[Magdalen] How's everyone?

[Lesley de Voil]

Well, I’m still over here in the quiet corner, just procrastinating before
getting ready for Ascension Day High Mass this evening. It’s tipped to get
to 29degC(that’s 84 deg F to you over the bigger pond) but considering we
had rain yesterday and it is officially autumn, I am not looking forward to
the sound of the organ tuning.(Our Heritage Register church has no air
conditioning<sigh>.😳)
I’m slowly recovering from a badly bruised knee - at least it’s still warm
enough to exercise in our pool most days, although the water on the bottom
is getting noticeably colder each time I encounter it!
 The warm weather has enabled me to continue looking after my potted
garden. The zygocactuses started coming into flower this week, so we know
winter is just around the corner. However, my pawpaws ( NB, tropical fruit
not US native.)are fattening up nicely, theplants are coming on well since
 I put them in ground around the pool after years of nurturing them in
pots. They came from a friend’s backyard, although he assured me they would
be the red ones which are bisexual, not like the old standard ones which
were always a bit fiddly. You always had to grow up more seedlings than you
needed, because the standard variety is monosexual, and you can’t tell
which is which until they are about six feet high and flowering.  One male
tree can service about  five or six females, but if you just try to rear
two plants, invariably you end up with two of the same sex. Very few people
grow them at home these days. However, I’m a beggar for punishment, so we
are growing more from some seed that went into the compost heap. Since we
rarely buy yellow ones, these should be red. That’s the theory, anyway.
I’ve been spending a fair slice of my time with my mentor and
ex-organteacher, who is battling the early/middle stages of Parkinson’s
disease. After spending the first ten years of his retirement caring at
home for his wife who had dementia, he is himself stubbornly resisting any
moves to get him into a retirement home. At the moment, he is planning what
music he will play at his 89th birthday bash next October!
Regards
Lesley de Voil
-- 
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