Phalaenopis Orchids and Reading ‘Lost Property’

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CARING FOR PHALAENOPIS  ORCHIDS

Are you a fan of phalaenopis orchids? Three phalaenopis orchids in celedon footed pots on my table look very pretty. Two have flowers and I am determined the third will grow a flower stem and bloom.  I have gathered the most useful advice on caring for your orchid and hopefully getting repeat blooms.

Always buy an orchid with more flower buds on the stem waiting to open. Your plant will last longer.

In winter orchids don’t like to be over watered. Wait until the moss or other top soil is almost dry before you water them.

They don’t like sitting in water, either, so make sure their pot can drain into a saucer or rocks below the pot in case you over water.

Use specialist orchid food once a fortnight if you prefer liquid fertilisers or less often if you bury the pellets in the orchid mix, which isn’t soil but is rough and easily drained fibrous materials. The pellets are very effective but also very smelly.

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Phalaenopis or moth orchids thrive in humidity so often can be found in bathrooms. They don’t like cold drafts.

After your orchid has finished flowering cut it off just above a point where you can see a growth nodule and place it outside in dappled light. It should bloom again next year. Sometimes I get repeat blooms and sometimes I don’t although I think fertilising regularly makes a difference.

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READING

I had two books to read, our bookclub book, Henry James’s ‘Portrait of a Lady” and Helen Paris’s ‘Lost Property’. ‘Lost Property’ was due back at the library this week, so that’s what I chose to read. It was not a book I would recommend although many reviewers have gushed about it.

The author seems to have decided one day to write a book about modern times. Maybe she drew a word bubble on a sheet of paper and surrounded it with every modern dilemma she could think of, so we have homosexual father, difficult relationship with mother, special words to repeat under pressure to deal with anxiety, sexual assault, the main protagonist disappearing and attempting suicide, absinthe fueled hallucinations with her father present, the mother’s death, an American Asian ‘with very white teeth’ and all sorts of misunderstandings which finally resolve and become a grand romance.

Based initially in the London Transport Lost Property department, Dot seems to live a one dimensional life. She goes to work in her felt suit ( is there such a thing?) because she likes a uniform, where she is pedantic and then goes home to the maisonette she shared with her mother who has dementia and is now in care. She drinks and sets about sorting her collection of travel books. One night she’ll sort them according to alphabetical order, the next night by alphabetical order based on the author’s name, then by continent, colour of the spine, countries she’s visited on top then later countries she’d like to visit in the future get top rating. She finds the sorting of these towers, her only decoration, soothing.

Her sister arranges to sell the maisonette to fund the mother’s care. Dot feels she can’t go back to her home after the agent and potential buyers have been in there poking around and moves to the basement at work. She misappropriates some ‘lost’ absinthe and after eating a tin of peaches, also lost property  or some other tinned food, she settles into absinthe caused hallucinations in the company of her father. It doesn’t help.

A colleague follows her back to the basement and sexually assaults her, she grabs a few things, heads for a coastal town and settles in a B&B before attempting suicide. Ends up back in London, her mother dies, she sorts out some of the mysteries around her father and basically lives happily ever after with the American Asian. I wished I’d chosen the Henry James, also a very wordy author but his characters have some depth. We know very little about one dimensional Dot.

Napoleon initiated Lost Property offices, the first being in Paris. Over two hundred years ago, in 1805 he ordered his Prefect of Police to collect and store lost property. The Japanese claim there’s evidence that they started Lost property offices in 718.

The London Transport Lost Property office has had a long clock, funeral urns, wheelchairs, prosthetic body parts, wedding dresses and suitcases handed in as well as walking sticks, umbrellas, handbags and clothing.

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Did you know all horses in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate their birthday on the first of August? This is because a mare’s cycle is stimulated by the days getting longer. A foal gestates for 11 months, so would be born during August. Happy birthday to all horses!

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