Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

This is my kind of movie: British, couture theme, Leslie Manville, Paris, period, romance, class conflict. I can  hardly wait!

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Wednesday dawned cool but bright, so I took her highness for a walk and then came home to spend the day working in the yard all day. It was really lovely, both to be outdoors in decent weather, and to see the yard slowly looking acceptable.

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News from the shallow end: Last Summer, I saw the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. I’m so shallow, I actually walked around the aisle to see him again. His skin, his hair, his body; I was absolutely dumbstruck by his beauty. 

A week or so later, I saw him again, walking with his daughter in our neighbourhood, and I’ve seen him periodically ever since. Soon, I learned where he lived and that he is the son of a lovely neighbour, Diane. And he’s very friendly! I started waving to him as I passed him on the street in my car and he always smiled and waved back. 

Well … this morning I met him in the woods as we both walked our dogs. Now I know his name is Robert and I could not have been more thrilled to meet someone. How I envy his wife to have such warmth and beauty at her side. Oh my!

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Late yesterday morning, I had a lovely Zoom chat with Nicola. We talked for just over two hours! It was heavenly. Otherwise, all I did was work on the yard and go for walks with Her Highness—no second sighting of, Robert, the most beautiful man on earth.

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The back lawn is really nasty. One section of it is all weeds. There’s hardly any grass left at all. But it’s not part of the yard I use. I do all my entertaining on the deck. People will walk down to look at the garden, but they come back to the deck. And from the deck, the weeds at least provide greenery.

I’ve got a huge yard. It seems so to me because I come from hot having a yard for most of my life. And the one I once had, had a very large garage on it, so the land seemed small. The backyard is longitudinally bisected by a wooden walkway that leads to the gate giving onto the forest. And there’s a path from the southern end of my deck to the walkway, and these distinctions yield three small lawns and one big one.

I’ve cleaned up two of them. One is still grass, if rather balding. The big moment, for me, will be when I am done, and I come back to the deck to look out over the yard. What I see is what I will have to live with. I am not re-seeding. I’m going to cope with what happens. Soon it’s likely to all be dead when the hot and dry season comes.

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Today, I bake a Princess Cake for Nancy’s birthday. We’re celebrating her birthday here on Saturday night. I’ve never made a Princess Cake; neither have I ever made a marzipan fondant, and it is what you see when the cake is presented. It’s a really beautiful cake when well done, but it takes skill with a baker’s wheel. I hope I do okay!