ark ark

Spiller and Chirpy have grown so much now they are beginning to make a mess of the flower beds so we have started to build them a moveable ark ready to transfer them up to plot no2 on the allotments. We will re-jig the run so that it attaches on to the end of the ark so they can come and go as they please. While we were away they escaped for a few hours and were found in a neighbours garden surrounded by 3 cats but Spiller and Chirpy were holding their own in true teenage mutant ninja chicken fashion. But all in all, it will be better once they are ensconced in their new home up on the plots.

jerseyed

We decamped to Jersey to escape the interminable rain and it almost worked. Well, there was less off it anyway. I'd always suspected that I would find the channel islands rather insular and self obsessed and was not wrong. Some sort of victim mentality seems to have lodged in their souls, but dammit, it was NOT their fault that that shit-head hitler occupied them for five years was it?

Anyway, the two things I liked best about the Island in no particular order were Gerald Durrell's wildlife conservation centre and the remarkable Neolithic dolmen at La Hogue Bie.

I remember two thoughts when I first read Gerald's 'My Family and Other Animals' - lets just call it donkeys years ago - first was...You Lucky Lucky Sod! and the second was.... my mum's almost as mad as that, so why can't we go to Corfu too? But you can see why he devoted the rest of his life to wildlife conservation after a such a childhood can't you?

La Hougue Bie is one of those eerie places. Whoever the Neolithic bigwig was that built this one was definately bigger than my neolithic ancestor who built the one in our family name in Zennor in Cornwall which looks like a toilet by comparison. This one is 4 star bleedin luxury. 'Look at my Neolithic wad...losers.....all offshore dosh mateys!'

After the rather too tidy entrance, you have to lumber forward nervously and awkwardly into the darkness fighting off the claustrophobia and the oppressive weight of 5000 years of time and as many tons of stone, earth and rubble above your head, hoping the neolithic architects knew their stuff.


When you eventually reach the end chamber and can stand up straight once more and look back towards the light of the entrance you begin to get an inkling of just what a stupendous piece of work this is. The two side chambers when excavated in 1924/5 contained the remains of three women and five men along with some pottery fragments. There are some better pictures of the interior stonework here.


And a last one of the end chamber.

Slowly your eyes adjust more and more to the gloom but after a while, in the silence and the darkness, you start to feel a bit dreamy, a bit sleepy, and you're eyelids droop heavily and you think 'Wouldn't it be nice just to have a little lie down, just 40 little neolithic winks!'

polyagapanthus

down by the coldframe in the sqodgy sqodgy ground polyagapanthus has come out to play in an all too brief sunny spell.

damn this stupid stupid rain all the time. The spuds and onions are going to have to come out before they rot. The ground between the shed and one side of the greenhouse traps water and there's been so much off it, the waterlogged tomatoes are suffering and the foliage is looking all yellow and sickly.

....and what we ask is the weather forecast for the rest of the week.....yep....more rain. Gnnn!

pooped

Wake up Stupid....he's coming!




Look, I really don't mind if you want to perch on my favourite garden chair.. . . . . . . ............just so long as your arses are pointing the right way!




Oh....my.......I am just so sorry....It won't happen again. Oh, the shame....I think I may fall off my perch!

jj kale

All that rain was getting thoroughly depressing and it's so good to see some sunshine again. Here it is shining down on the purple podded pea flowers.




I couldn't resist taking a picture of the weekend harvest which consisted of black kale (as in the above pic), spuds, beets, onions, lettuce, courgette, broad beans, carrots etc, which we'll be eating all next week. SWMBO has been making redcurrent jelly and blackcurrant jam and goosegog something or other.


As predicted, there is absolutely no sign of anything happening to move the unwanted pigeon loft off our bottom plot and I am now ammending my estimate of 3 months to 3 years. What this means for Spiller and Chirpy's new home I don't quite know, but they are happy enough in our back garden for now.

goings and comings

We all said a tearful farewell to our beloved hammy who died in the night. Ben made him a last nesting box and as he buried him in the back garden he sobbed out 'you were my best friend...and I never told you'. Now there's a lesson we'd all better learn. Thanks hammy.




But say hello to Spiller and Chirpy. We love them to bits already as they rootle about in the garden, constantly chattering to one another.

I think they are hybrids, possibly of Rhody reds and something else. The farmer assures us they are from good laying stock anyway. They live in the bike shed at night and we even built them a little adventure playground in there. It's got this cute little ladder up to their perch....I know, I know....go on, say it.

INCENDIO!

"Beginning In early May we will be holding 24-hour prayer vigils and hourly book burnings outside the Freehold Iowa Multiplex Cinema. Bring your children for this exciting time of healing and cleansing as we witness for Jesus with picket signs and old fashioned bullhorn preaching. God wants us to prevent every unsaved person in Freehold, Iowa from from seeing the new Harry Potter movie, "The Order of the Phoenix." Our pastors already gave the movie a sin-screening and they tell us it is one of the most deceptively wicked pieces of Satanic filth to ever grace their Godly eyes. We expect over 2,000 church members to be on hand to block the theater entrance on the release date. If you feel God is calling you to stand with us and suffer public persecution and humiliation for His namesake, please visit the church secretary to let her know your schedule for the next month. And if the way into your heart is through your tummy, we're proud to announce that the Ladies of Landover will be preparing pot-luck dinners, and Chick-fil-A will be sponsoring the event and providing daily lunches. We hope to see you there!"

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1199/potter.html

Damn.....and there I was, quite looking forward to it *checks schedule for next week*. Double damn....can't go *sobs downheartedly*

Oh....if you do visit the site the pop up quotes are priceless!

'post neo-classical endogenous growth theory'

The man who came up with the above phrase has just been rewarded with the job of secretary of state for children, schools and families. So I guess he'll be making a lot of sense then. Do you think it has anything to do with allotments?

Meanwhile, Blair is off for some middle east envy and rumour has it he is about to join the Holy Roman Catholic Church of Apostolic Child Molestors who's Pontiff wined & dined and welcomed into the Vatican that Iraqi child mass murderer Tariq Aziz and even took him off for a private prayer vigil to Assisi. Obviously, as a member of the "one true faith" Tony should have no problems mediating between the militant islamic factions who would like to kill all jews, christians and secularists and torture all other moslems who practice the heretical 'wrong' version of islam. Catholisism, representing as it does, the one true God meanwhile needs to get rid of/destroy/undermine all other religions including islam and judy-ism. The Jews, who treat the Palestinians/Lebanese so nicely anyway, and who got the rocks straight from God in the first place and the nuclear weaponry from it's God-Fearing allies and have a wall to wail at as well will take on all comers. I think some poetic justice is about to come Tony's way.

Meanwhile I, infidel that I am, am off to buy some chickens in the firm knowledge that they will make more sense than all the politicians and theologians put together.

gnnn!

Will the persons who visited my blog by googling:

"army helicopter pilot eczema"

and

"wise guys exquisite malevolence"

please contact me and I'll do my best to help you.

Plenergy

Now that's a cheery sight! It's goosegogs all the way to the centre of the earth.

We harvested our first batch of Pentland Javelin earlies at the weekend and they are just delicious served with a nob of butter and a sprinkle of salt. MMmmm.

Ben was bouncing off the walls a bit this weekend and when I asked him what was up he invented a good new word for it; he said he was full of 'plenergy' which is what happens when he hasn't had a playmate to help burn of his sometimes rather manic energy. Wish I had half of it!

resistance is futile

Here are a few of the second plot. The derelict greenhouse has been given a makeover and fettled with new glass and a couple of coats of wood preserver on the timbers. It's now back in active production with tomatoes and peppers planted. When we got it, it was, like the rest of the plot, buried in the six foot hight growth you can see in the background. In fact, the whole plot was covered in this and the job of clearing is going to take some time but at least we've been let off the plot fee for this year.

The amount of garbage coming off the site is problematic as it is right at the bottom of the plots and thus a long long way (uphill dammit) from the gate. There is a liquorice allsorts of broken glass, twisted metal, asbestos sheet, plastic detritus and what else and the pile gets bigger and bigger as more of the plot gets strimmed back to reveal yet more garbage. We need to get a trailer as far down the plots as we can otherwise it's going to take forever to clear.


We've dug and planted out a couple of beds so there will be a bit of productivity out of the plot this year as well as what we get from the greenhouse of course.

The plot extends beyond the fence to the huts in the background. The big one on the left is a pigeon loft which has been sold and is to be taken away sometime in the next few weeks though I'll believe that when I see it. I reckon it'll more likely be there for three months. We'll see. The back bit is where the chooks will eventually live but I'm not planning to do any work on that until we're rid of the pigeon loft. Anyone got a spare weekend? We'll feed you, honest.

monday plot

T'was a very busy day with mrs blackbird hopping round our ankles as we planted out the sweetcorn, the sunflowers and the courgettes and pulled up as much horsetail as we could.

There is a chance we might be offered another plot further down on which we could keep chooks. It's wild and knee deep in grass at the moment and there are no chicken runs or hutches on it so they would have to be built. Still, we're very tempted. What slightly worries me is finding people willing to look after them while we go off on our musical jaunts from time to time. The time commitment is somewhat daunting as well. As you can imagine, Ben is hopping up and down with excitement at the idea at the moment. I'm not sure how he'll feel though when one of them gets to be the Sunday roast. Should we? Shouldn't we?

Asparagus

The asparagus bed, although not exactly prolific yet, has provided enough for a few meals so far and I must say it tastes heavenly. This is one that got away.

Our broad beans have been a complete disaster and we've given up and planted some more seed that Jack, our lotty neighbour, gave us.

kale

The flowering kale looks very pretty.

treepeony

We've had the tree peony in our back garden for five years and for the first time it has decided to flower. It was worth the wait.

Sambo's Grave

I still find it difficult to believe that this beautifully insignificant little city of ours was the fourth biggest slaving port in the UK. It is one (of many) uncomfortable historical facts that we must simply acknowledge and live with.

I don't though, really understand the current vogue for apologising for distantish historical events. Where would that logic take us? We would need a ministry of apologetics and a team of stuffed shirts with university degrees in sincerity working round the clock. Doesn't rattle my chain at all. Reparations though! Now that might actually be of use to someone. Is there anyone seriously offering to do this or is pious apology the order of the day?

A few miles up the coast at Sunderland point, we do have a rather poignant and permanent reminder of Lancaster's less than savoury involvement in the slave trade in the form of Sambo's Grave.

The story behind it (at least the one people like to tell), is a rather romanticised tale of a slave cabin boy, abandoned by his beloved ships master and pining away broken heartedly on the shore to be reunited with his captain. Bollocks. Not, I suppose, that some such couldn't happen, I just think the truth is much more likely to be a brutal and unpalatable one.

It's not a very sensible contribution to the debate just to feel crap about it all is it? Sometimes music helps pull me back a bit though, and I guess if anything remotely positive can be said to have arisen out of slavery then I guess 'the blues' might just come close. Not even sure of my ground there though either.

Anyway for what it's worth, here is my recording of Blind Willie McTell, a Dylan song about slaves, plantation owners, chaingangs, and fine fine blues singers, none of which apply to me; although I do of course work on a plantation of sorts and SWMBO likes to keep me in bondage ;-)

Blind Willie McTell mp3 4mgb

*May*

May already......how did that happen all of a sudden? It's that time of year when everything needs doing at once isn't it? And not just in the garden either. We spent most of Monday up on the plot catching up with the planting out and making another makeshift coldframe so that we could clear the greenhouse and make room for the tomatoes. They look good too, healthy and vigorous. Wonder which will be the tastier variety?

Weekend spent in Derbyshire at GG's 65th state pension party where we all met up at the Old Poets Corner in Ashover and attempted to drink the micro brewery dry. Well, some people did anyway. Tch!

primaeval grind

On reflection I think the required collective noun should be a 'grind' of gurdies.

The local EHO (environmental health Office) issued no health warnings and imposed no exclusion zone round the city and the whole weekend was a great success on lots of levels.

There is possibly a tendency towards anorakishness amongst the elder statesmen/women of the gurdy affliction but perhaps not much more so than for any other instrument. Anyway, it was nicely balanced by some highly frivolous and hugely enjoyable dancing during the evening concerts.

I drank far too much of this.









Cliff's band stopped with us and seemed totally unfazed by our degree of decorative disorder and domestic chaos and our only regret is that they couldn't stay long enough for us to get stuck into a session with them which we would love to have done. C'est la vie, tant pis, domage, ect ect......maybe next time. If they come round your way then go see them andro the night away. 'Primaeval' = Cliff Stapleton, gurdy: Sunny Davidson, guitar, accordeon, percussion: Jonathan Shoreland, pipes, flutes ect ect.

And best of all....it rained too......fantastic!

Hurdygurdyman

This weekend sees our beloved city hosting the UK's first Hurdy Gurdy festival. That should clear the decks a bit!

I have mixed feelings about the hurdy gurdy because although one of my all time favourite records** is by gilles chabenat (the best gurdy player ever), playing alongside frederick paris (one of the best clarinet players ever), and is a record I have fond memories of rocking ben off to sleep with when he was a babe in arms. That's right, I did say rocking a baby off to sleep to a hurdy gurdy record! Unbelievable no? It IS that good.

On the other hand, and after a while, (gilles excepting), listening to a gurdy can be like having someone slowly saw your neck off with a dado rail. The thought of a (insert preferred collective noun for a bunch of amateur gurdyists), churning away all weekend in my favourite pub may see me having to hack of some limbs and crawl to the door in order to escape.

Anyway, my job this weekend is to finish the wallpapering and put up the dado rail, not saw my neck off with one.

Unlike SWMBO, who is teaching some french dance workshops, I do not have any duties at this festival so I could probably ignore it but for the fact that we are putting up an unknown number of gurdyists in our house. I may be forced to take the air bed up to the allotment shed and hide!


One of them, however, will be the delightful Cliff Stapleton and it will be nice to see him again. Last time he stayed,we spent an entertaining and fairly surreal evening discussing the idiotsyncracies of a bunch of Steiner theatrical types with whom he toured for a while. If I remember rightly, there was much hilarity and drinking of red wine and I swear blind he said he was jacking it all in after that to go and become a spud farmer in New Zealand. Perhaps that's what everyone sais after spending time with Steiner type people.

Talking of allotments, which I wasn't, the ground is so dry now it looks like it does in July/August after a long heatwave; all cracked and parched. I can't remember when we last had a drop of rain here and it will be refreshing when if finally arrives. I've drained all the barrels dry already and we're having to make four or five trips up to water every week.

Maybe I could take all the hudygurdyists up to the allotment pretending it's a workshop venue and there surreptitiously turn all their instruments into serial water pumps which will not only water the garden but entertain the plants as well as driving off any Steinerists lurking locally *sighs* See how green one can be with a little imagination?

*picture of cliff stapleton eating a banana after eating a hurdygurdy which caused flatulence. ~They do that.

**Duo CHABENAT PARIS
De l'Eau et des Amandes (1995)

blackbird

So after work I go up to water all the seedlings in the greenhouse and contemplate planting out some of the lettuce in the cold frame. I have to stop because I notice a label stuck into the soil indicating that there might be carrots present. I am dubious but still it is a possibility as SWMBO was up yesterday and might just have planted some carrots in there. I go into the shed and sit on the chair to muse about this possibility and other things. A female blackbird hops on top of the shed door and looks in at me inquisitively. 'Hello', I say, 'what do you want?', and start chatting to her. I tell her all about my day and ask her if she is hungry. She hops down from the door and stands in the entrance to the shed. 'Look,' I say, 'I have nothing for you, all the hobnobs have gone.' She hops up onto a fork and then up onto the potting bench where she is now at eye level a few feet from me and better placed to interpret what this obvious nutter is trying to say. I continue to tell her the list of things we no longer have like cream crackers, bread crumbs, crisps ect ect. She is long and elegant and bright eyed and I think if I was a male blackbird I would fancy her like mad. She turns her head from side to side, evidently listening intently to what I have to say. I love her for this, even my own son will not do this for me. 'Look,' I say, 'the only thing we have that might conceivably interest you are some packets of seeds in the tray up on that top shelf.' She at once flies up to the top shelf and starts rootling around. I begin to wonder if I am speaking the ornithological equivalent of parceltounge. I am so enamoured of her I am prepared to let her peck away at our seed packets. My downfall is that I want to take her picture but the camera is outside in my coat pocket hung up on the greenhouse. 'Look, I'm just going to move a bit and I don't mean you any harm, I'm just going to get the camera and if you don't mind take a picture of you.' I hope the ornytounge is still working. She let's me too and stays on the shelf when I come back in with the camera. Oh, I knew it was a mistake, I would have to raise my arms to bring the camera up to her level to get the picture and it was just a little too threatening for her - sorry. She jumped off and flew out the door but not far away though, looking at me as if to say 'you blew it', as if I didn't know. I hope you'll come back, I'll be looking out for you.