Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Rain, Reading & Rest

May 14, 2019 at 9:37 am by Claudia

And so it continues. Yesterday afternoon, I stood up from my chair, thrust the phone between the slats of the blinds, and took this picture.

Rain, rain, go away. You won. Most days this spring have been rainy. Our well is full. Please move on.

Now.

It’s actually not raining at the moment, but it will start up again this afternoon.

One comfort: our cold temperatures will move on tomorrow. This is the last day of this nonsense. Our neighbors who live at higher elevations have woken up to snow for the past two days. So, I’ll only complain a little bit. I’ll be quite happy to see somewhat higher temperatures and I’ll be even happier when I can move around enough to brave the outside and check in on the gardens.

As Don said this morning, “Well, if you have to be resting your back, it might as well be on a rainy day.” He’s right.

More forget-me-nots appearing hither and yon. This time, between the pavers on the funky patio. One of my favorite things about gardening is the magic of self-seeders. Coneflowers are that way – for years, they have appeared in unexpected places on the property. The same with yarrow, which self-seeded from the big garden bed (and subsequently disappeared from that bed) to the little patch where I plant my seeds. For the past two years, they have self-seeded in the corral. Big patches of them! I love that. So, now I mow around them, letting them grow and flower.

This year, the forget-me-nots have moved to surprising places; the above-mentioned pavers, the gravel, the little hill that leads to the corral, and there are several in the memorial garden – fitting, I think. It’s as if they know where to go.

I’m reading several books at the moment; continuing with Paris in Winter,  adding in some Beverley Nichols books that I had waiting for me on the shelf. Have you ever read Beverley Nichols? He wrote the most delightful books about gardening in England. They were written in the thirties and forties. Nichols was a prolific author; writing fiction, non-fiction, children’s stories, plays – he counted Noel Coward among his friends – and had a flat in London along with a country house. The first country house was a thatched cottage. He eventually wrote about three different country cottages.  The first in the Allways (the fictional name for his cottage) trilogy is Down the Garden Path. The next – which I’ve just started – is A Thatched Roof.  

I should be living in England, you know. I’ve always thought that. If not England, then Paris, please. Both Don and I are about as British (ancestry-wise) as you can get and both of us started our careers acting in British plays. Don excels at British farces, especially the plays of Alan Ayckbourn; I was very good at Noel Coward. Both of use just knew in our bones how to do those pieces. I could do a cracker-jack of a British accent when I was in junior high school.

Let’s face it, we’re both Anglophiles.

Anyway, another day of back rest and rain. So books to read and some hot chocolate should come in handy.

Happy Tuesday.

Filed Under: books, flowers, garden, rain, reading 39 Comments

Sitting in Place

May 13, 2019 at 9:25 am by Claudia

Well, I felt like my back was getting better yesterday afternoon, but today is not so good. So far. I’ve had to cancel my oil change twice now. The only chair which seems to have enough support for me is my blogging chair, so there I sit. I made the mistake of sitting next to Don on our many-years-old sofa in the den last night and I’m paying for it. Its saggy cushions don’t offer enough support.

And it rained all day long yesterday. It’s going to start raining again around noon today and will rain the rest of the day.

The area behind the kitchen is like a small pond. The ground can only absorb so much water and we have had more rain here than I can ever remember us having. Maybe three days of full sun this entire spring? The rest have been a mass of gray skies and rain. It’s also colder than normal – last night’s low was 39 degrees.

Don and I want to scream, but we’ve refrained so far.

I’ve got nothing else to share but this photo of our door knocker. I quite love it. We’ve had it for years. But you’ll notice it isn’t on the door; rather, it’s on one of the porch posts.

And I don’t know if anyone has ever used it.

We don’t have a working doorbell either.

We hear the sound of a car coming up the driveway and that’s our doorbell.

But I do like the look of the leafy door knocker on the post. It looks welcoming – someone could  use it if they wanted to. In fact, I used it the other day, simply to hear the sound of it again.

The agenda for today? Sitting, with occasional standing and walking. Ibuprofen. Reading. Sleeping.

Rest in Peace, Doris Day. I simply loved her, not only for her legacy as a singer and an actress – Pillow Talk remains one of my favorite movies – but also for her love of animals and the foundation she established for them.

Happy Monday.

 

 

Filed Under: life 32 Comments

Wouldn’t You Know It?

May 12, 2019 at 10:38 am by Claudia

Well, my friends, despite all the work I’ve done outdoors, pushing, pulling, bending over, mowing, yanking, carrying heavy bags – I found myself throwing out my back by the simplest of movements; reaching for the toilet paper.

Yep. Nothing outside, nothing brought on by physical extremes, just the mundane. How un-glamorous!

It happened yesterday morning as I was getting ready to spend time on the porch. Not to be deterred, I did spend a couple of hours on the glider, sitting on two pillows, with two pillows behind my back. It was such an extraordinarily beautiful day, with sunshine and bird song all day long, that I had to be out there. The kind of day that was fairly frequent last year, but extremely rare this year.

To be sure, today it’s raining and twenty degrees colder.

Anyway, ain’t that the pits? I find that whenever my back really becomes a problem it’s most often because of some everyday movement that suddenly becomes a betrayal. Sleeping last night was not easy, but thankfully, I did sleep. We had to cancel brunch at Rick and Doug’s this morning, even though I urged Don to go without me. He won’t, darn it.

So. I’m taking it easy – I have no choice – using the heating pad, walking around fairly frequently to stay somewhat limber, you know, the usual. This too, shall pass.

I finally moved the pillows from the living room sofa to the glider and replaced them with other throw pillows. The replacements will only be there for a short while as our new sofa will be here within about 10 – 14 days.

I finished Ex Libris  yesterday afternoon and now I’m reading David Coggins’ book about the winter visits to Paris he and his family have made for years, named, appropriately, Paris in Winter. Coggins is an artist and his watercolors are sprinkled throughout the book. It’s really quite lovely.

Mother’s Day has become a not-very-good-day for me.  So I tend to ignore it. But I don’t want to ignore all of you, or my sister, who is the best mother in the world. So I wish all of you who are mothers – whether to human children or furry children, farmyard animals, nieces and nephews, students, foster children, grandchildren, neighborhood children, or to green, living things – a Happy Mothers Day.

Happy Sunday.

Filed Under: mothers day, porch 40 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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