NOT MY USUAL SUNDAY SHOT!

What do you do on a windy, wet and dismal Sunday afternoon when it’s too horrible to even step outside?  You find something indoors to play around with before having a little snooze!

I had already decided the weather was too awful for us to go out driving around looking for dereliction, although Mr. HCB did say he would take me up to Liddington, to a place we knew we would find some.  However, I was adamant that we wouldn’t go out, especially since we had both woken up with a headache this morning.  Mine cleared quite quickly, but Mr. HCB is still suffering, so I’m sure I made the right decision.

We watched Church online, and enjoyed a good service again;  funnily enough, when we saw the Minister wearing a tie, we wondered if Communion would be part of the service, and we were right.  Mr. HCB said that he would have to open a new bottle of Port, so although I told him not to bother and just to use something else, he insisted, so I can see that he will be imbibing more of that, but perhaps not today if his headache persists!

This is a shot of one of the hyacinth bulbs my sister gave me last year, we think for my birthday.  After the bulbs had finished flowering, we just put the pot outside and Mr. HCB took it into the greenhouse just before Christmas.  He was delighted to bring it into me earlier in the week saying that not only had he noticed the flowers, but had smelled the wonderful perfume.  So now I can enjoy both the flower and the perfume as it sits on our kitchen windowsill.  It reminds me of our wedding, as I had tiny white hyacinth “pips” and white lilies in my bouquet - it was a good job I wasn’t allergic to lilies back then!

So here is Karen’s gift - blessing me all over again - and just for the record and she will kill me for this if she sees the extra, here am I, with my older bridesmaid, Margaret, and my sister, Karen, looking rather sternly at my little brother, Paul.  Not a very clear shot, but it was taken almost 54 years ago, when cameras weren’t quite what they are today.

Who knew that even Jane Austen wrote about hyacinths?

This quote is from Chapter 22 of Northanger Abbey and I’m sure is known to my lovely friend, Marylou, although I must confess I haven’t read the book myself:

“But now you love a hyacinth. 
     So much the better. 
You have gained a new source of enjoyment, 
     and it is well to have as many holds 
          upon happiness as possible...
And though the love of a hyacinth 
     may be rather domestic, who can tell, 
          the sentiment once raised, 
               but you may in time come to love a rose?”
Jane Austen