The Third Column: July 2009

Skywatch from Lucy

Lucy Corrander - The Ending of a Summer's Day - July 30th 2009 - You can see more photos at Pictures Just Pictures

. . . and for other blogs taking part in Skywatch . . .

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD COLUMN - by Esther (Montgomery)

This may, or may not, work.

I was fiddling around with gadgets and the looks of things when I came up with the idea of making a window - so people can climb through to a selection of Dorset blogs . . .

. . . not a very wide group of blogs admittedly, not at present anyway - but the blogs written by me and my neighbours, Lucy ((Loose and Leafy and Pictures Just Pictures) and Mary (Hugh and Camellia).

They've got different readerships, this group of blogs, but there is an overlap and a window might be useful for overlappers. And a way in for new readers too.

Then, having decided to make a window, I began to wonder whether I might have an advert on it . . . for people to come to Dorset . . . or buy magazines about Dorset . . . something like that.

I wouldn't have adverts on other blogs - ones that aren't windows. Nor would Lucy or Mary. And all our other blogs will trundle on undisturbed and as usual. But a window is like a shop front - which might have notices about cleaners and gardeners on the glass. You wouldn't expect to have the same little cards stuck on your apples, bananas or books though.

Do you see what I mean?

That's a warning. You might not want to have anything to do with such a place. (You could wear a gas mask, I suppose.) (Or wellies.) (Or a bee-keeper's suit.)

But here it is.

The Third Column

This is (more or less) the same post as the one appearing on Esther's Boring Garden Blog - and all the other elements here are bits and bobs from elsewhere too - but that's the idea - and I stuck them on (as if it's a scrap-book) to make it look like the beginning of something (which it is).

Opinions welcome.

Esther

From Lucy

Lampost and Wall

Lampost and Wall - Dorchester - July 22nd 2009

Lucy Corander - Sony DSC-T77

Trees

Trees - Church Ope, Portland - July 29th 2009

Lucy Corrander - Sony DSC-T77

Boats On Wheels

Boats on Wheels - Ferrybridge - July 8th 2009

Sony DSC - T77

For more photos - go to Pictures Just Pictures

From Esther

My garden bird cage. (Plants on inside. Birds kept away. As poplularised by Monica. (But I thought of it first!) )

VP is coming to stay (not for ever, I hasten to say but for a few days next week) and this, of course, has thrown the family into a state of nervous tension and crisis.

The thing is, I don't have two large Victorian Greenhouses.

What is the point of the internet if you can't be who you want to be when you are on it? (The internet.)

When I started 'Esther in the Garden' I decided to give myself two Victorian Greenhouses (they were always in my mind) where grow grapes and orchids and pineapples - sustained by the heat generated from a wood-burning stove in an adjoining brick shed and pumped through a complicated system of under-earth pipes in raised beds.

I also gave myself long, lavender-lined walks, a vegetable garden, a sundial and a lovely statue of a naked lady contemplating lilies I don't have because there wasn't room enough left (what with the potting shed and the gardener's cottage, the swing in the pear tree and the wheel-barrow-painting business).

So we've been busy building scenery - of the Ealing Studios / Blazing Saddles variety. Mrs Rustbridger complained. (Of course she complained. She complains about everything.) First she said we were making too much noise. Then she said our pretend Greenhouses block light from her garden. (She lives on our North Side.) "Why couldn't you have used glass?" she wanted to know. "Because painted hardboard windows look more realistic," I told her. "And stop bothering me. I've got enough to worry about already. We haven't a cook, or a maid or a gardener or a gardener's boy. Whatever will VP think? Whatever are we going to do?"

Mrs Rustbridger volunteered to be the cook on condition we dismantle the fake greenhouses before next Friday.

Her grandson will be the gardener's boy. (He's bought braces (of the trouser-holding-up variety) better to look the part.)

Miss Martin's chauffeur will be the gardener.

I will tell VP I've given Mary-Jane a few days off to visit her sick mother. (That's the traditional excuse. No-one accuses one of lying. It's a bit like saying one is not at home - when one is.)

Then there's the house to sort. We've painted the walls (too white, but it's done now) and I'm hoping VP will turn out to be short sighted so she won't notice the paint on the newly cleaned carpet, or the coffee stain on the stairs (where Ming dropped his mug and it bounced down several treads while he was trying to mop up the paint) or the mud everywhere because Worthing is so pleased with his new walking boots that he won't take them off. Ever.

Attractive Montgomery Barrows Painted to order.

You can't blow bubbles in milk-shake without drinking some first, especially if you want to make the bubbles rise above the rim of the glass.

This is what has happened to our house. The bubbles have risen. We had to do a bit of tidying so we could get to the walls to paint them so we piled everything into the middle of the living room and began to sort. Most of it is still there. We're almost getting used to it. The trouble is, the more we sort, and the more we throw away, the more space is needed by what is left.

This morning, I have been tearing up milk bills from 1997. They all have neat little ticks on them to show they have been paid and dates to show they were paid on time. (Not like the 1998 Wessex Water Bill and final demand which says I was about to be cut off. Can't remember why that happened, or how it can have happened when I pay by direct debit.)

I also came across a 'Messenger and Reminder' magazine from the Bincombe with Broadwey, Upwey and Buckland Ripers Parishes. (Year unknown but in with the milk bills - so there's a clue.)

They (Bincombe, Broadway, Upwey and Buckland Ripers) had been planning to hold a 'Strawberry Tea at Batchfoot' - but it had been called off and crossed out in biro. Imagine having to go through the Bincombe with Broadwey, Upwey and Buckland Ripers 'Messenger and Reminders' magazine to cross the Strawberry Tea at Batchfoot advert out of every copy!

I've been wondering what Victoria and Emma do all day at The Independent Newspaper and Magazine. Now I know!

But the best bit ( in the Bincombe with Broadway . . . . Reminder and . . . ) is the Rector's Letter.
I won't type it all out here - but the first two paragraphs are the best.

Here they are, word for word.

"My Dear Friends

So Transport 2000 wants the Police to enforce the letter of the 30 MPH speed limit. Well, now, that's an interesting concept. Not that it will make each of us rigidly keep to the speed limit, though of course we should, but that a single-interest group wants to turn the police into something they are not.

Our Police are not Law Enforcement Officers, though that may come as a surprise to some. That is an American model, and not the one that has ever been applied or ought to be applied in this country. Imagine for a moment if a policeman were a Law Enforcement Officer, and what it might mean for us. There is a real difference between Keeping the Queen's Peace and actually enforcing the law, and I'm sure most of us would chose the former. The latter cuts right across our traditional values and way of life, and would - if rigidly applied - place nearly every citizen in a state of fear."

I don't properly follow the next sections but I think it shows that Jesus is not a member of the Dorset Constabulary and the citizens of Broadwey etc. . . . do not want God to be a law enforcement officer (so he isn't) and that Jesus came to set us free from speed restrictions and, in particular, to leave the residents of Buckland Ripers (et. al.) to do anything they like, as long as they do it peaceably and in an un-American way - for if they put their trust in Him, they will be forgiven everything.

I wish Ming hadn't stood in the middle of the garden to swung his paintbrush until every plant was spattered with little white dots.

Or leaned the paint-tray against the ammonite.

* * * * *

I hope a wind doesn't knock down our scenery. The Greenhouses look rather good.

* * * * *

I hope Mrs Rustbridger doesn't get swine flu until after she's been our cook.

* * * * *

If the pretty little white flowers hadn't fallen off our coffee tree I could have pretended they'd been grown by Miss Martin's chauffeur in the Greenhouse and not on the living room window sill.

* * * * *

I'm off to buy a pineapple.

Wish us luck!