Oh, My Days!

 It’s like Heathrow Airport for birds around here at the moment. Or Gatwick. I don’t know the difference regarding which is the better of the two. I’ve never flown anywhere, and never intend to either, so airports are off my radar regarding their busyness, attractions, pros and cons. From what I’ve seen on the telly, they look abysmal places full of queues, grumpiness, disorganisation, people sleeping on benches and drinking overpriced coffee and therefore, quite frankly, I’m glad I’ve never experienced them. Anyway, shed loads of birds in the Damson Cottage airways, and soon to be more added to the mix because… Babies! These are the blackbird babies in Tree House Nest. Andy took a sub-second snap on his ‘phone - in and out like a whippet - and this is what he caught. Honestly, they’re all mouths at this stage aren’t they? Father Blackbird has been very busy collecting up beakfuls of buggy disgustingness from around the garden to feed his screeching brood. I’ve noticed one of his f...

  Remember the pansies I sowed a couple of months ago, and when I pricked them out and potted them on there were 107 of them? Well - I’ve sold 30 of them, for the grand sum of £12.50! And whilst I’m not going to break into the ranks of the Top 500 Earners of the UK with this sale, there is something very satisfying about growing seeds into seedlings and actually making some money from them. £12.50, eh? I know - I shan’t spend it all at once!  Of course, this little horticultural win makes me want to be a market gardener even more. Andy said to me the other day, ‘Do you need another greenhouse?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ said I. He’s already said he’s going to build me an open-sided potting shed, probably next to the compost bins, and underneath the sycamore tree. This will free up space in the greenhouse for more plants which is a good thing because this morning I sowed some peas to grow into pea shoots for salads and I actually stood there, pea tray in hand, wondering where the chuffing h...

The bastard slugs have demolished one of my four courgette plants. Okay, so it was the smallest of the four I planted out last week, and the other three are holding their own and growing well with minimum evidence of leaf nibblage, but that’s NOT the point. Nor is the point that, even with three courgette plants, I shall still likely be over-run with the resulting fruits anyway. No, the point is is that I take a lot of time, care and effort sowing and nurturing my vegetable and flower plants for the benefit of me and my family NOT for the benefit of providing a drive-thru mollusc salad bar. What has happened isn’t the mere loss of a courgette plant. It is an act of slug-driven murder.  Thus, in a fit of vengeful pique against the slugs, I have sown another four courgette seeds, more than doubling my potential courgette output. I’m such an idiot. But that’s NOT the POINT!  Spent yesterday evening chatting to Heather and Ollie, and being updated on the latest progress in their ‘...

 Bit of a fracas chez nous on Saturday, with the arrival of three more swallows. I suppose, given there were nine babies born in the Laundry Maternity Wing last year, there was always going to be a chance that more than one would return. I don’t know how swallow siblings work out the logistics of precedence - I can’t imagine they get together for an evening over tequila shots and nachos before they begin their migration and discuss who can bagsy ownership of the family manor. More like, ‘Ready, steady…GO! Whoever gets their first, wins!’ So, for most of Saturday, the sky above us was filled with shrieks of indignation from our nest-building pair, as the Three Usurpers flung themselves around, alternately dashing in and out of the laundry and sitting on the telegraph wire scoping out the joint with gimlet eyes. I took a ringside seat behind the patio doors, mug of tea in hand, and watched the aerial acrobatics, marvelling at the turn of speed and angles these birds can display. And ...

 It was World Bee Day on Friday. I mentioned this to His Lordship Malarkey. A confused look clouded his face. ‘There’s a world bidet?’ said he, in all seriousness.  Honestly, what can you do?  Go into the garden and take a photo of a bee with enormous pollen trousers, that’s what!  There she is, right in the middle, sorting out that pink aquilegia blossom. I also found this teeny tiny moth on the lemon balm… After extensive research (ahem!) I’ve decided it is either a) a dot moth or b) a four spot moth. Dot moths are common, four spot moths less so. Obviously, because I am a moth snob, I would like it to be the less common of the two.  Yesterday I did LOADS of gardening of a tidy up, compost making and weeding nature. In the course of tidying up underneath the grapevine, I managed to be poked in the right eye by a sharp piece of old grapevine and it BLOODY hurt. So I had to stop gardening and go and examine my by now very watery eye to make sure there as nothing...

 The Youth Project on the farm where I work have been busy making bird boxes as a fund-raising exercise. Nest boxes, I mean, not boxes for keeping birds in because that would be both unkind and unethical. Anyway, the boxes are very nice and of a decent size. And they are £10 each which I regard to be good value for money, so I’ve placed an order for three which I shall collect next week. Probably a bit late for nesting birds this year, but you never know. I shall, regardless, attach them to suitable trees immediately. The nest box on the aspen tree at the top of the garden contains these: I think they are great tit eggs. Earlier in the year there had been sparrows loitering around the box, but the entrance hole is too small for sparrows. Our neighbours have a tit box attached to the back of their house and were forced to climb a ladder in order to rescue a sparrow that had tried to gain access and got itself stuck, like Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit’s doorway after partaking of too muc...

 Pelting down with rain this morning, it was, on my first day back at work. Typical, I thought. Immediately visions of me being holed up like a cold, drowned rat in the pig ark began imprinting on my mind. Not only sitting like a cold, drowned rat in a pig ark, but also surrounded by our volunteer workers bemoaning how cold and wet THEY were and wouldn’t it be much nicer if we could go somewhere warm and dry instead, with tea and biscuits, and Denise regaling a lovely fairy story using her wide repertoire of funny voices.  Well, that wasn’t going to happen because between 1st April and 30th September, we are an ‘outdoors only’ gardening gang, come rain, shine, sleet, hail, thunder, lightning, blizzards etc etc. Inclement weather drives us to shelter in either the pig ark or the polytunnel, neither of which are particularly comfortable places to be for any length of time whilst being stared at by other people expecting to be entertained whilst the inclemency passes over.  ...

 Marginally disappointed today that, with it being National Take Your Parents To The Playground Day neither of my offspring turned up to attend to the matter. ‘Come on, Mum. We’re off to the playground! Have a wee before we go. I’ve got a picnic in the car.’ If they had, I would have enjoyed a go on the swings and the seesaw, but would have steered clear of the slide because my instinct when travelling down a slide at speed is to shove my elbows outwards into order to slow down the chaotic descent, thus causing damage to aforesaid elbows by scraping them. Fear of falling, you see. When I was a child, my family would often frequent the funfair at Dymchurch and it was there that I skinned my elbows red raw going down the helter skelter, and they stung for days afterwards, completely spoiling my holiday. Anyway, that was a funfair and we are talking playgrounds here. Swings, seesaws and a sandpit - that’d suit me just fine. Next year, maybe… Lovely day in the garden yesterday, my grow...

 I thought you might like to see the swallows’ work-in-progress. It’s becoming an extreme sport going in and out of the laundry, because of having to dodge the swallow pair on their nest building mission, but I can’t not go in there because I need to use the washing machine, the freezer, get to the bird food, chicken food, rabbit paraphernalia…well, you know the form. Also, it is MY laundry, not theirs. They are merely renting for the summer and jolly lucky they are, too, what with their rent being free and all. Anyway, this is Day Three in the Swallow House Build… As you can see, they have taken as the base of their structure an old light switch and its two redundant feeder cables. The replacement feeder cable is just above them, installed by Ant the Roofer when he put in extra supporting beams for the new roof. I am guessing the swallows are starting at the bottom and building upwards, so their nest will encompass the portion of new beam just above it. Aaah, the scent of fresh wo...

 His Lordship Malarkey’s birthday today. It is raining. Not a lot, but enough to stop him attaching the new rack and panniers kit I bought him to his bicycle. I said, ‘Bring the bicycle inside and attach them,’ and he said, ‘No, it’s all right, I’ll wait until the rain eases off and do it outside.’ I think this is because, once the panniers are attached, he reckons I’m going to send him off to Aldi to buy groceries. I’m not. I’m not one of those naggy wives who leave lists of jobs for their husband to do on their day off.  He likes the panniers. They are capacious and I bought two because I didn’t want him to be all unbalanced  when out cycling. He said, ‘Plenty of room for my drawing equipment.’ Hmmmm. Plenty of room for Aldi groceries, I think he’ll find.  I made a cake, of course.  Chocolate with a chocolate fudge filling, covered in chocolate fudge icing with chocolate decorations. That’s what you want on your birthday. Overdose of chocolate. Diet begins tom...

 I didn’t think I’d have anything to blog about today aside from my recurrent dreams of nuclear war, which I don’t want to bother you with because we don’t need any more doom and gloom, do we now? Anyway, as I said, no blogging material on the horizon until I thought, ‘I’ll just make a quick trip to Aldi before I settle to my Day of Writing and Book Learning.’  Ha!  Got around the shop quickly - not too much to trolley up, just the weekly basics. Appalled that the cost of butter has risen by almost 30p a packet, but I suppose that’s no bad thing given Britain is apparently in the grip of an obesity crisis. Made me think, are the prices being pushed up by some form of subtle government plan so that people cut back on food and, what do you know - they lose weight?! Realise I am sitting dangerously close to the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories by thinking these thoughts and am relieved to discover leeks are down by 4p.  Arrive at checkouts, one of two in operation. Ch...

 Our barbecue is currently out of action because a lady wren has decided it is the perfect place in which to build her nest. Snug, safe, dry - what more could she want?  I didn’t want to lift the barbecue lid so you can see inside because I lifted it yesterday, just a smidge, to have a little peek, and Mrs Wren was ‘At Home’ as they used to say in Regency times. I don’t want to scare her away from her newly built nest and egg laying business because Andy had already accidentally cleared out her first nest when he went to cook some bacon a couple of weeks ago. If you peer closely, maybe enlarge the photo (if you have the technical nous to do so) you can see the edges of Mossy Nest Number Two poking out from the bottom of the tray.  Question of the Week: why was it ever thought to be a good idea to grow runner beans up three bamboo canes in the shape of a teepee?  Answer: I have no idea. In my experience, training runner beans up a bamboo cane teepee might save on spac...

 I’ve just purchased one of these, from an independent crafter on Etsy, and I wish I had purchased one ages ago… It’s a bean bag, for my iPad to sit in! Now, instead of holding my iPad in my left hand and causing myself unnecessary achey wrist bones and tendon strain, I can nestle the device in its own bean bag, freeing both hands from the stresses and strains induced by wrangling technology. Also, it is saving me from developing a double chin from looking down because now I am looking up and forwards when reading. ALSO, when I am doin’ the FaceTime, I can do other things as well, like cook whilst I am chatting because my family have an unerringly accurate ability to call just as I am straining potatoes/ making a cake/ kneading bread dough i.e jobs that require employment of both hands. ALSO, when I am working at my desk and need to use both laptop AND iPad in order to do my VERY important work, I can have the iPad sitting nicely up and to one side and at the back of my desk for ea...

 Finally, we’ve had some rain. I’ve just been on the ‘phone to my aged and much respected Auntie Pollie who informed me it is ‘rock hard’ in Kent and please could I direct the rainfall in her direction? Auntie P is an avid gardener and has been for as long as I can remember. She will be (whispers) 80 in a couple of weeks’ time which gives me great hope for my gardening future. During our ‘phone calls and FaceTimes we swap gardening updates and compare notes. I think, for the first time in EVER, my runner beans are ahead of hers which I am counting as a minor triumph!  Anyway, it’s been busy chez the Damson Cottage greenhouse and I am reaching the point where I’m thinking what I really could do with is ANOTHER greenhouse. Well, we are up to five compost bins now (yes - 5!!), and seven water barrels (yes - 7!!), so why not another greenhouse? That’s the trouble with gardening - the greenhouse you have will never be big enough. What I really want is the farmer to sell us the fiel...