New garden, old garden, flowers and The Bin Men

I took all the following pictures last week. Since last Friday I have been coughing my lungs up, actually not strictly true, but great vast lumps of something keep appearing from my chest and I just thought perhaps it was lung. I also have no voice. It went off somewhere on Sunday, I thought as a result of drinking far too much Peroni, red wine and Limoncello, but apparently not - although one suspects it may have brought the whole sorry episode to a head and made my lungs explode.


I shall explain. A big group of us were going to go camping last weekend, but of course decided not to for reasons too bleeding obvious to even hint at here. Instead, we went to Da Vinci's in Tring, a little Italian restaurant whose owner brews (is that what you do to make Limoncello? Or is it something made at the very bottom of Dante's inferno, ring 9 perhaps) his own Limoncello.


So, 14 forty & 50-somethings (actually I was the only 50-something...) drank the place dry of Peroni and then got given two bottles of the aforementioned liqueur. It was passed round the table in a sinister, yet not entirely unfriendly manner. Oh dear... I have no recollection of walking home; no recollection of falling over in the chicken run, locking the cockerel away for the night, bearing in mind it was past three in the morning; and finally, I have no recollection of recollecting anything or even collecting anything.


Oh Italia, la terra del demone che è Limoncello e Vialli benedetti e Zola! 

A new garden in Wendover, yet again I forgot to take a "before" - the
after looks ok though...

Some of the many and wondrous flowers at Quainton

 

Above are two pix of the pond. I love lilly pads and one day we shall have a pond in our garden. We had one in our old house in Boxmoor and I loved building it. Ponds are basically, great!

Basically, there is no longer a lawn at Quainton.
Of course this is fine, but in the mean time, every
time I go a little bit more of me, quite frankly, dies...

And finally... Below are two pictures showing how our bin men leave the bins just about every week. If I did my job so shoddily I'd never get another fucking garden to look after. We are told by the council to place the bins out neatly so as not to obstruct the path. We are told not to put them out too soon. We are even told that if the bin lid is not completely flat we could have the collections taken away from us (as if!!!) - the bastards broke the handle on our bottle basket weeks ago for chrissakes! I would so love to know where these cretins live so I could go and block their path with some of the debris from the garden at Quainton. Or even with that lovely digger...

Happy councilling...

Ahhhhhh... Boring it is now...

...to visit this place of the 'limpits. Why so much wet? Wet is here too much; end when will it?


The 'limpits commence are soon and The Limpitians all arrive here these shores soon, but ready are you not. Theresa May-Not says well everything with Troopers of the Imperial Storm, but delivery of Limpitians forever take through entry at the Row of Heath. One wonders how The Limpitians to get the Stadia of Boyle when bridges do crack and roads wend wearily through the Valley of Congestionia. The dark force is truly here betiding the woes of humanity and Jonna the Boris-Hut.


With you are my thoughts of which I share the words of wise from Jonna, "I want to assume supreme power", for they convey my feelings of foreboding that all is not well in the Garden of the Stadia of Boyle...


"Good relations with the Wookiees, I have... Size matters not!"


May the froth be with you... Happy 'limpits!

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads...

Ah my boys, The Fab Four and one of the most influential songs they wrote, Rain. You listen to it and you hear just about every band since, from the Stones to The Stone Roses. I think Liam Gallagher would not exist without that song, have a listen my friends:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPjDMZiuhbQ

Even the way John sings shine is how Liam pronounces it, shi-ine... Only Liam over does it of course, shi-ine-nah.


Anyhoo, even as I listen to it again, the last few weeks have been crap as far as the weather is concerned. I have, however, managed to work most days. On several days I have appeared at our back door thus...

...a bit muddy, like a Swamp Thing. Indeed, I could have played his double.


I refuse to complain. No, I really do, I'm sick of hearing people going on and on and on and on... about how wet it is. And then, blow me down we get a couple of sunny days and people say, "If it's not one thing it's the other, too hot innit?"


You know what, NO IT ISN'T! Imagine if we lived in a country that had real bad weather or lived in a tornado alley or something. We have a very temperate climate and we are lucky to get what we have. You wait, in a couple of weeks we'll be back to the bleeding drought...


Here are some pictures from the last two weeks:

Did some work at Rebecca's London home in St John's Wood. That's artificial grass and doesn't look too bad in this picture. A good day all round really, even if it did rain...

There's a pretty old wisteria here that they want to move to
Quainton. Not easy, but we'll give it a go

The conservatory. Nice place...

A rather wonderful dog rose (Rosa canina) that grows over a shrub I can't make out at Quainton. Astonishingly beautiful...

...and the bees like it too

Look what they done to my grass!

Oh dear, this once looked like this...

...but I have done a sort of fag packet idea with Rebecca and the builders
and the area will be rather beautiful in a few weeks. 

The wisteria I mentioned above will hopefully be planted where that old Christmas tree is sitting, leaning up against the wall in the middle of the picture.


Oh well, that's it for this time. Just to say I may have picked up another big garden this week just up the road from home. Fingers crossed...


Be happy - I'm trying...

Marsworth on sunny Sunday afternoon...

It has to be said that we who live in Tring and the surrounding area are somewhat blessed with nice places to visit. One such area is that at and about Marsworth Reservoir. It is situated by the loveliness that is the Grand Union canal and wwe went for a walk there after lunch at the Bluebell Cafe.

The view across the reservoir to the beginning of the Chiltern Hills

Canal left; reservoir, right

Grand Union canal - I have to say that this stretch is one of the loveliest...

Alison and Sophie in the distance

Aren't swans just so... swan-like

I would live here at the drop of a hat - and about £1.5million

The above is where the house in the previous picture presides. It's a
convergence of two bits of the canal at Bulbourne, just down the road
from where we live.

This was meant to show a frenzy of tadpoles, but having been taken on a mobile it's not very clear. They are the little blob of black just to the right of centre

Just looking back along the reservoir, couldn't resist that nice cloud formation

Back to gardening tomorrow, just wanted to share this lovely little afternoon...


Happy walking!

Hong Kong Garden

OK, spurious link alert, I made the title of this load of bloggox "Hong Kong Garden" because I've been watching Punk Britannia and Siouxsie and the Banshees were a favourite of mine back in the day. My tenuous link to Punk? I was once at a party and the four original members of the Sex Pistols were there. This was in the winter of 1975/6 I think and John Lydon was sitting all by himself in an armchair nursing a glass of something looking bored to tears.


 I was told who he was and what the band were called and said, "Who?" waddya know, hindsight is a wonderful thing. This was a little while before the Summer of '76 kicked in, you know that drought that didn't have any rain, unlike the recent just ended drought... In that summer I disappeared for 10 days - bit like Agatha Christie, only she was a writer and I'm not - on my famed (in our family) "Lost Weekend".


I went to Liverpool for a long weekend and didn't return for the aforementioned allotted time. I didn't ring work and I didn't ring home. I think it was the first time my dad truly worried about me - we had an awkward teen-year-thing going on. I was 19, the teen-year-thing had started six years before!


Anyhoo, enough of that stuff, gardens, that's what it's all about. Recently I have bloggocksed about the weather and how rather restricting it has been for me on the work front. Suffice to say, not a lot has changed, but I did work on every day this week which is a first for three weeks or so.


Here are some pictures and I think I will add longer captions than usual, just to speed things up a bit.

This is nice... At Pat's place in Berko Robins have decided her
post box is the perfect home. Sweet!

Pat's grass hadn't been cut for a couple of weeks and she gets mildly
paranoid at that fact. I think this Wem-ber-lee look is pretty damn good.
 I usually cut it with curves through it but last week I decided to give it
 a formal look. Standard stripes across and down the length of the lawn.
I, for one, think it looks fine...

The brown at the bottom of this Hebe is from "someone" using the dreaded weed killer without thinking about the plants. Disappointing, it's not my garden but I don't like the use of chemicals for this very reason. You have to be sooooo careful when applying them. A lot of the plants have been affected. Shame.

The following are from Rebecca's place in Bucks and I have to say it was an eventful day there this Tuesday 19th June 2012 (so sue me Locog!) if only for the fact that my trimmer's engine basically fell off mid-trim. It got so hot the plastic melted and the whole back of the trimmer, petrol driven, just fell to the ground all aflame and obviously feeling a bit sorry for itself. A sad demise seeing how it was well less than a year old. On to the warranty then, but in the mean time I had to buy a new one.


Tring garden centre is OK, don't get me wrong, but this Wednesday - obviously the 20th - it was nothing short of, well, inCompRehensibly APpaling. The servers had crashed - perhaps linked to the RBS/NatWest debacle this week, whatever! - and there were no staff to help anyone, anywhere.


I asked for a Ryobi In-line trimmer, petrol driven. Firstly, no one was available to see if they had one in stock, "We never keep that many in stock sir." 15 minutes later the member of staff cajoled into "helping me" came back with a Flymo hover mower and electric trimmer. Another member of staff said, as I sent the first one back to get what I asked for, "Sorry, he's the Plantarian Manager." What's that got to do with me, I thought. It was like a line from Fawlty Towers. "He's from, Bar-cell-owner."


Next the Plantarian - a Dr Who character if ever there was one - returned with a Ryobi Brushcutter. Twice the price and NOT the item I asked for. Problem was I only spotted it when the Plantarian asked for more money. "If I didn't need it urgently, I work as a gardener, I would be walking away from here mate! I want a Ryobi In-line trimmer," as he walked away with the brushcutter I added, "Petrol driven."


At this point the original assistant, a woman who looks like Sonia from Eastenders, caught my eye - thankfully she didn't drop it - and, I kid you not, tutted. "I know," I said, "he's a Plantarian."


He came back with the correct product. I paid and took a double pack of gardening gloves for my trouble - this episode took 40 minutes. 


Oh yeah, the original Flymo hover mower (returned to the stock room) was actually wanted by another customer who had wandered off and "...lost all sense of time..." I kid you not, she said that after being away from the till for over 30 minutes.


Likesay, pix from Rebecca's:

A lovely Delphinium

I love a pond... And I love lily pads

The driveway - I so should take "before" pictures, this is a truly remarkable transformation!

Oh dear! Work in progress I believe. Each week seems to bring more problems with the drains - bit like the Coalition Government.

So, there you have it, that was the week that was. More rain than you can shake a stick at (sic) and the thought that I should have at least shaken said stick at the Plantarian.


Happy Shaking...

A momentous decision

I am well and truly off Facebook - and by "off", I mean no longer do I have a page. I won't be a pompous arse and say all the crass things about it, but I have a real problem with the access situation. I'm sure I've done enough cyber walking for "them" to know a lot about me - as is the case for anyone who has surfed the Tinterweb - BUT I really don't like a big company like Facebook passing on the fact that I once liked Didier Drogba's Facebook page and that I might like to buy a condo in the Ivory Coast. In the long run it really doesn't matter I know, but hey that's me and my discomfort has made up my mind for me. NO MORE FACEBOOK!


I have a lovely website - designed by the lovely Karen Cooper of KC Graphics - and really don't feel the need to show off anywhere else but here in bloggocks-land and leave the website to do the job of drumming up business for my gardening skills (sic). 

http://www.simonmurraygardenservices.co.uk/


What I might do is add a few more aspects of the Murray life and blog on a few  subjects (hooray say you, Mr Deluded). So, on Saturday had a visit down to London to meet up with a few of the ex-picketers from outside South Africa House. It was hugely disappointing on the numbers front, eight as against about 40 last year, but we were a perfectly formed gathering of immense political- and radical-ness, despite what some misguided communists might think.


The only reason I think it was so badly attended was probably because last year was the 25th anniversary of the Non-Stop Picket for the Release of Nelson Mandela and All Political Prisoners in Apartheid South Africa, run by the awesome City of London Anti-Apartheid Group - City AA, City Group, The Non-Stop Picket or as the lovely Boys in Blue from Cannon Row cop shop used to call us, The Claags! This is a link to a superb on-going documentation of the picket by Gavin Brown, an ex-picketer himself:

http://nonstopagainstapartheid.wordpress.com/


However, I did meet up with Deirdre, Gavin and Patrick for lunch and a trip to The Tate Modern in the afternoon to see Damien Hirst's exhibition. 

I'm no fan, but have a very slight regard for Mr Hirst, if only because he takes the piss out of the middle classes and above and basically steals from them. Crazy stuff. The exploitation of animals is repulsive. Killing sharks to order, especially endangered ones would be pathetic if it wasn't so ignorant, arrogant and full of bullshit.

Below we have thousands of cigarette butts on mirrored shelves...

...I confess I never read the blurb because it's always so pretentious and full of bullshit, so what this represents, other than many hours work for the staff of the Tate Modern, I have no idea - don't wanna know either...



One thing though, here's a few nice shots of London...

SA House... Nearly 20 years since we left it alone...

Countdown continues to some sporting event

in the East End - 74 days to go

This is from the roof of the Tate Modern, the Members bar, fabulous

Once again when I arrived in town, the first bus I saw was this:

They've gone back to a double decker, very sensible!


And finally, a new garden to look after...

...not a lot to do at the front, but a massive lawn to cut every two weeks round the back.


So, there you have it, a little bit of gardening news at the end, so I don't feel too bad. Thinking of starting a new radio station, anyone got any ideas as to how to go about it?


Happy twiddling...

None for sooo long then 3 come along at once...

What am I like eh? 


I came up with a new word the other day, bloggocks or bloggox if you want to be cool. It's a mix of bollocks and blog - did you spot that? Anyway, it's what this is all about innit?


Here is a most gorgeous picture from Womad a few years back. I post it because it's beautiful, sent to me by a beautiful person:

The ceiling of the Siam tent Womad 2006, courtesy of my best friend - wish I could make it this year the 30th anniversary, but well, y'know...

Today, Tuesday 12th June 2012, I was at Rebecca's place in Quainton and the building work has taken on a whole new tenor. Like great big ugly tracks all over the grass and great big ugly holes in places where there shouldn't be but ah well, there we go...


I was going to take pictures of the work, but it depressed me a bit, so I re-strimmed the little pathways I cut through the meadow area a few weeks back. I love it down there and at some point later in the year we are going to add a little seating area by the brook that runs at the bottom of the meadow. Can't wait!


Here are the new pictures:

This is a newly cut path, across the top of the re-sown area I did in April

Doesn't really look it here, but this is a quite steep hill up to the main lawn area

Looking along the bottom back to the re-sown area

And this is where the tennis court will be next year.
At the top of the drive

It's a garden I could work on all week and still struggle to keep on top of it at this time of year, so the 10 hours I do every Tuesday merely scratches the surface. Very enjoyable work and very lovely people!*


Happy strimming, if you can!


*And I'm not just saying that...