My first attempt at kokedama (moss balls fashioned around a plant and bound to keep the moss and growing medium in place.) I’ve bound it crudely, with thick green garden wire. This will be replaced by less visible finer wire.

My first open top terrarium. My daughter has made a succession of closed terrariums and has give me advice and equipment to make my own. Better get on and do it then!

My relation with house plants has dramatically improved. Like many people I have tended to neglect them and their overall health goes into a slow decline. This is no longer the case. I find I’m much more motivated to care for them properly. I suppose nurture wouldn’t be too strong a word. Why is this? Well, plants enhance the environment. They’re natural, alive and respond to attention, creating a sense of being in control and achievement. Fascinating in themselves and their various forms, they give enjoyment and a feeling that you have a small bit of nature in your own home. Much less demanding than pets but more difficult to take for a walk.

I wasn’t running when I wrote my last blog two months ago. I am running now, tentatively, but my knee is weak and I’ve lost a lot of fitness. The NHS physiotherapy assessment appointment came through eventually, and was thorough. It was established I had a mechanical, not structural, injury and I was given a set of physio exercises. By the time of the assessment, my knee was improving very slowly. Despite being theoretically highly motivated to do physio exercises, in practice I didn’t take them up. I started parkrunning again (5k) but didn’t run during the week. My knee has continued to be problematic. There is continuing slow improvement and I want to run during the week. Strangely I am now motivated to do the prescribed physio exercises. Doh!

Regretfully I’ve missed a number of half marathon and 10k races and I won’t be doing the Cambridge half marathon in March 2020.  I think thirteen miles of hard road won’t be good for my knee. Possibly the following year. I’m pleased my son Dan has got a place so I’ll be able to spectate, cheer him on and hopefully keep my envy in check.

The UK general election is set for December 12th and party electioneering is in full swing. The evil Tories and the Brexit party are in bad tempered alliance, Labour has failed to gain the upper hand ( riven party and too many Brexiteer voters) and the Lib Dems, somewhat in the ascendancy, but probably not enough to make a difference. If Labour and the Lib Dems formed an alliance, there mght be some hope but that is not likely at the moment. Possibly the SNP might help labour keep the Tories out. It’s all up in the air! I don’t feel Jeremy Corbyn has put any effort into being personable and attractive to voters. He’s clearly anti European and the party is dangerously split. A substantial minority of Labour voters are xenophobic, racist and anti semitic. It’s not looking good.

*Cockney rhyming slang. Adam and Eve = believe it.  (American readers might associate the London cockney accent with Dick Van Dyke playing Bertie the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins in the 1964 film. This would be a grave mistake) Of course, Brexit is the modern version of the biblical Adam and Eve creation myth. When the evil Tories agreed to a referendum, the period of debate and day of voting was akin to eating of the Tree of Knowledge. It brought forth all manner of lies, deceit, self advancement, bigotry, xenophobia, nationalism, prejudice and hatred which hitherto had laid dormant. To mix metaphors, the genie was out of the bottle, Pandora’s box was opened. I’m sure you get my drift. On a daily basis we hear ignorance, anger and plain stupidity being voiced by people with the narrowest of interest for society at large but possessing a large range of cliches and jingoism to support their unkind, aggressive views. The Brexit debate has been very revealing and wholly disturbing.

Why do the Europeans seem so much more sensible than us Brits? Probably because they are.