Tuesday, 15th of November 2022
Today is not really my day. At work I kept loosing whatever I worked on due to various software glitches. I really need to get into a habit of saving my work instead of overly relying on autosave feature. To top it up, I got an invitation for ‘appraisal’ from my new boss. ‘He can appraise my a… ‘ I said to my old boss, to which he laughed out loud. Dude has been here for 5 mins and he thinks I’m interested in what he thinks of my work 🙄
After work I went to visit my friend to relax and dance together. Well, we didn’t dance! I’ve met her new foster child, who is absolutely adorable. We got some fish and chips, talked about the boy and then we started arguing about the charger!
‘Where is your charger, my phone is nearly dead?’ I say
‘I don’t have a charger!’ she exclaims.
‘What do you mean, you don’t have a charger?!’ I reply, then walk to pick the cable I can see from the sofa, walk to the kitchen with it and she follows
‘None of my chargers work’ she screams again.
I attach the cable to the plug in the kitchen, then to my phone and of course it works!
She comes in acting surprised and holding another charger in her hands.
‘I only have this one now’ she screams, then shows me other 2 crappy chargers that don’t work.
‘This one works, plus you have another cable where I took this one from’ I answer. ‘Where is the spoon I was using btw?’
‘I thought none of them works. Didn’t touch your spoon’ says she.
I look into the sink and there lies the spoon she didn’t touch. It grew legs and walked to the sink 🙄
Next I got a reply from a friend about markeplace bot and he asked me if I heard the news. I didn’t and asked him what news? Apparently Russia ‘accidentally’ dropped 2 missiles in Poland!
Now I’m shaking. I go outside for a smoke and to message my parents. They’re ok, I feel relieved. I go back inside to hear more about the charger. I gave her back the cable I was using, put on my clothes and said bye. I am in no mood to be arguing about the charger and a spoon and my phone needs charging.
She is a good friend overall and especially when it comes to parties, but today I’m really not in a mood for drama. I’m fully capable of creating enough of drama myself and today Putin decided it was his turn too!
Speaking of the spoon. I could argue about the spoon if I was just about to eat those stuffed courgettes. They were utterly delicious that day. It was one of my first harvests from my allotment and my friend just gave me the recipe for them. That was last year though and there are no more courgettes, so no arguing about the spoon either. Plus my belly is full of fish and chips right now!
And here the proof that I actually grew these amazing round courgettes myself. My friend and I collected a shit load of manure from a nearby stable to spread on that new allotment plot I just got then. She also brought the seeds for them all the way from Argentina and started them indoors for me. Then I planted them out and watered throughout the season. The plants were huge, with leaves so big that even my allotment neighbours were impressed. My friend and I were very proud of our joint effort in growing these.
While we talk about allotment neighbours - Vanessa has a soft spot for dahlias. This one above is a capture stolen from her plot. Although the colour might be not my favourite, I absolutely love the full shape of it. I have one of similar share in dark red colour in my garden, but this year the snails got to them before me, so I didn’t see any flowers.
I however have the softest spot for orchids! I’m nowhere near as obsessed with them as I was some years ago. I don’t attend orchid society meetings nor orchids shows nor do I watch orchid video’s every day, but I still have plenty of them around my house and the one above is one of my favourite.
It is Phalaenopsis Liodoro ‘Sweet memory’. It’s not a complex hybrid like those we can find in every supermarket these days, but closer to a species Phalaenopsis. Their leaves are much more delicate that hybrids and of course they’re much more tricky to grow. The reason why this is one of my favourite orchid is because of its scent! Even 1-2 flowers are enough to fill my bedroom with an amazing sweet citrus fragrance.
The flowers can last a few weeks and if I’m lucky the next flower will open before the previous one wilts. When this happens, it looks like they are of 2 different colours - the newly opened one has more yellow, then it turns more into white, while the pink spots stay the same all the time. Or wait - is it white to yello? I can't remember! Nonetheless it’s one fascinating orchid. This year I wasn’t very lucky - I had 2 flowers one soon after another and they both dropped as soon as I turned the heating on 😵💫
Moving on to Henley-on-Thames. It’s a cute, little, posh, English village. My bestie used to live nearby before she abandoned me and moved up North, 4 hours drive from me! In the past, I would get in the car and drive 1h 15 mins to see her for a few days. The picture above is from one of those visits. We took a stroll around the high street to visit many antique shops in search of some unusual witchy gadgets.
Next up is my local farm. Before I had my own allotment, I would go there to pick some fresh fruit in veg. I still go there to buy honey once my reserves from Poland disappear in my belly. They also have an amazing smoked garlic butter there. Never tried any butter that would come even close to the taste of this one. I buy a box and eat the butter on its own in little slices. It’s THAT good!
Oh look here! That’s the red dahlia I was talking about earlier! I would not find the picture of it if I tried. I decided I will just scroll through my gallery to some distant months and pick up whatever I find there and… here she is. Together with the cute tiny snail I found in between her petals. This one for sure didn’t eat my dahlias, cause he’s too small, but who knows? Maybe he grew big since last year and ate them! I don’t even know how long snails live… do you know?
I also found this Amanita family of 2 also from last year’s forest walks. The mushroom obsession is clearly not new in my life 😉
Right, I think I counted 9 pictures already, so there is room for only one more. Number 10 to goes to…
DollyLolly! It’s a cockopoo that belongs to a friend I visited earlier today. She has 3 of those cuties. One is 5 years old and she’s the mother of the remaining 2 puppies. On the picture above is one of the 2 years old ‘puppies’. I guess technically they’re no longer puppies, but they still behave like children. All 3 of them jump allover me as soon as I walk through the door. Occasionally I take one of them home for ‘holiday’ for a week or two. Afterwards I happily return them to their mom 😉
This is my contribution to #tuesdayten ‘made up’ by @sketch.and.jam
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