some pictures

After a LOT of trawling around the shops I found an Easter present for my first-cousin-once-removed (yes, I'm late mailing this stuff. See, I did MOST of the family presents for the weekend away which left me feeling reeeeallly smug...and I forgot the few that still needed mailing. I am a crap relative). She's hard to buy for. I'm very fond of her, she's had a very hard life and is a good and loving lady despite it all, but she's very, very hard to give presents to. And I always WANT to. Because everyone should get little presents sometimes, for the holidays, because someone else has thought of them, and she's the kind of spiky, fiercely independent elderly person with no surviving close family and friends equally poor and trammeled by logistics who misses out on that sort of stuff. The gift has to be non-food (what with fat-free for her cholesterol and heart diet and sugar free for her diabetic diet and a couple of other things for this complicated arthritis diet she's on, it's hard. Until the diabetes kicked in, it wasn't too bad - there's a fancy deli near here which sold wonderful crystallised fruits done the traditional way, which were fat free and not too sweet, and those were apparently OK if she cut them into pieces and had a little piece now and then as a treat, and she actually liked them... but she recently added diabetes to her roll-call of health issues so no candied fruit), actually useful (she can't stand 'fripperies', they offend her personally), not too expensive (because we are not to throw our money away) AND something of a treat (because a present should be something you wouldn't buy yourself, but would enjoy having)... anyway, I settled on a tube of wild rose hand cream which my aunt (who also has arthritis - I'm actually surprised I haven't started it myself yet it's so markedly present across my family tree, and in early onset forms) says is lovely, and which doesn't smell too old-lady-ish (my cousin would like everyone to be quite clear that she isn't old yet, OLD people are in their 90s). Oh well. Hopefully she'll appreciate the thought, if not the item itself, and she can always regift it to my aunt if she won't use it, so it isn't a 'frippery'!

At least my aunt and uncle, the other people I needed to buy stuff for, were easy - Uncle adores Cadbury$ Cre@m eg@s, those childish, too-sweet 'how do you eat yours' lumps of seasonal gluttony, so a six-pack of those will keep him happy. Aunt likes cute things, and has to be careful of her diet so likes things with a lot of flavour, so for her I bought some minature 'hot cross buns' made of marzipan with chopped raisins and spices - very cute, seasonal, and only a few in a package! Yeah, I know, should have done it earlier in the week. Well I didn't, like a lot of other things I should have done, but... if I'd actually had a bad cold, it would have been OK to have not done things, so just because I've been rather mentally worn out and grumpy and tired, I've decided that should also count as 'not really well enough to be expected to get my act together'.

A fancy flower shop that I walk past on my way to get the Skinny Chai Latte I rewarded myself with for finally going to get these easter gifts has got a very attractive window display - this is a bad picture, but I always feel a right prat in the street with my camera and windows are hard to photograph. It's just empty jam-jars, quite widely spaced on a strip of artifical grass, each holding a few sprays of spring flowers in strong yellow (tulips and primulas and my favourite tete-a-tete daffodils and narcissi), deep blue (grape hyacinths and those large, single ornamental Ranunculi that are very close to aenemone but not quite) and a few of the early small Leucanthemum (like little ox-eye daisies), along with occasional pale green globes of some sort of Allium. The colour and simplicity of it is really charming, much more striking than the more 'arranged' and structured floral art they usually include in the window. Mind you, one of those charmingly simple jars can be purchased for considerably MORE than my drinks chain chai latte cost, because this window is not JUST for the pleasure of the passers-by. But I enjoyed it!


Also - what is a picture post without furball? - a grumpy furball (who looks quite hot cross bun-ish herself) would like to know where the SUN HAS GONE. Also, stuff all that nonsense about soft airs and how it's good to have the window open a little bit to air the house and allergens etc., and SHUT THE WINDOW because her normal afternoon napping spot on my desk is IN A DRAUGHT so she's had to retreat to the spot under my desk and I have messed up her routine. And get rid of that stupid camera. Honestly, humans, sometimes she wonders why she allows one in her house.