Crying Over a Light Extinguished. :(

I’ve sad news to inform you all today.

Caramel the Society Finch was found on the bottom of her cage this morning.

Yesterday I noticed that Caramel was looking decidedly disheveled. Her eyes were bright enough so I thought nothing of it. Caramel has been very friendly with me recently, more so than normal. She would come to the end of the perch and try and get close to me as I was saying hello. Caramel loved boiled egg which I would give to them as a treat and she never flew away when my hand was in the cage to replace their food or water. I had grown very attached to her.

Last night David and I noticed that Caramel was having trouble flying. She would jump to the perches instead of flying to them. She was a lovely little flyer, could hover like a hummingbird and flutter like a butterfly. Caramel could change direction at the last minute and fly at all angles. Though last night she was having trouble. I thought it may have been with her claws as she had long nails. So we cut them but she still persisted in her flying and hit the bottom several times with falling. David noticed her tail feathers were short as if she had plucked them out! We made some adjustments to the cage and set up the nest box for them to settle in. Caramel jumped right into the nest and called out happily.

You will all understand my shock at what I discovered while peering into the cage this morning. There was Chocolate sitting all alone and then I saw Caramel lying on her side on the bottom of the cage. I bawled for a life ended, a soul that had taken flight. I loved how Caramel would be receptive to me and even Chocolate mourned her loss, calling out for a reply that never came. It was the shock of seeing her lifeless body that struck me the most.

My mum dug a little grave for Caramel amongst my Honeysuckle and there she will lie becoming one with the roots and soil.

Final resting place of Caramel Connor-Evans.

Into Darkness…

With a visit to the cinema long overdue, today I decided to go with my mum to Liverpool One’s Odeon to see the new Star Trek film and I loved it! It had enough plot to keep you interested and action scenes to make you gasp! I just loved the camaraderie between the actors who are all cast perfectly. My favourite is Zachary Quinto who plays Spock and Benedict Cumberbatch was very scary as the ‘bad guy!’

The last time we went to the cinema was when we went to see Les Miserables and outside we found ‘The Big Egg Hunt,’ with lots of lovely eggs painted by UK artists. This time there was a display of four sculptures of African Elephants for the Knowsley Safari Park campaign ‘if they’re gone!’ So out came my camera and I took a snap!

The Jailer.

I was just sitting enjoying my cappuccino from Costa in a very quiet university study area as most students have all gone home for the summer. I was recharging my batteries before the second dentistry exam I was to invigilate in the afternoon. (I had a three hour one in the morning.)

When breaking the quietness of the room came the jangle of keys as someone walked past. It brought to my mind the poem by Sylvia Plath, the Jailer. Though not my favourite of hers, I thought I would post it here for you all to read.

Christine x

The Jailer by Sylvia Plath.

My night sweats grease his breakfast plate.
The same placard of blue fog is wheeled into position
With the same trees and headstones.
Is that all he can come up with,
The rattler of keys?

I have been drugged and raped.
Seven hours knocked out of my right mind
Into a black sack
Where I relax, foetus or cat,
Lever of his wet dreams.

Something is gone.
My sleeping capsule, my red and blue zeppelin
Drops me from a terrible altitude.
Carapace smashed,
I spread to the beaks of birds.

O little gimlets—
What holes this papery day is already full of!
He his been burning me with cigarettes,
Pretending I am a negress with pink paws.
I am myself. That is not enough.

The fever trickles and stiffens in my hair.
My ribs show. What have I eaten?
Lies and smiles.
Surely the sky is not that colour,
Surely the grass should be rippling.

All day, gluing my church of burnt matchsticks,
I dream of someone else entirely.
And he, for this subversion,
Hurts me, he
With his armor of fakery,

His high cold masks of amnesia.
How did I get here?
Indeterminate criminal,
I die with variety—
Hung, starved, burned, hooked.

I imagine him
Impotent as distant thunder,
In whose shadow I have eaten my ghost ration.
I wish him dead or away.
That, it seems, is the impossibility.

That being free. What would the dark
Do without fevers to eat?
What would the light
Do without eyes to knife, what would he
Do, do, do without me?