Went the weekend well?

First a quick plug for my wonderful hairdressers Scott Bailye where I went for my monthly trim on Friday.  The brilliant Hailey does my hair and she is just the funniest, loveliest person.  She can boost your morale and make you laugh more than anyone else I know.  Scott's salon does a lot for local young people, taking on apprentices and going to the local college to teach, they also always do well in the hairdressing competitions, and are generally the nicest, friendliest salon in the area.  So after that...

I popped into a local garden centre whilst waiting for D to have his hair shorn (he would want me to add that he doesn't go to my hairdressers, he goes to see Ron the Barber!), and got three free plants that they were giving away to good homes as they were all on the point of death.  I always feel so sorry for unwanted things like that so brought home a Chocolate Cosmos, a Hellebore, and a Cranberry.

Plants on the verge....

The Cosmos does have a couple of flowers on it (that do smell like chocolate!), so I took the opportunity of taking a couple of close-ups of them.

This first one was actually out of focus but I played around with it and now really like it as it reminds me of a water-colour painting.

This one was a better shot technically but I think I now prefer the 'faulty' one!

I also got around to taking a photo of some of the large squares I've crocheted for my latest project which is a throw for the sofa in the living room.  What I find really strange about this image is the colour of the bottom squares which look blue, when they are in fact khaki green.  Don't know what my camera or my image-processing software was thinking here!

Saturday morning Cath and I were off to Stratford (D was doing a photo shoot in Coventry), with a discount voucher for Lakeland in our hot little hands.  Oooh, what to say about the lovely stuff in Lakeland?  There are so many things in there that you never knew you needed or wanted, in fact you didn't know existed.  We saw Grumpy Old Women Live do a sketch about Lakeland which was so funny and so accurate we cried with laughing.  It also made me go and buy Cath a banana-guard from there and wrap it in an extremely large box for Christmas that year... Anyway, I digress.  Here is a picture of Cath before we went into the shop, with nose against glass coveting all the lovely things...

Amongst the many things I saw and fell in love with in there were these Santa Tealight Holders.  I just love them!

And this Knitted Heart Decoration.  If I don't have a go at making one of my own then I'm a banana.

As well as these Scandinavian type heart decorations

After much browsing, debating and mathematical calculations I decided to add to my meagre collection of a cakestand and single-serving teapot and cup from the Henrietta  kitchen range.  It was buy two get a third item free, plus £5 off.  So I ended up with this haul: a large teapot, three mugs, four small plates and four bowls.  They are far too nice to be kept in a cupboard and will be going on display in the kitchen.

After that excitement (I can't even remember what Cath bought except I seem to think it involved a monster tattoo kit for your hand...), I had to pick up our tickets from the RSC (and don't even get me started on how bad their customer service in the Box Office is!!!) for December.  D and I are going to a preview evening for the opening of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre in December, as well as a one man show with Roger Rees later the same month, (for West Wing fans that's Lord John Marbury!).  Then Cath went mad in Alexon and bought three tops, and I bought a hoard of bits from a shop that was much, much cheaper.

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We also saw a band called Captain Dangerous performing in the street.

And after collecting D, we got home just in time for me to get a photo on my phone of Charlie pulling a really bizarre face.

As Cath and I aren't walking this morning, D and I may have that joyous experience of going to a DIY store - sometimes it just has to be done...  And I am desperately trying to finish the book I've been reading a couple of pages of before falling asleep every night.  Plus there are those hearts to be started on...

First day of September...

What a perfect, golden, late summer's day it was yesterday.  Sunny but with a hint of coolness in the air - just beautiful.  Whilst at work I decided I would do some gardening when I got home, which in my case usually means the destruction of something, and this time it was the turn of a California Lilac that was getting too unruly (it was almost pulling the fence over as it was so heavy and leaning to one side, and also keeping the other plants below it in constant shade).  With the aid of a hacksaw, gardening gloves, a few choruses of 'I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok',  and four cats who like to get involved with everything, I managed to remove an offending trunk and dragged it to the other side of the garden for D to do something with (I get bored easily and had had enough of it by then).  Pepper especially found it fascinating.  (The cats now have a page of their own on this blog with their biographies and some pics on it).

Pepper and the California Lilac

And this is Pepper blatantly peeping through a spy-hole in the fence

to see what's happening in someone else's garden.  She knows no shame.

As I always think of September (or late September) as the beginning of Autumn I've been reading poetry with an autumnal flavour.  I'll save Keats etc for later but this is one from Geoffrey Hill called September Song.  It's his elegy to a child that died in the concentration camps, and is one of those poems you can't get out of your mind after reading it.  I first read it about eleven years ago and it's stayed with me ever since.

September Song

born 19.6.32 - deported 24.9.42

Undesirable you may have been, untouchable

you were not.  Not forgotten

or passed over at the proper time.

As estimated, you died.  Things marched,

sufficient, to that end.

Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented

terror, so many routine cries.

(I have made

an elegy for myself it

is true)

September fattens on vines.  Roses

flake from the wall.  The smoke

of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

This is plenty.  This is more than enough.

Although I'm a great believer in letting a poem speak to the reader personally, and taking your own meaning from it, there is an excellent analysis of this poem at Novelguide.