Boarding @ Home: Day 62/ 84: English Wine Week is Off a Duck's Back ...?

Good news is that supplies have reached Ilkley and Manerium Malsoures. In Ilkley they arrived with our favourite Bacchus before the week began but just in time for Mathew & Kathryn's 26th Wedding Anniversary celebrated according to the family WhatsApp with candlelit supper in the gazebo and serenading by the usual suspects! Delightfully the depleted singers had uncovered music for Yeats' poetry of especial marital significance to them both:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
The equally delightful menu gave no respecting nod to the Irish however except perhaps in the spring or fruit salads. Garlic prawns; Homemade foccacia; Smoked haddock tortilla with spring salad; Fruit salad with filled macaroons; Fine chocolates; Rose drinks to accompany. The beautiful pictures of roses just appearing below are from Avril's front garden of course - greetings to the married couple; for us it was our 53rd on Valentine's Day this year. CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL PICTURES.

English Wine Week itself is postponed we have lately learnt until 20th June rather than starting today 23rd May. This is the time of year in the vineyards of the Northern Hemisphere when the buds turn flower and small bunches of grapes begin to grow. Maybe we can celebrate again next month? Mathew and we in Milton made sure the day was celebrated regardless of postponement with Shawsgate Bacchus - him also watching German football like Bryan in Canada!
And the Woodland Moss arrives from Cuprinol Ducks Back. So just as soon as the weather is right, over this Bank Holiday, nowhere else to go except the picket fence? Shame it chose today at last to rain just a smidgen. We've never bought paint/ stain online before but Parcelforce were up to the challenge and all 4 [minimum order = 20 litres!] cans arrived at 10am today. The packaging was supreme with the small leak of the Cuprinol being finally held back by sellotape sensibly placed around the top of each can. And it's half term for the online schoolies at Manerium Malsoures next door so maybe … but I'm not too optimistic. They might help Julian paint his garden shed though to whom we are donating a can. First up for me is probably the balance of the flower bed where on the eastern end Avril already has runner beans standing well clear of the soil and sticks ready to carry Jack upwards to meet The Giant. Fee-fi-fo-fum? - that's our first line of that historical quatrain, but behold the original ….. ! And is that not a fine Dorset Wine carrier from Furleigh Eastate [below left] encasing the 4th Ducks Back held aloft by the other 3 Cuprinols?

Indoors we've got a broken shower roller. It seems to be 23mm diameter so must be simple and heavens be thanked internet research has given us what looks like a Real McCoy. Minimum order quantity is helpfully 4 although we presently only need 1 so let's hope all the others break soon eh!

It's also National Lucky Penny Day. See a penny, pick it up; all day long you’ll have good luck. We all know that one for sure. The metal value and cost of minting pennies today exceed their face value and many countries have stopped minting including Australia. Prices continue in pennies/ cents with rounding up or down at checkout!
The word 'penny' and its variations across Europe — including the German pfennig and the Swedish penning - originally denoted any sort of coin or money, not just a small denomination. Offa, Anglo-Saxon King of Mercia [best known for his 177 mile Dyke pictured below separating Wales from his kingdom across Herefordshire and more], introduced the first English coin known as the penny around 790 A.D. made entirely of silver. The US first issued its one-cent coin by a private mint in 1787 to a design by Benjamin Franklin. The US Mint followed in 1793 made of copper. But why are pennies lucky? Well at one time copper was a precious material. But do you only pick up a penny if it’s head side up? Superstitions carry on from generation to generation and one says if you find a penny tail side up you should flip it over and leave it head side up for the next lucky person to find. That's mighty generous! And of course on a wedding day put a penny in the bride’s shoe for luck.