Oh deary, dearie, dearae, me... a Blip on the landscape of my intellect.

I am so sorry (this is a message to me, as I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than read my drivelly drivel on here - what the hell do you do it for then, you may ask, I DUNNO! I say...) The reason for my reticence and abject horror is that I haven't posted for over a month (cuh! Bloody hell, call yourself a blogger.) 


Actually I think I have invented a new verb or rather meaning for the word "Blip". It's Blogging, but only occasionally, so it's a Blip there on the landscape of my intellect. Nice methinks...


Anyhoo my dear friends, here we are, listening to Marcus Brigstock and Ian Hislop on Radio 4's "I haven't watched Star Wars" and it's really quite amusing. Hislop has never bought himself a pair of jeans or played Grand Theft Auto on an X-Box, hasn't lived has he?


Gardening in my life has truly taken over in the past 5/6 weeks. I am working nearly 50 hours a week and Alison is helping me out too! I have shifted things around and work three 10 hour days and two eight hour days - yeah I know that's 42 hours, but I have done other stuff on top of this recently. This is going to be my working week in the future, basically so I don't have to work Saturdays, which I do every other week. It also cuts down on petrol money, which is a damn fine idea I'm sure you'll agree.


NB: Mike Burgess, if you actually still read this blog, piss off!


A selection of pix from the passed four weeks follow:

I truly love clipping hedges, these are the box
hedges around the partare at Pat's place (see below), a lovely
way to pass the time...

Harry's place, just across the road from home. Used
to be a coal yard, hence the over the top use of
paving slabs

One of the gardens Alison has taken over from me.
New planting to be done next year...

This is a stretch along the Grand Union in Berkhamsted that
I am responsible for. Started cutting it back and we found this:

...a little den with quite a lot of roaches (no the cock
type!) laying around.

Pat's place and the compost looks bee-yooooo-tee-full!

Front of Julie's place - and some nice shots over the last
few weeks follow...

Side of Julie's place, even though you see this first!

Front of Pat's place...

Ladybirds, that's Ladybirds, not bugs

Some bloke off the telly

Following are some pictures from the new house I picked up a few weeks ago - the reason my working week has exploded so much

...and finally, the biggest tomato I have EVER grown! Jesus, I'm so proud, but it's taken over the kitchen and won't let us in there, it's "Attack of the Teenage Killer Kamakaze Tomato of Old Tring Town" - I should work on that...

And so, I shall be blipping again very soon, as I have a load more pickies available for your delight and delectation.


Happy grilling...

This is very re-miss of me, but...

...I really SHOULD do this more often. Thing is I actually enjoy it when I get going.


Before I start - especially showing my latest pictures from gardening - can I say one more time how much I despise this new Americanisation of the English language when people start an answer to question with, "So..." Seriously, what on the sweet lord's planet is THAT all about? It's as bad as the Tony Blair generation of politicians starting every answer with, "Look..." Excuse me, but if you're on the fecking radio, it isn't possible to look. Another bug bear of mine is "Giving 110%..." How? How the freaky deaky do you give 110%. 100% is enough. It's all that can be expected of anyone, isn't it? 


Recently, in the world of gardening I have been chopping, cutting, slicing, shredding and then some bastard wasp stung me on my thigh. Now, I don't know if any of you have been stung by an insect, but when it happens to me I kind of explode. This can mean swelling or head expansion. The head expansion is similar to an acid trip, so trimming a wisteria up a ladder - like I did this afternoon - isn't a good idea... The sting still hurts, 12 hours later (and I have a high pain threshold too. No, I really do... Feel I should have put LOL there, but I hate text speak.)


PICTURES:

This is my Invisible Gardener phase. This
picture was taken by Finlay, age 6

And, here's a black swan. I really really like black swans. When we lived in Perth, West Australia, we saw them in the wild all the time. Very beautiful.

This was at a little zoo near Derby, excellent day, but the
name escapes me at the moment...

That was just an aside and was taken on holiday on my mobile, as were these shots of the compost heaps at Julie's place in Buckland:

Oh to have this amount of space to put together compost on such a level. Four bins! Count them, one, two, three, four! How sad am I...

I have been meaning to tidy this area up before the autumn really sets in and did it last week. There is so much lovely humus there, I think I have enough to mulch all of the beds even in here at Julie's (five acres don't forget!) Also found about 400 old bricks and asked if I could have them for a path and patio I want to build at home. I offered to pay of course!

This is one of our Halloween pumpkins. Grown
from last year's Tesco bought one - I kept the seeds.
We have four, all about the same size and growing BIGGER
every day!!!

Another job is a clearance of an 80-year-old bloke's garden just across the road from me. Literally 20 yards away - good work if you can get it but it is a terrible mess, bless him.

This is about half of it and so far I have cleared the weeds
from the paving slabs you see there. On the left is all
brambles, about 20 metres of it, 4 metres deep. Big job.

This is Fergus, Pat's dog - Pat's garden is Monday & Tuesday morning. He sits in the conservatory most of the time Pat is out, looking like this. Thing is, when he comes outside he just wants to go back and do this again after five minutes - clever dog...

And finally, a word from our sponsor...

Happy freaking out...

PC Marcus Tyson lives!

Today I had one of those magnificent happenings that so very rarely come along. I crapped on an agent of the ruling class. Yes! A copper tried to "do" me and failed. 


It was like re-living the days on the picket outside South Africa House when PC Marcus Tyson was on duty. Marcus, quite frankly, was a pillock and I have always been amazed that he never appeared as Commissioner of the Met. For all I know he's dead, but Marcus was such an idiot as to make it pure joy when he was standing outside the entrance to the embassy, grinning his inane grin.


I once got on a bus at the end of Whitehall and Marcus was sitting opposite where we sat. He grinned his stupid grin at us and my dear friend Natasha (gay man) said very loudly, "Oh hello Marcus, didn't recognise you with your clothes on." Marcus spluttered, " Watch it you, " jabbed his finger at us and carried on, "I could have you!" Natasha, "You already have love!" Genius!


Anyhoo, today I was driving to my Friday garden in Berkhamsted and a brave boy in blue stood by the side of the road, ray gun in hand and pointed to a lay-by for me to pull into. Jesus, he looked smug.


I was very confused, as I had been doing 55 in a 60 stretch of road, but I do have a rather bald near side front tyre. But ray guns can't spot that can they?


Here is the conversation:


Copper (strolling towards my car with that smug "bang to rights" look on his face. Taps on my window, which was already half open. He signals for me to lower the window): In a hurry are we sir?


Me (not lowering the window any more): Not particularly, no.


Copper (unbelievably superior): Huh, 55 in a 40? What do you have to say to that?


Me: Errr, 55 in a 60, it's national speed limit along this stretch.


Copper (superior look changes to incredulity): Eh?


Me (getting out of the car): That (points back about 800 yards) is 40; that (points forward 400 yards) is 40; this (throwing my hand theatrically along the immediate stretch of road in front of us) is national speed limit, I E single carriage way 60mph.


Copper (jaw drops to his chest): Ah.


Me: You, are a pillock-


Copper (walking away from me): No need to get abusive.


Me (shouting as he walked away): You are lucky I just called you a pillock, you pillock! Can I suggest you go back to Police school or maybe acquaint yourself with the roads around here. PILLOCK!


Unbelievably he just got in his car and drove off. I so wish I had got his number, but I was so gobsmacked I couldn't react quick enough.


What a PILLOCK!


Happy Anarchy...

Hello!

I'm not gonna lie, oh no. I'm not even gonna give any lame excuse. I just couldn't be bothered to write anything in the past 3 weeks or so, but, fear not (as if) here I am and here's that bunch of grapes I've been monitoring at Julie's lovely place (400 year old cottage in 5 acres, with the lovely pond - more of that later).

4th August

10th August

Stupidly forgot to take one today, but I have to say the wasps are beginning to have an effect. However, I am determined to get at least enough for one bottle of wine, Julie and Andrew don't bother with them you see, not even to eat!


Well, it's been busy out there in the land of the garden. I have had so much work I think I'll actually be able to pay my tax bill this year - my first one since going self-employed, it's on last year's earnings so thankfully it's not that big and I have just about 2/3's of it tucked away in the mattress, ha ha! It's another thing to be slightly concerned about innit?

4th August it rained. And I got wet, but I like rain drops - not on kittens with mittens though, 'cos that's basically not fair - especially when rain drops fall on water, like this:

I'm not going to write the obvious caption from a certain "cowboy" movie of the early 70s, THAT would be too too obvious!

Some actual gardening for a change, a novelty on a blog about gardening - does one say "on" or "in" a blog? Anyway, I have today been attempting to control that weed of all weeds, Mare’s-tail. A bastard that grows like a big bastard in cultivated land.  I prefer the latin of course, being that way inclined(?), Hippuris vulgaris - fantastic latin innit? Well, my little sun flowers, it turns out that the bastard isn't mare's-tail at all but, indeed, 'tis Marsh Horsetail, Equisetum palustre - from equus, meaning horse of course and seta which translates as bristle or hair. Well, imagine my chagrine at that news. I can tell you, I pulled that weed up with ever increasing violence once I had found out it's true identity. Masquerading as another weed like that.


Basically, all you can do with it is move house...

...and here it is, in volumes filling me big bag up to the very top...

Oh! More gardening, following is one of 8 pumpkins grown from last year's Halloween pumpkin as purchased from Tesco (yuck!).

Not the biggest, indeed it's the smallest we have,
but I thought it looked dead cute - if a vegetable
can be cute of course.

Point is comrades, if you can get seeds from anything you buy at the supermarket and you have access to even the smallest bit of ground you can grow anything in the right conditions. A great way of sticking one on the corporates, 'cos you basically get it for free. I have 6 tomato plants from a Tesco bought pack of tomatoes too. They taste better than anything you buy - even if that statement isn't true, I believe it it's a psychological thing, they seem to taste better, fresh from the greenhouse, all lovely and warm...


Aha! here's a picture of all the tennis balls I found over this summer at Pat's place:

9 of them and not one chewed by Fergus -
he's the dog

The grass at Pat's is looking a bit ragged at the moment. She has a separate company to come in and look after the lawn and it looks like the "treatment" has re-acted badly this year:

Those patches are all dead grass and there's not a lot of re-growth in them too. Sad, but with a bit of luck and a bit of feed and fertiliser in the spring it should be ok in time for next summer.


I have an announcement to make of a devastating nature. I shall just say it, so take care, my boots are dead. 


Boots:  A sturdy item of footwear covering the foot, the ankle, and sometimes the leg below the knee. 


Yes, 20 months into this new life of mine and already I have gone through two pairs of steel toecaps. These were a pair of JCBs, bought for £12.50 on E-bay (RRP - allegedly - £58.99), so I believe I got a damn fine deal there. The new ones are Dickies, apparently legendary footwear. Well, MR Marketing bloke, I shall be the judge of that. Here's the old pair:

They're letting in water, so they have to go, but
bless them, they served me well

Here's the new ones:

I would market them as "Dickies - more than just footwear, Legendary footwear"

Actually, a boot's a boot innit?

And finally. Today it rained. It rained a lot. So much I actually had to give up and come home. Here's the evidence:

Happy drowning!

Peace innit?

HOLLY HOCKS TO YOU

Apologies, but this is going to be nasty. So, to put your mind in loveliness here's two pictures of a holly hock at Julie's place (that's Wednesday/Thursday mornings):

It all started On 15th February 1957, 11.37 in the evening. Yes, my birth. My beautiful wife, the gorgeous Alison, says I have a persecution complex on account of the fact that I am of Jewish decent. True, very true in fact. On one of my many Anti-Apartheid actions, a trolley push at Bloomsbury Waitrose, a loud mouth cockney git of a woman pointed at my dear friend Dominic and said, "You're middle class" and then pointed at me and opined the legend, "AND, you're Jewish!" This was crazy. What the freakin' hell has the ethnic/class origin of an individual got to do with protesting against the abomination that was Apartheid? 


Bizarre, but I digress, as usual. This week, the gardening rounds have tested my patience, faith in humanity on several different levels and, finally, made me want to get pissed out of my brains tonight - this I am currently attempting to achieve...

That tee shirt, a present from the wonderful Comrade Marsden, has carried me through the week, along with my Hare Krishna tee shirt given to me by the monks at Bhaketivedanta Manor near Watford - the place George Harrison bought for the Krishna movement.


Anyway, I guess I should start the story. Apart from the fact it's rained on me in several levels of awfulness all week, several human gits have attempted to wind me up all week.  


First, drivers. What is it with people getting behind the wheel of a car and turning into fuckwits? I will never understand the human psyche in unison with the automobile. Perfectly nice people - I'm guessing here - turn into monsters capable of all manner of abominations. Cut me up. Turn without indicating. Drive like you're driving through treacle. Slam your brakes on when all that's happening is a car has appeared on the other side of the road. Come up to my bumper and drive six inches away from me for five miles, while I am doing the fucking speed limit. Stick your middle finger up at me like it's my fault they set the speed limit. 


OK! This is the first specific story. I need fuel. I go to the nearest petrol station, fill up with £20 worth - yeah that's gonna get me a long way, whatever - and go and pay. A petrol tanker pulls up and cuts off one of the exits, meaning that I will have to back up to go out another of the exits. I go back to my car, get in, switch on and go to back out. I might add here there is a woman in front of me, obviously needing to get out too. 


As I look in my rear view mirror a car draws up to me, stopping all of six inches away from me. I think, "He's bound to see the enormous tanker blocking our way out." Two minutes later, we're still sitting there. I sigh, open the car door, get out and walk to my fellow driver's car door. This is the conversation:


Me (smiling): Sorry mate, could you back up please?


Cab Driver (for that is what he is): Why should I?


Me (not smiling): Ummmm, because we can't get out, there is a petrol tanker blocking our way.


CD: Why's that my problem?


Me (incredulous): Because if we don't get out, you don't get to fill your car up.


CD (did I say he was Asian - and I hate even having to mention it): Chaaaaar!


Me: I'm sorry mate-


CD: I'm not your mate.


Woman (from the car in front of me): Can't you just reverse so we can get out please?


Me: Thanks.


(So the cab driver backs up, but not really enough.)


Me: I'm really sorry, but I can't-


CD: Chaaaaaaaar!


(He backs up a bit more)


At this point I just wanted to ram him out of the way, but of course didn't. I pulled up to his bumper (baby!) and let the woman get out before me. He sounded his hooter like there was something wrong. I got out of my car again.


Me (getting annoyed): What now?


CD: Char!


Me: Seriously mate, you need help with that anger thing you have.


CD: Racist!


I got back in my car and drove off. Seriously, I would never have a problem with anyone because of their colour, race, creed, religion, whatever; ask my friends, not a racist bone in my body. My problem is if you're a twat.


Later that same day, I drove into a close and slightly over shot my turn to park. I clipped the grass verge by about 3 inches. As I got out of the car and old fella opened his window and the following conversation happened:


Old fella: HOW DARE YOU!


Me: Sorry?


OF: You drove over the grass verge!


Me: Sorry.


OF: YOU, moron! You should know better than to do that!


ME: OK. I said I'm sorry.


At this point I looked very closely at the tiny piece of grass I assume I had killed and stretched my arms out in a kind of, "no problem" gesture.


OF: Don't you argue with me!


Me: I'm not, I apologised.


OF: How dare you!


Me (totally flummoxed): I AM SORRY!


OF: Don't shout at me.


I shrugged my shoulders and thankfully my colleague had turned up and we just got on trimming the hedge we were there to trim. Apparently the old fella is 90 and profoundly deaf, but cor blimey, that's no excuse...


Almost finally, and I must add that this is only one of many weird and persecutory notions that have bugged me all week, I turned at a job to trim a hedge, knocked on the door and no one replied. I tried to get into the back garden, home of said hedge, no luck. I knocked and rang on the door this time, for about two minutes in all. Still no reply. I also had to trim another hedge in the front garden, not the priority, but I got on with it.


About an  hour and a half later a woman walked up the driveway with the children who lived in this lovely detached house in Chesham Bois, Bucks and knocked on the door. The door opened and the woman who rents the place accepted delivery of her three kids. I was up a ladder, hedge trimmer ablaze and, quite frankly, gob smacked! How I didn't sever something important I do not know.


What the fuffing hell was THAT about?


AND finally, driving into Tring this evening - Tring being the lovely market town in which I currently reside with my lovely family - I heard a gunshot, looked out the window and saw a wood pigeon falling from the sky. I pulled over and went to investigate, checking whether it was legal to kill the blessed animal with Alison as I walked over. Apparently it's all right to shoot wood pigeons - wellllll, let's face it they are bastards, flying about like they do, all on the wing like that; bastards. I really could have done with seeing the fucker who was perpetrating this particular crime but couldn't find him, even though he let off another two shots in the mean time. On reflection he did have the gun I s'pose, but hell I was in such a mood the shots would have bounced off me, perhaps.


Point is; what is the point? The world would be a lot nicer place if it was just me, my family and the few beautiful people I call my friends; wouldn't it?


HOLLY HOCKS TO YOU ALL!


Peace...

Grapes of toffs

Just a quickie comrades. Here follows a couple of pictures showing some grapes at one of my gardens. Apparently the owners don't bother with them, so I'm thinking WINE!


Anyway, her is 2 weeks ago:

And here is today:

And here's my tea break yesterday, one of Alison's blueberry muffins (home grown blueberries and a nice cuppa tea - to quote Dot Cotton:

And finally, today I was followed around the garden by this little fella:

I think it's a wren, but I wouldn't swear to it. Bless...


Happy supping!