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!

mmmm, Berkhamsted on a sunny Friday... Nice

Just a quick post today, yesterday was yet another good day, spent chopping, sawing, trimming and had the chainsaw out! I love my chainsaw - do you think that may be a subliminal thing, showing my personality up for the strange thing that it is or just a healthy outdoor pursuit?

Old guy lives in the first floor flat above

Chop, chop, saw, saw, so satisfying... Tremendous fun!

...and a quick pint of Riser in the Rising Sun at the end of a really satisfying week. NB: The Rising Sun is not just the best pub in Berkhamsted, it's the best in Hertfordshire, probably the best in the South of England!

Just a little note of irritation though. When I am using my chainsaw or any other petrol driven tool I not only wear ear protectors, I listen to the radio and obviously can't hear anything else. Bearing that in mind, why do old-ish people walk up to one and talk as though one can hear them? It is bizarre. Not once, not twice, but three time yesterday I had to stop, put down the chainsaw, take off the ear protectors and take out my ear phones and say, "Sorry, I didn't hear a word of that." 


I wouldn't mind but they don't even think to repeat what I obviously DIDN'T hear. Yesterday the worst one was an old guy who lived in the flat as shown in the top picture. The Conversation went:


"Muffled blah, blah blah blah blah."


I took about 10 seconds to get all the above gear off.


"(muffled) and it's great!"


"Sorry, I didn't hear a word of that."


"You should cut down those white trees."


(Those "white trees" are very beautiful white beech trees)


"No, won't be cutting them down, that would be a crime."


"Cuts out all the light, I say, cuts out all the light."


"I'm just cutting back the shrubs, NOT the trees."


"Cuts out all the light!"


"Well there's no way I'm cutting the trees down... Sorry I have to get on with my work."


He carried on talking as I put all my gear back on. I gave him the thumbs up and he carried on shouting for a bout another minute, even as I started to cut down the central 2/3 trunks of the sambucus - the large over grown shrub in the middle of the middle picture.


Bizarre...


Happy chopping! 

A Lovely Day today...

I know I have this obsession of going on about loving being away from the corporate world, but today was a day I would have thought was only possible in my silly dreams just 3 years ago - can't believe it's three years since SchmArgos "did the dirty on me", but it is and what a relief!


Who would want to sit in front of a computer staring at JML Fast Fit Ironing Board Cover - Pawprint, catalogue number 850/1116, checking it for colour just so Mrs Miggins won't be disappointed and return it? Yep, who would want to do that as against looking after this?

Finally got rid of the roots to a poorly placed hedge today, it's taken me forever, but the area will be planted with lavender to match the other side of the steps.

Moved all those hellibores and ferns middle left of picture a few weeks ago, they've settled in well. That whole area was pretty much over grown with ground cover, I want to reproduce a sort Jekyll (Gertrude that is) effect in the shade if I can. There's anemones in the back and I want to plant up some foxgloves as well, few more ferns too...

Also dug out a couple of medium sized shrubs from a small ornate-ish border in the main lawn area (NB: don't know why this has gone to double line spacing). I have also been working on this for a while. A tree specialist moved the two ash trees on either side, I did the topiary(?), ha ha!

Nice bit of work that should look really good come the summer - I hope!

This is where I moved the shrubs to. It's at the top of a little hill that drops down to an area we are going to plant up as a wild flower meadow and then down to a dried up stream.

The wild flower meadow is inspired by Sarah Raven's series, Bees, Butterflies and Blooms. Her best bit of work ever I think. If you didn't see it it is actually worth doing an iPlayer visit, at least on the last episode shown last night. Suffice to say I am really looking forward to starting work on the meadow, I
feel a song coming on:


Ohhhhhhh, There's a bright golden haze on the meadow

There's a bright golden haze on the meadow 

The corn is as high as an elephant's eye, 

An' it looks like it's climbin' clear up to the sky. 




Well there we go, you even get a blast of Howard Keel on here! Also cut back 


some grass from the edge of the pond, so it truly was a busy day, but so worth 


it. Oh and a bay tree that blocked a view across Aylesbury Vale towards Oxford. 


This is another area of the garden that will be worked at some point this year. 


Exciting stuff.

Front door - there are plans to make it more obvious!

Finally, some lovely flowers in the front garden:

Exquisite hellebore - I really think they are my favourite flower and not just because they are so easy to grow!

Beautiful iris in amongst my obsession at the moment, some snowdrops

And after the digging and moving and re-planting, here is a picture of the sky between a redwood and a yew tree - yep, I was flat out on me back!

Happy, happy!

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!

Coming soon...

...reality. Yes the real world has interrupted as usual and I really have to get cracking and get some new clients and fill the coming weeks up with lots of lovely work.


It's all very well sitting in doors looking at the snow, wind, rain and other stuff mother nature chooses to throw in our faces

- lovely girl that she is - not overly fond of green myself, but there you go - but there's a time to get back to where you once belonged; out there with your thermals, woolly hat, hoodie and steel toe caps, wielding clippers, trimmers, loppers, secateurs and every other sharp tool one has at one's disposal. Actually Friday was spent doing exactly that and I got rather hot wearing the aforementioned clobber.


I have the last dregs of photos from the cold snap - I truly hope I'm not tempting fate here - the first picture is from Monday last week:

Chicken prints on the roof of our rabbit run - I do believe that chicken shit on the right hand side, but I think we'll ignore that, eh?


Next is from Monday, when I peered into Pat's huge living room in her house at Berkhamsted, thought it was funny to see me staring back. Well mildly funny. Don't ask me what I was doing peering in there, I forget.

On Wednesday I completed the sorting of the compost at Julie and Andrew's place in Buckland, near Tring. I have managed to compost about a third of the flower beds with it. It's taken me about 8 weeks to finish it. This included the now famed "fire in the face" episode, you may remember (http://simonmurraygardenservices.blogspot.com/2012/02/happy-new-year-if-tad-late.html). Death defying, that's me. This is the final cleared bin. I had to grub out an old tree stump too, which was difficult because I don't have any tools anything like robust enough to do that, but there it is, gone!

And finally on Thursday, a visit to Quainton and the picture I took of the pond in the Autumn, all nice reflections and stuff, was like this:

Slightly distorted with ice. Just as beautiful though.


This is my design idea for my new one page website:

Alison's new website launched this week. I'm going to get her web designer to have a look and hopefully within the month mine should launch too. Here's a link to Alison's Crimsoncandy Cakes website:


http://www.crimsoncandy.co.uk/




There you have it! Onwards and upwards, probably over on the allotment for a while tomorrow, continue the tidy up for the oncoming beauties of Spring and the longer and longer daylight hours, so I can become something akin to human again...


Happy browing!

Its one of those Sundays isn't it? Class War stops for no rain...

I had every intention of going over to the allotment today, but it started chucking it down - Sophie came home drenched from a little sojourn with her mates just as I got dressed in suitable togs for the allotment. It's now stopped, but I have got into one of those somnolent moods that used to happen back in the old days when nothing was open on a Sunday. (I started writing this some weeks ago, had second thoughts about publishing it in a blog about gardening, but since changed my mind again, so here it is...)


Remember then? Not even the corner shop would be open, so if you had no potatoes for roasting of a lunch time you were stuffed... Once, living in Chatham, we had that very scenario on a Christmas Day can you believe. I went down the road to what was known colloquially as the "Paki Shop" and peered through the window. My old mucker, Mohamed, was tidying up and saw me. He opened up and gave me enough tats for our Christmas dinner - for it was that time of year. Suffice to say, Mohamed's shop was our favourite shop in the whole of Chatham, the beer was a touch more expensive, but that did not matter - we loved his shop.


This all brings to mind something I have noticed on the BBC recently, mostly on Radio 4. Where we first lived in Chatham - this was my first wife and family - was in an area one might describe as "working class". Mainly old dock worker's cottages, built in huge terraces up the Medway valley away from the river. And it is that evil word "class" that has reared it's ugly head on what has seemed to be every other programme over the past couple of weeks or so. 


Sheila Dillon, erstwhile Food Programme reporter, fronted a programme about grammar schools and secondary modern schools in the early 70s. David Davis took part in the programme, he went to a grammar school, Bec Grammar in Tooting (of course) and another participant, sorry can't remember her name went to a secondary modern. The premise of the programme was that grammar school kids were expected to go on to university in the early 70s, but secondary modern "graduates" didn't even hear the word mentioned whilst at school.


I beg to differ. I attended a secondary modern and was told continuously through out my "career" there, "Murray, if you play your cards right, work hard, knuckle down and get good 'O' and then 'A' levels you could go to university." Being the cantankerous little git I was, (some would say still am), I thought, "What if I don't want to go to university? What if I want to be a car mechanic or work down the mines?" (Mines? Ha! In Beckenham, Kent? I don't think so...)


Anyhow, my point is, our school had 10/12 boys go on to university every year, even back then, whilst the grammar down the road only had a half of that number do the same. University was a constant in our school lives and it had nothing to do with class, money or any such crap, most of the boys studied hard, the headmaster, Mr Locke, engendered an ethos of study and dedication. I, pillock, chose to drop out at age 14, so did not take that particular path. In 1973, when I left school, there were about 3 jobs for every school leaver, so it didn't matter that I got no 'O' levels (just 4 CSE's, TD, Civics, Maths and English). I was a fool, some may say still am.


The day I left school, a Thursday, I was actually told by the Deputy Head, Mr Parkinson to, "Just get out Murray. We don't want you here any more and what the hell are you still doing hanging round here anyway?" I had an interview on the Friday and started work on the Monday, as a trainee Quantity Surveyor, which I could not have hated more, but that is another story.


At school, there was a kid called Andrew Dalby. He was from a very well to do family, father a barrister, mother a doctor. Dalby was one of those kids who believed the hype about being good at everything - he wasn't. This is why he was at a secondary modern and not a grammar. His father was actually a decent bloke, a socialist of a kind, and would have sent him to our school anyway. It was just andrew's mother was a unbelievable, un-deconstructed snob of the worst kind. "Andrew is only here to better the surroundings," she used to laugh - knob head!


Andrew was in the year above us, played in the same football, rugby and basketball teams I was in (he lower 6th; me 5th year) and, this will make you laugh, went to the same Young Liberals parties I used to go to. I can justify the YL link here purely by the fact that they had the best looking girls and by far the best parties in Beckenham in 1973. Trust me they were incredible for someone like me, a total retard with girls, I would freeze if one ever looked in my direction AND if a girl ever deemed to talk to me I melted, or at least my tongue did.


The girls at the YL parties took pity on me and basically taught me how to kiss - remember the first time someone stuck their tongue in your mouth? Blimey!

Anyway, back to erstwhile snob Andrew Dalby. He had the sort of hair that belonged at Eton or Harrow in the late 19th century, a bit like that TV chef bloke, Ed Baines - basically, he made me feel sick...

When playing football I played right mid-field and he played behind me as right back, only he would storm up field screaming for the ball in his silly "posh" voice and expect me to cover for him. Thing was, Andrew was totally unfit and didn't get back to his position for about five minutes each time he ventured upfront like an erstwhile George Best - only thing was he was very rarely given the ball 'cos he was shit. He was in the team because his dad was a mate of the Deputy Head (I do believe there was some dodgy handshaking involved between them)  and he bought the kit for the school teams - I may have made that up but I'm sort of sure it's kinda true.


He once said to me, "If you don't cover me when I go forward, I'll make sure you never play for the school again." To say I found that funny would be akin to the statement, "Nigella Lawson hates licking her fingers in front of television cameras."


Speaking of La Lawson, here's another clue as to the looks of Dalby:


Oh it gives me the creeps. 


I think I have now set-up the state of our individual lives. Me working class scum and proud of it; Dalby, arsehole and probably proud of it too, 'cos he had money.


The scene is thus, Saturday night, Young Liberals Barn Dance, venue a school somewhere in Bromley, Kent. I spend the whole evening dancing with a very delightful girl called Sandie. We had met about a month before at another outrageous YL party and indulged in some very heavy - and I mean VERY - snogging and groping (first time I had touched a naked breast, oh my god, nipple too!) I was 15, she was 17, it could not have gotten any better than that - well it probably could have but, well you know...


Sandie and I were stalked by Dalby that night at the barn dance. Every time I looked up he was there, staring. My mate Graham, whose dad was giving me a lift home, had left early, so I had no way of getting back to Penge, but what did I care? Sandie was there and I was happy to fling her around the dance floor. She was happy too. Dalby was glowering most of the time.


At one point he came over to me while I was getting drinks.


"You are not going home with her Murray," he hissed. "There is no way THAT is going to happen!"


"OK," I laughed.


"I am serious, she is a doctor's daughter and you are the son of a nobody."


"OK," I laughed again and walked away.


The barn dance ended, Sandie and I snogged, she went off to get her coat and Dalby reappeared, leaning against the corner of a long corridor. I think he was trying to intimidate me, a bit like Lee Marvin in The Killers. I leant on the wall a bit like Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou - sans horse of course.

I was knackered from the dosey doing. Sandie returned and said, "It's nice you boys know each other."


"Is it," spat Dalby.


She grabbed us both by the arms and walked us out of the building. Her father was waiting. Oh well, come si come sa. We kissed again, this time not a snog, for obvious reasons and she said to Dalby,


"Perhaps see you at the get together next weekend?" And off she went, into the light of the dark dark night.


"See ya," I said to Dalby.


"What way are you walking Murray?"


"To Beckenham and then on to Penge of course," I strode off hoping that that was the end of our acquaintance. After 11.30 back in 1972 there were no buses and the thought of being able to get a cab was just not even an option.

The 227 bus - oh beateous thing!

"I'll come with you."


My heart sank. I would have to listen to the bastard's boasting again. Dalby boasted about his dad's money and his mother's inheritance constantly. He claimed he would never, "...really have to work as the folks have so much money..." I truly hated him.


It was four miles from Bromley to home in Avenue Road, Penge and Dalby would be with me for about three of those miles.


By the time we got to the Beckenham Regal, a truly wonderous building full of so many happy memories...

...I seriously wanted to kill Andrew Dalby. The conversation, although 40 years ago, is still very fresh in even my poor old brain.


"So, Murray, what exactly does your father do?"


"Ice cream buyer for Sainsbury," I replied


"Ice cream?" he said as if I had told him dad was a child vivi-sectionist.


"Yeah, ice cream."


"But, ice cream."


"Yes, someone has to buy it and that's what my dad does, he buys ice cream for Sainsbury," I tried to keep control of my working class urge to smack him one.


"I suppose you wondered what Sandie meant about see me next weekend?" Dalby spat "me" like he was shooting a shotgun.


"No," I said, calmly - I knew I would never see her again and I had got my first feel of a naked breast and it was a lovely (mammary) memory to have.


"Our families are very close. Her father is a doctor and her mother a barrister, which is somewhat ironic as my parents are the other way round," he snorted, he actually snorted like some upper crust twat from a rubbish period piece on Radio 4.


"You said," I tried desperately hard to be cool, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.


"Oh did I?" before I could answer he continued in an ever increasingly obnoxious voice and manner, "Yar, anyway, it's probably no time at all until we're shagging," he stared at me defiantly, almost saying, "HA!"


"Good for you. Do you fancy a run?"


I knew he wouldn't, he was a lazy sod, so I knew he would struggle to keep up with me. I ran up Westmoreland Road like I had never run before. Sure enough the lard-arse was left trailing. I stopped after about five minutes, sighed heavily in remembrance of the lovely Sandie and proceeded to almost skip down Hayes Lane and on to Wickham Road. To my utter despair I heard heavy breathing and laboured footsteps approaching. It was he!


"Good idea," he paused, taking sharp breaths, "that'll cut a bit of time off our walk."


Our walk? All of a sudden it was "Our Walk".


We parted at The Regal roundabout. His home was in Queens Road and he stupidly, yet thankfully, thought it was quicker to get there via Croydon Road - it wasn't. I saw Dalby only once or twice over the next few months - praise be! - but the last time he spoke to me he claimed he had, "...done the deed..." with Sandie. He even claimed to have "...popped her cherry." The language of teenage boys is just too repulsive, isn't it?


The funny thing is, he never did. I found out years later that Sandie's family had moved quite suddenly in early Spring 1973, her father taking on a country practice somewhere in Dorset. They had never seen each other again after the "weekend get together" after the barn dance.


I don't know who's better, class wise. Money can't buy you it; it can't buy love either. Yes, I wish I had more of it, but I have something it really can't buy, memories of a lovely working class family from The Elephant and Castle. A family who struggled; a family that didn't have shoes; a family that took a lot of stick in the 1920s just 'cos they had a jewish name. And I tell you this, I for one, am very proud of it!

Happy gardening?

...and briefly...

Well, haven't worked all week. Frozen ground and snow and ice and slush and stuff. The new (to us) water butt looks like this:

I like icicles, they sort of freeze and hang down and this one is quite hilarious in a Frankie Howerd type way - ooo-er missus look at the dribble on that. Love the way it's hit the ground and kind of spread and then frozen again.


Every cupboard in the house has been tidied, stuff either chucked out or moved to the shed and I have started my first ever batch of cider. Approximately 2 gallons and at the moment it looks like this:

Smells amazing already, just hope it's as
drinkable as the apple wine!

Saturday night I picked Sophie up from a party, the snow was at it's height and I walked through an absolutely pristine, crrrrr-isp snow covered road. It was lovely.

My footprints to and fro, in the dark on our road. No other footprint in sight!

Should work Friday so that means just tomorrow, Thursday 9th, at home. Probably slip and slide down to the shed to continue the tidy up in there. Might even start my Big Project, turning my vinyl albums into MP3s... Anyhoo, this was the scene outside our dining room window on Saturday night...

Brrrr.


Laters!


Happy freezing I say.


Love and Peace...


Simon