Spike Milligan, fairies, pond cover cleaning and early lawn mowing...

This really is a quickie, as I must get some sleep!

Today at Pat's place in Berkhamsted I actually cut the grass - light touch of course this time of year - and found evidence of fairy activity. The latter was rather poignant for me as today was the 10th anniversary of Spike Milligan's passing on.


When Spike's kids were little there was a rather magical exchange of notes, placed in a little tin box, at the bottom of the garden. The fairies wrote to the children and the children wrote back. Spike always said he preferred the company of children over adults, basically because he always had a little child "inside"; he never grew up. Too sweet for words and as I brush away a little tear in the knowledge that I too have that little child just under the surface, here's some pictures of today's activities:

The grass always looks good when cut...

And finally, undeniable evidence that fairies exist!

It says, "for fairys. Queen sits on fowler (flower)"

The petals of said flower were definitely showing signs of disturbance, so there you have it, fairies do exist... A few of my mates already know that.


Don't know about you but I am chanting, "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do..."


Happy fairying about!

Allotment quickie!

Today I went to the allotment to have a tidy up and, more importantly, to dig. The following pictures show Finlay doing just that.

Good hot bath at the end of the day, of course!

The aim is to finally get rid of the horrid path of couch grass behind Finlay and that area will be covered in potatoes, five varieties this year - two reds, two whites & a salad variety. Where the black plastic is will be cabbages and beans and such like. And the area where Fin is "digging" is the fruit area - bramley & braeburn apples; rhubarb; blackcurrant; and black, goose and rasp berries! 

The words great and genius are so over used. Always have been, but they seem to be wheeled out far too frequently in these over hyped, "celebrity" obsessed days. Gareth Bale for instance, he of Tottenham and Wales. Basically he is a good footballer, like so many, he IS a good player of the game. BUT he is NOT Lionel Messi, nor is he Cristiano Ronaldo; he has a long way to go before he can be mentioned in the same breath as Ryan Giggs. Mr Bale is not even in the top 20 footballers in Europe, but he is continually mentioned as the best. When he consistently performs to the standard that we all can see he has occasionally achieved, and not just every now and then, that is when we can think of him as great or a genius.


And taking those two words, great and genius, we can move on to to Spike Milligan. He is without any shadow of doubt the greatest genius comedian this country (Empire? don't forget he was born in India) has ever produced. Without him, Not Only But Also & Beyond the Fringe would not have existed. Neither would Monty Python, Alexei Sayle, Eddie Izzard, Lee Evans, The Mighty Boosh, Reeves & Mortimer, Harry Hill et al and even that exceptional kid's show, Horrible Histories, would not be. He invented a genre and countless others have since followed it. 


Anyway comrades, once a leftie always a leftie, except if your name is Paul Johnson of course (turncoat - wasn't he horrible on Desert Island Discs the other week?), so here is a picture of my very favourite, and new, t-shirt. I got it for my birthday last week. I also got a Spike Milligan Sweat shirt, basically in honour of the 10 year anniversary of the great man's death.

So there we are, a bit more politics amongst the compost and why not? Politics is life; life is politics. Unfortunately we can not escape it, they effect (infect) so much of our lives do politicians. The person who says, "I don't care about politics, it doesn't effect me," needs serious help...


Happy allotmenteering!