So this photo taken at 23:55 will give you a good idea of how well my 3rd assignment is going š¤£ or not as the case may be.
Thankfully my tutor has given me an extension as it was due in yesterday. Given that I have a weeks worth of food diary to keep as well as 9 questions to answer, I think its safe to say it wonāt be submitted until Sunday night!!! Itās been super hard to concentrate though. Let me explain….
Last Wednesday we welcomed mother-in-law into our lockdown ābubbleā. Sheās been on her own at home for 12 weeks. She has carers pop in a couple of times a week and my sister in law and her family do a brilliant job doing her shopping and washing etc. However, 12 weeks on your own is pretty dull isnāt it. She loves to come and stay and jumped at the chance when they relaxed the rules last week.
Sheās pretty easy to look after. The toads run around after her a lot making cups of tea and sharing ginger nut biscuits with her (and the dog). I make sure she has a decent meal and generally she passes the day doing word searches, knitting and listening to music – she STILL hasnāt learned that the magic speaker is called google and can often be heard shouting āOK Dougal, play Jim Reevesā to no avail š¤£š¤£
HOWEVER…. she also has a penchant for gameshows and watches challenge TV a LOT of the day which wouldnāt be so bad IF the volume wasnāt at 98!!!!! š³š³
Guess where my study area is located? Yep, right behind the tv in our open plan downstairs. This makes concentrating VEEERRRRRY difficult. We plug a soundbar in now to direct the noise at her a little bit better but even thatās loud. Iām putting my headphones on and trying hard to zone out and crack on but tonight as I tried to ignore Jim Bowen commiserating with a pair of contestants that they didnāt manage to win the speedboat, I kinda had to acknowledge that it simply wasnāt working š
Letās talk clock-gate!
Fatherās Day is always bitter-sweet in chateaux toad now. I lost my wonderful dad in 2013 to cancer. We thought heād beaten it in 2008 but sadly it came back and this time he simply couldnāt win. I NEVER let this stop us celebrating Fatherās Day for Toad Senior though who is constantly striving to give us the very best life we could possibly have. We did cards and presents and the toadette made him breakfast in bed. It was a good day. Plus the rose I planted in memory of my dad chose that day to bloom. Lovely.
The 22nd June is the day my dad died. Not usually a day I choose to remember to be honest. I donāt see the need to remember a day of sadness. However, this year something very strange happened.
My dad loved his clock. It broke multiple times and multiple times he fixed it. It spent many months in pieces on the dining room table but he was always so very happy when he put it back together and it worked. Itās stood silent for years now. Occasionally it ticks when you move it but soon stops. I donāt really give it much thought anymore. Until Monday night.
I did a lovely socially distanced yoga practice in the garden with my yoga teacher Alix and had just made us a cup of tea when we finished practice at 9:30 when the clock started chiming š³ it chimed 7… the clock that hasnāt been wound for years, hasnāt chimed for years had started ticking and chiming. Completely on its own. Nobody had touched that clock. I had to sit and wait to see if it chimed again. An hour later it chimed 8. It hadnāt been my imagination. It carried on through the night and itās last chime was 9:30 the following morning. It stopped again and hasnāt worked since. Iāve wound it and set it ticking, moved the hands to right the time and hoped it would work but it stops after 5 minutes. Now I canāt remember the exact time my dad died… Iām pretty sure it was after 8pm… thinking on it, it was getting dark. I donāt want to say 9:30 because it sounds too made up but š¤·š¼āāļø freaky things happen right?!
I like to think he was just touching base, saying hello, playing a little prank. It was very strange but Iām not freaked. A little annoyed I canāt get the clock working again as I liked the sound of it and had forgotten that. Iām certainly not going to take it to bits though š¤£ sorry dad. I know I inherited a lot of your characteristics but clock fixing probably isnāt one of them!!!
Vegetable gardening was one of the traits I DID inherit though. Mummatoads garden is looking magnificent. We have a few caterpillars causing a bit of havoc and slugs have had a munch on some stuff too but I canāt moan too much as generally my yields have been excellent and I havenāt bought lettuce for months!! Just need the rest of the salad veg to get on and ripen and my shopping bill will be a whole lot cheaper!!! I have successional sowing to undertake this week and some serious harvesting to do. Gonna have to crack on with that earlier in the day though as I didnāt free my time until the afternoon today and 29Ā° was faaaaaaar toooo hot to be gardening in. Even the dog was whacked!
š¤£ Happy Wednesday everyone.
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Toad-life 