I can hear rain on the roof. Hurrah! The garden needs it. Everything feels refreshed. My car got a wash tonight too when I went to see Tempestuous, Penny Ashton’s one-woman show which was hugely entertaining. I bought some merch to support this brilliant woman and her work.

Here’s a Post Script: This morning it is still raining off and on, with occasional breaks of sunshine. I’ve been thinking about the show last night. I counted on my fingers that Penny Ashton played at least eight characters, was on the stage for almost two hours with a 15 minute interval, recited, sang and danced with great energy and a magnetic stage presence – and wrote the whole script herself, with help from William Shakespeare, taking bits and pieces from various of his plays to make her own story. At the end of the show, she was in the foyer cheerfully selling merchandise with her husband and with her proud father nearby who commented that people don’t usually acknowledge the parents of their talented progeny, so I congratulated him. He didn’t look at all worn down by having brought up such a force of nature!

The 9th of October was the date given by the SPCA as Felix’s birthday. I would think that is a calculated guess as he was found abandoned, and a wise touch on their part to help owners bond with their pets. It’s more for our benefit than his!

He wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about his Party Mix (despite the claims of the ad on TV). Just before 11am he retired to Mum’s bed and he is still there nearly 6 hours later. We did have a game with a ping pong ball earlier, however, until it was lost under the furniture somewhere. I bought him another box full.

Here are some nostalgia shots:

Five days ago I photographed the first apple blossom. Before that I was pleased to see evidence of buds. I’d been worried that the tree might be dead. A couple of trees – shrubs really – have died along the driveway: a hebe, a honeysuckle and there’s a rhododendron which is looking sick. While the apple tree is on the other side of the garden, it didn’t look as if it was going to bloom at all.

Today, it’s hard to believe that I could have been worried.

A couple of people – including the nice young man who washed the roof some time ago – hinted that I might weed the paving stones nearby but, looking at the paved area this afternoon, those ‘weeds’ are flowering, and I’m glad I didn’t.

It takes a while to get over the tidy, everything-in-a-neat-line sort of gardening. So far, I’m holding out.

I have just been amusing myself doing a makeover on a selfie. This is using the Portrait tool in Snapseed where you can select skin smoothing, eye brightening, eyebrow definition, eyebag removal, iris clarity, teeth, lips and face spotlight.

Hilarious! I think I prefer the ‘Before’.

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold

– Robert Frost

I have been discovering the first flowers of the season in the garden.

And there is more to come:

Mis-spoke became a word a while ago when a politician regretted? retracted? was caught out? about something he said. There are lots of words starting with ‘mis’, such as misstep which has two meanings: you literally overbalance while walking or, figuratively, make a tactical error. Both have the sense of being accidental, not intended, while the more recent use of ‘mis’ words suggests a deliberate, even calculated, effort to distance the user from the action.

I started thinking about all this when ‘mis-remembered’ popped into my head just now while reading Murder and Mojitos. In the scene, a customer comes into the bookshop looking for a recently released book by a popular author but she doesn’t know the title. When it is established that Nicky Pellegrino is the author, the bookseller responds: ‘Ah,yes, “Murder in Italy” … ‘ This is one of the many in-jokes in the Bookshop Detectives series. The joke being, in this case, that Nicky Pelligrino writes a number of romance books set in Italy. Perhaps the book in question is the 2024 novel Marry Me in Italy.

‘Mis-think’ could be a word for a tendency to self-sabotage or let ourselves be deliberate misled (haha). Could ‘mistake’ mean to deliberately steal? (‘Oh, I mistook.’) More often ‘mis’ words seem to be used by politicians to excuse their less than ideal behaviour or to shift blame or to respond to a failure to manage a crisis. ‘Miscommunication’, ‘misappropriation’, ‘misinformation’, ‘mistakes were made’. Language is fascinating, especially when we can read between the lines for the speaker’s intentions. It’s part of critical thinking – the detective brain – which is useful, particularly now during an election campaign.