The Clampett Factor

Regular readers of the blog might have noticed that for months a little while now, right down at the bottom of my "to do" list, there's been a mild rebuke to myself about dealing with what I laughingly referred to as my "log pile", a title that really doesn't do it justice. No, the Pile of Shame would probably be more like it.



Eight feet high, and fifteen feet across, the Pile of Shame isn't exactly in an out-of-the-way corner, either; it's front and centre, visible from the house, the patio... hell, probably from space too. As part of a recent drive to reduce our Clampett Factor*, I decided the Pile had to go. The genesis of the pile lies back in 2003 when we arrived in the Hollow, and I discovered that we had inherited a small jerry-built log store on the back of the house with just enough logs in it to see us through the winter. In actual fact, towards the end of the winter it gave up the ghost entirely, dropping its extremely heavy lid on the head of Number One Son, thereby necessitating a run to Accident and Emergency and giving him a scar right between his eyes that he carries to this day (although I think the story he tells now features fewer log stores and more axe-wielding madmen). We burnt the log store itself, and in the spring I cleared out the old carport to act as a new and extremely large store.

The trouble was that the new store was empty, and so I became obsessed with filling it. When we felled the leylandii, I logged them. When next door was renovated, I bagsied the old roof timbers. When Mr & Mrs Landrover had to replace their wooden floor, I told the builders to dump it in ours (all two and a half tonnes of it). And so on, and so on, and so on. I always meant to deal with the Pile, but the bigger it got the more invisible it got until after the Incident of the Monkey in the Garden (when several hefty tree stumps got put on the Pile while my back was turned), I couldn't see it at all anymore.

This is a perfect example of the Clampett Factor, which strikes anyone of a thrifty bent from time to time. Somebody's giving something away or throwing something out or turns their back for a minute and a little circuit goes click in your brain; and all of a sudden it's not a nasty chemical-smelling oil drum filled with bricks, in your head it's been magically transformed into a pond, a gorgeous little pond with marginal planting and flowers and everything. Hell, it's even got a duck on it. So you lug it back home and find a corner for it, and you think, I'll deal with that at the weekend. Except you don't. It rains at the weekend, or somebody invites you out, or maybe you just rediscover a book you've not read in a while, so the weekend becomes next weekend becomes the bank holiday coming up soon becomes when the weather gets better becomes...

... three years later. And then you've really got to tackle it, because it isn't on its own any more. It's sandwiched between a pile of rusty ironwork (future fruit cage), some manky old flagstones (future stepping stones) and a rusty fireguard (future... I forget). Forget Tom Good, you've turned into Albert Steptoe. And it has to stop. So the other morning, Mr Tall invited me into his garden to show me the decking he's just removed. It's in pretty good nick. Do I want it? My mind scrabbles frantically around the many, many things this decking could potentially become, but I can feel WP stiffening very slightly behind me and hear myself say "I don't think I can use that at the minute. Have you thought of Freecycle?" because there is no shortage of Jed Clampetts out there, none at all. But I - I have a new rule; if I can't use it in two weeks, I can't use it.

I wonder how long my resolve will last?




*You remember them. Sure you do, or at least you would do if you'd grown up in Ulster, where the local TV company was too cheap to buy a lot of the ITV programmes. The story of my childhood. "And now, Quatermass. Except for viewers in Northern Ireland, who will be watching the fucking Beverly fucking Hillbillies again. Because we can, all right?"

String Theory

All right so it's not quite Keats weather yet, but the harvest of the summer crops is well underway. The last of the onions still in the ground finally fell over, so I took myself off to inspect the ones in the polytunnel. It's been a couple of weeks since I lifted them now, and their colour has darkened to that lovely gold that lets you know they're ready to store.

Now, when it comes to storing onions, some of the books tell you to use old tights, dropping an onion into the leg and then tying a knot before dropping in the next one. Frankly I can't deal with that. It's been a long time since I wore a pair of tights for a start*, and I shudder to think just how many of the things I'd need to use - not to mention the faintly pervy appearance of the whole thing. So that's just not happening; no, give me an old fashioned string of onions any day.

My first year's effort was a bit of a disaster, because I wasn't really sure how to string onions properly and did a straight plait with a loop of string tied round the very top. This works fine for garlic, but onions just don't seem to have the same herding instinct. This, unfortunately, led to one of those lovely moments where time seems to stand still. One Sunday at an embarrassingly quiet hour I walked out to the garage and took a single onion off a string, only to have the whole thing make a suspicious whispery noise and shift, ever so slightly. I just had time to say 'oh...' and then the entire string fell apart quicker than a clown car at a demolition derby, pelting me with five kilos of hitherto healthy and unbruised bulbs. I was so shocked I shrieked three pithy and (I thought) fairly apt swear words, but I hadn't really intended to deliver them at the top of my voice. I retrieved an onion from a wellington boot and skulked back into the house, receiving a hugely cheerful 'good morning' from Mr Fixit next door, who used to hear if you farted too loudly. And then to round it all off, when I got back to the kitchen Witchypoo had already found an onion in the cupboard.

So now I'm taking no chances. I make a long loop of strong string secured with a reef knot so that it can't slip. How long is long? Probably about three feet, but it depends how high you're going to hang it in the store. One end of this goes onto a handy hook, and you're all set. Select your first onion, checking that it has no soft bits or bore holes, and that the neck has dried out properly (if it feels squidgy, it's not properly cured yet). Take any loose paper off the outside, and remove all but four to six inches of neck.

Fold over a loop at the bottom of your string, and put the neck of the first onion through it just where my finger is in the picture. If you like, you can fold the neck round the loop and back through it again, and then gently pull it tight.

Holding the two sides of the loop apart, feed the neck of the next onion through and round the strings, making a figure 8. The onion's own weight will hold it in place.

And so on, positioning your onions to keep the string as regular as possible. It's easier if you keep the onion sizes similar.

Stop when the string is getting full - or when you realise you're not going to be able to carry it without hurting your fingers, as here. Hang in a cool and airy place. Any onions showing signs of damage or disease should be used up fairly quickly, or dried as an alternative storage method; get the time and temperature right and they'll be so sweet and tasty you can eat them straight from the jar as a snack (provided all your friends are anosmic).

The other type of stringing that's been dominating my week is the runner beans. My favourite way of preparing these is to do what the Americans call frenching** them - trimming off the strings and then slicing them into fine strips lengthways. Sadly it is, not to put to fine a point on it, a bugger of a job. Unless, that is, you see one of these fine gadgets on sale.

This little gizmo is a joy to use for smallish quantities; you just top and tail, and then feed the thing through. A little spring arm keeps the bean positioned so that the two strings are neatly removed at the sides, while the bean itself is beautifully and evenly sliced. Ahh. One important word of warning, though; you pull the bean through from the other side. You don't, under any circumstances, decide to give an unusually chunky bean a bit of a push through with your thumb. Because then the little springy arm would measure your thumb, wouldn't it? And your thumb would then be sliced by the two terrifyingly sharp little stringing blades, bright with just-out-of-the-packet visciousness. And then you would bleed so much you would terrify the cat, and be unable to find the plasters while your lifeblood trickled away. And that would be a bad thing. Take it from me.

*Did I say that out loud?

**In some states, anyway. In others, admitting that you enjoy frenching beans would probably get you arrested.

I'd like to say sorry to...

...my liver. That third glass of wine was a mistake, I admit it; and as for the fourth and fifth ones, well - what can I tell you? They seemed like such a good idea at the time.


I blame Kristi. The last few days I've been feeling so lackadaisical that I've not really done all that much, so when I passed through The Worsted Witch I was plunged into blind panic and an overwhelming sense that Something Must Be Done. I worked really hard yesterday*, and since we were invited next door to Mr Tall and Mrs Giggle's place for tea, I felt like I'd really earned a glass of wine. Or five, as it turned out. Ouch. So I'd also like to thank my beloved wife Witchypoo, who not only provided me with a bacon sandwich to settle my stomach this morning but who also tells me that I am not stupid or lazy when I claim to be; I am merely distracted. I like that.

Hedgewizard; distracted since 1966.

A girl, while at the funeral of her own mother, saw a young man whom she did not know. She seemed mesmerised by him and asked a few people who he was, but no-one knew. She didn't get a chance to speak to the young man at the graveside, and he didn't show up at the reception. A few days later the girl was arrested for killing her father. Why would she kill her father?

As regards the game from the previous post, this is reputed to be part of a series of psychological tests used by the FBI to watch for markers for Dissocial (or Antisocial) Personality Disorder. The theory is this; normal people operate under a series of programmed restraints. The girl was obviously going to want to see the young man again, and if you don't have the programmed restraints the most obvious way to bring that about would be another family funeral. If you have the restraints, your first thoughts should have been to search for a plausible link between the father and the young man - although you might figure it out after you drew a blank. Cheerful, no?

Right - a day's chainsawry beckons. See y'all later.




*Weeded the asparagus bed and paths; finished summer-pruning the apples and pears; had a bonfire to get rid of stuff that wasn't suitable for the woodpile; repaired the back fence; made some raspberry gin, and cleared the bolted stuff out of the polytunnel. And I came in before it got dark, like a good boy.

Lurker's Day

All rightie, then. Here's a thing. I know from various technomehoodjits that there are many, many more folkses reading this here thing than there are folkses who contribute to it. That's fine, and to be expected. But unlike some bloggers, I actually do like people to chip in with their points of view. I read all the comments, and I try to reply when I can (actually, the trick is getting me to shut up). And although I don't kid myself that this blog is a life-changing experience, I do like to think that maybe I make people think once in a long while.

So. Here's the thing.


I'd like as many people as possible to de-lurk, like Klingons off the starboard bow, for this one post. If you never contribute again, that's fine by me; but at least you'll have stuck your head above the parapet for a moment, and maybe you'll do so again the next time I piss you off, or make you laugh, or whatever. I know some people don't comment because they don't have a Google account - but you don't need one. I know some people don't contribute because they don't like inputting their e-mail address even though it isn't displayed - so tell it a junk one, it doesn't matter*. So let's play a little game; do have a go, even if you think your answer's stupid - and if you've heard it before, feel free to laugh at other posters or tell me about other head games!

A girl, while at the funeral of her own mother, saw a young man whom she did not know. She seemed mesmerised by him and asked a few people who he was, but no-one knew. She didn't get a chance to speak to the young man at the graveside, and he didn't show up at the reception. A few days later the girl was arrested for killing her father.

Why would she kill her father?

There's no right or wrong way to answer this question - it's just a game to see how we all think. Knock yourself out!






*I regularly post as noddy@toytown.com, and some server somewhere logs it. Sucker. Put that away, Big Ears, it's not hygienic.

Meet the Neighbours

Here at the Hollow we're well blessed with wildlife, being at the edge of some woodland (albeit managed woodland) near the most biodiverse area in Britain (the Purbecks). All sorts of weird things come and go in the garden, but one of the most noticeable groups is bees.

So, bees. I always assumed bees came in two tasty flavours; the honey bee and the, er, non-honey bee. Bumble bee, sort of thing.

Not so. Since living here I've seen half a dozen different sorts of non-honey bees and, since I've ruled out beekeeping for fun and profit* for the time being, I thought I might make it a little project to learn to identify them.


For the moment, I'll content myself with observing that wild bees in the UK fall into three main groups; white-arsed bees, red-arsed bees, and ginger furry things. Stop me if I get too technical. Once I've got my head round that, I'll learn a bit more. Oh, before I go let me just mention The Big Ask; the UK government is finally getting around to passing a Climate Change Bill. It's been - what, six years? - in the preparation, and of course the lobbyists have been working overtime on it. Consequentially it's been really watered down, possibly fatally, but with Gordo being so fond of industry he's not likely to stamp his feet and sort it out. My favourite omission is that it does nothing at all to tackle the airline industry, which is one of our most serious polluters. So please, if you live in the UK do check it out and join the march. I have.

Edit: I've been asked by a BBQ guest to explain why my right arm is stretched out like that. The answer is, of course, that I still have my fingers trapped in Kate Beckinsale's knicker elastic.

*For instance, there's bees as a fashion statement. There's the bee hoody...

... the bee skaterboy suit...

...the bee neckwarmer...

...and in case of whiplash injury incurred while transporting bees, the bee neck brace...

...and... what do you mean, those aren't bees? You mean it's real? Sheesh!

Men's 100m Car-Loading Relay Chase

Why can't my neighbours - not the Posh ones, the other ones - just get in and out of their car like normal people?

When I'm going somewhere, I get the car keys and get into the car; I start it; I drive away. Occasionally I may make one extra trip into the house to fetch anything I couldn't carry, but that's it. But as I speak - in the time it's taken me to write this entry, now - they've made four trips to the car, started it to turn it round, locked it up, and gone back into the house. Then there's been another two trips to the car, and I know from personal experience there'll be another five minutes of this before they go anywhere. It's the same when they get home, except then it generally takes about twenty minutes in total.

They're not disabled or on life support or suffering from OCD or anything, so in the name of all that's sacred, WHY?


I guess you might be wondering why I care, so let me say that the two houses join in an L-shape. On one leg of the L, tucked into the corner, there's my little study. On the other leg, likewise tucked into the corner, there's the neighbours' front door (which Mr Tall is currently locking with his jangly keys for the third time). I dislike the notion that anyone might be looking over my shoulder. Maybe I should move my desk so my back isn't to the window.

...Wait... behold! The car has been restarted and is finally pulling away. Autosave tells me that's six minutes - that's got to be a new record!

Fennel the First...

Last night was a foretaste of the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" in the Hollow, as the garden begins to outstrip what we can eat and storage becomes the order of the day. The tunnel spat forth one of its monster cauliflowers - 1.5kg of florets, if you can believe it - and a couple of kilos of carrots, and the garden joined in with 500g each of autumn raspberries, broad beans and runner beans. Oh, and a kilo of courgettes. Again. This left me blanching and freezing, blanching and freezing, until I'd frankly had enough.

Happily though, the tunnel also gave us a shedload of fennel. I'm still really coming to grips with this plant - bought because a few of the bloggers I read were crowing about it last year just as my own patch was settling down into the relatively staid fare of winter. We've been eating it for a few weeks now from the tunnel (which comes along a lot faster than the world outside), and so far it's been eaten raw - thinly sliced and delicious - and casseroled, where it is pretty much like an aniseed-flavoured celery.


Next stop, the oven. I'm told that roasting fennel gives it a whole new flavour...

Scromfeling

Better late than never, the curcubit family is coming into its own. It's now almost impossible to get to my volunteer mint plants to make a cup of tea, because they're disappearing in a forest of rather prickly squash and pumpkin leaves (sadly growth has been so poor this year that they've not quite managed to shade out all the weeds, but hey). A decent pumpkin has already formed...

...and there are some nice sweet monk squashes on the go, which taste like sweet potatoes...

...and then there's this.

No idea. I'm guessing one of those sweet monks is a little less pious than the rest, but I'm not complaining. The Z de T plant that Mafioso Mouse missed is leafing up nicely, and although there still aren't any fruits I have high hopes. Maybe I should give it some phosphate as a kick-start.

The volunteer marrow monster is still on the rampage in the potato beds, and it's all I can do to give the damned things away. Stuffed marrow for tea tomorrow night, by the way (tonight's was crisp-roasted courgette with chilli, garlic and mint, served with rosemary bread and sugared roast peppers. Oh, it's nice to have time to cook again!). David Attenborough's not been seen in a few days, and I'm starting to worry about him.

Things are the same in the tunnel, but with the melons so far behind they may not ripen this year.

No such problem for the crystal lemon cucumbers, though. This is the first time I've grown them, and I find they put me irresistably in mind of the beloved British children's entertainer, Buster Gonad. Can you spot why?

Crystal lemons go yellow when they ripen, but they're always covered with those wicked little spikes. After cutting them, they have to be scromfeled - an old West Country word for rubbed vigorously with leather gloves* - to get the scary spines off** before taking them to the kitchen. It's a really bad idea to handle them without gloves, as I spent two weeks wondering why my left hand was numb apart from pins and needles-type sensations - in the end I ruled out incipient diabetic neuropathy in favour of tiny little hairs being embedded in me from pinching out the growing tips. Oh well. I wasn't looking forward to being declared diabetic anyway.

The nice thing about crystal lemons (which taste fine, by the way) is that they stay crunchy when they're turned into relishes and pickles, which judging by the exponential increase in the number ripening just lately may be a very good thing...


*No, not really. It's a good word though, isn't it?

**Visiting gardeners are warned against doing this just outside the garden shed, lest they be pelted with half-eaten walnuts by the Greys. That's why there's no photograph of the scromfeling process. Sorry.

Tunnel vision

Kitchenwitch just lately asked me how much of a difference having a polytunnel makes to the old self-sufficiency lark, and I had to say it makes a BIG difference. The ins and outs of it run to a bit more than a blog article, I think, but here's the nub of it.

I'm not going to bang on about the benefits of growing your own here - I'm hoping that that's a foregone conclusion. However, growing under cover - which includes greenhouses and to a lesser degree cloches too - extends your growing season by about a month in the spring, and by about six weeks in the autumn. Small greenhouses can be had relatively cheaply, but polytunnels are much cheaper; if you're thinking of even a modest 10'x12' the savings are huge. Even better, if the thing doesn't need to be cast in stone it's quite possible to build yourself one from flexible PVC pipe and waste timber, so the only substantial purchase is the polythene cover.


The point about extending the growing season can't be over-stressed, and it has bigger implications than you might think. Taking carrots as an example, we eat successional sowings of Early Nantes II all through the growing season. At the end of the season growth slows down but the carrots keep perfectly well in the soil, so a big sowing in mid-September will keep us going all winter without the need to grow any maincrop carrots outside at all - leaving the space free for other things that will be downright handy in the winter, like leeks. And let's face it, produce straight out of the ground is always better than stored stuff.

So here's what's going on in my tunnel, season by season. In winter, the tunnel is producing hardy salad crops like winter lettuce, rocket, mooli and pak choi, while acting as a living larder for carrots, celeriac and spring onions. It's also a handy place to put tender plants to overwinter, and you can even insulate a section of it further and supply a little heat if that's your thing. In spring it gets used for germination and bringing on seedlings (although the light intensity is higher in our little greenhouse, so I tend to put new seedlings in there until they develop a bit of leaf mass), and I'll be forcing a couple of my old rhubarb crowns under straw so that we get a crop in February.

Come summer, I use the tunnel for borderline annuals - things that don't always do well outside, like tomatoes and peppers, melons and cucumbers, and also as a fast-production method for an endless array of baby salad vegetables. There's always exotics too - I have cape gooseberries taking over one side of the tunnel at the moment, but I've seen folks with grapes, white peaches and even lemons in their tunnels. Autumn is generally a bit of a juggling act, as I tease the last late crops out while getting winter planting underway; last year I was still harvesting cucumbers in mid-October, by which time the mooli were already running riot.

There are a few less tangible benefits of polytunnelling too. I've been able to run water (on a timer) and power into mine, which means I can have a heated propagator bringing on tomatoes and peppers super-early. Or at least I could, if I were less of a failure in the organisation department. I also have a 14' suspended shelf hanging between two crop bars, which is more than a handy extra surface - it's the only 100% slug-free area in the whole garden! Last but not least, the tunnel is a downright pleasant place to be. A heavy shower no longer means I have to stop work - now I scuttle off into the tunnel to pinch out and weed, pot things up, or just generally enjoy the warmth and the herby aromas. The only thing missing, frankly, is a hammock - and I just might ask for one in my Yuletide stocking this year!

Sorry

With rain forecast for today, yesterday saw me beetling around trying to do jobs that would get harder in the wet; trimming back bushes, cutting the grass, and lifting the potatoes. The spuds have had a few weeks now since I had to take the top growth off to minimize the blight damage, and the job was made unexpectedly harder because without the top growth we often couldn't see where the haulms were - an Old English word meaning straw - and thus we were in danger of spiking the tubers and had to work slowly and carefully down the row. Yields were not as good as I'd hoped, but definitely better than I'd expected - about two sacks in all.


With blight making it more likely tubers would rot in storage, we had to sort the tubers into three piles; a sack for damaged or surface spuds (thankfully not too many), a sack for perfect ones, and a tray for chats (the tiny ones that aren't worth peeling). After a couple of minutes I started to get faster at it than Witchypoo, and she wanted to know why. I told her I had worked out the spacing, and each time I dug up one haulm I put the chat tray where the next one would be.

"What's a haulm?"

"The stalk of the old plant."

"And you put the chat tray on the next one...?"

"That's right. Wherever I tray my chats... that's my haulm."

.

Suitsville

Lovely. Britain's civil service has worked out that the budget cap they've been given - four billion pounds - will only stretch to less than half of the renewables target agreed within the EU. And their response, typically, is to recommend that ministers

"find a way to fudge the figures, or find a way to fudge the politics".

These are not politicians, remember; these are not elected individuals. These civil servants are the machinery that carries out the will of democracy, and they'll still be there when this government is long gone. I find it a bit depressing that they are so amoral on this issue, but I guess top civil servants are selected to be amoral because otherwise the machinery would be paralysed by ethical conundra the whole time.


It also puts in perspective for me the magnitude of government involvement in power generation, relative to individual decisions. I mean, if I've gone to the time and expense of swapping the household energy supplier to Ecotricity, why haven't I taken the time to e-mail my MP? If you'll pardon me, that's what I'm off to do now. Do feel free to follow suit (if you'll pardon the pun).

Dear Mr Scratchy*,

In view of the DEBRR leak reported in the Guardian today, I would urge you to ask awkward questions in the Commons. The proposal to fudge the figures or fudge the politics should not go unchallenged; if we are to fail this target we should fail it openly and honourably.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2147515,00.html

The alternative, of course, is to spend rather more actual money on it - and if that is the outcome then I would urge you to ensure that the investments made are prudent and not short-termist.

Many thanks for your time
da Hedge

*Just a pet name. Me and my MP? We're like that.









I'm on top, obviously.




.

A strange year

Some things have done rather badly this year owing to the, er, missing nature of the better part of the summer. Blight struck the potatoes and tomatoes, but everybody was in the same boat apart from a few lucky souls who grew their tomatoes under cover and managed not to get the spores in there. Peas and beans didn't do so well either, but one group that positively thrived was the alliums - onions, shallots and garlic.

The blight forced me to rip out the tomatoes last week, and the tunnel is looking prematurely sad in the middle because of it. Actually, that's OK because it means I can start my winter planting early, taking advantage of the extra sun to make sure we're well fed when the growing season is over outside. Kitchenwitch has asked me how much of an impact having a polytunnel has on feeding ourselves, and I'll write more about that this week when it's raining - to cheer myself up on the day the tomatoes came out, though, I lifted some onions and took a few snaps.

The suspended shelf in the tunnel is the perfect place to cure and dry the onions...

...which is a good job because I needed the mesh-bench for some more...

... leaving the greenhouse staging for the garlic.

The garlic is satisfactory, but this year I'm going to try planting it out in the autumn as I'm told you get bigger bulbs that way, although a few may bolt. I *may* have overdone the onions just a tadge this year (I've only lifted two-thirds of the harvest to date), but that's not a problem. We can dry any damaged ones or surplus in the dehydrator, which makes them beautifully sweet (actually a nice snack on their own) and the perfect ingredient for a winter bread that's good enough to make a strong man weep*. Soups and stews don't even get a look in!



*Recipe when I next cook it... but even the thought of it is making my stomach growl!

Survival

I've survived another week. How strange that I should think of it in those terms - but let me explain.

On Wednesday morning, in the midst of realising that I'd let my jobs pile up and I was going to have a busy day, I got a call from my opposite number at work. Vomiting children, self with diarrhoea, can't cope, la-la-la. I went in for the morning for her, and it somehow turned into an all day thing. Never mind, I can always do said jobs on Saturday before I go to the BBQ.

On Thursday after work I was at the Have Dice club - a roleplaying do where I'm currently ensconced in a MERP adventure - and my mate Dunk expressed panic over the annual club BBQ. Said BBQ, due in two days, was to be held in his back garden - which his builders had just dug up two weeks ahead of schedule. Having a big garden and no sense of self-preservation at all, I said we should move it to the Hollow. Told WP when I got back who also said fine, but don't leave me to do all the work.* Never mind, I said, I can do the set-up after my jobs on Saturday before everybody arrives for the BBQ.

On Friday I was having a moderately stressful day but looking forward to the BBQ when I got a call from one of my self-employed clients, reminding me that I was working for her at the far side of Dorset on Saturday morning. How. Can. I. Have. Failed. To. Read. My. Diary? Panic, panic, arranged Dunk to come over and help me set up that evening, Saturday jobs will have to wait until Sunday.

Saturday morning was shitty, stressful and so far away from home that I can't think why I accepted the work**. It was one of those gigs that a locum dreads - you're in a situation where the whole outfit is organised by one person who doesn't write anything down, has no visible system and, crucially, isn't there. You're working with an unfamiliar and unfriendly computer system, and your only backup is two schoolgirls who just work the Saturday morning and keep asking you where things are despite you only having been there for five minutes. This makes you look like a blithering incompetent, and the public treat you as such. It was such a relief to get out of there and back to the BBQ - which was vair nice, btw - that I ate and drank a bit too much and was completely wiped out by the time it finished.

Just to round things off, although the Posh Neighbours were out when we were making all the noice (dammit) they returned, with guests, just as WP and I were settling down to watch the superbly clear sky. They decided to have a midnight swim in their pool. They turned on their interior lights, which was a shame. Then they turned on their exterior lights, which are fucking searchlights. Then they turned on additional exterior lights which we had no idea existed, bathing everything for about half a mile in stark halogen clarity.

I've got no problem with swims, midnight or otherwise - no, not even when it's the PNs and everyone has to laugh like a horse with bronchitis holding a megaphone - and I can forgive the Stalag 17-style lighting most of the time but why then? Never mind, said I, they'll be cold when they come out and they'll toddle off to bed. And so they did. Trouble is, by the time they had remembered to turn off the Close Encounters searchlight, the clouds had rolled in.

Arse.

But here I am, alive and ready to shock the world with my vivacity***. There's rain due in today - oh, and tomorrow and Wednesday - but tonight is the height of the perseids and the forecast is, improbably enough, clear skies. Here's hoping! And how was your week?



*A totally unwarranted comment. I mean, when have I ever, ever, cleared off to go metal detecting leaving her with the kids and the wreckage of an apocalyptic lunch to sort out?

**Now I remember - I initially said yes to a bunch of days, then realised how far away it was and cancelled them all except for that one which I'd forgotten about and thus failed to cancel. Die, brain! Die!

***Vivacity may be subject to terms, conditions, and getting more sleep. Always read the label.

On Honesty

Oh, dear. La-Que-Sabe's only gone and made me think about being honest about oneself, and there's a frightening rattling sound coming from under my hood. I think my brain may be about to throw a piston. The thing is, I'm brutally honest about other people but am I equally honest about myself? And if not, do I want to be?

Tact is not, it has to be said, my middle name. In fact, tact does not figure anywhere in my name, nor my pen name, travelling name, honorary titles nor even on my luggage tag. From time to time (generally when someone has just asked me a direct question and my mind is fundamentally elsewhere*) my mouth just opens and words fall out, without me being aware of having voted for them. Actually, that's not entirely true - in the spirit of the New Hedgewizard (which I expect to last at least until the end of this cup of tea) I'll own up and say that my brain refuses to waste a perfectly good punchline. This gets me in trouble. Often.

F'r'instance.

I'm not going to compound the insult by naming the individual** but let's just say that a female who I really like (and no, it wasn't Witchypoo) was swimming with us. I was pootling along to a nearby serving hatch to enquire about the possibility of the swimming experience including a newspaper and a cup of latte, and the lady in question gave me a cheery wave as she swam past in the other direction. Now this lady is... how should I put it?... quite large. Oh all right, very large. And I love her dearly, but at that moment my mind was firmly on the alarmingly high level of blood in my caffeine stream, and my defences were down. "Hedge," she called as we passed, "what d'you think of my new swimming costume?"

"Oh, nice lines - where did you get it?" is what I should have said. But did I? No. No, I bloody didn't.

My mouth opened.

"I think we should be very glad that the Japanese have banned whaling."

I mean, what? No conscious input on my part at all, I assure you - but it was a horribly cruel put down. I felt terrible instantly, and although it got a cheap laugh I really felt like a bully and had to buy everyone lattes to assuage my conscience. Why does my brain do this to me? And if that's what's sloshing around in there, do I really want to take the lid off and let everyone gawp at it?

But actually, it's OK. No, really. A few years ago I was afraid that if I stripped away all the pretensions that make me me, people would realise that there was actually nothing underneath. Since then I've got past that and realised that my mind is far more complex than I give it credit for and most of the time even I have no idea what's going on in there. The mind is a lake, and thoughts are like bubbles rising through it. You only see the bubbles as they break on the surface. Pop, and they're gone - but if you think you have any idea what's going on in the water, you'd best take care.

So really, I'm fine with people knowing what's going on in my head - because in two minutes it will all have changed. If the day ever comes when I know what's coming out of my head next, it'll be time to put down my pen.






*i.e. most of the time. Live with it. Oh, and best not ask exactly where my mind is in case you don't like the answer.

**... no. No, I can't. Don't ask me.***

***Oh, all right. ...no, I can't. I really can't.

So That's It, We're Officially Broke

Behold! The Slope (which the Posh Neighbours persist in referring to as our North Garden) is finished. Let me hear you say, halleluliah! From laurel-scrub wilderness to blank (terraced) canvas in six weeks, and by this time next year...



...what, exactly? I'm not too sure, since after a moment's carelessness on Witchypoo's part, the Slope is her baby. You see, when I get all stressed and hair-tearioutery about how behind I am in the garden, she always says that my problem is I can't delegate; so a year and a bit ago when I realised just how much work doing the Slope was going to be, I threw my hands in the air and said you want delegation? I'll give you delegation - I'll do this bit, you do that bit. Okay?

I think to begin with WP was a bit nonplussed by the whole affair. But now that the area's been cleared and terraced, she's been off to the library and disappeared beneath a frankly terrifying pile of garden design books. She's been looking at online nurseries, I've explained what we can and can't do in the polytunnel regarding bringing things on, and she's starting to see the attraction to all this planning and growing business. Which, of course, was my fiendish intention all along.

Here's the plan so far. Although we're bounded on either side by more formal gardens, our plot makes a strip running uphill to the road (barely used) and then into woodland; so WP is planning to bring the woodland over the road into the top of the Slope by underplanting the trees with ferns, bluebells and suchlike, with a willow tunnel to add interest. Coming down the slope the ground sees more sun, so WP's going to segue into shrubs and flowering bulbs, and then finally into mediterranean-style plants and herbs at the bottom, where it's dry. I look forward to posting photographs for you in a year's time...

Watch the Skies...

One of my fondest childhood memories is of spending the summers on the Irish coast at a little place called Ballywalter, where we had a rusty old static caravan that was home to about a billion earwigs during the winter. There was nothing much to do there really, but as with the Hollow there was very little light pollution and I quickly learned that mid-August is a great time for seeing shooting stars. Fast forward thirty years, and I still lie out on a blanket for at least one evening a year - except now I have my own family with me.


Unlike the last few years, this year should be excellent for Perseid-watching because the peak of the meteor shower falls when there's no moon. This is excellent, because it means you don't have to stay up until the damned thing sets to get the best view. So if you fancy it, get yourself to a spot where there are no lights shining in your eyes, and make sure you have a good view towards the northeast. The meteors will seem to originate from the constellation of Perseus (hence the name), which is just below the W-shape of Casseopeia at midnight. The shower peaks rather sharply on August 12th, but it's worth watching for five nights on either side if the sky is clear.

Now, it takes thirty minutes for your eye to fully adjust to the darkness - oh yes, it does. During that time the sensitivity of your eyes will increase by a factor of one million, which means that fainter and fainter stars will appear the longer you are out there; you shouldn't just nip out and have a quick look. So. Take a blanket to lie on (less neck strain than sitting) and something warm to wear because it still gets cold at night. Oh, and a picnic supper might be nice. No pickled onions though, please, they give me gas.

That just leaves light pollution to worry about, which is sadly beyond your personal control; but take it from me that as well as affecting ecosystems, wasting energy and pissing off astronomers, light pollution can put a serious cramp on your meteor watching. Two or three times this holiday season I've stumbled across bloggers echoing these thoughts by Mel of Beansprouts, on a trip to Cornwall in 1999 to see the solar eclipse;

"At 2am I noticed the sky. My God, I had no idea there were so many stars.
I had lived in the city my whole life, and had probably never seen a star with a magnitude less than about 2 or 3. The eclipse was a wonderful phenomenon, but that view of the cloudless night sky was just as memorable."

If you've never been in a dark-sky environment to look at the stars then, frankly, now's the time. You never know, you might have your eyes opened.

The Accidental Marrow

Back in those heady pre-blight days, I began to lift the first early potatoes and found much to my surprise that we had a volunteer squash plant clinging on for dear life. Volunteers, by the way, are unintended plants that pop up unexpectedly from seeds that have survived composting or been dropped by thieving birds. Normally I'd have grubbed the thing out, but since I didn't need the space again until September and my own squash plants were all perilously close to death by drowning, I thought, what the hell.

Over the last few weeks the volunteer has made lots - lots, I tell you - of leaves, apparently making a break for rainforest status. Fogbanks form over it in damp weather. We caught some loggers trying to open up an access road last week, and David Attenborough's been popping in to the house to use the loo from time to time so I reckon there must be wildlife in there somewhere. You get the picture.

The leaves are also spiky enough to make poking about in there a bit of an endurance test, so it wasn't until I found my leather gloves yesterday that I discovered what was hiding under the canopy. So.


My own rules on... (pauses to breadcrumb something) ...eating what the garden gives us means that this little lot is our dinner tonight. I've supplemented it with a couple of carrots and a bulb of fennel from the polytunnel, some of our new garlic, a couple of tomatoes and a second early potato and... what can I tell you? We'll see. But it's a sad truth that at the time of writing both WP and I feel that the marrow is nature's equivalent of Britney Spears - good to look at, but ultimately what's the fucking point?

Edit: Well, bugger me with a fish fork. It was actually quite nice.

Mafioso Mouse

Bastard mouse. Bastard, bastard, bastard mouse. How can it have happened? When deciding how many courgette plants to grow this year, I opted for the "plant two and hope one dies" approach. Yet now I have three. How? HOW? There can be only one conclusion.

We had a mouse attack in the polytunnel in May, although for some reason I forgot to post here about it. As mouse attacks go it was a very minor one; since I keep the tunnel free of clutter, there was nowhere to shelter and thus mousie moved on. Minor damage. A few newspaper pots shredded for the seeds inside, a few seedlings kicked over in the excitement, that sort of thing. Of course at the time I simply assumed the mouse had been looking for food, but now I believe he had a more sinister agenda.


I think the mouse was there to plant another courgette seed on me. It's the only rational answer. I can't think exactly why a mouse would want to do this, so presumably he was being coerced by a third party. I'd blame the squirrels (they seem to be behind most things that go on in the garden) but they don't even like courgettes. Or perhaps... perhaps someone doesn't want me growing Italian squashes. A mafia connection? We may never know.

So now we're swimming in courgettes. For the love of whichever god you care to mention, help us.

Earn Your Keep

The top of the Slope has been seeded in with grass, and naturally the Hollow is now home to one fat woodpigeon. At breakfast yesterday I spotted him up there filling his face until he's nearly too heavy to get off the ground. And where are the cats?

Absent, of course. Number One Cat is missing, presumed living three doors down (where N2C is felis non gratis). N2C is eventually found recumbent half-in and half-on our bed, sorting out his grit collection. N2C is seized. N2C is presented to the window, holding snout until his eyes detect the movement upslope that is Fat Bastard the pigeon. "Fly, my pretty," I tell him, opening the window. "Show no mercy."


It's quite impressive. N2C does indeed fly, covering a distance of nearly four feet straight down, where he lands on the pavoir with an audible "oof". Then, tail stump twitching, he stalks up the garden. Curiously, he doesn't seem to be making for the pigeon at all, although he's clearly seen it. Perhaps he's approaching it obliquely, so that it doesn't become alarmed too soon.

Hmm. Very obliquely. Of course, how silly of me. Faced with the expectation of actually doing something, he's doing what cats do - showing his disgust by taking a crap.

Natch.

Anyone want an overweight ginger cat? He comes with his own box.

Help, My Brain Has Begun to Work

Mmmmm. Although I haven't actually had any extra non-working time yet, the lack of trying to fit a quart into a pint pot has begun to have an effect. This weekend sees me with the usual impossible list of tasks to get on with, and yet I am not plunged into panic. For once, there is always tomorrow. You might expect this to make me lazy, but for some strange reason it's having the opposite effect; I'm really itching to get out there and grease shave tie up some kiwis, piddle around with weeds and so forth.


Yesterday I awarded myself the day off - hooray! A few days ago was the pagan festival of Lammas; this is an old agricultural celebration of the start of harvest, and traditionally a whole village would show up to help with bringing in the first field of wheat. A specially-based "Lammas loaf" would be eaten, John Barleycorn would be cut down, and all manner of like themes up and down the country. Strip the thing down to its basic meaning, though, and it's a start-of-harvest celebration - the last chance for a shindig until all the hard work was done.

Our own celebration involves the bread-eating and beer-drinking* and an acknowledgement of the blessings we've been given in the last year; I won't list them, but they're many. I may bitch on about how tough things are and (later) about money getting tight, but it isn't lost on me just how lucky we are for a million reasons, and Lammas is the time to reflect on it over a jar or three. The flipside of this is to make a symbolic "repayment" of an altruistic gesture. This year we chose to visit a local organic veg business which runs more like a charity - I'll post more about it when I get the pictures up - and put in a day's work there. Only trouble is we took friends along too and ended up having such a good time that it didn't feel like work at all!

Overnight, my damned brain has started to work. It's really irritating, and I blame the slowly-falling stress levels. Already I'm making fewer errors when I type, and fewer alterations too (do tell me if I start to talk crap, though). I've also started to wonder about things. This leads to a certain amount of time-wasting, but that's OK since that's where ideas come from. I've been made a little sad though by reading about Charlotte Coleman - the ditzy actress best known for Four Weddings And A Funeral. The really stupid thing is that she died of status asthmaticus, and that's one of the things I'm specifically trained to help people prevent. What a waste.

Right, now to deal with the kiwis. Where's my razor?




*Not specifically mentioned in historic accounts, but apparently ubiquitous anyway. Hell, that's enough of an excuse for me.

Seven Random Garden Facts

I can't put it off any longer, thanks to stereo tagging. Right.

1. I can't do brassicas, to date. I really want to be able to grow these hungry gap-filling powerpacks, but they collapse, or wilt, or get eaten by caterpillars, or fail to heart, or just plain disappear. Except in the polytunnel, where they thrive and get Godzilla-style huge and eventually consume the entire neighbourhood. Go figure.

2. I'd like to be organised. In my head, I'm already there. I make charts and cardexes and draw plans and maps and everything. And yet, on the ground it always seems to come down to bunging things where there's a space. Oh, why can't life behave itself?

3. Midges like me. Lots.

4. I got our first lot of chickens a full year ahead of schedule because my Dad told me I'd never do it. Issues? Me?

5. I bought Hedgewizard's Hollow on the strength of the garden. And the location. I made my mind up when I drove up the access path to the house, and then realised which garden was to be mine. That's it, sold, sign on the dotted line. House? Oh yeah, I suppose we'd better have a look - now which one is it?

6. I work in my spare time. This is an important distinction. I get a bit annoyed when people refer to my garden as a hobby - NO. WORK is a hobby; the garden is life.

7. Despite being mostly anosmic - no sense of smell, that is - I love to grow scented plants. Lavender, sage, rosemary, fennel, balm... for the moments where I suddenly realise that I can smell. It's like the world suddenly being in colour.

I nominate... lemme see... Irish Sally Garden, Ducking for Apples, Avidly Dreaming, and Mildew even though she's on holiday.

Ode to My Mistress

You bitch! Oh, you ungrateful bitch! After all we've been through together, it comes to this?

I'm trying to remember why I started all this, really I am. To begin with, all those years ago, it was fun. And it was fun, wasn't it? That feeling of there being no safety net - of how out-of-control, how dangerous it all was in the beginning? When I think back, I can scarcely believe just how much time I gave to you - how I used to sneak off at nights just to spend a few hours getting to know you a whole lot better. And I wanted it.

But that was before. Before you turned cold and formal, and started checking up on me the whole time. You took me away so much that I was barely home. You treated me badly, always wanting more from me - leaving me drained and tired, with nothing left when I finally came away from you. My family barely saw me, and when they did I was stressed and snappy. Finally, I couldn't hide how unhappy I'd become. I came clean, and I promised to end it.

And now this! Didn't I give you enough warning? Didn't I explain why I was unhappy, and give you a chance to change? Didn't I? I can understand why you might feel disappointed, why you might wish things had happened differently, but to hit back at me and my family financially like this is just appalling. And to do it in such an impersonal, public way... I mean, an official notice that anyone - anyone - can open up and read?

[read the official notice here]

There she is, the whiny bitch - right behind that woman with the scary teeth. I'm talking, of course, about my job. Or rather, my part-time job. I find it unbearably ironic that on the day - the very day - that my notice period finishes and pharmacy officially becomes a part-time gig, I get sent an announcement by the official regulator saying that it's whacking up the fees I have to pay to keep doing it. By another 50%. That means that in the last three years, the amount a part-time pharmacist has to pay has gone up by 366%. Added to the annual forty-hours-ish requirement for Continuing Professional Development and the costs of indemnity insurance, I'll now be spending the equivalent of five working weeks just paying the costs of doing the job. Part-time pharmacy just became uneconomic!

So, the job I've come to hate kicks me in the teeth on the way out. I can do nothing other than see this as a big hint from Fate, and make the writing thing pay - fast!

Pray Favour...

Greetings from Hedgewizard's Hollow! This week, I have a favour to ask of you. I'll get to it in a moment, but first...

Trees. Everybody loves 'em.


Actually, that's not true. Builders seem to hate them, never missing a chance to grub them out or "accidentally" clip them with the digger bucket; transport managers dislike the way they overhang roads and railways, obstructing lines of sight; a visiting friend from London complained that the countryside was dirty last autumn, because of all the fallen leaves. Some people clearly hate trees. I can only sigh and shrug at that sort of thing, and concur that things probably would be neater and tidier if only the countryside were concreted over. And there is no shortage of developers willing to do the job.

Okay, so. Maybe it's just me who loves trees. There's an extremely aged but still magnificent walnut in the Hollow that's seen so many better days that it really ought to be presenting Top Gear (sorry, Jeremy). A friendly local tree surgeon confirmed what we already knew; the walnut is dying of old age. Every gale season it sheds alarmingly large chunks of itself into the garden, but it will be decades in its decline. There's a very good chance it will see me out.

To my mind, nothing symbolises life better; a really big tree marks out the turning of the seasons like a living calendar, ticking off the years in the rings of its heart. Trees and shrubs are the centre of life in any garden, and the critters you'll actually see flying and crawling around are only the visible tip of it. Trees lock up carbon as they grow, and add to the ability of the soil to hold water in periods of heavy rainfall. Added to that, they're the biggest lifeform most of us will ever see.

...but only if someone plants them. We humans don't live all that long, so the sad truth is that you don't really plant trees for yourself but for your grandchildren. In an age where people expect to move house several times in their lives, there seems to be no point in planting a tree - but think; the trees that you enjoy today were planted decades ago by someone quite possibly long gone. Say thank you, and pass the blessing along.

Autumn is the perfect time to plant most sorts of trees, so please think hard about where you might put one and be aware how far from buildings they need to be. I'll be planting a walnut sapling near the old tree, and with luck in a hundred years someone else will be around to curse the squirrels; if you can't plant a tree, then please give to an organisation that will plant one for you -here, or somewhere that desperately needs it. That's the favour I'm asking you for, and I'll trade you a little fiction if it gets you in the mood. Apologies if you've already read it, but - don't make me beg!