Emily goes out for an afternoon with grannie and grandad. Lockdown week26

Garden Glimpses

The geraniums I rescued from the bin are bright red and keep coming.

The buddliea was the survivor out of four cuttings. Supposedly a butterfly magnet. Not in our garden. 

Covid

Anyone see how the MCC are keeping financially viable. They are selling memberships. No need to wait 29 years. If you have £7000-80000 depending on your age. They will be sold out.

We need a degree in something with a module in common sense to wade through all the government and scientific advice. We were going to Anglesey. Not now.

Em

Beaumont Park

Dave's notebook

Referring back to meritocracy and how it might be less powerful than it was. Note this week that most grammar schools are oversubscribed. Applications are being received from long distances. Parents are prepared to move. Parents are also paying for private tuition. Still survival of the fittest then.

We need a lot of autumn pruning as the trees and bushes took off following the great spring. Included heather which was taking over our walls. So quite a large job and the wall reappeared as did a frog which must have been resting in the straggly wood. Ugly and black, but alive and maybe homeless. I left it to its fate. It'll be somewhere in the wall. Nearer the pond there is a yellow one. Better colour but still not my favourite.

Simon Barnes is easy to read and interesting. Try 'Rewild Yourself', 23 spellbinding ways to make nature more visible. Chapter 7, 'The Bottomless Sit'. Outdoors. Maybe on a walk. Remember a supermarket plastic bag to sit on. Wet underclothes are not recommended. Persist beyond those first few sits which will be restless. Nothing much may happen. Eventually sitting will just be it. Seeing something won't matter. It's a Zen thing - just sitting allows us to achieve I don't know what, but eventually you will experience what it is. Forget all the breathing and the posture and the meditation rules. It is not therapy.

  I first got a sense of this in Malta, singing. Continuously surrounded by friends, relaxed, I often found myself just sitting. Less when we are chasing our tails and time and goodness knows what else. Being out in the wild Simon thinks is a great way to try and achieve nothing.