There's no smoke ...

Christ, It was hot today! It is fair to say that not a lot was achieved in the garden as a simple wander around the vegetable garden was enough to bring on heat induced fatigue.

The day started with a trip in to Bromsgrove for a check up at the dentist and a quick wander around the aisles of Morrisons. I then headed home* and attempted, key word attempted, to smoke the slab of cured belly pork that should, more accurately, now be called streaky bacon.

I set up my tea chest smoker and packed oak sawdust in to the little tray where it smoulders and produces wafts of smoke.  I lit it with a blow torch and blew on it to ensure that it was smouldering nicely, before placing it in the base of the smoking cabinet and closing the door.

After twenty or thirty minutes I checked and the ember had died and no smoke was being produced. I tried other batches of sawdust and even hickory pellets but nothing would take.  I must have attempted half a dozen time, but I couldn't get the damned thing to smoke.

It has worked perfectly on previous occasions, but not today. I gave up in the late afternoon, wondering whether the sawdust was damp and, like a drowning man clutching at straws, put a batch in a low oven to dry.

At this rate I'll be slicing green bacon rather than smoked.

It is fair to say that I was quite frustrated by the inability to get the smoker going and felt that I needed some sort of win. I therefore made preparations for Autumn by lining a couple of large wooden crates with chicken wire. These will be used to produce leaf mould later in the year. I transferred the crates up to the orchard and concealed them behind Rose Cottage. 

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* The large pallet in the car port did not escape my attention ... I guess the new poultry ark has arrived then. 

Thanks for sharing

Today was scorching, so apart from ensuring that the garden was watered little else was achieved. I will however report on this morning's social event.

After the hypothermic visit to Rowberry's Nursery a couple of weeks ago, 30% arranged that we should meet up with the Tweedys for brunch* and today was the day.

The weather was far better and I arrived closer to death due to the passage of time rather than the previous occasion where I was closer to death due to a crashing core temperature. In other words, I was much warmer and in a better frame of mind.

We joined the Tweedys for coffee and, Oh God I've got to say it again, brunch.** It was after a few mouthfuls that things started to go horribly wrong ...

Mrs Tweedy is an opinionated shrew at the best of times and today she decided to inform 30% and I that diabetes isn't really a disability and that we should consider ourselves lucky that it can be treated so effectively.

Now 30% are both Type 1 diabetics and Mrs Tweedy isn't. Our collective experiences of managing the condition over a combined ninety years are nothing when compared to the ignorant bitch's ill informed opinions.  I did challenge her views and she had the fucking temerity to attempt to maintain her argument.

Fortunately Mr Tweedy has far more sense and emotional intelligence and wisely suggested that she continue with her meal.

30% and I were both bloody incensed by this display of complete and utter ignorance and the brass necked attempt to maintain her position when challenged by two individuals with considerable personal experience of the condition.

She is an obnoxious, ignorant, know-nothing bitch with less social intelligence than a chimp that investigates its own turds.

Rant over ... for the moment!

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* Do you really need to ask whether I am a brunch person!  Do I look like a twat that wears sunglasses indoors, at night?  Do I refer to a group of aquaintances as "Guys"? No I do not and neither do I see the need to mess up my calorific intake by either adding an extra meal or partaking of my lunch an hour before normal. 

** I've just had a crawly flesh moment.

Domesticity

 I was out and about early this morning and had a lovely chat with an Uber driver that clearly had no idea that he should stop and give way to traffic that is already circulating the roundabout on the outskirts of Alcester ... the fucking moron just pulled out in front of me!

Anyway, I managed to avoid a collision and went on to "win at shopping".  It was one of those days when I wandered in to my local hardware store and they had exactly what I needed.  Let me explain, the plan for today was to prepare the cured pork loins for smoking. This would involve removing the loins from the vacuum bags, washing them off and patting them dry, before wrapping them in muslin and hanging them to air dry for a few days.

I needed something to ensure that they remain clean and not danced upon by any of my little insect chums, so what could I use?  After being guided to the location of cotton string, the helpful assistant suggested muslin squares. I doubted these would be big enough, but wandered over for a look. In passing my eye fell upon a roll of mutton cloth and the heavens opened and a choir of Angels sang. I grabbed a roll and was delighted that this was absolutely perfect. The mutton cloth is a seamless tube of soft cotton material that can be cut to length.  Its modern use is for polishing, but in the past it was used to cover sheep carcasses prior to them being butchered in to smaller cuts.

Delighted, I grabbed a roll and hurried home.  The rest of the morning was taken up with the cured loins and these are now hanging in the cool of the workshop dressed in their mutton cloth jackets.

The afternoon saw me mentally prepare for the next job by having a quick snooze on the sofa.  I then mixed up a batch of SBK Brush Killer and headed out to spray the nettles in the orchard.  It is not a job that I enjoy as it is very much a "painting the Forth Bridge" type of job. Despite spraying or brush cutting, the bloody things come back with a vengeance and the job repeats.

30% and I have decided that we need to get the ground in the orchard levelled so that we can get it seeded with a grass mixture. The levelling will allow us to use the ride-on mower up there and mowing will encourage a strong sward which will easily outcompete the nettles. The only problem is that the access to the orchard is a narrow gate and a mini digger is about the biggest device we can get up there. 30% has contacted a chap to come over and give us a quote.

I had enough SBK for three batches* of spray and I estimate that I covered about two third of the nettles. The rest of the bloody things can wait for a couple of days.  Hopefully the sprayed plants will have wilted by then and I'll have a better idea of what I have already treated ... fingers crossed.

Back in the garden I joined 30% on the patio and we watched the fledgeling dinosaurs on the feeders in the garden.  After an hour watching young thrushes, greenfinches, robins and great tits, I planted another short row of Spring onions and think that there may be signs of growth in the  3' row that I planted ten days ago.

It was now mid afternoon and, as I put the sprayer away, my eyes fell upon the Horticultural Club annual show signs that are currently sat in the car port. I've recounted the tale of my resignation from my role as co-chair, but the signs are likely to sit here until they need them to advertise the annual show in early September. Two of the signs have damaged posts, so I decided that I would fix the damned things and then I could walk past them without feeling a nagging of responsibility or obligation to repair them. It was a fairly straightforward job to cut and replace the posts from some timber that I had in store, and by six o'clock I was finished and sat in the evening sun with a glass of red wine.

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* 15 litres in total

Prescott

This event had been on the cards for quite a while.

My birthday is in late December, and last year TP presented me with a voucher for us to go to the Classics at Prescott Hill Climb in May.  Unfortunately his work schedule clashed with the event and we, instead, settled on the Prescott Bike Festival which took place over this weekend.

We have been several times over the past few years and the title is self explanatory. It is an informal motorcycle get together in aid of the Blood Bikes Charity. It is an occasion when motorcyclists can apply for an opportunity to run their machine, untimed, up the Prescott Hill Climb course.

The weather was beautiful and, after a wander around the Paddock, TP and I settled ourselves on one of the benches on the hillside and watched the Bikers "run wot they brung".

We saw an amazing variety of motorcycles from modern Super Motards to Classics including a Vincent Black Shadow and several historic racing bikes. 

However our favourite are often the specials and today's winner was a wheelbarrow that had been grafted to the front of a very low slung motorcycle frame. We both awarded virtual honours to the chap that piloted this up hill.  On previous occasions we have seen a rocket powered shopping trolley and even a jet powered hearse, but the wheelbarrow wins by a country mile.

At the end of our day TP headed back to Cardiff to prepare for another week working at Shepperton and I headed back home for a takeaway from China Twon.*

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* This is an intentional typo, let me explain.  For many years our favourite Chinese Takeaway in Alcester proudly displayed and distributed menus bearing the name "China Twon". This was clearly a mistake, an oversight, but we love their food and we have religously referred to the establishment as China Twon ever since we first noticed the glaring error. So, here's a question; is it a typo or a clever marketing ploy? Well the answer is that it was a typo because they have recently, disappointingly, reprinted their menus and corrected the mistake. They will, however, always be China Twon to us.

I ran out of steam

Today's intention was to spray the nettles up in the orchard with SBK brush killer.

Overnight showers had left the vegetation wet, so any spraying needed to be put off until later in the day when everything had dried out.

I therefore started by massaging the cure in to the pork loins and putting on a batch of honey to warm prior to bottling. 

Over the course of the morning I bottled the first batch of honey, put on another batch on to warm and headed out to the raspberry bushes to tie in some of the canes and prune some of the more wayward growth.

By lunchtime I had bottled the second and final batch of honey and had cleared away most of the detritus from that job. I then dutifully gathered up the garden sprayer and SBK and just ground to a halt.

I decided that the weather seemed to be looking good for the next week so the spraying could wait. I, instead, hit the sofa for a good ninety minutes and awoke feeling almost refreshed. My waking coincided with the arrival of a sub-sect of the coven.

I would be home alone this evening as 30% had arranged to see a showing of the Rocket Man film with live orchestration in the Birmingham Symphony Hall.  As she and her coven left, Bubbles turned up and it was time for some edumacation.  Over the past year Bubbles has been teaching me to fish and he has been attempting, and failing, to teach me to shoot clay pigeons for much, much longer.  This evening it was my turn to be Yoda ... 

Bubbles has always wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle and Bobbyn had bought him a voucher for his Motorcycle Compulsory Basic Training (CBT) course as a birthday gift.  Bubbles was really excited, but, by his own admission, he was also very nervous as he has never ridden a motorcycle before.  I had therefore offered him a pootle up and down the lane on my Moto Guzzi V7 Stornello to get him used to the controls and basic riding skills.

Well! Despite his nerves he took to it like the proverbial duck to water. After a couple of tentative, feet barely off the ground, first gear runs up the lane, he finally had the confidence to take on the advice that everything is easier if you just go a little bit faster. He was soon confidently riding up and down the lane changing through the first couple of gears and making very controlled stops.

He was absolutely delighted with the introduction and well pleased he should be. We then had a leisurely natter about riding gear whilst enjoying the evening sun in the garden.

I am pretty sure he will be back for another couple of rides before his CBT on 10th July. I also wouldn't be surprised if he makes an offer on my R nineT as soon as he passes his test.

Odds and Ends

Friday was one of those days when I seemed to be on the go all day, but on review it was just a series of little jobs.

I started out by putting a batch of honey in to a hot water bath to start the bottling process and then massaged the bacon that is curing in the fridge.

I then headed out to the tomato greenhouse and was appalled by the mass of chickweed that covered the soil. It's a shame that we don't have chickens yet, as they would have devoured the sweet green shoots. Instead, I set to with a hand hoe and cleared the mess around each of the tomato plants.

This gave me a chance to inspect each plant, nip out any side shoots and tie them in to their supporting canes.

By the time I had just about finished in the greenhouse the honey needed attending to, and I spent the next half an hour bottling the 6 lb batch.  I have another two batches to bottle before I reach the bottom of the 30 lb tub I bought from Pete last Saturday.

The afternoon saw a trip in to the village. 30% seems to be having a pain free recovery, but she is not yet able to drive, so I was invited to a meeting of the coven in Sheila's garden. This was obviously just an excuse to ensure 30% was able to attend, but I had a fun time listening to the gossip, checking out Sheila's garden and partaking of coffee and cakes.

After a pleasant couple of hours sat in the sun, we headed back home and took a siesta. On waking I extracted the streaky bacon from the fridge. This slab of belly pork has been curing for four full days and is, most definitely, bacon by now.

I cut open the vac bag and extracted the slab of green bacon.* I rinsed off the remaining cure under the tap and then patted the bacon dry. It was then carefully wrapped in a muslin sheet and hung up to air dry.  I will leave it for four or five days before smoking it.

Apart from watering the veg patch, that pretty much sums up my day.

On a final note I can report that the carrots have sprouted and I am DEFINITELY going to need to thin them out.  Despite diluting the seed with silver sand, I have 5 yard long rows of very densely planted seedlings. I estimate that I should either half the amount of seed used or double the length of my rows.

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* Green Bacon: Bacon that has been cured, but not smoked.

Mostly sitting down

 I had blocked out my agenda for today as I would be accompanying 30% in to Worcester for her cataract surgery.

We spent the early part of the morning making sure that the garden was watered before leaving well ahead of 30%'s appointment time. The early departure was so that we could call in at Jules' house to proffer birthday greetings and gifts. Coffee was drunk, gossip was exchanged and then we headed down in to the city, parked and wandered in to the clinic.

30% was seen promptly. Drops were applied to her right eye to dilate the pupil and a rather fetching black arrow was drawn on her forehead to indicate the eye to be treated. She was then sent out to wait for the eyedrops to take effect.

We were both under the impression that we would be in and out of the clinic in about an hour.  Unfortunately this was not the case. Despite the actual procedure taking only twenty minutes, we ended up being there for a good couple of hours due to complications with the patient immediately before 30%.

I amused myself with an extended period of people watching as the clinic looks out over a busy pedestrian thoroughfare leading to the High Street.  I found it quite fascinating to just watch little excerpts from peoples' lives as they wandered, cycled, ambled or strode down the fifty yards of pavement in front of me.

30% was eventually escorted in to the OR and twenty minutes later she reappeared. It had all gone well and after receiving various eyedrops and post-op guidance leaflets we headed home.

A siesta followed a late lunch and I was rudely awoken just before five o'clock by my 'phone. 

It was Bubbles asking if I was still on for an evening's fishing.  30% had confirmed that she was happy to be left at home alone, so I threw my fishing gear in the back of the Defender and headed over to Barton for an evening's fishing on the River Avon.

Our chosen spot is a lovely little meander on the river that is just downstream from the lock and weir. This was our first evening of river fishing in 2024 and, as we set up our gear, we voiced our hopes for monster barbel so strong that they would almost pull our rods from our hands.

We had a lovely evening and learnt something quite interesting. We were ledger fishing using a hair rig and our chosen bait was 1" cubes of luncheon meat. Last year Bubbles was insistent that luncheon meat marinaded with curry powder was the best bait and we did manage to pull a few fish from the water with it. He had therefore turned up this evening with that concoction.

I had gone for an alternative of luncheon meat marinaded with garlic paste and we decided to see whether there was any difference ... There most definitely was!

From the outset I was getting far more attention on my bait and, after I pulled a small chub* from the river, Bubbles switched bait.  In less than ten minutes he had a fantastic bite that was probably a large barbel. Unfortunately the fish broke free leaving an empty hook. Bubbles, ever the optimist, was simply delighted that he now knew that there were barbel for the taking on this stretch of the river.

After changing to the garlic infused bait his bite rate increased significantly.

We fished until eleven o'clock and then headed home. Both of us were delighted in a great start to our 2024 river fishing season with a catch and a new bait identified.

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* Possibly 1.5 lbs and about 9 or 10" in length

Sods Law

Today's primary objective was to clean the BMW.

Neither 30% nor I can bear to part with the Defender, despite the current Vehicle Duty of £735 per annum.   We appreciate that this is an astronomical fee, but it is such a cool, imposing vehicle with real road presence. We just love trundling around in it, so cannot bear to sell it. It also brilliant when it comes to collecting loads of top soil or collecting rotorvators, as it has in the past few weeks.*

However common sense has prevailed and the BMW estate has been sorned and will be put in the car port for the next few months until we both remember how comfortable, warm and delightfully smooth** it is and it will be reinstated as our preferred vehicle for a good few months.

I appear to have entered a weird phase of my life where I alternate between two vehicles depending on the season ... Oh, and one of the motorcycles if it warm, sunny and dry ... and I don't have to carry anything!

Right, I seem to have wandered away from the story line there.  The plan for today was to wash the BMW before I put it away in the car port.

The pressure washer was connected to both power and water and the car was given an initial blast to clean the worst of the Winter grime from its bodywork. 

The sun then decided to show its face and my plans were buggered.  All of the cleaning products I had planned to use were quite clear in their instructions. The paintwork needed to be cool and the products should not be allowed to dry on the car. There was no way I could snowfoam or shampoo the car until the sun went in.  

Basically, and somewhat perversely for the UK, the sun had stopped play!

I checked the forecast and cloud cover looked like it would increase in the afternoon, so the rest of the morning was spent clearing some of the crap that had accumulated in the carport over the past 12 months.  The trailer was sheeted and parked up and the diverse items of garden paraphernalia were put away.

Eventually the weather cooperated and I was able to continue with my car cleaning. A snow foam treatment was applied and washed off and I then filled a bucket, grabbed a wash mitten and gave her a thorough clean.  The pressure washer was used to give her a final rinse and I stood back to admire my hard work.

At this point I will mention that the local farmer had decided that today was the perfect day to bale a crop of hay from the small pasture alongside the cottage.  The baling had produced plenty of dust and my beautifully clean car was now covered with little circles of dust as it had settled on my drying car.

Bollocks, it looks like I'll be doing this again in a few days time!

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* Bubbles, a Volkswagen devotee, also loves it and is absolutely convinced that it is the perfect vehicle for our fishing trips.

** It's bloody quick too. She may be a big old bus, but, when she hitches up her  drawers, she can tear off down the road along with the best of them

Parcels

 I received two parcels today.

The first was 75 jar lids that I had ordered yesterday. In the intervening 24 hours I had managed to totally forget that I had ordered them and was, therefore, a little concerned at the rattly, broken sounding box that arrived this morning.  After identifying the contents I was amazed at the speed of delivery and, if I could have been arsed to leave a review, it would have been very positive.

The second parcel came in a box that was about 50cm x 50cm x 25cm.  Once again, I was a little perplexed at what I had ordered. I opened the large box and was presented with a lot of shredded cardboard packing material. After routing around for a moment or two, my hand fell upon the box of plant fertiliser that I had ordered a couple of days ago.

I looked at the packet of fertiliser, looked again at the box it arrived in, and did a swift mental calculation. I swear that the box could have easily held twenty packets of Phostrogen!

It was bloody ridiculous. "Brown paper and triple twist twine are the preferred media"* and they would have been more than adequate. Instead I got packaging more appropriate to a priceless relic.

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* Thanks Tommy! A prize may be awarded if the source of this quote is identified correctly.

Good News & Not So Good News

 The first event of the day was to accompany 30% on a trip to the Optometrist in Worcester.  She would be having her pupils dilated as part of the examination and this precludes driving for about six hours afterwards.*

The Consultation went well in that she has been booked in for cataract surgery this coming Thursday. This is impressive as the surgery will be eleven calendar days since she first consulted an Optician about her eyesight. The speed of referral and operation scheduling is, quite frankly, amazing.

30% was also delighted when the final comment from the receptionist, after booking a slot for her Op, was "You won't be cooking or doing any cleaning for the next few weeks".

Back at home I massaged the pork that is curing in the fridge and then started to process a batch of honey that needed to be warmed, filtered and bottled.  Over the course of the day I managed to process a further batch of honey and now have twenty, eight ounce jars to be labelled and put out for sale.

I also completed this week's lawn mowing marathon with a forty five minute wander up and down the front lawn. It all looks rather neat and tidy now, although I am seeing signs of weeds ... where's my hoe!

The final activity of the day was a wander out on the Three Miler with Bobyn and the dogs. We had an amusing conversation about our comings and goings since we last saw each other and one of the topics had us in stitches.  I shouldn't really go in to detail but the punchline of this conversation was that she "does watch other things".

I also caught up with Grandad Jack courtesy of WhatsApp and was saddened to learn that he is about to start a course of chemotherapy.  He is, understandably, shocked and terrified by his diagnosis and we both did our best to avoid the subject at all costs. I took the piss, sent him much love and offered him large quantities of home cured bacon as soon as he felt up to it.

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* Many years ago a nurse explained the reason for this. The belladonna based substance dilates the pupils to facilitate the examination of the eye. However, it prevents the construction of the pupil for several hours afterwards and this is the key point. If one were involved in a car accident after having ones' pupils dilated post accident checks will include a medic shining a bright light in to each eye to check the pupillary reflex.   Obviously the belladonna adversely affects the reflex and may result in the medic incorrectly diagnosing a pressure related brain injury.  The treatment may involve many holes being drilled in to the skull to relieve the non existent pressure.

All Mondays should be like this

This morning I took the two loins and the slab of belly pork from the fridge and gathered various implements.

The basic method of making bacon is very simple. The pork loin, or slab of belly, is laid on a large tray. Generous handfuls of the cure mixture are massaged in to the cut of meat and my approach is to then vacuum pack* it, although zip lock bags or sealable containers will work just as well.

As just mentioned, the cuts of pork are inserted in to bags and a couple more handfuls of cure mixture are added. The bags are then sealed and placed in the bottom of the fridge. For the next week the loins will be taken from the fridge each day and will be massaged and flipped over. The belly pork has the same treatment, but will only need four or five days as it is much thinner than a pork loin.

Starting the cure took much of the morning and a spell of gentle pottering** took me through until lunchtime.

In the early afternoon I dragged the mower from the shed and cut the back lawn. I had every intention of doing the same at the front, but heavy, grey clouds and half a dozen drops of rain convinced me that a downpour was imminent and the mower was put back in the shed.

Further pottering ensued, which turned in to an internet search on the best way to put fishing line on to a reel. Half an hour, an arbor knot and a bowl of water later, I can report that my new Shimano reel is replete with 12lb breaking strain line and ready for the next fishing trip.

As afternoon turned to evening I clambered in to the Defender and headed over to collect Bubbles and Ben. We had arranged to attend the last North Cotswold Hunt Supporters Clay Shoot of the year up at Blockley.  We had an amusing evening in beautiful countryside, attempting to hit forty clays.

Surprisingly, Bubbles was well off his usual form and, for the first time ever, I actually managed to equal his score of 25/40.  Ben kicked both of our arses with a fine 28/40 ... for a beginner he is far too fucking good!

The evening ended with a trestle filled with pork pie, sausage rolls and other fabulously unhealthy food.  We filled our faces before heading down from the Cotswold escarpment back in to the Vale.

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* Many years ago we purchased a little vacuum packing unit. It came with a couple of rolls of heat seal plastic bags. This is basically a plastic bag tube on a roll. One cuts off the length that is needed to make the required size of bag and seals one end.  The item to be vacuum packed is then put in the bag and the open end is inserted in to the vacuum packer. A vac & seal button is pressed and all of the air is sucked from the back and the open end is heat sealed. They are an absolutely brilliant device for home freezing as the produce never gets freezer burn.

** Gentle Pottering: a catch all term covering a multitude of skives. These can range from watering the veg plot to putting away an item that has been left on display for so long that it bears a couple of millimetres of dust and at least one abandoned cobweb.

Not a Completer/Finisher today

The weather was a little more seasonal today and, after a few indoor jobs, I did get to experience a few rays of sunshine.

On return from 30%'s shopping trip yesterday, she had proudly presented two full loins of pork. Our supply of bacon is running low and a cure has been discussed for a few of weeks. It now looks like I will be making some bacon in the next couple of days. *

The loins will make some fabulous back bacon and there is a slab of belly pork in the freezer that will make a good few rashers of streaky too.

First job this morning was to mix up a batch of cure. The following ingredients were assembled;

• 500g Salt
• 500g Soft Brown Sugar
• 25g Black Peppercorns
• 25g Coriander Seeds
• a good handful of Bay Leaves
• 2 Star Anise pods
• A few Juniper berries

The spices were ground with a hand blender and then thoroughly mixed with the salt and sugar. This was bagged up and will be rubbed in to the pork tomorrow when I actually have time to get the pork cure underway.

I also cleared the foam from top of the 30lb tub of honey that Pete dropped off yesterday. Again, I didn't have the time to start to clarify, filter and bottle the honey. That too will need to wait for another day.

At lunchtime we headed over to 30%'s brother's house for a joint celebration of the ELF's birthday and Father's Day. It was a pleasant enough do, perhaps a little formulaic, but we had a pleasant lunch and chat before we needed to head home.

30% had planned a trip to Birmingham to see a musical performance of The Wizard of Oz with one of her friends, leaving me home alone this afternoon.

First job was to plant out four tomato plants that we had picked up from a local nursery on our trip out this morning.  For some reason one of my tomato plants has wilted and is now dying, while its neighbours are flourishing. I can see no signs of insect or other infestation and am at a loss to understand its demise.  My approach was to simply remove the dying plant and replace it. I also filled a couple of gaps in the greenhouse with the other new plants.

I was now on a roll and dragged the porn mower from its den. I was well in to the afternoon at this point and settled on just mowing the lawns around the greenhouses, the garage and the verges at the front of the cottage. The front and back lawns can wait until tomorrow.

By the time I had put the mower away it was definitely time for a glass of wine and dinner. I settled down with the dogs and realised that I had managed to start three different jobs today and finish none of them.

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* The bacon cure is becoming an annual event. Over a period of about two weeks a pair of pork loins will be dry cured for about a week, followed by air drying for another week. They will then be hung in a little "tea chest" smoker and cold smoked over smouldering oak sawdust for about 24 hours. Finally the bacon will be sliced, vacuum packed and frozen for consumption over the next year.

A lazy day.

 The forecast for today was rain, lots of rain, so any gardening plans were put on hold.

30% headed out for a supermarket visit and I headed to my desk with the aim of locating a few documents for the FAs. Well, one thing led to another and, before I knew it, it was lunchtime and I was about half way through my on-line tax return for 2023/24.

I still have a few points to clarify, but I hope to have finished the damned thing in the next week, or so.

Just as I was finishing lunch, Pete C called at the house.  Pete is a local beekeeper and it was he who provided me with the bucket of honey that I clarified and bottled for sale at the end of April.  I have managed to sell about 24 lbs of honey from my little roadside stand in the past six weeks and Pete arrived with another bucket of honey in hand.

This is probably an appropriate point to cover the current situation with the bees, or rather lack of them! I've already mentioned that I was virtually housebound for a good chunk of last year and, although I attempted to inspect my bees, there was no way that my condition would allow me to maintain my colonies.

I had four or five hives and each of these needed to be inspected once a week. Each inspection would take a minimum of twenty minutes and, as the colonies took on nectar and pollen, I would be moving honey supers weighing 20+ kilos. I did attempt an inspection early in the year, but only the one. I just couldn't do it.*

My bees were left to their own devices and, unfortunately, by the time I was able to take a look in the Autumn, all of my colonies had swarmed and left the hives empty. The vacant frames were crawling with wax moth larvae and they had eaten their way through the comb leaving behind a mess of frass and untidy webs of grubby silk. It was a very depressing task to burn the frames and dismantle the hives.

Pete was aware of my misfortune and had promised to sort me out with another colony. Over the past couple of months he has been trying to find a colony for me, but the one he has selected, is being problematic.  We had a pleasant hour discussing honeybee management and the options for sorting me out with another colony.  One way, or another, Pete is confident that he will get me started again by the Autumn.  

Obviously I will not be harvesting honey this year, so will be a honey re-seller through until next year, or possibly the year after.

The afternoon faded in to evening and we headed over to see my Alcester Mum and Dad and join them for dinner. We had a lovely evening catching up with each others' news and it was a great way of finishing our lazy day.

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* The rigours of a honey extraction are even more physical and involved. If I couldn't manage colony inspections there was no way I could have harvested a honey crop last year.

More Planting.

 First job of the day was to plant the cabbage and French bean plants that we purchased from Rowberry's yesterday.

This took a good chunk of the morning, as the cabbages needed to be netted to keep the pigeons and butterflies away and teepees needed to be constructed to provide support for the beans. 

The veg patch is filling up quite nicely, but there will be plenty of  room for the peas and beans that 30% sowed this afternoon.

I also sowed a few seed in the larger of the two raised beds. We bought some Spring Onion seeds yesterday and I planted a 3' row. The plan is to plant a 3' row each week for the next few weeks to give us a longer cropping of these tasty little bites.

Our gardening was interrupted for a brief chat with the FAs before we returned to the plot. I managed to clear the weeds from the final square yard of path up by the well and can therefore mark this job as complete ... until the little buggers start growing again!

Hypothermia!

 The plan for this morning was to head over to Rowberry's Nursery to meet up with Mr & Mrs Tweedy.

This seemed like a great idea, as a day of rest was in order after our recent gardening exertions. Fortuitously it would also keep us out of the unseasonably cold weather.

I'm not a fan of the cold, so having never visited this establishment before, I asked 30% whether it was an indoor or  outdoor experience.  She informed me that it was an indoor premises, so I stupidly assumed that a coat would not be necessary.

We arrived and partook of coffee and cake in the cafe before venturing out ... KEY WORD there "OUT" in to the polytunnels that formed the accommodations for an absolutely splendid array of plants.  The only problem was that the polytunnels were open ended and a biting wind blew down each and every one of them.

After an hour, or so, of wandering I was fucking freezing* and not in the most positive of moods. It was fair to say that I was relieved when lunch was mentioned and we, again, retired to the cafe to eat whilst wrapped in emergency silver foil blankets.

This is not a disparaging report of the nursery. It was fantastic. It's just that next time I would like the temperature to be a little less Baltic.

Back at home we stayed indoors away from the wind and were joined by Bubbles and Bobyn for dinner. It was Bubbles' birthday on Sunday and this was a belated celebration of his 35th.

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* actually it was after about 3 minutes of wandering that I was hypothermic!

An Offering to the Hedgehog God

 I spent most of today on my hands and knees.

This wasn't a day of worship and offerings* at the alter of the great hedgehog spirit Ar 'n Tuith,  and my back wasn't playing up either.**

Instead, I returned to the overgrown path at the front of the cottage, the clearing of which, I started at the end of last month. Previously I had cleared the path as far of the front door and now I had another twenty, or so, feet to get to the end of the path by the well.

It is fair to say that it was a long job, but it now looks really good. The only slight annoyance is that I gave up as a result of fatigue at about six o'clock in the evening, leaving about one square yard left to clear. The completer / finisher in me really wanted to complete the job, but a sit down and a glass of red wine was just too persuasive.

Clearly my offerings to Ar 'n Tuith were not well received and my request for eternal stamina was ignored ... Well, bollocks to him, I'll try worshiping one of the Badger spirits instead!

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* Juicy beetles, probably.

** Although it may well be tomorrow.

If you build it ...

Prior to the fox attack last Summer, our chickens were housed in a decrepit old shed with an attached run.*  We took the decision to re-home the surviving birds and not to replace them until we had a more secure home for them. That was in February 2021 and I have already mentioned that 30% and I managed to dismantle and burn the old coop in the Autumn of last year. 

This left us with no chickens and no coop ... up until today!

30% has ordered a poultry ark and it should be with us in seven to ten days time.

She is already reaching out to suppliers of fertile eggs.

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* The shed was already in a decayed state when we moved to the cottage* in February 2021 and I recall that TP and his girlfriend spent the first morning up there with cable ties, hammers and other tools to make the crappy old shed almost habitable for poultry.

Planting out at last

I was out early this morning for a trip over to Droitwich to see the Consultant Optometrist. 

Once I was back at home I headed out to the newly tilled vegetable patch with watering cans, pegs, a line and a trowel and finally set to putting some plants in the ground. Since moving here I have become really quite taken with growing vegetables and they really do taste so much better than the produce at the supermarket. It may be down to the varieties or just that the veg is fresh taking literally minutes to go from plant to plate.

We are nowhere near sufficient, but, all being well, the freezers will be filled with surplus produce over the next few months and we will be able to delight in soup made from home grown tomatoes and frozen fresh runner beans well in to next year.

I put in a row and a half of celeriac* and eighteen runner bean** plants with their requisite bamboo teepees.  

It all looks beautifully neat and ordered at the moment, but I am well aware that the bloody weeds will be poking up the moment I turn my back.

Note to self: get 30% to reach out to Bev and Dawn and arrange for us to go over and pick up some horse shit to mulch the bare earth.

While I was planting, 30% has been hard at it in the orchard and has cleared a huge amount of deadwood from the top, right hand corner, which was left when we had the hedge laid back in the Spring of 2021.

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* 20 plants that I have raised from seeds, Var: Ilona 

** Variety: Lady Di.

A Bonfire in the Orchard

30% and I spent much of our time in the orchard today. The weather is unseasonably cool, so our plan was to complete a task that would ward away the chills.

Our goal was to have a bonfire and deal with the large pile of stems and branches abandoned there after the Winter fruit tree pruning.  Over the past few months a dense mass of stinging nettles and docks had grown up through the pile and it was certainly overdue for clearance.

We have a metal cage about 5' in length, 4' wide and about 3' high. It is great for bonfires, but was already heaped his with weeds and other material from our gardening activities.

Phase 1 was to drag out branches from the nettle patch and cut them in to reasonable lengths. After about an hour we both had a couple of good sized piles, so I grabbed matches, a cardboard box filled with shredded paper and about an eggcup of heating oil ... Despite the wind I had the fire lit with a single match and 30% and I started to pile on dry wood.

We soon had a blazing fire, hot enough to burn the damp herbage previously piled in the burner along with the pruned wood.

Whilst we were working the dogs alerted us to a visitor at the gate. It was my adopted dad; Buzzer who had come to pay us a visit and invite us over for dinner on Saturday evening. We caught up on each other's news whilst drinking coffee and warming ourselves by the bonfire.

30% needed to head off to the Opticians in the early afternoon, so I piled the fire high with the last of the brush cut grasses from my orchard clearance last month and then attended to an odd hole in the orchard.

Now the orchard is far from an even piece of ground, but there is this weird hole about a foot deep and about three feet square. It is regular in shape and it looks like someone might have attempted to dig a very shallow pool at some point in the past. All I know is that it gets concealed by the rampant growth of grass and herbs and I fall in to the bloody thing on a regular basis.

We had some topsoil spare, so it has now been filled and I scattered some grass seed on it.

If you could see the rabbit hole ridden, rough patch that is our orchard, you might think that gallons of herbicide and a bulldozer would be a more appropriate tactic. You might be right, but I'm tempted to have a play with the new rotorvator and see if it is feasible to get parts of it levelled and grassed ... I can always hire a mini digger later if I need to.

Notes on Carrots

I found time today to get some carrots planted in the smaller of the new raised beds.

In previous years 30% has grown carrots in containers and her approach has been to sprinkle on the tiny seeds and water.  Thinning has not been her thing, leading to very closely packed plants. The result has been tasty, but tiny, little carrots no bigger than one's little finger.  They have been perfect for dipping in hummus, but not really worth the effort to prepare and cook.

This time I decided to take more technical approach, but found that details were lacking. 

These notes are to help me work out what went wrong later in the season.

It is said that silver sand acts as a diluting agent and enables the tiny seed to be more evenly distributed along the row.  I found an internet resource that suggested that a quarter of a teaspoon of seed be mixed with a cup of silver sand, but there was no advice on what length of row this should sown in to.

I ended up distributed my sand/seed mixture evenly over five rows, each of which was about 3 feet in length. The seed was sown at a depth of about half an inch.

I should see results in about ten days, so fingers crossed that the bloody pigeons keep off them.

The Rotamatiser!

 First job of the day was to tender my resignation as co-chair of the local Horticultural society.  I used to get paid quite handsomely to deal with sarcastic and petty wankers, but I certainly wasn't going to that for free as a volunteer.  

The abridged version of events was that a poster redesign took place.* The abomination was distributed with a request for feedback and I provided a couple of comments** instead of tearing the thing to shreds and doing it myself.

The designer*** decided to get pissy and questioned my understanding of design and finished off with, if you think you can do better, do it yourself.

The society is a real ball ache and, in my opinion is at the end of its life. I have tried making a number of suggestions to encourage new membership and make the club more accessible and inclusive, but these have been met with indifference and a strong desire to continue doing things as they have always been done.

They had therefore given me an easy way out and I politely resigned, pointing out that I was not a good fit for a committee where common courtesy falls by the wayside when requested feedback is given.

I have subsequently received an non-apology from Mr Pissy, recognition of my organisation skills, ideas and enthusiasm, followed by requests to reconsider my decision ... Yep, they can go and fuck themselves!

Now on to important matters ... The Rotamatiser. 

After topping up the larger of the raised beds, 30% and I headed over to Tewkesbury to the commercial premises of Gizzy and Jules.  When we last met up they advised than an elderly acquaintance had a rotorvator for sale at a very attractive price of sixty quid.  We leapt at the offer and then the old Duffer went cold on the idea and decided that he would hold on to it ... arse!

However, a couple of weeks ago Gizzy got in touch to advise that the Rotamitiser was now definitely available and we leapt again.  We spent a lovely morning catching up with G&J and the Rotamatiser looked in great condition. It even still bore the little label from its most recent service.

After an hour or so of coffee and chat, we loaded the little red beast in to the back of the Defender and headed back home. A quick lunch was eaten and the little monster was unloaded and plonked in the veg patch.

An hour later I can report that it is awesome in a wrestling with a bear whilst trying to excavate to the centre of the earth sort of way. It was certainly a work out, but the results are amazing. The vegetable garden is now a tilled masterpiece and I am just a little sad that events and weather have meant that we have missed the planting window for some of our favourite crops. 

Still, not to worry, we'll find something to grow that isn't beetroot or Pak Choi.

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* and it still looked like an eight year old had been let loose with a desktop publishing application

** I really was restrained, surprising, I know! I suggested we decide on either left or centre justification rather than both and that we tidied up the final elements at the base of the poster relating to sponsors and access to schedules.

*** This is stretching the definition of that word to a monumental extent

Filling our time

 Here's a two in one Journal entry after a couple of jam packed days.

Friday, 7th June

Bubbles and Ben picked me up just before nine o'clock and we headed over towards Ledbury for a practice session on the clay traps at Long Ridge Shooting Ground.  I have only been once before and it certainly hasn't got any easier. 

It is CPSA registered shooting ground which means that it is of a standard suitable for hosting national competitions. *

It is fair to say that I struggled with some many of the birds and I was certainly glad that we weren't keeping score.

I was home early in the afternoon and hitched up the trailer, once again, before heading over to Weston Subedge for the final load of top soil.  I then spent a frustrating hour, or so, on Horticultural Club admin before tidying myself up ... 

... Bubbles had arranged a barbecue for this evening and we had a lovely time centred around salads and grilled meats of many varieties.

Saturday, 8th June

Today was another day with Bubbles and Ben.

This time we had arranged for a day's fishing over at the Lakes in Harvington. By quarter past eight we had purchased three pints of maggots and were setting up our equipment on the edge of the Boundary Pool whilst merrily taking the piss out of each other.

I nearly failed at the first hurdle when my reel jammed, but Bubbles fortunately had a spare and I was soon  drowning maggots in the cool morning air.

Bubbles also decided that we should have a competition for the most fish and the heaviest weight of fish caught, and I was off to a good start when I landed the first fish of the day, a small but handsome 3lb common carp.  I then caught a couple of small Bream before Bubbles brought in a rather nice Perch.  Poor Ben looked a little downhearted as we three were only spaced over about fifteen yards of the bank, but he wasn't having any luck at all.

Bubbles and I were neck and neck before he went ahead just before lunch with six or seven caught to my five.** Ben eventually got lucky with a decent sized bream and he even managed to use the landing net to sweep up a large mirror carp that was idly cruising at the surface just in front of us.  We teased him that he couldn't count that his as he hadn't caught it with a rod and line.

We fished until four o'clock, but we had very few bites after lunchtime. It was, however, pleasant to sit in the sun and talk nonsense for most of the day.

30% and I were out again this evening, visiting the Palace Theatre in Redditch to see a performance by Back to Bacharach. As the name suggests, we were treated to a performance of hits from the song book of Bert Bacharach performed by a seven piece band with four different vocalists.

It was a really great event and the very capable musicians and vocalists certainly did justice to the works of a very talented man. 

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* i.e. Bloody hard!

** My catch was a carp, two small bream, a small tench and an eel, which was very wriggly and quite freaky in its ability to wrap itself around anything it came in to contact with.

Pottering & an infrequent visitor

30% had gone off with a sub-sect of the coven this morning for trip around Hidcote Gardens.  I was left to my own devices and pottered around the greenhouses; watering, pinching out the side shoots on the tomato plants and tying in the tomato vines to the supports.

The afternoon started with a little snooze before I hauled the porn mower from its lair and mowed the front and back lawns.  The attentive reader might recall that the self drive failed on the mower a week ago and I can certainly state that I miss it.  It was quite a workout having to provide the motive power to cut the grass.

I decided that the lawns around the garage and greenhouses could left for another day and retired to the house for refreshments.  As I was sat stroking Hobson I noticed a strange little lump on his leg. Initially I thought it was a skin tag, but as I examined it I realised that it was a tick, quite a large tick!

A quick Google session followed, leading to me digging out my old dissection kit and locating a decent pair of tweezers. Hobson was an absolute star and settled quietly so that I could grasp the vile little parasite where its head entered his leg and pluck it off.

They really are an unpleasant creature that is little more than a flabby grey sack about 6mm long with tiny legs and mouthparts at the very tip. I disposed of the tick and checked all of the dogs just in case.

That just about covers Thursday apart from a walk around the Three Miler with Bobyn and this time we managed to remain dry.

I do have a post script relating to an event earlier in the week. I forgot to mention that on Monday I was leaning on the garden gate having a chat with Sheila, who was on her constitutional around the lanes. As we chatted we both heard a familiar, but now infrequent* sound ... we heard a cuckoo calling.  We both commented that neither of us had heard a cuckoo in years and it was lovely to hear one once again.

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* Apparently cuckoo numbers have declined by at least 65% since the 1980s.

Back Story

 This morning I had a check up arranged with my Spinal Consultant at a hospital in Stourport. 

As I got my shit together* a team of roofers arrived to install a dry valley in the junction where the 1970s and 1980s extensions meet with the original cottage roofing.  We have had an intermittent leak in the redundant chimney in the kitchen and our roofer thinks that this will, hopefully, remediate the problem.

I left the roofers to it and headed off for my check up.  The Consultant was pleased with the condition of my back and we agreed that there was no treatment needed at present, other than over the counter painkillers when necessary. I'll see him again in six months, or sooner if it all goes horribly wrong!

At this point I'll bore you with the back story to my bad back ... Sorry, another fucking awful pun.

In early February 2023 30% and I had been out in the garden doing something. I can't, for the life of me remember what the task was, and there ain't much that needs doing at that time of year. Anyway, we finished the now forgotten task and headed back in to the warm where I fell asleep on the sofa.

When I woke about an hour later my back felt dreadful and I put it down to sleeping in an awkward position due to Whiffler taking up more than his fair share of the settee.  I took painkillers and expected the pain to subside over the next 24 hours, but it didn't, it got much worse!

Within the space of 2 days I had gone from being relatively fit and active to being virtually housebound.  The pain was incredible and strangely manifested itself in the lower back and in shooting, burning pain in my left shin. This was so bad that I couldn't stand for more than five minutes and I couldn't walk for more than fifty yards without having to sit down.

Over the next six months I had many consultations with my GP and Physiotherapists. Their approach was to fob me off with ever increasing strengths of pain killers and tell me that it would get better on its own, rather than refer me for any diagnostic tests.  At its worst I was taking nerve blocks and high strength painkillers** that made little impact on the pain. They just made me incapable of staying awake for more than three hours at a time.

At this point I should commend 30% for her patience and care. She kept the whole household on course and did her best to deal with the most miserable, evil tempered patient ever. 

It is fair to say that being immobile and housebound at the age of 59 with no diagnosis or effective treatment plan was incredibly worrying for both of us.

Whilst I was not able to walk very far, I was able to drive so I signed up with a local Chiropractor; had a few sessions and dutifully followed an exercise regime she designed for me.  After a couple of months we realised that there was no significant improvement, so she referred me to a private imaging company in Cheltenham for an MRI scan.

The scan was completed and I was soon in possession of the Consultant Radiologist's report. I now had a diagnosis. I had a bulging disk between the L4 and L5 vertebrae and also foraminal stenosis on the left side of this joint.  Foraminal Stenosis is a degenerative condition and basically means that a nerve branch that exits the spinal column is being pinched ... hence the crippling pain in the left shin.

I now had a diagnosis after 6 months and was able to get referrals*** to see a Consultant.  A number of treatment options were outlined from an epidural with steroids to back surgery involving removal of bone material and the insertion of a titanium cage to support and tie together the offending vertebrae.

It was agreed that we would start with the epidural steroid injection to control the pain. Interestingly as I was going through the arrangements to have this procedure I noticed that my back seemed slightly better. I was moving slightly more easily, I was sleeping through the night and needed to take far fewer pain killers.  

This was around the beginning of September and over the next six or eight weeks I had the epidural and my back pain diminished. By October I was relatively pain free, but incredibly unfit after eight months of inactivity.  From that point on I have been doing my best to regain a degree of fitness and improve my activity.

The outlook is uncertain. My Consultant is very happy with the current state of affairs, but cautions me that there is every chance that the nerve could become inflamed and put me back on my backside again. All I can do is keep as fit as possible and be very sensible when lifting heavy object ... like sleepers for raised beds!

Having finished that health report I'll quickly finish today's activities.

The roofers finished in the early afternoon and 30% and I headed off to Weston Subedge for another load of topsoil. That has now been transferred to the large raised bed and, as predicted, another load will be needed to top it off.

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* I failed at the first hurdle when, about ten minutes from my destination, I realised that I had forgotten my wallet.  I then offered many prayers to the Gods of car parking that the payment machine would be out of order.  I then rationalised that this was an NHS appointment at a private hospital and no private hospital would charge their paying customers!

** Amitriptylene and Tramadol

*** By this point in time I had qualified for the Private Health scheme of my employer

Planting carrots by the weekend?

My main goal for today was to get the final course of sleepers laid on the smaller of the two raised beds. 

Rain was forecast and my preference was to get this done without getting soaked.  It took quite a long time to get these final four half sleepers laid and it seemed to involve a good few trips to the workshop to plane ends square and even shorten one of the buggers by about 10mm. Shortly before lunch I drove the last of the connecting screws in and declared phase one of the job finished.

No sooner had I made this declaration, than 30% was on the 'phone to Budget Skips to make arrangements for us to go and collect a tonne of top soil.*

A quick lunch was eaten and then the trailer was hitched up to the newly taxed Defender.  Within a few minutes we were trundling down the road towards Weston Subedge.  It was quite novel experiencing a waste reclamation facility, including being weighed on the weigh bridge and we were amazed at the size of the enormous bucket loader that made light work of gently tricking three quarters of a tonne** of top soil into our dinky little trailer.

Within the space of ten minutes we were loaded, weighed out and driving home at a very sedate forty miles per hour.

We had prepared the base of the smaller of the raised beds with a layer of home made compost, some grass cuttings from the orchard and a few other compostables that we had to hand. We then spent a quite physical hour transferring the soil from the trailer to the bed.  The small bed swallowed almost all of the load of soil and I estimate that we will need another two loads to get the larger bed filled too.

Having tidied up and put the tools away, we retired for a well earned rest. I think we both just fancied an extended period on the sofa but 30% had arranged to go to an aquafit class and Bobyn was coming over for a walk.

At this point I will direct your attention back to the second paragraph and the comment that "rain was forecast". Bobyn arrived and casually mentioned that it was poring over Evesham way and that she hoped we would miss it ... We didn't!

At the point in our walk where we were furthest from the house, the heavens opened and within minutes we were absolutely soaked.  It was a soggy walk back to the house and we all looked like drowned rats.  There then followed a manic half an hour of dog drying, clothes changing and meal preparation before Hobson, Whiffler, The Rat and I could settle and warm up.

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* Their certified top soil is only about £18 per tonne, but there is an £80 delivery charge.  It didn't take a genius to realise that we had both the time and the equipment to collect the soil ourselves, and save a fair few quid in the process.

** This was our little trailer filled to the brim and it was less than the capacity of the bucket!

A day in bed ...

 or, rather, beds plural, but I am getting ahead of myself, so I'll leave the explanation of that crappy pun for a while.

This morning I was up and at it shortly after eight o'clock. I raked up the long grass from the no-mow May area of the lawn, dragged out the lawn mower and gave it its first cut of the year. We have now moved from no-mow May to it looks fucking awful for most of June.  Basically it takes the best part of a month, or even more, for the lawn to produce a decent sward after being allowed to go wild for a month*.

30% headed out shortly after nine on a variety of errands, including a gossip session intellectual debate with her nail technician.  

I collected up a selection of tools from the shed and workshop and headed out to the vegetable garden where I made a start on the assembly of the raised beds. The first stage was levelling the site and this was done "by eye" with a hoe and rake.**  I then measured up, hammered in a couple of pegs and heaved the first 8' sleeper in to position.  It took a bit of faffing around to ensure that the butt joints lined up correctly, but the use of a couple of hardwood wedges allowed accurate alignment. I can also report that the structural timber screws provided by the sleeper supplier were awesome. My little impact driver made light work of joining the sleepers together.

My overall design is for two raised beds, each is built from two courses of sleepers which will make them about 16" high. One bed is 4' x 8' and the second is 4' x 4'. By the end of the day I had completed the larger bed and laid the first course of sleepers for the smaller bed.

I would have finished the second bed, but 30% reminded me that we were out this evening, so the need for a shower put an end to my garden construction activities for today.

Tonight's entertainment was Pershore Operatic & Dramatic Society's production of Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the No. 8 arts centre in Pershore.  I have to report that the show was absolutely fantastic. The music, the performances, the whole ensemble was outstanding, and as for the costumes ... they were fabulous! We went with a few members of the coven and all of us were amazed at the quality of the production by a dedicated and skilled amateur troupe.

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* It has actually gone wild for 7 or 8 months, since that area of the lawn is far too wet to cut until after May 

** I put a spirit level on the beds, once assembled, and was surprised how close to level I had actually got with only my eye for guidance.

Air Show weekend

 As mentioned on Friday, we are only a few miles from Ragley Hall and it is hosting the Midlands Air Show this weekend.

Since moving to our new house we have realised that the local geography makes the skies above our house the perfect holding area for the aircraft before they make dramatic entrances over the Rageley Estate.  In other words, we get a free close up view of a lot of the aircraft* over the weekend.

It is fast becoming an annual tradition that we have some form of get together over the air show weekend and spend time in the garden drinking, chatting and listening to the thunderous sounds of high velocity jet aircraft. The early June date means that the weather is usually reasonable and, if we are really lucky, absolutely gorgeous.

This weekend we were joined by C&S. They arrived in the afternoon on Saturday in time for the first display flights by the Red Arrows. The afternoon was spend out in the garden drinking tea, chatting and, as the sun passed over the yard arm, a couple of bottles of champagne** were consumed. 

Our dinner was delayed by a short walk to the top of the hill to see if we could catch sight of any balloons. We were in luck and a flight of more than twenty of them could be seen rising over Ragley and heading off  towards the South in the calm evening skies.

Dinner was eaten along with a lot more booze and it was, most definitely, a late one.

Sunday was delightful. The weather was even better than Saturday and we breakfasted out in the garden enjoying the welcome warmth of the early Summer sun. There was a lot more chatting and laughter and in the early afternoon we again wandered to the top of the hill to watch the full display by the Red Arrows.

C&S then headed off home and 30% and I had a lengthy afternoon nap ... we were very, very tired.

As afternoon passed in to evening we decided that we ought to do something. Plants were watered, I split a couple of Pinks (Dianthus) and 30% repotted some Tulips to make space for the Pinks. I also finally cut the area of long grass that is, allegedly, my contribution to no-mow May.***

Tomorrow is looking fine, so I may make a start on the raised beds.

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* The balloon flights depend on the wind direction and sight of them is never guaranteed

** S's alcohol of choice. She does love a bottle of champers. 

*** In actual fact it is just an area of the lawn that is so bloody wet that it can't bear the foot traffic until early June. No-mow May is just an excuse for leaving it long,

Try finding a title for this lot

 While I waited for the dew on the grass to dry, I finished a little bit of weeding on the front path* and then grabbed my shears.  We have two box cubes standing on either side of the door and both were looking a little shaggy after this year's Spring growth.

When we bought the house these were untamed to say the least. The box on the right hand side was so huge** that when I cut it back, to match the one on the left, there was barely a green shoot left.  That original pruning was back in 2022 and they were trimmed back to about 3' 6" in height and about 2' 6" square.  Over the past couple of years they have recovered beautifully and, this morning, I gave them their annual tidy up.

I then grabbed the porn mower and finished the lawns.  It looks like this may be the beginning of the end for this faithful servant as the self drive failed mid way through the cut.  We've been thinking about replacing it for a while and this may give us the impetus to move forward with a new machine. 

I have to say that the mower still runs beautifully and I am tempted to see how much effort it is to actually push it around the lawns for the next few months. I could certainly do with the exercise and, as I said to 30%, it should use less petrol if I am pushing it rather than using the self drive functionality.

I finished the lawns just as "H" arrived with her mum and her two grand daughters for a cuppa, cake and a chat. We had a lovely break before  I grabbed a spade and spent a further couple of hours edging the lawns and paving slabs.  

At one point this was interrupted by a fly-past from the Red Arrows. It is the Midlands Air Show at Ragley Hall this weekend and we are barely a couple of miles from the grounds. Each year we get a free show as the planes circle above our house before flying in for the displays.***

Today was not all doom and gloom on the garden machinery front.  As we were vegetating in front of the television, 30% received a message from Gizzy. An aquaintance of hers is selling their rotovator and she has nabbed it for us ... now we just need to get our arses over to Tewkesbury to pick it up.

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* I still have loads to do, but the walk to the front door is now weed free.

** I'd estimate that it was 6' high and had spread the same to the right, where it had started to obscure the living room window.

*** In 2022 our air space highlights were more than 40 balloons flying over at barely 100' and an aerobatics warm up by a bi-plane above the fields just outside the house.

Communication Breakdown

Today we headed over to Winchcombe for the second time in a fortnight. 

This time it was to meet up with M&M and their new puppy Nova.  The plan was for Nova to meet our three and for us to catch up with M&M's news whilst taking a wander through the village and grounds of Sudeley Castle.

We arrived in good time and I asked 30% for the dogs' leads. "You've got them" she responded.  "Err, no I haven't" was my answer and she followed up with "stop messing around and get them".  There was a moment of dawning realisation that we had forgotten the damned things, followed by a high potential for allocation of blame to be the next stage of this dialogue.

I rapidly changed this conversational tack by grabbing my phone, googling pet shops in Winchcombe and asking a nearby lady for directions.  Ten minutes and forty quid later I had three new leads and had averted a crisis ... RESULT!

We had a lovely time with M&M which included coffee, cake, a gently stroll and lunch. We caught up on each other's news and made loose arrangements for our next get together.

We were back home by mid afternoon and I returned to the clearance of the path to the front door. I have now cleared the weeds around the step up to the front lawn and clipping the two box cubes on either side of the front door is definitely next on my to do list.

I'll be clipping the Box soon

 Wednesday started with me attacking the small bed in front of the car port. A grape vine is planted there, which grows up the central pillar and across the front roof beam.  The bed was an absolute disgrace and I set to with a trowel and spade and had soon filled a wheelbarrow with brambles, grass, weeds and vine pruning.

This was followed by a period of pottering in the workshop.  The showery weather and wet conditions in the vegetable garden meant that any attempt to construct the raised beds would soon lead to conditions closely resembling the Somme. 

I therefore deferred the assembly and decided knock up a couple of jigs to make my life easier once things have dried up a little.  The first jig was a template to locate the positions for the pilot holes for the screws. This was a simple piece of 6mm ply with two holes drilled in the correct positions. I will simply need to hold it against the end of each sleeper and use a pencil to mark the positions of the screw holes.

The second jig was a block of hard wood about 75mm square and 50mm thick. I made sure that it was square and then used my pillar drill to drill a hole through the centre.  If I hold this tight over the positions for the pilot holes and drill through it, it will ensure that the drill stays upright and goes through the sleeper at 90° in both horizontal and vertical planes.

I tested these two jigs out on one of the sleepers and can report that a) both worked perfectly and b) the green oak is far easier to drill through than I expected. *

Mr and Mrs Tweedy arrived in the late morning and the next couple of hours were spent chatting and eating lunch. They disappeared around three o'clock and I felt that I should really do something else in the garden.  

I decided to make a start on clearing the weeds from the path to the front door and spent the next couple of hours on my hands and knees removing the overgrowth of weeds and grass from the stone slabs. I just about made it to the front door** and was amazed at the difference. The path looks about twice the width and we can now see the low dry stone wall that borders the path and the front garden.

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* I just need a good dry spell so I can get the area roughly levelled and put the raised beds together ... Oh, and I also need gravel for a drainage layer and god knows how much top soil to fill them.  If I get a single carrot out of these this year I will be amazed.

** about 10'

Mostly Haircuts

Hobson and Whiffler were packed off early this morning for a trip to the Grooming Salon.  They are both models at a local establishment that trains dog groomers. Apparently clipping a standard poodle is one of their final assignments before they are judged competent to spend their future career attending to Cockapoos and Bichon Frises.

We benefit from a drastically reduced price for a bathed and groomed dog, but do, on occasion, have to put up with clips that need some attention once the dogs are back at home. This point will become relevant later on in the narrative.

I have already mentioned that dog #4* is not a fan of the groomers and will squeal like a stuck pig if you happen to pull on her coat a little too firmly. This is not an encouraging experience for a trainee dog groomer and The Rat is already neurotic enough, so I'm responsible for grooming this ginger idiot. The plan for this morning was that she was going to get the same treatment as the other two.

Clippers were unboxed and for the next hour she stood reasonably patiently while her face and body were neatly trimmed.  A few breaks were necessary for recharging the clippers and for blades to cool and each of these also included a bribe treat of a Rich Tea biscuit to keep her motivated.

By lunchtime I was very pleased with my efforts, although her toes will need some attention over the next couple of days.

The afternoon saw a quick trip over to Droitwich for an appointment with an Opthalmology Technician. This was a quick five minutes for photos to be taken with a follow-up in the near future.

30% collected H&W from the Groomers and it was fair to say that the clips were at the more amateurish end of the grooming spectrum. Hobson's feet seem to have been completely missed and will need to be done along with those of The Rat later this week.

My final activity was an early evening walk out on the Three Miler with Bobbyn before slipping on the sofa and considering hiring a mini digger to do some levelling cause chaos in the orchard.

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* aka The Rat

Not the busiest of days

It was another showery day and I was reluctant to resume digging in the veg patch as the clay soil would be a heavy, sticky nightmare to work when the top layers are soaked.

I therefore spent this morning dealing with the oak sleepers that had been unloaded on to the drive. These needed to be moved to the vegetable garden, where they will form a couple of raised beds. At over 60kg each they were going to be buggers to move but six of them needed to be cut in half, so that was my first job.

There was no way that my circular saw would cut through a 100mm thick sleeper, so I had to make a cut on each side. Some of these cuts didn't align perfectly but I can live with the results as I am pretty certain I can hide the cut ends when they are screwed together.

Obviously the half sleepers were easy to move and I got innovative with a sack truck and a length of rope to get the four full length sleepers moved individually to the back of the house.

That was about it for the day, apart from regular comforting sessions for dog #4.  One of the local farmers is using bird scarers on a crop and every time she hears the bang she becomes very nervous and leaps up on to my lap.  

She is an odd dog, delightful in her own way, but nowhere near as calm and friendly as Whiffler or Hobson.  She is not particularly social and will spend most of the day sleeping on one of the beds, but then there will be that one day when she wants to sit alongside you and be fussed. She definitely has a full casebook of neuroses, but we have no idea what has caused them.

Another example of her weirdness is that she is a squealer. At the slightest brush she will yelp like she has been stabbed, yet on other occasions she will be playing with the other dogs, getting body slams and she will be impervious to the rough and tumble. Her vocal nature also means that the dog groomers are not overly keen on clipping her, yet I can clip her at home without a fuss.

She is a dog of contradictions, without a doubt. Basically, I think she may well be a spoilt princess!

Lazy Day

 The night out with B&H was a bit of a late one and the weather was forecast to be dreadful for most of today. These two factors made it an easy decision to do bugger all very little today.

It was 30%'s Father's Birthday yesterday so we combined a Supermarket trip with a visit to offer belated birthday salutations.  Coffee and Chocolate cake were consumed and much of the conversation revolved around gardens and the Chelsea Flower Show.  We had a pleasant hour, or so, basking in their conservatory with occasional interruptions from passing thunder storms.

Back at home we kicked back and did very little other than remark upon the inaccuracy of the weather forecast.*

TP had spent the morning messing around on the Avon with a few of his mates in a borrowed boat. They all turned up in the early evening and settled down to a spot of light drinking with burgers and sausages to soak up the booze.

His friends are great fun and they seemed perfectly happy for 30% and I to join them for a drink and a bite and, trust me, they do not seem to apply additional filters to the conversation just because the grown ups are there.**

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* The doom mongers at the Met Office had started off forecasting biblical downpours for most of the day. This was scaled back to occasional storms by this morning and we actually only had a couple of showers with a spell of thunder in the evening.  I'm not complaining. Both me and my back were grateful for a day away from the Vegetable Garden.

** We learnt that CNC does not just mean Computer Numerical Controlled milling processes!

Metal Sardines

It has come as no surprise that, after passing his motorcycle test at the beginning of the month, TP has now started to look around for a new bike.  He has, rather sensibly, decided that he wants a machine that is capable of eating up the miles with a sprinkling of excitement, rather than an arse in the air, hyper machine capable of breaking the sound barrier ... he is incredibly sensible at times.

He had planned to go over to a large second-hand motorcycle dealer at Malvern to check out a couple of possibilities and I had agreed to go with him. We headed over mid-morning and pulled up outside an anonymous looking warehouse on a trading estate and wandered in.

Once inside the hangar-like space we were met with the sight of over two hundred bikes. They were so tightly packed it was impossible to make sense of what we were seeing or to view any, but a couple, of the bikes properly.  We quickly agreed that we would take a wander around, but that neither of us were particularly taken with the dealer.  Very few of the bikes looked well cared for and there was no way that TP's selection could be removed from the ranks to be given a 360° inspection.

He did try one bike for size and that involved him clambering over one machine, squeezing alongside the bike and attempting to throw a leg over whilst the salesman held another bike over at an angle, so that TP could get it almost upright. We decided that it was ridiculous and headed home without making any commitment other than for him to find another dealer with better quality stock and a show room where you could actually look all round the bike.

Actually there was one other finding from this failed shopping trip.  I did rather like the BMW R1250R and it seemed to fit me rather well.

We headed home and arrived just in time to help a delivery driver unload ten oak sleepers. These will be used to construct two raised beds at one end of the vegetable garden.  

After lunch 30% and I resumed digging duties in the vegetable patch.  By the time exhaustion set in we had dug over about half of the bed and we certainly have enough space to start planting out once the clods have broken down to a finer tilth.

After all of this running around, one would hope for an extended session on the sofa, but we tidied ourselves up and headed over to The Plough & Harrow at Guarlford for dinner with B&H. We had an absolutely lovely time there, great food and great company, a very enjoyable evening.

The Toms are in

For some reason I find it strangely satisfying to repair an item and restore it to usefulness.  

Earlier in the week  I ordered some supplies and the first jobs this morning were to fit a new wooden shaft to a lump hammer and fit a new plastic handle to one of my garden spades.  I suppose these little jobs took the best part of an hour, but these are tools that I have had for years and am incredibly familiar with. I know how they feel in the hand and how they perform. The repairs mean that I won't have to hunt out a replacement and then spend time becoming accustomed to a new set of foibles or performance characteristics. 

This may seem a little sad but repairing an item, rather than replacing it seems to be the right thing to do.

Moving on, Friday morning finally saw me out in the greenhouse planting tomatoes.  That was after I spent a good half an hour faffing around sorting out bamboo canes and lengths of wire to support the vines.  I planted out eight Bloody Butcher plants, which are, apparently, an early ripening variety with a strong flavour. I then added eight Sweet Aperitif cherry tomato plants. We have grown these before and have been very impressed with their cropping and flavour. I finished up with six Alicante plants. This is an heritage salad tomato variety that we have grown before and love for its taste and versatility.

All I need to do now is water them, keep nipping out the side shoots and feed them once they start to flower. Roll on July when the harvest starts.*

The afternoon saw me head out to the vegetable patch and start to dig it over and pull out the weeds that I sprayed last week. It is quite a large area** and it is going to take a few days to get it completed. 30% pitched in too and we have definitely  made a start before we retired for the day.

TP arrived home for a weekend visit this evening. He has been working down in Surrey for the past few months on a Netflix production of The Sandman and had decided that he would host a Bank Holiday BBQ for a few of his friends up here. He arrived just before nine and was somewhat jaded from some strange working hours and a long drive. We caught up on the highlights of each other's news before allowing him to settle and vegetate.

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* We have actually managed to pick tomatoes right through until early December if the weather stays mild and frost free.

** I would guess it is about 5m x 10m, excluding the raspberry canes

More gardening

 The plan for today was to transplant the tomato plants to the greenhouse. It almost happened ...

Step one was to clear the chickweed, that had sprouted over the Winter, and that was soon hoed and raked up.  I noticed that the soil was very dry so I followed that up by forking in a couple of barrows of compost. The organic matter will add nutrients and also assist in holding on to moisture. A few handfuls of meat, bone and blood meal were also scattered to further boost the soil fertility.*

I then drenched the soil with several watering cans of water,  but I still wasn't convinced that the soil was sufficiently moist.  Bugger it!  I fired up the well pump and spent the next twenty minutes saturating the parched soil with a couple of hundred litres of water.  Having finished the soaking I decided that planting should be delayed until tomorrow to allow the water to permeate through the soil.

This gave me some spare time, so the afternoon was spent on my knees hand weeding the path that runs through the vegetable garden and around my raspberry canes.  This took most of the afternoon, but was reasonably easy work and very satisfying to see a nice clear path emerge.

I also noted that we seem to have a nice crop of raspberries forming.

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* We have tried growing tomatoes in grow bags, but we really don't rate them. They are difficult to water, difficult to add supports for the tomato vines, and the plants just don't seem to do that well in them. Pots or  planting directly in to the ground seems to work much better.

A day off

 ... or rain stopped play!

The forecast rain came in overnight and stayed for most of the day.  Our original plan was to have a day in the tomato greenhouse, hoeing the weeds, digging in some compost and planting out the young tomato vines, however the miserable weather did nothing to encourage us, so we spent much of the day indoors.

I reluctantly headed to the computer and spent most of the morning proof reading a draft schedule for the Horticultural Society Autumn Show and can report that the chap in charge of production is a clueless fuckwit.  It looks like it has been assembled by an eleven year old who was intent on using every font, size and colour available to them. It looks fucking awful. Now you might say it is all a matter of taste but I have done a fair bit of desk top publishing in the past and this chap has ignored, or is unaware, of the relevant guidelines and style pointers to produce a decent looking document.

Anyway, I critiqued the draft and sent back a concise, but politely worded, review outlining my suggested revisions and corrections. Let's see what the rest of the committee come back with and what the final version looks like.

Having found my administrative mojo, I persevered with my Horticultural actions and drafted and distributed the table layout plans for the Spring and Autumn shows. I know that there will be more to do once the minutes are produced from last night's meeting, but at least I have done something.

I must admit that I ran out of steam as the afternoon progressed and, for the first time in a while, I settled in from of the television ... I also lit a fire as it was bloody chilly this evening.

Do deer eat pumpkin plants?

The weather has turned and today was overcast, still mild, but nothing like the lovely sunny days we have had recently.

The plan for today was to start our planting out.  We are later than usual getting our plants in to the ground for a variety of reasons. We hope that they will catch up now that the weather finally seems to be improving.

The first task for today was to dig over the old chicken run in the orchard.  The coop and run were dismantled and disposed of last year and we have decided that the old run might be the perfect rich soil for our pumpkin crop.  

Now I am on record as not being a fan of pumpkins. I've tried the soup and the pie and neither are particularly noteworthy.  They aren't dreadful, but if I am going to eat a pie or a bowl of soup it ain't going to be pumpkin based. There are far nicer things out there to eat.

However, I do like an over large vegetable, particularly since we discovered that our garden is perfect for growing brassicas and one of our giant savoy cabbages won first prize at the local Horticultural Club Annual Show in 2022.  A photograph of the specimen even made the front cover of the Paris Magazine.

Apologies for the digression. I like an over large vegetable and, when buying seeds for this year's vegetable crops, I purchased a pack of Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds in a fit of deranged lunacy.  The fruit of the Atlantic Giant is capable of approaching or exceeding one tonne in weight in the hands of an expert.  Now I am far from an expert, but I would like to exhibit a reasonably large fruit in the pumpkin class at this year's show.

By lunchtime we had dug over the old run, removed the weeds and applied a liberal covering of compost.  Meat, bone and blood meal was sprinkled in to the holes and the young plants were introduced to their new home.

I just hope the bloody deer don't eat them!

The afternoon was spent clearing space in the flower beds for some of the Irises that we purchased from Pershore College Nursery last Friday.  It seems so very simple as I type this but, in reality, it involved considerable effort to remove large quantities of day lilies (Hemerocallis), weeding and improving the soil before the new plants could be introduced to the beds and watered in.

By five o'clock we had had enough of the garden and got ourselves cleaned up. Our days were not over yet! 30% headed out for an aquafit session with two of her friends and I had a Horticultural Society meeting to chair at the other end of the village.

It was close to nine o'clock before we slumped in front of the television with our supper.

Well, that looks a little better!

 Monday was another day in the garden and I finally managed to finish clearing the overgrowth from the lawn and borders on to the drive.  It has made quite difference and the front of the house now likes like it is under management rather than badly neglected.  

30% and I cut back and dug out a huge Honeysuckle from the front border, which is now residing in a wheelbarrow pending transplantation.  Our original plan was to insert it in to one of the hedges, but one test hole proved that it would be a horrendous task to dig it in. We therefore decided to plant it alongside Rose Cottage where it can do its worst to screen the tin shed.

As the afternoon drifted in to early evening, I mixed up a couple of batches of Roundup and sprayed the grass growing amongst the cobble effect, blocks of the drive.  I then continued spraying weeds up the path to the front door.

Hopefully the Postman will appreciate the tidier route to the post box and will no longer get soaked now the Honeysuckle has been removed..

Once the weedkiller takes effect, the front of the house should look a little less like Granny Weatherwax's cottage.

The Ingrates

It was another early start and I was up and drinking coffee by half past five. I should point out that I would have rather been snoring for another two hours.  The plan for this morning was to head over to the Hereford & Worcester shooting ground for a round of clay shooting.

Bubbles and Ben picked me up just after nine o'clock and we met up with the Lawn Mower Man at the ground.  I had an indifferent shoot and ended the morning with a score of 61/100.  I did have one outstanding stand where I managed an 8/10 while the others, including Bubbles struggled to hit one of the targets at all!*

The plan for the rest of the day was to continue clearing the overgrowth of lawn from the edge of the drive. I made some headway, but my blood sugar kept dipping and this, combined with tiredness, meant that I gave in at about five in the afternoon.

Having dealt with Sunday's events I will now move on to the title of today's Journal entry.  One might recall that earlier in the week, 30% and I purchased four goldfish to populate one of our rainwater tanks. There are  two interconnected tanks and we use them for watering the garden.  The fish are there for pleasure and to predate the mosquito larvae in the Summer months.  The first tank is about forty gallons capacity and is home to half a dozen goldfish**, many pond snails, a jungle of Elodia and a Water Lily that, so far, has failed to flower. The second tank is probably about sixty gallons in size and is also home to a jungle of Elodia and many, many and snails

Now the weather has warmed it is a twice daily ritual to scatter a few pellets of fish food on the surface and take a childish delight in seeing the fish rise and eat.  However the four new fish have declined to make an appearance since they were released on to their new home in tank number 2. The little arseholes lurk away in the depths, totally hidden in the jungle of Elodia. I swear the little gits are doing it on purpose ... "right he's fucked off now, let's go and bask at the surface for a couple of hours".

30% thinks that they are stuffing their faces on snail eggs. Me, I'm not so sure! At feeding time I creep up to the tank in a manner that would make a mouse sound like a bloody clog dancer and still the fucking ingrates fail to show their little goldfish faces.

I'm also pretty sure that snail eggs do not comprise a balanced diet.

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* as Bubbles says "I do like a dropper" ... a clay at the end of its trajectory, that is falling to the ground.

** I am fairly sure that I saw a pair of the fish in tank #1 mating a couple of weeks ago, so fingers crossed that we may have young later in the year ... provided they don't get eaten.

Progress & Fun

 The days are getting longer and I tend to wake earlier as the mornings become lighter.* This morning I was up and about by half past five. I took a leisurely start to the day enjoying the birdsong and the solitude of the garden.

30% headed off to Alcester Food Festival this morning whilst I stayed at home and took the dogs out for an early walk.  On my return I finished mowing the small lawn that borders the garage and the verge outside the house.

I must have been feeling keen as I then grabbed a spade and started to clear the grass that had overgrown the brick edging to the lawn and was now encroaching on the drive with vigour. About an hour later I had completed one section of the lawn edging and was amazed at the difference. Previously it had looked scruffy and unkempt, but now it looked like it was being managed, although there was still some work to do.** The state of the drive has been a constant irritation to me for the past year as my back prevented me from attending to it. I'm surprised at how positive I feel having finally made a start on this crappy, ball ache of a job. 

As the afternoon drew to a close I showered, shaved and changed. Bubbles and Bobbyn had arranged for us all to go and see Giffords Circus at Sudeley Castle. We had a lovely evening. The weather was perfect and this little rural circus was fantastic. The title of this year's show is Avalon and is loosely themed on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  We saw jugglers, acrobats, magicians and clowns. There was an act with four trained terriers that was very funny and the in-tent band was very professional.

The event was very intimate with the acts taking place no more than 20' feet from our seats and this close proximity made every aspect of the performance very real. I absolutely loved the show and I have a feeling that this may well become an annual outing for 30% and me.

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* It is years since I have used an alarm on a regular basis. Having been a telecommuter for the best part of twenty years it was little matter how scruffy or unshaven I was as I started my day. Ten minutes could also be found to make a coffee and a slice of toast if I had really slept late.

** 30% was absolutely gobsmacked by the visual impact of this grass clearance. I may well have made a rod for my own back as there is another tweet or thirty yards of edging to do ... and then I need to clear the weeds from the middle of the drive.