Shim Sham, Cieszę Się

"I have two left feet," one of my guests told me at the last waltzing party.

"Oh, me too," I said fervently, and he looked mildly surprised. 

The thing is, there are just so many enjoyable activities that I find extremely difficult until, with enough practice, I don't. These include dancing, speaking in foreign languages, playing a musical instrument, singing beside trained singers, and talking to strangers. There's an endless list of things for which I have no talent but are so "worth doing that they are worth doing badly," as G. K. Chesterton said. 

Fortunately, I have discovered that I can improve my performance in these things with sufficient practice. (I have also learned that hating yourself for being so stupid greatly inhibits practice's efficacy.) Perhaps one day I will have accumulated enough hours of hard work that people will think I am naturally talented. (Ha!) 

As I mentioned earlier, we were taught the Shim Sham at my last party. Although I paid attention, the "half breaks" confused me very much. I thus spent some time every morning practising the Shim Sham with my computer and a mirror while wearing hiking boots to support my aching ankle. I also attended our instructors' normal public class for a second lesson on the Shim Sham and discovered I had regressed. Stupid half breaks.

Nevertheless, I spoke very enthusiastically about the Shim Sham to some friends when B.A. and I were staying at their place last weekend. Despite my two left feet, I get very excited when I talk about dance parties and plans for more ticketed dances. I can bore for Scotland on the subject. Nevertheless, I piqued my hostess' interest enough for her to ask me to illustrate the Shim Sham. And, since we were in a big kitchen, and I had drunk a sufficient quantity of good red wine, and I had "It Ain't What You Do" on my smartphone, I complied. 

And here's the thing: I discovered that for the first time I wasn't just learning or practising. Although I wasn't executing the steps perfectly, I was actually dancing. It was like what they say about sports: you practise so that you can play. It's the same thing with languages: you practise so that you can read or (even better) converse.

Maybe this shouldn't be such a revelation to me. However, it's a liberating thought that it is the norm to have "two left feet" or to be "bad at languages" or "terrible at piano" until and unless you do sufficient practice. It fills every complicated activity with hope: perhaps with enough coaching and study I could even master trigonometry! (I'm not actually sure what trigonometry is, but I do know it is important for rocket science.) Maybe with enough coaching and practice almost anyone can do almost anything! 

The thought makes me happy, and--incidentally--Cieszę się (which I roughly pronounce cheh-shay-sheh) means "I'm glad." Meanwhile, I've gone back to studying Polish and Italian every day, and I wrote a letter to my goddaughter in Polish for the first time. I'm not sure she can read yet, but her mum or dad will read it to her, and they can correct my mistakes as they go. (The great scary drawback to speaking to a small child in her own language is that she is still learning it from adults and so repeats your mistakes. Eek!) 

Essential Service

An occupational therapist dropped in this week to gather notes for a report to the council (i.e. local government). He was expected in the afternoon, so Benedict Ambrose came home early from work, just before I had to chair on online meeting. 

B.A.phoned from the pavement outside our terrace, I rushed down the stairs to unlock the cupboard, I carried the ramp to the street, and B.A. rolled down into our pedestrian alley. I then carried the ramp to the stair leading to the path to our staircase, and B.A. drove up it. Then I carried the ramp back to its hiding place, watched B.A. pick his difficult way up our stairs, drove the wheelchair into the cupboard, locked the door and raced back into my office/bedroom/dining-room. We left the door open for the O.T., which was just as well, as he arrived early, right while I was in my meeting. When the meeting was over, I went into the sitting-room to offer the O.T. a cup of tea. 

I had scrubbed the kitchen floor that morning, in case the O.T. wanted to have a look. However, another O.T. had already taken the measure of the indoor spaces, and this O.T. was interested only in the outdoors. He turned down the cup of tea and listened to our plan for creating a new space in the garden for a wheelchair. The council, he said, would not pay for this unless it made B.A. independent. By this he meant independent of me, which made me blink.

"You won't be here all the time," he stated, as if it were common for women to leave their wheelchair-bound husbands alone at home and go to Ibiza with the girls. (That said, I did go to Sussex with my mother.)

B.A. and I were perfectly happy for him to be made independent if it meant the council would spring for a new concrete path into the garden, more railings, a wheelchair garage, and permanent ramps. In this scenario, B.A. would go down the stairs, hanging onto the railings at usual, turn around, hold onto to new railings, and walk straight into a new shed, where he would sit himself down, drive out and then down a council-built ramp and finally up a second council-built ramp to the street. Independence!  

When I went with the O.T. to look at the proposed route, however, we hit a snag: the stair from the residents' path to the alley is so high, any ramp would have to be 12 feet long, and that would block the access of other residents. The council is very strict about the Building Code. The step from the alley to the street is doable.

I am grateful to the nation that it robs Peter (me, though taxes) to pay Paul (B.A., through disability allowance), that it sent an O.T. at all, and that it was open to paying to make B.A. physically independent. Nevertheless, I am pondering what a communist-era Pole would do in this situation. Perhaps he would make his own ramp down the too-high step, ignoring the Building Code, and then summon back the O.T. 

"Citizen, we were mistaken. There is already a ramp along the too-high step. It looks like it has been there for many years."

"Well, Citizen, we will in that case send out a team."

Of course, the team might destroy the illegal step instead of just going ahead with the works. Or it might leave the step and never get around to the works. But that is a moot point, for we live not in communist-era Poland but in Two-Tier Britain, so I did what I always do and made an appointment with an independent contractor to give us an estimate.

(An estimate for the garden works, I mean. A bigger problem with the stair, in my view, is that neither we nor the council own it. According to the O.T., it belongs to the landlady of the flat directly beside it.)

I find the idea of being independent from one's own spouse almost amusing, and it goes to show how little the modern state values the institution. Perhaps it sees marriage as a Comrades-with-Benefits situation, in which two autonomous individuals trade goods and services. Fortunately, marriage is so woven into Scottish culture and society, that with enough confidence ("I am his WIFE!") a married person can prod others into older ways of thought. 

Meanwhile, I have a new appreciation of marriage from making B.A.'s breakfast and lunch and going out every morning to fetch his wheelchair and ramp. At first these things made me grumpy--rushing about as soon as I wake up is not my usual mode--but then B.A. told me how much me making breakfast and lunch really make to his energy level. 

His words were like a magic charm: I am making a difference! Perhaps if every husband told his wife how much making his meals (picking up his socks, etc.) made a difference to him, there would not have been quite so much divorce in the 20th century. And to be fair, I suppose wives should tell their husbands the same thing. Their salaries make a difference. Their yard work makes a difference. Any housework they do makes a difference. 

It will be a happy day when Benedict Ambrose can stand and walk unaided, but until then I will derive satisfaction from the fact that I am providing him--and Scotland--with the essential service of ensuring that he gets to work in the morning.  

 

Introductions, Again

A strange paradox: my interest in social life is fuelled by unhappy memories. It's governed by a past tense Golden Rule: "Don't do unto others what has been done to you that you didn't like." It is also shot through with a particular concern for girls and young women because I have been both, and that is when I collected the bulk of my unhappy social memories. 

Many of them involve scanning rooms of strangers, trying to find the courage to talk to one, and standing along some wall or other, hoping to be asked to dance. 

My worst dance trauma ever occurred when I was in my co-ed primary school and the older grades were led to the gymnasium for a disco. (What were the teachers thinking?) This admission will stagger my young friends, but I asked a dozen or more (possibly 20) boys to dance, and every single one of them said 'No'. 

As I was only 12, I did not know that boys are pack animals who are scarcely going to say 'Yes' to a girl after overhearing several other boys say 'No.' I also did not know that boys tease each other unmercifully over such things. It did not penetrate my brain that mainstream media's assertions that girls can ask boys to dance (or on dates) were not universally believed, particularly not by the children of recent immigrants from central, eastern, and southern Europe. What I didn't know was a lot, and it took me a very long time to stop believing everything I read in printed material even when it conflicted with Real Life. 

In my opinion, the most gentlemanly thing a gentleman can do at a dance is ask a girl to dance before she is overwhelmed by the temptation to ask him. And if it is too late, he must, of course, say 'Yes.' 

Fact of social life: Girls love to dance. If they are at a dance, they are there to dance. And every last one of them is sister to that poor red-haired 12-year-old who was turned down by 20 or so boys and then led back to her classroom fighting tears. The success of a dance lies on the shoulders of men; all that is asked of us women is that we be pleasant--and (literally) tread carefully. As a hostess, I must say I am so, so grateful when I see "our boys" ask girls--especially girls they don't know--to dance (and then brag about them to friends back in Canada).

Of course, it is easier for a gentleman to ask a lady to dance--or to talk to her at all--if he has been introduced to her. And this is the real subject of my post, almost lost in the harrowing description of my childhood humiliation: the importance of introductions. 

I love to write about introductions because--after washing and putting on clean clothes appropriate to an occasion--they are the beginning of social life. They are so easy to do, and yet people often forget to do them. Whenever you accompany a friend or acquaintance somewhere where you know many people they don't know, you are bound by the laws of Western Civilization to introduce them around. This is why older people instinctually apologize if they forget to do it at once. "I'm so sorry! Janet, this is Peter. Peter, Janet." 

 

By the way, there is no elder discrimination clause in this law of Western Civilization. Don't just introduce your peers to other peers. If there are elderly people you know at an event, you should introduce your friend or acquaintance to them, too--unless the elderly people have given you good reason not to, of course. There are self-absorbed elderly men who could bore for Britain. There are jealous elderly women who hate young women. However--and I cannot stress this enough--older, established people who like younger people often want to be of service to younger people, and it is in younger people's interests to know these excellent folk. 

(A more recent unpleasant social memory has popped into mind, but I will grab the lump of gold from the silt: it is a pleasant young Czech student in Poland discovering that a grey-haired 50-something American student was not just the ancient lump of Yankeedom the other young students saw but someone rather high up in the American civil service. They exchanged cards.) 

It sometimes happens that young people I don't know turn up at my Waltzing Parties, and the usual thing is that one of the regulars introduces him or her or them to me. This is 100% correct, and I wish everyone remembered to do this, for I am so busy that I forget to seek them out and make the introductions myself. It is more than a polite acknowledgement that I am the hostess of the party, it's a way of making sure the guests are properly welcomed and put at ease. 

(This reminds me that I must ask any newcomers about their current dancing knowledge before the party starts. And it would also be a good idea to introduce everyone individually to the dance instructors. Why have I not thought of this before?)

Meanwhile, a very good way to survive a social event where you don't know anybody, or you haven't been introduced yet and your social butterfly pal is nowhere to be seen, is to find someone sitting or standing alone, march up to them and introduce yourself. Your discomfort in doing that should serve as a reminder of the crucial importance in social life of proper introductions. 

I'll just end by saying that although there are numerous swing-dancing events in Edinburgh, complete with live bands whom I would love to hear, I don't feel comfortable going to them on my own. In my experience (staggered over several years), not enough is done to make newcomers feel welcome. 

Sitting behind a table checking names is not hospitality. Events need real hosts or hostesses to look out for the paying guests, especially as so many are unaccompanied women. When more effort is made to ensure that the elderly and the alone are actually dancing at public dances, then I will believe the current protestations of wanting more "diversity" and "inclusion" are sincere. 

 

Line of Dance/Line Dance July

Today I am babying my left ankle, which I have re-injured. One of the drawbacks of being an "unpaid carer" is that we aren't usually trained and so we sometimes get hurt. Some days ago I learned the hard way that it is a bad idea to operate an electric wheelchair in a tight space while wearing sandals. Crunch. 

Still, it beats having a stroke; I found a study that says carers are more likely to have strokes. In fact, we are more than twice as likely to suffer from poor health than "people without caring responsibilities." And as 5 million people in England and Wales--and 800,0000 in Scotland (!) are unpaid carers, this is surely a serious problem. That said, it's better to be an unpaid carer than stuck in a wheelchair.  

Benedict Ambrose came along to this month's Waltzing Party in his electric wheelchair, and a kindly janitor met us at the usual entrance to the hall and directed B.A. to the ramp on the other side and the accessible door. The sun shone through the Gothic windows on the golden wood of the dance floor, and it was only 2:05 PM, which meant that I could just relax and dance a few steps on my own. 

B.A. drove into the other hall, formerly the nave of a Victorian-era Presbyterian church, and sang Marian anthems to the excellent acoustics. Then the professional ballroom dance teacher I had managed to inveigle into coming into Edinburgh on a Sunday arrived, and there was some low-key fuss about wi-fi and how the background music would be played, etc. (Note to self: write to office for wifi password.) When the majority of the guests were assembled, B.A. (senior male present) led us in the Prayer to St. Michael, and then I handed over the company to the waltz instructor at 2:30 on the dot. 

To my great delight, there were 20 of us dancers this time: ten men, ten women. The teacher is used to teaching couples, and there was only one among us, so I got everyone else to pair up by height, as usual. 

The first thing the teacher did was ask us to waltz, so she could judge where we were in our knowledge. What concerned her most, it turned out, is that we weren't traveling around the room but more-or-less just waltzing on the spot. Thus, the first thing she did was teach us how to turn in the corners, and then she worked us into dancing a proper "Natural Turn--Close Change--Reverse Turn--Close Change" according to the Line of Dance.  

"I feel Judged," I joked to a dance partner--although as usual the person judging my teaching skills was myself, for I was not able to get my head around the dance floor compass diagrams, when I first found out about them, and so ignored them. 

We were worked very hard for an hour, and then we had a short break for squash, banana bread, crisps and cookies. I ran about replenishing the plastic jug I had borrowed from the parish hall. (Foreshadowing of drama, one made more acute by a too-long story about the second borrowed jug.) Then I handed the floor over to our swing-dance teachers, and we were instructed in the mysteries of the Shim Sham, a handwritten list of the steps blue-tacked to the wall. 

When the teachers first proposed teaching our group Solo Jazz steps, I thought uneasily about the strictures of Dr. Peter Kwasniewski as tabled in his excellent Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence. Swing-dance is just on the line for what Dr. K believes is acceptable, and the disintegration of proper partner dancing into everyone doing their own thing is to be deplored. However, I recalled that some Solo Jazz is actually done in groups. A memory of feeling confused, left-out and then wistful at a standard Edinburgh swing-dance social popped up: all the old hands had suddenly broken out into the Shim Sham, and it looked fun. 

The Shim Sham started life in 1928 as a tap dance, and in 1932 it was adapted for the Lindy Hop. In the 1990s, it basically became the Lindy Hop World anthem. (No matter where you go in the world, it is always the same, which reminds me of something...) It contains a routine of 4 patterns, which are repeated with "freezes", and then there are two "boogie back and boogie forwards", followed by two "boogie back and Shorty George forwards". Then, for the rest of the song, the crowd divides into partners and dances the Lindy Hop. 

Not pondering how difficult it would be to teach several Solo Jazz steps in 50 minutes, I requested the Shim Sham, and the Shim Sham we got. It begins with a sort of stomp, and to the accompaniment of enthusiastic Trad Catholic stomping, I re-hurt my poor ankle. (Moral of story: Don't actually stomp.) But the important thing is that my guests seemed to enjoy it. And we will review the Shim Sham next month, and then play "T'aint What You Do" at parties every month until the Shim Sham is firmly embedded in our muscle memories. 

It would be very amusing if the Dance Party party did a flashmob Shim Sham in the car park after Mass one day; that would certainly startle any regular (read: Novus Ordo) parishioners still about. Would they read a theological-liturgical message in the expression "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it"?  But what is more likely is that my young friends would find themselves well-equipped should they find themselves in some foreign dance hall when everyone else starts to paw the floor like counting horses. 

After class was Free Dance time. Free Dance time is an exercise of Men's Liberation. Men are free to do what they like. They may ask ladies to dance, or they may sit around chatting, or they may stand by the refreshments table and eat a lot of crisps. Naturally, this staggering license is tempered by chivalry or having a sister with power to command. 

Personally, I fiddled with the music and a borrowed speaker and fielded the suggestions and critiques of our new waltzing teacher, whose own phone contained many, many pop songs in 3/4 time. My beloved Miłość Ci Wszystko Wybaczy  ("Love will forgive you everything") is apparently Not Ballroom. "Vito's Waltz," however, is Ballroom and was indeed more popular with the group--and the teacher, who propelled me around the room, offering excellent advice. 

"The Blue Danube" was next--the teacher made a face. "This is Viennese Waltz," she said and told the gaily dancing brother-and-sister duo that they weren't dancing fast enough. ("We're tired," they cheerfully replied). Alas, this incredibly knowledgable teacher cannot come next month, so leading the review will probably be up to me. 

We ended with a swing tune, which was ably provided by the Shim Sham teachers. Free Dance time is regrettably short, although this particular hall janitor was very nice about our tardy leave-taking. I ran about some more, washing jugs and packing up. Benedict Ambrose socialized, and afterwards he told me how impressed he had been by the whole thing. The waltz he saw akin to a feast and the Shim Sham to a delectable dessert pastry. 

We had this amiable conversation on our way back to the parish hall, where I hoped to sneak in the two borrowed plastic jugs. Alas, the door was open, and my Opposite Number of the Novus Ordo Mass was doing an inventory. Apparently she had just sent out an email asking where the jugs were. 

Busted. Totally busted. Really, I need to buy my own plastic jug, but I can't find one I like.

 . 

Il Taglio

Il nostro vicino della porta accanto fa il barbiere. Qualche volta durante gli anni ha proposto di tagliere i capelli di Benedetto Ambroglio, ma mio marito era troppo imbarazzato per accettare. Il problema era questo: non sapeva che O. si aspettasse un pagamento o no. Ed ovviamente è un argomento molto delicato in Scozia, particolarmente tra vicini. Allora, B.A. non ha accettato mai e ha evitato il suo negozio sulla via del ponte.

Comunque, B.A. ha cambiato idea dopo O. i S. hanno pulito insieme l’armadio a muro per la sedia a rotelle. Quando mi ha detto che aveva bisogno di un taglio, l’ho incoraggiato ad andare al negozio di O. Se B.A. volesse visitare un barbiere, meglio che pagherebbe il nostro vicino. Pensavo che dovessimo pagarlo oppure dargli l’opportunità di fare un buon’ azione, quello che preferisce. E se O. non fosse stato nel suo negozio, avremmo potuto pagare il suo impiegato. 

 

Allora, il sabato siamo andati alla via del ponte per un taglio. Abbiamo visto attraverso la vetrina che O. era lì, tagliando i capelli. Un altro ci ha salutato all’ingresso, ma c’era un problema insuperabile: la soglia d’ingresso era troppo alta. B.A. non poteva entrare con la sedia a rotelle elettrica. A questo momento, O. ha lasciato il suo cliente per darci un benvenuto, ma abbiamo dovuto scusarci perché non potevamo entrare. Ma O. ha risposto che lui ci troverà a casa il domani e lì darà B.A. un taglio.

 

Allora, il giorno dopo, una domenica, io e B.A. siamo ritornati molto presto del tè dopo la messa e abbiamo trovato O. nel suo giardino (con i suoi piccioni viaggiatori, ma c’è un’altra storia). Siccome il tempo faceva bello, il nostro vicino ha tagliato i capelli di B.A. fuori accanto delle nostre scale. (Ho fatto io una foto del quest’ atto di vicinato da sopra.) Ed ovviamente ha rifiutato un pagamento.

 

Adesso abbiamo un nuovo problema. Cosa dovremmo fare per O.? Dopo il mio presente di flapjacks, la sua partner ci ha dato una borsa di zuppa in scatola. Comincia parere come una corsa agli armamenti della gentilezza. 

 

Food War

This Lent, as usual, we gave up meat and alcohol, but I  decided, while hesitating in the Tesco cut-price section, that we would give up ultra-processed meals, too. I'm not sure if they are UPF, strictly speaking, but I was thinking about the breadcrumbed fish cakes and fillets, specifically, as well as the obviously UPF cut-price raspberry cream turnovers. At any rate, since Ash Wednesday I have bought fewer and fewer UPFs, and the grocery bill has gone up and up. Real food is expensive. 

Sometimes I wonder if I should write about "good foods" and "bad foods" and giving up this and giving up that, for it could pass on the negative Western female obsessions with food to younger generations. However, shopping (or growing or gathering), cooking and determining what or when or how much to eat has forever been a part of Western (or all) female life, so there it is. The novelties are UPFs, all-day grazing and fad diets for the poor.  

Benedict Ambrose loves to cook; it is a form of kitchen pottering, and how he used to relax after work. Now that he can't stand unaided, it is no longer relaxing. Thus, I have returned to the kitchen and make B.A.'s porridge (large rolled oats, nuts, fruit and/or dried fruit) every morning. I also make his lunch and pack it in a stainless steel tiffin box. I'm a bit concerned about the supermarket bread we still use. And I was rather torn about the chocolate biscuits I put in today. I must make time to make super-healthy ground-almond-date-and-pear brownies today.   

For my own boring medical (dental) reasons, I have this week been mashing almost everything I eat up in a food processor. This has included rather more fruit than usual via yogurt smoothies. Thus, I am consuming more sugar, too, though if you have to eat something sweet, better apples, pears or berries than anything else. I feel less nervous about the extra-dark (82%) chocolate I have been consuming, too, as it is current touted for its healthy polyphenols.  

This leads me to think about "added" sugar, how terrible it is for human beings, and what a pity it is that it is connected in our minds, from infancy, with joy. My 20th century mind connects maple syrup with weekend brunches, candy canes and milk chocolate with Advent, cinnamon buns and trifle with Christmas Day, delectable chocolate cake or vanilla cake with peanut butter frosting with birthdays, store-bought cookies with Sunday visits from Grandma, milk chocolate and jelly beans with Easter, popsicles for warm weather, junk-food cereal for the most exciting two weeks of the summer holidays, and the whole panoply of sweets for Hallowe'en.  

Mind you, candy was otherwise banned from my house when I was growing up, and fizzy soda pop was all but stranger there for 15 years or so. (Exciting--and so rare as to be memorable--exception: root beer floats.) We did, however, drink the Kool-aid, and there were always bags of store-bought cookies begging to be rifled. There were sometimes homemade cookies, too, although the guilt factor in filching those was rather higher. 

Cookies, I am afraid to say, are or were the family treatment for depression, which is very unfortunate, as sugar probably exacerbates it. It's too bad we didn't stick with "a nice cup of tea" for all ills. That said, even No Frills chocolatey-chip cookies were a step up from the Player's Navy Cut cigarettes my grandmother consumed with her nice cup of tea. 

I was heartened to hear, at a dinner party, that the current crop of Edinburgh university students don't drink much alcohol compared to every generation of British students before known. It would be a major advance for the nation if the younger generation started out health-conscious right from the get-go. One excellent thing they could do for their own children is connect healthy things like exotic fruits with joyful occasions.

Maybe they could serve sugary cake for Lent (a real penance with the sugar crash) and then avocado toast for Easter. Or we could ditch milk chocolate, as a species, and eat only dark chocolate during our festivals. We could bring back the oranges and nuts of the Victorian Christmas and, if we must have sweets, desserts sweetened only by fruit, especially dates. 

Carrots and tomatoes are relatively sweet, too. How happier society would be if, when we were sad, we ate a carrot or a tomato. 

"Work was awful today. I'm going home to stuff my face with tomatoes."

"Ha! For me it's carrots."

"Mmmm. Carrots with organic butter and a little salt."

"And parsley."

"Mmmm. Parsley."

The thing is, children love sweet foods and are, in fact, hardwired to eat them. The other tea ladies and I put out dozens of UPF cookies and a jug of (Acesulfame K, Sucralose) squash after Mass and the children consume them in a pagan frenzy. They rush off with handfuls, and the more obedient children tell their parents tearfully that the others are allowed more than one. On the one hand, I feel pleased that Mass--which must be psychological hard work for wriggly kids--is being connected with sweetness ("O taste and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed the man that hopeth in him" [Douay, Psalm 33:9]). On the other, should I be serving food I would not eat myself? At very least, should I not bake them shortbread instead of buying endless palm-oil-infused custard creams? 

Speaking of which, buying a lot of berries from Tesco has meant buying the horrid plastic containers that go with them. Unfortunately, I put them in the wrong recycling bin last week,  and the bin men rejected it. I felt judged by the bin men and rather aggrieved as I in no way wanted the plastic containers in the first place. I would rather pile plastic-free berries in a paper bag, or buy them by cardboard carton, but I don't have these options. The fault is not in ourselves but in Tesco. 

UPDATE: Actually, I think the UPF biscuits have been engineered so that children can't stop eating them. For some time I have been wondering why the children eat so many cookies (only allowed on Sundays? Mass is at noon? no homilies against greed?), and now my blood is running cold. 

Wow. I foresee a serious improvement in the quality of biscuits in future. 

Dominion Day 2024

Clearly I needed the third day of a three-day weekend to do it, but I have tackled the garden at last. 

Yes, there needs to be some mopping up action, and I wouldn't want to put the house on the market until digging out every last dandelion out of the flagstone path, but the veggie trug is weeded and the primeval Scottish forest has been beaten back.  I have even sowed runner beans, broad beens, dwarf beans, Swiss chard, kale, spinach and peas.  

I'm not sure  why I procrastinated so long. Perhaps the thought of sharing a space with our scheme-y shed was too depressing. Our neighbour had called it scheme-y, and since my worst British nightmare is ending up in a housing scheme, I brooded upon his choice of adjective.

"S. didn't call it a scheme-y shed," said Benedict Ambrose. 

"He did. He said after the gardener came that instead of a jungle of vines, we now had a scheme-y shed."

"Well, he meant shonky," said B.A. "He meant that it was a shonky shed."

"Is that Gaelic?" I asked, mostly to wind him up. B.A. has told me countless times that Gaelic is not native to this part of Scotland, and that what everybody spoke, when they weren't speaking proper English, was Scots or Lallans, and before that it was ancient Welsh. (That is, Brythonic. Weird, but true.)

Anyway, we hired some men last week to take away the shed, just as we hired a man to cut all the ivy from it, trim the beech hedge, raze the rosa rugosa, and eliminate everything except the black currant bush from the raised bed. We have a fine crop of black currants this year as well as harvest of cardboard since, as I told the lady next door, I put it down to stop the weeds from coming back while I decided what to do with it.

In my dreams men transplant the black currant bush, destroy the raised bed and erect a dance studio no more than half the size of the property, as the regulations stipulate. If we had our own enormous summer house, I could host dance parties for free, as I told B.A. when we were on our way to Sunday Mass. B.A.,who hasn't been keen on dancing since we got married (oldest male trick in the world), is even less keen now that he can't walk, surprise. He pointed out that I would still have the expense of building the summer house. 

Having checked the figures, I know it would actually be more cost effect to build the summer house than to keep on hiring Edinburgh halls, and then I could have weekly dance parties. However, we do live inconveniently far from Edinburgh University, which has a very strong gravitational pull upon my target demographic. If I (that is to say, men) built it, would they come?  

Meanwhile, the shed is gone, and we await our builder to tell us how much it will cost to even out the path to our garden (concrete? paving stones) and to erect an electric wheelchair (and bicycle) garage. And the comparatively beautiful black square of earth may have inspired me to pull up all the unwanted greenery in the veggie trug at last and plant a lot of flowering edibles. 

My other domestic tasks today (besides putting down the 20 lb ramp and picking it up again) were doing the laundry, buying the groceries and making a lovely pudding for Dominion Day. Obviously this is not a bank holiday in the United Kingdom, but I have always chosen to take the Canadian holiday option at work.