Hey Babes!

I really don't want to offend, but Jesus H Christ it was cold out there today. I was  chopping, pruning and a-cutting shrubs down on the tow path of the Grand Union canal in Berkhamsted. If you know that stretch it was by the very fine pub, The Rising Sun, right on a lovely lock, opposite the grounds of a block of flats I look after. In the remit is the tidying of - sorry, I have the YouToob mix of The Ramones and I am occasionally disappearing into bliss - a small stretch of tow path. 


Before I get on to the work on the tow path, I also do not want to offend with this first picture, but I felt it had to be shown as I would not have been able to work today without these lovelies:

Yes, thermals or, as our forefathers and mothers would say, Long Johns. Today I wore five tops, a scarf, me trusty woolly hat, two pairs of extra thick socks and steel toe caps, with extra thick gloves too. And yes I still froze me bollox off. 

The window of a car at the canal at Berkhamsted this morning

08.30 hours, Friday 03.02.12

10.05 hours

11.30-ish

The ice was permanent all day - damn cold! (Rockaway Beach, ain't The Ramones the best?).

Anyway, the reason for my visit was to clear an area of the tow path that is used by some weirdos to hide clandestine behaviour. As a sort of libertarian geezer I almost find this embarrassing, but as I am convinced the offending individuals are fishermen, fuck 'em! In a previous post I eluded to this area having obvious signs of drug abuse, roaches, etc, but I feel my loathing for fisherman can justify the cutting down of the shrubbery as follows:

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Once again, this is the kind of work I truly enjoy, one can see the results almost immediately. Well, I started at 08.30 and finished at 3pm, so relatively quickly anyway. All done with secateurs and loppers (with extendable arms, wish I had extendable arms... like Twizzle.)

Twizzle was one of Gerry Anderson's weirdest characters. He was a "boy" who had all sorts of adventures with his "extendable arms".

Weird programme, but what the hell did we know back in the 60s anyway? It was akin to the Singing, Ringing Tree (how appropriate that Psycho Therapy is playing now!) and must have disturbed many a kid, perhaps even introducing several serial killers to the world...

As usual I transgress. Just so's I can get up to date with my pictures from the last 4 weeks, here are the rest of what I have been doing:

The old stable block at Quainton - with the trusty Belgrano just
on the right there. It's just behind the block that I am doing a
major re-planting job. Taking out loads of old tired shrubs and
ground cover and replacing with ferns, hellebores and other shade
loving shrubs. 

This will be an on-going exercise over the coming months and will hopefully look as much like a Gertrude Jekyll border as is possible in the shade!

(California Sun, this is when YouTube comes into it's own, there's tons of Ramones on this mix, it's damn fine)

The pond at Quainton. Nice reflection..

 The weather is a-closing in and I feel that I may not be doing too much in the coming week, but nevertheless life as a gardener is rather pleasing at present...

The chicks know how to look after each other
in this inclement weather!

And, I'm nearly there with the compost bins at Buckland!

Happy chilling!


Innit?


PS: I Wanna Be Sedated...

Happy New Year - if a tad late...

Feeling as though I have been very neglectful - feeling? - as this is the first post of 2012. And such a huge year what with the following events:


March 1 - Greek Drachma bank notes are exchangeable for Euro until this time. 


April 9 - Sophie, my daughter, is 13 - how's that possible!


June 6 - Second and last solar transit of the planet Venus of this century; the next pair is predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125


July 19 - Staging the World – British Museum exhibition on London and its theatres in the 1590s and 1600s.


August 11 - The world's biggest celebration of books commences for two weeks of events and performances from literary names established and new at the International Edinburgh Book Festival.


2012 is also Someverdana, claimed to be a year of spiritual transformation (or apocalypse) - something to really look forward to. End of the world? My money's on 12th Deccember.


But far more important is WorldPride, a "...world-wide phenomenon and in 2012 the party is coming to London for a 2 two-week long event, with the final parade set to take place on 7 July. WorldPride is a festival promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues on a global scale and is expected to attract over one million visitors from around the world." I'll be there...


Oh yeah, and it's a leap year too.


If you know of any other stuff happening this year, keep it to yourself 'cos quite frankly, I don't care...


Well, hasn't the weather been kind? Oh yes it has. When you're a gardener it really matters that you can just carry on regardless and I for one have done as much. I have loads of pictures to upload - 30 in all - so I think I'll do it in two hits.


Last Autumn I collected a serious amount of apples from gardens across Herts & Bucks and have so far managed to produce 20 bottles of apple wine.

Chateau de Murray 2011 - cheeky lil'number, quite citrussy, but
I think it hits the spot!

I am working on cider now, hopefully about 15 litres, but not sure as my maths is shit as I may have mentioned before. I have chopped the apples and now need to crush 'em and then press 'em - I think I will fashion a press out of a car jack and some wood, saw that on the tinterweb and it looks good enough to me!


Been working on Pat's paving for weeks now, but should finish the bulk next week. Here are some pictures, I'm quite proud of of the work actually...

It's been hard work, but work that had to be done because of the loose slabs. I have been concerned for a while about Brian falling over.

A couple of weeks back I was burning off some rubbish from the compost heaps at Julie's place in Buckland, Aston Clinton, just five minutes from home. It's my Wednesday garden, the 16th century farmhouse with pond, etc. Anyway, there I was, petrol in one hand and matches in other, could I get the bloody thing to light? No. So I bend over and strike the match next to the pile of bone dry debris - covered in petrol mind, the debris, not me - and this happens:

Doesn't look that bad does it? Burnt nose and foul
smell of burnt nostril hair. But it resulted in the below.

Ouch!

It was like a nuclear holocaust, like that scene in Terminator 2 when Linda Hamilton is screaming from the fence for the kids to leave the playground. I tell you, if I didn't wear glasses my eyelashes would have been burned off. Which would have matched my eyebrows. I have very little eyebrow hair due to the fact that I blew them off with my dad's lighter when I was 12 - I am 55 in two weeks. So that's 43 years and no change then. Ho hum... This is the offending fire...

I have become obsessed with snowdrops. They are fantastically early this year, I have been amazed at the numbers and here are some at Rebecca's in Quainton, Bucks:

I particularly like this picture, probably because I got quite wet laying on me tummy taking it. What one does for art eh?

And finally for today - I will finish part two of this post tomorrow - I will jump a couple of weeks to today. I usually listen to Radio 4, but this morning at the behest of one of, if not, my best friend in the whole wide world, I started to listen to Radio 2, George Harrison's "What Is My Life", followed by Dean Martin's "Amore" and Bruce Springsteen "Brilliant Disguise". If you had been passing you would have seen a 54 year old prat in woolly hat playing his fork atop a compost heap a bit like this...

Happy gardening campers!


Peace...

Have yourselves a Merry Little Christmas...

Here we have a few more pix from recent days, still leaf clearing but also digging over compost - as I have said several times before a task I love, compost is sooooooooooo good to play with - and spreading same over huge flower beds. Also dug up a few fruit bushes, gooseberry and blackcurrant and moved them to our allotment. I'll be digging up some raspberry canes tomorrow as well.


Got snowed off last Friday and it looks as though I may get rained off this coming Friday, so that'll be it for this year, except perhaps a couple of days next week. It's a bit stunning that I have built this incy wincy business from absolutely nothing last April to working over 50 hours a week at the height of the season. This time last year we had nothing in the bank, this year I can actually think about taking a few days off without it having a detrimental effect on the bank account. Makes me feel damn good about myself, especially as my main clients have bought me pressies this year too! Must be doing summink right eh?


Don't mean this to be a boasting post, just an update on where I am really, so I hope it doesn't come across as a boast-post. It's the reason I gave up on Twitter, which is a bourgeois excuse for slapping yourself on the back and mostly saying how good you are at whatever your business might be. Boring, boring, boring...


Anyway, cute picture of Daisy, Julie and Andrew's little Westie, taken today:

Last week I took these pictures of what I believe to be an old Mulberry tree, split by lightening some years ago, I really love the bark and the way they have held the trunk together. It's a thing of beauty among many in my working life.

Monday at Pat's place I finished off the re-grouting of the crazy paving outside the back door - I think you call it grouting, but it sounds wrong to me. I am rather pleased with it and thankfully so is Pat!

And finally today at Julie & Andrew's place in Buckland, near Aston Clinton in Bucks. The compost bin revamp is nearly there and I have shifted about 50 barrow loads of it amongst the various flower beds across the gardens. A job I have really enjoyed as it has broken up the leaf clearance - ahhhhhhhhh!

The main compost area and I have cleared all but one of them - at the back there, I feel a nice bonfire coming on, it's pretty dry so should go up nicely. What is it about men and bonfires eh? Love the prospect!

And absolutely finally, here's a picture of the setting sun just as I left, bottle of vintage Port under my arm (my Xmas pressie from Julie), beautiful and it makes the hard work nothing really, I love it!

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, may you get all you desire!


Peace innit?


xxx

Must do this more often...

So, here we are again- STOP! There we go, it's got to me at last. It's this utterly pathetic pre-occupation with starting the answer to a question with the word, "So..." As I have said before, this is anathema to me, I hate it as much as Blair-types starting the answer to questions with, "Look..." all aggressive and that - Nick Clegg is good at it and ABC too (that's Anyone But Cameron, the first time Ed Cummerbund has coined a phrase worthy of the name).


I listened to The Life Scientific on dear ol' Radio 4 this morning - quite honestly I don't know what I'd do without my radio, the only thing I miss about corporate life is human contact... Hang on, did I say HUMAN? Forget that... - and the scientist was a Tim Hunt, who "...is an experimental wizard, a flamboyant thinker and a stickler for scientific procedure." Doesn't fucking stop him starting virtually every answer to a question with the word, "So...", though! Irritating or what?


This time, I am going to show you some pictures of wonder and excitement from the last 3 weeks. This has included leaf clearance and, leaf clearance, plus a little bit of leaf clearance.

This is at Brudenel House in Quainton, near Aylesbury. So far it's taken me 2 weeks to clear and there's still about 4 hours worth of work to do.

Ryobi leaf vac & blower, my new best friend, noisy, but
essential, lovely stuff

This was meant to show leaves blowing in the blast from Ryobi... Didn't quite work, but I will attempt to take some more pictures with the new camera we treated ourselves to fro Christmas

Anyway, Tim Hunt, to quote the BBC website: "Back in the early eighties, it just wasn't obvious that all life worked in the same way. But what Tim Hunt showed was that the process by which cells divide (and therefore live and grow) is the same in all living things and that this process is controlled by a protein that appears and disappears in the most startling fashion.

"It was a most unexpected result that many believed was rather insignificant but Hunt pursued it. Accused by some of "wild speculation based on faulty logic": that same logic led to him winning the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2001."

He discovered all this by looking at sea urchin eggs and then frogs. I struggle with science, I really do. It's the fact that they experiment on living beings and expect us all to bow down to their justification that eventually a medicine is produced that helps humans. I'm all for understanding what makes us tick and how things work, even how the universe works Dr Higgs, but killing a creature for the advancement of the human race, because "we can reason and they can't", is difficult for me to appreciate. 

Yes, one can argue that all the medicines we take came from such experiments. That my asthma drugs and the drugs that keep my blood pressure normal were all made from such things and I'm probably a hypocrite for feeling the way I do about vivisectionists. Can't help it, my vegetarianism is based on cruelty to animals so it follows that I don't like animal experimentation.


Oooo, that was a bit serious. Here's some more pictures from recent days:

                     

                              Pat's place again and the tidied up log shed - strange
                              how I love to do this sort of thing...

The week before Helen Reeley asked for my help digging over a strip of garden in Hughenden Valley, near the Missendens in Bucks. It was one of those jobs that seemed to be never ending and then, all of a sudden, it ended. Digging is good, but it really affects my poor old back. For those who don't know I was knocked down when I was eight and have seriously damaged vertebrae at the base of my spine. Funny story actually as the bloke who ran me over was one of my classmate's dads. When my dad got to the hospital he said to him, "If you didn't want Simon to come round any more, all you had to do was to tell us!" Good jewish humour. 

Anyway, here are the pix:

Doesn't look like much but it took four hours for both of us to do, lots of roots and a few shrubs too, so it was a niggly job really

And on Tuesday of this week, 13th December 2011, it rained, hailed and snowed and guess what? Yep, the weather forecast didn't mention it. Good old BBC, that was my crazy paving relaying job fucked up!

Here are some pix that show some lovely little hail stones:

Found this ol' boy behind the log shed - see above - at Pats.
I think it's, Amanita Muscaria. Although it is generally
considered poisonous, deaths are extremely rare - damnI was gonna send it to Nick Clegg as a Xmas pressie 

Saw this in Quainton. It had a strange effect on me, felt like I wanted to be saved too, but then I thought of Cliff Richard and the thought of being saved disappeared as quickly as his last single. If Cliff ever dies, do you think they'll cancel Christmas like forever?*

And finally, ducks! Loadsa ducks...

These are on the farm in Tring that houses Tring Brewery, a place of true beauteousness. I actually have grown to love this place and one day aim to have this many ducks in my home...

God bless us everyone!

*I stole the Cliff line from a tweet by Peter Serafinowicz, a very fine comedian

Well, hello... Lovely to be here!

My word, how busy can one get? It may have been Autumn for a while, but up 'til last week it's been busy, busy, busy... Which is good of course, but I heard someone say that they saw a gardener out with a light on his head the other evening at about five of the clock - that is ridiculously sad. I mean, what the f**k is that all about. One can buy them at SchmArgos, so they we go, bound to be crap...

'nuff said. I have been chopping, trimming, a-lopping, sawing, chainsawing, slicing and hacking for weeks now and it's been quite delightful - gets rid of a lot of pent up angst and tension my dears. Adds to the compost bins, but whatever, it's what they're they for. Also, BONFIRES! Oh yes, burn baby burn. Is there something wrong with a person who loves setting fire to stuff? Is there? Oh, really... Ooops, have to say I haven't burnt that much but it is such a joy. As is, shredding old paperwork. Oh yeah, especially when you are doing it for the chickens bedding, just feels right you know?


The new chicks are here and they are possibly the cutest things since the last ones...

Harriet left, Clarrie right. Florrie was delivered to us very ill, bless her
so we had to have her put down and Happy Chicks - blah! - are sending us
two new chicks to replace her. We only had her 36 hours and it was
rather heart breaking.

Anyhoo, the name of the game is clearance, clearance, clearance and these pictures show something of what I have been up to recently:

Ooo, sharp!

A nice bit of planting done a couple of weeks ago -
lots of herbs and perennial stuff to give colour
all the year round, lovely!

Next year I shall be planting a load of new shrubs in here, a philadelphus, some more hebes and some flowers to bloom all through the year, looking forward to it. Had to dig in a load of
compost this year 'cos it's been looked after that well in recent years...

 The following four pictures are from the "new" house in Quainton, near Aylesbury. Lovely place, huge house, loads of garden and an absolute delight to work on. The owners have had a lot of trees moved from one area where they are building a tennis court, so we have to place those elsewhere over the next few months. It's very exciting to be working on a project like this. I also get to have my pick of a load of raised beds and such like - that's a bit like an alcoholic having his pick of someone's extensive wine cellar (I did say a bit like...)

Front entrance - it's going to be made more obvious
early next year

Nice bit of clipping & trimming here. I like a straight hedge! Below is
from the other end

Not sure about this, but I quite like the shaping I've done

More bloody apples from yet another garden
that had "too much" - more wine methinks!

The Grand Union at Berkhamsted. We're responsible for keeping this
stretch tidy and I think I got on top of it, just

Sophie, Callum and Finlay, bonfire night at nan & grandad's watching the many displays across
Tring - nice evening had by all...

A new invention, a self-pushing wheelbarrow -
doesn't work yet...

I laid me down, and saw this...

I have such a lovely time doing this and it's so nice to share it with a few people, especially the ones I love. It'd be nice if it went on for a very long time.

Anyway, enough of that mushy stuff, I hope to post a bit more regularly now that the season is actually drawing to a close properly.

Happy wintering my brethren...

Simon (C-Moon...)