Generally Gemma

Kosmic Karma

Hello blogging folk. Apologies for my absence, I have no excuse other than the heat. My office has no air conditioning and no proper windows for opening so when I get home I shower and konck out for the evening. The last thing I feel like doing is sitting in front of a computer again! Then last week I got a dreadful cold. Sitting in a puddle of your own making whilst drinking lemsip and blowing your nose is not how I want to spend the hottest day of July since 1911!

However, last night there was an incident that restored my faith in human nature and I feel compelled to tell you all about it.

I stupidly left my mobile phone sitting on the bench at the station on my way home. The embarrassment, in my defence in six years of owning one I haven't abandoned it yet so I think I deserve points for that! When I got home the land line rang and it was a man who had picked up my phone and wanted to give it back to me. So, he said he would call me and let me know when he was on his way back from London and that it would be about 9:30. At 9:30 he called and said that he had been sitting on a stationary train for 40 mins and had no idea what time it would be leaving and where did I live. He drove out of his way to Cheam, where I live, and met me and handed my phone over at 11:00 at night!

I was gob-smacked and tearful. For someone to not only do me a favour and return my phone to me but to go out of his way to that extent, well I was speechless. Just as I was beginning to think that people like that didn't exist one turned up out of the blue. I am now looking for a moment to pay the karma forward so that the cosmic gods don't fall out with me. Any ideas?

Tea with G & G

After moaning recently about the soggy humidity I was kindly repaid by the celestial weather organisers by a positively autumnal weekend. So much for my plan of sunbathing and trying to get a bit of a tan before we go on holiday!

So, a weekend of indoor activity ensued. I have been cutting blocks out for my new quilt as though my life depended on it.

 

They are now all finished and the arduous task of trying to make the individual squares work together in harmony to produce the large blocks.

 

It is amazing how quickly it goes with decent things to watch and an endless supply of tea. Narnia and the end of Dr Who and G being the responsibly ones for that.

So the wind blowing through the trees,the sun clouding over and the pitter patter of tiny rain drops means only one thing in the G&G household. Baking! Jane recently posted a flapjack recipe that looked simply gorgeous and so today was the day to try it out.

A resounding success all round. Although I think I may need to cook them for a little less next time. My oven is somewhat temperamental and never seems to be in tune with either temperature or timings for cooking.

Soggy

This wouldn't be a blog written by an English person if occasionally I didn't dedicate a post to the weather. It seems I can never be happy, when it is grey and dull I am miserable and can't wait for the sunshine and then the sunshine finally does it bit to please me and pops out and all I do is moan about it.

The weather here for the past week has got progressively more and more soggy. The sort of heat where you have to swim through the air it is oppressive. The sort of heat where I have to shower at least four times a day or I'll melt into a little pool of Gemma related liquid. Working in an office with no air conditioning and windows like a greenhouse doesn't help much either!

We have a hose pipe ban here too which means I had to rethink my planting plans for the Summer too. However, there are a variety of plants that I simply have to have or it isn't an English Summer to me. Petunias, lobelia and Busy Lizzies. When M came to visit we spent an over heated afternoon in a garden centre picking out the perfect plants to plant in my ice-cream coloured troughs.

This year I have lilac, deep purple and cream petunias. The trumpet flowers are so unapologetic in their vulgarness that you just have to love them. I always like to plant them with lobelia, as their little flowers always look so helpless that I always feel as though somehow the petunias will protect them from the evil plant faeries. (I have a very over active imagination at times!) Petunias are the Scarlet O'Hara gossip of my Summer garden where as I always think of the lobelia as being Melanie, small and apologetic yet somehow almost stronger than anything else.

Remember my rescue quilt?

This is G roasting away pleasantly at the weekend. I convinced him to buy a hat for the Summer and then forced him to spend the weekend bonding with it. I feel it is very important to bond with your Summer hat, if you treat it kindly and like a good friend it will serve you well all season long. I think they are now in tune with each other. I came home one day this week and found him asleep in it, just tipped gently over his eyes. So, you see they are in sympathy with each other already!

On a "creative" front I haven't really done much. The heat seems to sap me of all energy and inclination to do anything more than lay down and read a trashy book or sit in front of the fan indulging in guilty television pleasures. I have made good progress with the second sock though whilst sitting in front of reruns of this series of Dr Who. The finale is this weekend and I can't wait. And whilst it seems that Rose is indeed leaving at least my beloved David Tennant will be sticking around for a while longer.