The Way of the Wombat

I took this picture from the front of our house on Thursday. It made me think of The Straight Road.

I know now that it was the day that keiliss died - may you have found the straight road easily my friend.

I forgot to post this link here yesterday.

Those who know my LJ will know that over the pandemic period I helped our minister to put together church services on video. It was a bit like the partially sighted leading the blind; Dawn didn't even realise a laptop had a video camera, and that you would need to put the video on Youtube to be able to share it with others. I had never tried to actually do either of those things - but at least knew I could figure it out!

Over time I learnt how to trim the video, how to cut bits out - and then how to actually add music!

I ended up as a participant as she felt a second voice was needed.

And we did the last one a year ago. So I had forgotten how to do most of that!

Then, due to a series of road closures for cycle racing it was decided that there would be no service in church yesterday but, instead, Revd. Dawn and I recorded our first one for a year. It is interesting - the reading is from Hosea and is one that is often avoided as there is definitely implications of an abusive relationship.

I was dashing around on Thursday before I went down to record it, and didn't think to change my top - something else might have looked better! Also I managed to misjudge a cut point and the first hymn cuts Dawn off mid-word - and then I managed to have the end music over the blessing :( But I couldn't face redoing it as I needed to get it uploaded by Friday evening as the lady who sends the link out to everyone was about to leave the island to go to Poland for a wedding.

You can find the video here.

In past years the Flower festival has taken place in around 20 different venues around the island, In 2020, of course, it was cancelled, but last year there was a small scale version planned with just a few arrangers, in a central venue. That worked well (although somehow I missed it), and it was decided to do something bigger, but similar his year.

So 31 different groups, ranging from churches to the poetry society, the ukulele group and even a book club, all did one large arrangement or an area in St Johns Mill, which is now a small conference centre and meeting place, supported by the Island's churches.

This seems to have worked really well. Groups who have no permanent 'home' to decorate, or are simply not big enough to cope with filling a building with flowers and stewarding it for a week, are able to participate on this scale and, although I loved visiting the different venues, I can see that this might become the way forward even post pandemic.

My sister, niece and baby great-niece went together, and we really enjoyed all the different displays in different parts of the building - including the baby, who seemed very taken with so many colours!

I have put some of my favourites under the cut - and also a link to the whole album on Flickr.

( Click here... )

And once we had seen all the flowers, we had coffee and cake in the small refectory at the mill, then went and looked at the courtyard of shops which are only two minutes walk away. And then my sister decided we might as well go on to Peel, walk along the promenade, and then sit and eat ice-cream from Davidsons - I can absolutely recommend the coconut and lime ice-cream!

And whilst we sat on the promenade we noticed this three masted barque tied up at the harbour wall;



She is the Sailing Vessel Tenacious - you can read more about her here.

And yesterday was Messy Church - about which more tomorrow I think!

PS - if you would like to see how my great-niece is growing, and you are also my friend on LJ, there is a lovely photo of her there that I posted on Friday - but I cannot work out how to post a picture here that can be restricted to only friends. Clearly I could lock the entry, but to import the picture from Flickr or similar it would have to be public there...

Seen on a local FB page "I unfortunately need to replace the sceptic tank".

I was too polite to comment there - but sat and sniggered for a couple of minutes.

I'm guessing it is a bit like a think tank, but harder to convince.

I meant to do this last year, but didn't.

This picture is just to illustrate just how far North I live, as I know some USA friends find it hard to think of us being further north than you all, but not having snow all winter! I took this about 10.15pm last night, looking more or less due East.




And this is a picture of the rather pretty pink bush and white valerian, in the front garden, taken at the same time.



It isn't quite so bright tonight (and not because, as S2C pointed out, the days are getting shorter), because it is grey, overcast and raining. The plants are happy - and so am I as I won't have to go out and water anything this evening!

It is TT! The first since 2019. An expected 36,000 extra people will be on the island by next week - currently about 15,000 of them are here and it is already busy, busy, busy!

We are running a refreshments service at church as usual; our church is on the course, less than 500m from the start line, and has a large outdoor area where the bikes go past only 3 or 4 metres away from our stone wall.



This is the church garden - you can see the stone wall at the left.

We sell basic tea and coffee, crisps, some bought in chocolate bars, and then filled baps and lots and lots of home made cakes.

But at least when I am at home, busy doing some of the baking, my own garden also looks good as I stand at the kitchen sink!



Note the washing line of assorted towels and oven mitts :)

I have taken so many pictures in the garden over the past couple of days - I am just going to share a few of them.

The laburnum tree in the corner is beautiful at the minute -





And near the base of it -



I took those three pictures whilst sitting out on the decking which is at that end of the garden. But I mainly sat looking down to the other end because... this;



That is mainly the clematis :) The tree it climbs up is in my neighbour's garden and is around 4 or 5m tall!

More of that clematis in another post. But also down at the decking end Marjory, the baby clematis that I planted last year, is growing nicely and actually has three flowers so far - but she has hidden them under her new leaves -



Yes - she really is called Marjory - she is Clematis Montana Marjory.

Also down that end of the garden I have another volunteer; this is Herb Robert. The bees like it and that bit in front of the holly is fairly empty at present, so I'm happy for it to stay... for now.



And finally for today - the first of the nasturtiums is in flower in another quiet spot - I planted some there two years ago and they have naturalised and just reappear of their own accord now.

I haven't done anything much in the past couple of days except potter in the garden and do some knitting (another baby jacket, almost finished - I will take a picture when it is done).

So here are a few garden pictures. I will put them under a cut - ( pics under here! )

S2C and I went down to The Sound again this morning as he really wanted one of their breakfast burritos. The tide was lower, the sun was shining - and the seals had hauled up both on their favourite rock now not submerged, and on Kitterland which is really a very tiny island -





We counted over 30 altogether - and they were calling loudly, which is fun to hear. Mostly quite a deep sound, but occasionally a more musical note, although still more selkie than mermaid :)

A little further out was someone on a paddle board - I am assuming they knew what they were doing as they seemed to be heading into the narrow passage between Kitterland and The Calf, and there is a real clash of currents there!



Clicking on the pictures will take you to Flickr where you can zoom in and see the expressions on the seals' faces :)

Today's date is an anniversary. Two years ago today my daughter and her fiancé were due to marry.

Over the 2 or 3 weeks preceding the wedding day the pandemic began to be more than a tiny blip on the horizon and they had seen their plans change and change and change, almost daily. They had to cancel their honeymoon in Tahiti, then the new honeymoon in England had to be cancelled, and eventually a third one in a local hotel, too. The reception could no longer happen as planned, their caterers offered to host a smaller one in their café, then the rules changed again and they had to cancel; the wedding venue could now only take 30 people, but we could have a champagne toast, then they could only take 10, then it could only be the registrar with the bride, groom, and their two fathers as witnesses... and on the 26th of March even that was cancelled as the island went into strict lockdown.

I look back in my journal and on the afternoon of the 26th my daughter said "Ah well, we gave it our best shot!" and I took a photo of my spare bedroom -



An unworn wedding dress and bridesmaid's dress.

On the 28th March 2020 both daughter and fiancé posted this message on their Facebook pages;

Today was supposed to be our wedding day 😭 We have planned so many weddings and honeymoons over the last fortnight to overcome each setback again and again and again. We are thoroughly exhausted. Thank you to everyone who sent us messages and kind wishes throughout, it really means a lot ❤

We have encountered so many people whose lives are being affected by this virus, and whilst each plan b, c and d for us gave empty hope that we could still tie the knot on an increasingly less 'big' day, at least we still have jobs and know that at the end of all this we can get what we want just later than planned. But for the beauticians 💅 hairdressers 💇‍♀️ caterers 🥖 catteries 😿 guesthouses 🏩florists 💐and so many more this is their livelihoods in the balance. Each of their plan b, c and d was a means for survival that with each daily press conference was taken from them. I am sure they are just as exhausted and with an awful lot more at stake.

When we do get married perhaps the best gifts we could ask for would be those that support local businesses - we are big fans of eating and drinking...

I cried. It was such a thoughtful message rather than a 'poor us' one.

And then we hunkered down to lockdown, fearful of what might come.

But, of course, we managed to make our island covid-free for almost 8 months from May 2020 and they had a wonderful, memorable, wedding on the 28th of August 2020 which, whilst not the same as the original one would have been, and a honeymoon of 3 days spent only 5 miles from home, was so much 'them' that none of us can imagine the original could have been as personal or as joyous.



And, despite further lockdowns and setbacks, the beautician, hairdresser, caterers, florist, and so on who were part of the original plan, were there for the actual wedding - and are all still in business - more than we could all have hoped for 2 years ago today.