Blogging eh?

I get this feeling that I'm just not cut out for this blogging mallarkey. I have no continuity about me, basically it's a tad pathetic. However, in my defence, I am a bit of an anarchist, so structured "stuff" like, do this now and then do that, is a bit of an anathema. Seriously, I won't be told.

Witness this, just the other day, a rather ancient lady said, "Here you! What are you doing?" To which I replied, nothing. What happened was, I appeared from an area of garden belonging to my oldest (sorry longest) client that was very apparent to the "general public". Said woman had a walking stick and proffered it in my direction saying,

"I shall hit you with this if you don't explain yourself."

Now, I would quite simply have explained to the said lady that I was in fact the gardener of the house and grounds in front of her very face, BUT, I couldn't be bothered.

"Who do you think you are?"

Again, what a crap question to ask of an anarchist - whether said anarchist  was in that space relevantly or not, is beside the point. At this juncture I should say that I was in fact quite legitimately dumping some debris from said garden in a perfectly legal site.

Once again the old lady touted the aforementioned walking stick in my face.

"Please," I said, "stop that." I could have scripted the reply.

"Oh, I shall hit you if you do not explain yourself."

"I don't think so," I replied. "I am the gardener here and if you even attempted to hit me, I don't think it would have succeeded."

"I am a very successful shot you know," she replied.

I wanted to say, "Fuck off you ancient waste of space; you left over piece of upper middle class Tory trash." But I smiled and said, "Seems we have had a bit of a misunderstanding, peace be with you."

She seemed to be appeased, but walked off swishing the stick in a very Errol Flynn stylee. Real life is so much more weirder than the made-up stuff.

Here some pix, my brethren:

You see this is where i go wrong all the time, I forget to take before
pictures, so trust me, this was very untidy before I weaved my magic.

Wish I knew the name of more shrubs - this is at Rebecca's in
Quainton - and I cut it back quite dramatically last year, don't it look good?
(Picture taken about four weeks ago.)

Newest garden - about four weeks ago - and a freshly cut lawn, mmmm...

The above three pictures are of the Laurel hedge at Quainton. I have
taken off about four foot to allow a bit more sunshine into the garden and,
more importantly, at the front of the house.

Oh, isn't it just soooooo lovely?

Thing is, it bloody damn well is!

I Thannnnnyou... Garden on xxx

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...

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...)

The Things You See While Out Gardening Pt2

Saturday mornings are spent in Hemel Hempstead maintaining 3 gardens, I did this deliberately so I don't have to go there too often. And here is the reason...

You can bet your sweet bippy it ain't hers...

His and hers? Liz and Phil's?

A polystyrene flower, that looks uncannily like a burger/chip box

Quality shops

The little yellow sign says, "Danger of death" - indeed

A few years ago this was a Threshers offie run by a lovely lesbian couple. It's been like this for about 8 years now, adds true ambience I think you'll agree, nice bit of green to what a mate of mine has renamed, Amyl Hempstead - double indeed!