Tag Archives: spinach

Saturday 6th June 2026 – IT’S THE ANNIVERSARY …

… of D-Day today, so everyone in Normandy seems to be out celebrating somewhere and many anciens combattants are roaming the streets dressed in their old uniforms, medals and all.

As for me, I’ve not set foot outside the building today. Not because I’m not going to celebrate the day and not because I’m too lazy to go outside either, but there’s yet another howling gale blowing outside, and it would blow me over before I’ve even gone five yards.

How many gales have there been that we’ve had so far this year? I don’t think that I’ve ever experienced six months like this in all the time that I’ve lived here.

Last night, it was blowing a gale when I went to bed. It was early too, round about 22:30 when I slid under the covers. And although I awoke once or twice just as it was beginning to become light, I was still fast asleep when the alarm went off at 06:29.

There was no sound or sign of life from next door, which was not a surprise seeing as there was no-one there – they are both on their way home – but anyway, I dressed and slid over to the computer to begin work.

First task was to transcribe the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

I’d gone to a kind of dance last night in a big village hall and there were thousands of people there and we were all dancing. I found myself partnering this girl or young woman who was one of these dynamic exhibitionist types and was really not my particular kind of girl. She was very exhuberant and always took the front at dances if she could. I was still in mourning for two of my partners whom I’d recently buried. On one occasion we were dancing around and I somehow became the owner of an accordion because there was someone giving away musical instruments as people danced past. She deeply regretted not having received anything so she asked me if I’d go to pick up a violin for her. But at that moment, there was a huge swell of people and they were all dancing around in front of where this giving out of musical instruments was so it was impossible for me to fight my way through and pick up something. Then she went to sit down on a chair that was in an inconvenient place in the middle of the dance floor. As she saw me approaching, she got off the chair and sat on the floor next to the chair, which I thought was a strange thing to do, because she didn’t seem to be the kind of person who would do that. So I had somewhere to sit and she had somewhere to sit. We stayed there chatting for quite a while. But at some point, there had been a Roxy Music song that involved climbing up and bringing a ladder down. A couple of people had climbed up and undone the ladders but were unable to bring them down, so I climbed right up and managed to bring them down with them resting on my shoulder. Then I began to lower them down behind me and there was someone at the bottom waiting to take hold of them as I approached. And it was all to do with something from a Roxy Music song, but I couldn’t think which one.

At one time, I did go to ballroom dancing, believe it or not. One of my brothers in law, long before he became my brother in law, thought that it would be a good place to go to meet some female company. He didn’t want to go alone so he asked me to go with him. And actually, it was me who found some female company in the shape of Ann, and we had a very pleasant few months together

But as for the exhuberant type of girl, that wouldn’t suit me at all. I couldn’t cope with that. And I don’t understand where Roy Music and the ladder fit in all of this.

There was another dream where we had a green MkII Cortina and at the very beginning this Cortina was jacked up on one side with the wheels off the road. But it moved on down to West Street in Crewe, and I telephoned Nerina to say that I’d had a problem with the car and could she meet me at the garage at the end of the road to sort it out? She muttered vaguely something and I thought that it was “yes” so I went to an old garage service station with a big concrete apron and asked him if I could borrow the apron for an hour. In the end we agreed on a fee of five pounds for that, which I thought was probably reasonable. At the back of this garage were all these old cars from the 1920s and 30s parked up there and abandoned. I was in my element looking at them. In the garden, he had some kind of plants, one that looked like an onion, but he told me that it was a chard. He asked me if I’d ever eaten chard and I replied, “no” so he went off into his workshop and came back with something that looked like a very large onion. He said “here – you have now”. I asked him how you ate it, and he replied “with tomatoes.” I went back to my car and waited for Nerina, and waited and waited, but she didn’t appear at all. In the end, I drove away and reckoned that I’d get home OK with this problem with the car.

Of all of the cars that have ever passed through my hands, I only ever had one MkII Cortina, and that was black. And Nerina would never not turn up if she had promised or if I needed her. She was extremely reliable.

The old cars would have been something that would have interested me greatly but I have never eaten chard. In the dream it was a pale white, round vegetable like a cross between an onion and a cabbage, but in real life, it’s only the leaves that you eat.

The nurse turned up as usual and expressed his dismay at the Hound of the Baskervilles not being there, and so did I. Anyway, he sorted out my legs and feet and then headed off on his rounds. I could get on with taking my medication, making breakfast and reading some more of RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge.

We’ve finished Burwell Cemetery, dashed through the cemetery at Little Wilbraham and now we’re on the analysis. Interestingly, he notes that "The Anglo-Saxons had so displaced the Romano-Britons that they could plant their few villages wherever they liked and often seemed to have chosen the areas which were most favoured by their predecessors" and "agriculture did not increase for years".

And for years, I’ve been talking about the ethnic cleansing of the Romano-British population by the Anglo-Saxons and no-one has listened to me, but here we are again with another archaeologist making observations that support my theory.

After breakfast, I came back in here and after a brief pause, I began to work, adding more and yet more to MY AMAZON STORE. It’s had a grand total of seven visits so far, so here’s hoping for a few more at some point and, even better, some purchases.

Roud about midday, I dozed off for forty-five minutes and when I awoke, I went for my disgusting drink and midday medication.

Back in here later, I carried on with the Amazon store and I finally found out how to add further lists to it. I now have three lists, but one of them needs to be changed because it was only a trial run to see if it worked.

While I was working, I was chatting to a couple of friends, one being the master of the Hound of the Baskervilles and the other one being an old friend from Shavington who now lives in Crewe, just gossiping about nothing in particular

Tea tonight was baked potato, a vegan salad and some of these spinach nuggets that I bought ages ago, followed by my medication, washed down with grape juice.

And now, hours late, I’m off to bed, hoping for a long lie-in and having my socks fitted while I’m in bed asleep. But something is bound to crop up to disturb my plans. It always does.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my friend from Crewe … "well, one of us has" – ed … he told me that the other night, he was stopped by the police while out driving at 02:00.
The policeman asked him "And where are you going at this time?"
My friend replied "“I’m going to a lecture on drinking and driving, smoking, and the effects alcohol has on the body."
The policeman then wanted to know "Who is giving a lecture at this time?"
My friend replied "That’ll be my wife."

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

… how I’m going to start today’s entry, because, after racking my brains for long enough, I can’t think of anything important or significant that happened.

TNS won … "yet again" – ed … the JD Cymru League championship, but that’s anything but important or significant. In fact, it’s quite usual. It’s long been suggested that it’s a waste of time playing a season’s worth of football. The Football Association of Wales should give all of the trophies to TNS and relegate the newly-promoted sides before a ball has been kicked. That’s usually how it all ends up.

Not necessarily this year though. While newly-promoted Llanelli have already been relegated, the other promoted side, Colwyn Bay, buoyed by some of the biggest crowds that the league has seen, have recruited a good squad of players and are currently in sixth place.

Y Barri lifted the League Cup against TNS the other day, and in the Welsh Cup, TNS were surprisingly eliminated a while back, and this weekend, we have the not-to-be-missed semi-finals with the unlikely pairings of second-tier Y Rhyl against Caernarfon and third-tier Dinas Bangor against Y Fflint. I don’t think that in all the long history of the competition, there have ever been four clubs from the North Wales coast all together in the semis.

While it’s probably too much to hope for, a final between Y Rhyl and Dinas Bangor would certainly be a match to remember, with old rivalries and battles going back almost 150 years, as regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous guises will recall when we were on the terraces at the old Farrar Road Stadium for a match between the two clubs.

But anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

Last night, I raced through everything that I needed to do and, quite surprisingly, finished fairly early. I was actually in bed at 22:20, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been in bed before my curfew time of 22:30.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next at times like these when I’ve had an early night. That’s right – and at 02:10 too. I tried my best to go back to sleep – tried for hours – and I thought that I would never manage it too. However, at some point, I must have done because the alarm awoke me at 06:29.

And I’m glad that I did too, because I had a special visitor during the night, but more of that anon.

For a change, I was up and about without too much effort and headed into the bathroom for a scrub-up, following which I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I’d been round at Zero’s house last night, talking to her parents, going over old times again. Their house and their lifestyle were still the same as they always were. We were sitting there, discussing things, and they announced out of the blue that they were going to go out for a meal that evening. I gathered that I wasn’t included in that, but it didn’t bother me at all. However, they asked me if I’d stay behind and keep an eye on Zero. I thought that I may as well do that, so I then had to find some food to eat. They gave me the number of the local chip shop so I tried to telephone it, but for some reason, it wasn’t connecting, so Zero’s father came over and, as usual, over-complicated the affair. Eventually, I managed to get through, and I asked them what vegan or vegetarian options they had. After a lengthy discussion, they didn’t really have anything, so I asked them if they could just send a large bag of chips down and I would make do with that during the evening. Zero asked me if I would be staying there while her parents went out, so I told her that I would, and then her parents made ready to leave.

So welcome back, Zero. I thought that you had deserted me for ever, as TOTGA and Castor seem to have done and the Vanilla Queen did quite a few years ago.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m not in control of whatever happens in my dreams, so just in case anyone is reading this, in real life I would never ever have been left without food when visiting Zero’s parents, that’s for sure.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in after her week’s break. She was in an incredible rush, with a pile of blood tests to perform, which is quite usual after her break. She didn’t hang around long and was soon off on her travels. I could push on and make my breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, for some reason, we are discussing the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, and this has led me off on a tangent … "as usual" – ed … to examine the entire walled defences of the city and the giant cannon that the Turks used to try to breach them during the siege of 1453. I’m not quite sure how I arrived at this stage, but it’s not surprising.

After breakfast, I came back in here and revised my Welsh and then went to the lesson. And, as seems to be usual these days, it all passed very well.

Our classmate from Dubai was there today. We asked her how things were, and she simply couldn’t understand why we were concerned. There had been maybe six, maybe eight rockets that had landed, and no-one was taking any notice of them. The horse racing at the weekend went on as usual and the Emir, the Crown Prince and a group of about twenty sheikhs went for a walk around the city.

She said that there has been no sign whatever of any of the “panic” reported in the Western Press. As far as she’s concerned, it’s the usual “horror story” in the Press, designed to drum up hatred with no foundation whatever in fact.

And that’s all that I’m going to say about it.

When the lesson had finished, my faithful cleaner put in an appearance and shooed me into the shower as usual. And while I was showering, she changed the bedclothes so I now have my nice, clean bed for tonight. And that means a clothes-washing session on Friday.

After she had left, I had a little relax for a while and then attacked the radio programme that I’d begun yesterday. By the time that I’d finished, all of the music had been paired and segued, and some of the notes had been written.

Then, it was a mad dash into the kitchen for tea. I’d planned some pasta, a vegan burger and some ratatouille, but then I remembered that I had some crusty spinach things from ages ago, and I thought that a handful of those would be nice with ratatouille, so I bunged a few in the air fryer.

That was when I discovered that I had no ratatouille. You really can’t make it up, can you?

Back in here, I was in time for the football – Connah’s Quay Nomads v TNS – and if TNS win, they win the Championship.

Unfortunately, Connah’s Quay never looked like scoring, and as the match dragged on, it became more and more obvious that TNS would pull something extra out of the bag. Sure enough, with just a few minutes to go, they won a penalty, one that I considered was rather harsh. However, TNS tucked it away to go into the lead.

Surprisingly, the Nomads went straight from the restart and scored an equaliser, but that wasn’t the end of the story. I’ve lost count of the number of times the Nomads have conceded a goal right at the death and today was no exception. Just ninety seconds to the end too.

The after-match celebrations and speeches went on for so long that it was almost 23:15 when it was all over, far too late to begin to write my notes, so I went to bed instead. The notes can wait until morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Zero … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me if, in the dream, her parents wanted me to babysit her
"You don’t mention the word ‘babysit’ to Zero" I explained.
"Why not?" I was asked
"The first time that I did" I replied "it took two weeks for the swellings to go down and another week before the bruises faded.".
In her youth, she was a fiery, feisty creature.

Saturday 27th April 2019 – A HURRICANE …

… is not the ideal weather in which to be playing football.

It’s even worse when you are standing on the touchline watching the game too. Howling, whining gusts of winds of incredible violence, sudden torrential downpours that drenched everyone through and disappeared before one had time to put on one’s rain gear.

What surprised me was that the match was quite entertaining given the circumstances.

I didn’t feel much like going, though. yet another bad night. Yet another early awakening.

And yet another interesting nocturnal voyage. Last night I was doing my pension calculations. I worked out that I would get about £19:00 per month from the Belgian Government, £19:00 per month from the French Government but then I suddenly realised that i was living in Canada and I was entitled to a small pension from them because I’d been here for a couple of years and been working. That meant that I would be entitled to about £57:00 per month. I thought that that was fine because if I were very careful I could live on that. Of course everyone ridiculed this and said that it can’t be done, but one girl sitting at this table in the café said that there were loads of other things that I could do to raise money – for example she picked the entire crop of tea in the whole of Canada, to which I thought “I bet that it doesn’t take you long, does it?” because there isn’t all that much there at all. We were sitting outside what used to be a café but had closed down and the sign had been practically painted over. Someone was giving me some food – two cheese and onion sandwiches cut into triangles and put in a plastic bag and they went to give me the plastic bag. They said “hang on a minute – where’s your tray?” so I went over to where I had been sitting. “Ohh it’s over there is it?” they said and gave me this pack of sandwiches.

I was wide awake when the alarm went off at 06:00 but it was more like 06:45 when I left the stinking pit. Medication, breakfast and then a shower, and I was ready for the shops.

Braving the tempest raging outside, I made it to Caliburn ready to head to LIDL.

And you can see just how violently the storm was raging. You can actually see a wave of storm moving across the image of the photograph here.

I was glad that I was only out there for a matter of 30 seconds while I ran across the car park, and not actually having to walk to the shops.

After LIDL I went next to Noz and then to LeClerc. And all in all, I bought next to nothing and spent about €25:00 in all.

On the shopping list today was an aubergine. I’ve run out of aubergine and kidney bean whatsit so it’s time to make some more. I’s probably going to be an idea for me to spend one evening a week cooking some mega-meal, like a curry or a giant pie or an apple tart or something, parcel it up into individual-sized portions and freeze the portions. But then, how about me getting organised? I must be getting older.

Back here, I put the frozen food away and then crashed out for 20 minutes on the chair. Feeling the strain early in the day, I am.

Once I’d recovered myself, I put the shopping away and that took me nicely up to lunch. Once again, indoors in view of the horrendous weather.

This afternoon I had plenty of things to do but ended up as usual being side-tracked. I was having a little 10-minute play around with my 3D program and ended up running off down a long alleyway with a little application that I had discovered.

As well as that, I had an eye on the live updates for two football matches being played this afternoon. Crewe Alexandra came back from being dead and buried at 3-1 to run out 4-3 winners against Forest Green Rovers, and Morton scored a late winner at Dunfermline to escape relegation. Morton have in fact won more points in their last two matches than they have won in the previous two months.

At 18:15 I headed off to the football. The weather had improved in that the rain had stopped. But I wasn’t taking any chances and took my waterproof gear with me in the small rucksack.

There was a little deviation on my route. I had run out of that caffeine-based energy drink and that is what I use sometimes to lift me up when I’m flat out. I’d forgotten to buy any today but as LIDL was open and I was early I popped in for a few cans.

At the football, USM Donville were playing US Percy. I noticed quite a difference in the stature of the players on the field. The Donville players looked as if they were 11 ordinary people whom you might find on any street anywhere, whereas the Percy players looked more like athletes.

Nevertheless, on the field they were quite evenly matched and despite the wind it was an entertaining game. Donville had a n°9 playing up front who had some skill but was pretty much a lightweight easily pushed off the ball.

After 30 minutes, the Donville player pulled off a midfielder, pulled the n°9 back into a rather attacking midfield position, and sent on a substitute to play up front. He didn’t have the skill, but was much more aggressive and the game picked up.

Percy, playing against the wind, took the lead but Donville soon pulled back to level.

After the break, the second half was a game of two quarters. At first Percy had the ascendency and scored a second goal. But later in the game Donville gained the upper hand.

The n°12 playing up front got himself into some good positions. Had he had someone playing up front with him, something may well have come of them. He was quite unlucky with two good chances that he had too.

Not only that, had the ref not been unsighted and had the incident happened on the side of the field where the linesman could have seen it, Donville might have been awarded a penalty for a handball in the penalty area.

So 2-1 to Percy, which was rather unfair on Donville but these things happen in football.

On the way back, I was caught in a torrential downpour and by the time I had struggled into shelter to put on my waterproof trousers I was soaked to the skin and the downpour had passed.

Back here and hungry, I fancied something different for tea rather than a tinned meat.

So I cooked some pasta and when it was done, drained it off, added a big handful of frozen spinach, some garlic, some ground pepper and olive oil and warmed it all right though. The secret of course is not to overcook the spinach. That’s how you kill off all of the vitamins and minerals.

Once it was thoroughly warmed through I added a big handful of grated vegan cheese and stirred it all around.

That was probably the most delicious instant meal that I have ever eaten.

So now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is Sunday and a lie-in I hope. I need a decent sleep, a good relax, and the will and energy to get myself back on track. My life is running away with me and I can’t seem to catch it up.

Saturday 20th April 2019 – THE FOOTBALL …

… season rolls on towards its inevitable conclusion as Connah’s Quay Nomads threw away 2 points against Barry Town and TNS won 3-1 against Caernarfon Town.

I can’t remember now how many consecutive Welsh Premier League titles that TNS has won. Despite their mid-season hiccup when they fell as low as fourth place, they inevitably pulled themselves together to chalk up an impressive series of victories with a match or two to spare.

There are two reasons for this. And two reasons only.

Firstly, all of the other clubs suffer from an incredible amount of inconsistency. They can put together two or three good results and then blow up, and that’s no good at this level of football in the Welsh Premier League.

Secondly, a close examination of the victories of TNS will show that the crucial goals that they score are always in the last 15 minutes. And that points to one thing, and one thing only – and that is that the players on the opposing teams are just plain and simply lacking in match fitness.

For 75 or 80 minutes the leading teams can slug it out toe-to-toe with TNS, just like Caernarfon Town did last night. They were excellent for 75 minutes, and then they run out of steam.

Barry Town the other night were an embarrassment. For the final 10 minutes TNS were attacking at will without any pretence of a defence and counter-attack.

If these clubs want to compete properly over the whole season, working seriously on the fitness aspect of the game is crucial.

But all of that aside, the biggest difference between TNS and Connah’s Quay is Greg Draper. Easily the best striker ever to grace the Welsh Premier League, he’s not played as often this season as I would like, but astonishingly, he’s scored a goal every 37 minutes that he’s been on the pitch.

On the other hand, the strikers who have played for the Nomads haven’t impressed me at all. If they want to be more successful, they need to find a high-class striker from somewhere.

With the alarm going off early as usual this morning, I was out of bed quite rapidly. Plenty of time to go for a wander though. There were a few of us in a harbour and we went to board an old ship. We walked along the gangplank onto the shop, which was a small 50-tonner something not unlike Pecheur de Lys except that the bridge was set quite far back. The ship had been painted red but it was faded and flaked off quite badly so that we could see the oak planking. The hold was planked over. Everyone else was wandering around up front but I went back to the bridge to look at the instruments. They were brass and, surprisingly, in perfect and clean condition. I noticed that the binnacle was showing 150° so I shouted out of the window to the others “Left Hand Down a bit – course 150°” like any good sub-Lieutenant might do on the Navy Lark.

With having had an early start I had an early breakfast, followed by a shower. I was going out early to the shops too but just as I was on the point of going out, someone to whom I wanted to speak came on line. As a result I was late away.

There was just the usual stuff at LIDL. Nothing exciting, although because supplies had run down, I did spend more than usual.

NOZ was exciting though. Quite a few different bits and pieces and a pile of stuff for a special occasion in the future.

At LeClerc, it was another expensive shop, but once again just the usual stuff, but a lot of it to stock up the supplies.

I did buy a new memory card though to replace the one that was damaged the other day. And also a proper memory card reader to replace the ad-hoc device that I was using which contributed to the disaster.

Another thing that I bought was some frozen spinach. A couple of people have told me that spinach is good for the red blood cells, and I’ll try anything that will help.

Back here I put the frozen stuff away and then sat down for a drink and a relax. That took me nicely up to lunch, which was taken in the glorious sunshine out on my little wall overlooking the harbour.

This afternoon I put everything away (and there were piles of it all too) and then did a few things here and there on the computer. But I couldn’t keep on going and ended up crashing out for a while on my chair.

There was the afternoon walk at some point too. My perambulations too me around the walls and in the general direction of the rue du Nord.

That gave me an opportunity to have a good butcher’s and see how they were getting on with the renovation of the house at the corner.

They don’t seem to have made much of a progression since the last time that I looked. But it’s definitely clear that they are going to be putting a balcony or terrace over there.

And the place was heaving with people as usual in this glorious weather, especially down on the beach at Donville-les-Bains.

With a bit of crop and enhancement, and blowing up the photo (because I can do that these days despite modern anti-terrorist legislation) I could see that there’s actually some kind of showjumping or dressage event taking place down there this weekend.

But we know how quickly the tide comes in, so I hope that the horses can swim. Or maybe they are sea-horses

What with all of the excitement on land and on sea, all that remained was to find some excitement in the air.

And sure enough, while I was wandering around with my camera at the ready, a ULM – or microlight – went flying by overhead.

Not exactly the kind of machine that would ever entice me up into the air. I’d want something more substantial than that.

There was no football in Granville this evening, but there was a match at Cerences. I was trying to make up my mind but had my mind made up for me as Liz rang me up on the phone. We had a chat for a while and by then it was too late.

Instead, I went for a walk around the Pointe du Roc

My little trip once more coincided with the arrival of Victor Hugo in the harbour. She’d presumably just come back from a ferry trip to Jersey in the Channel Islands.

After all, it is School Holiday time and I imagine that there would be lots of takers for a trip.

With all of that out of the way I came back to watch the football from Oswestry on the internet.

With having a few more things to do, I was late going to bed. And I’m planning on a good lie-in because I need it. And it’s a bank Holiday too.

people on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

horse showjumping trials beach donville les bains granville manche normandy france

victor hugo baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

victor hugo port de granville manche harbour normandy france

Thursday 24th April 2014 – 19.5MM …

… of rainfall we have had between 20:00 and 21:30 – and there’s much more forecast; No issues about watering the plants then, that’s for sure.

I was up before the alarm again this morning and after breakfast that gave me almost 3.5 hours on the website. I like being on summr hours!

First job outside was to sow the beetroot and spinach seeds that I had left to soak. That meant doing a little bit of hoeing of course. And then I finished off the solar shower. That is exactly how I want it now, but there are some kind of pressure issues that need to be resolved. We’ll have to see how it goes.

After lunch I did a little measuring up for my next trick, but while I was doing that, my eye was caught by some blossom down in the jungle that is the bottom of my garden.

Of the 20 or so fruit trees that I planted in 1999 and 2000, one is still there, but it seems that there’s another one too. Way down the slope a little, and this is what the blossom is.

It’s surrounded by a pile of these scrub trees and is getting no light at all and so I resolved to deal with this issue.

By the tile I had knocked off I reckon that I had cut down over 20 trees (one or two of them were significant too) and the tree concerned is now clear of oerhanging trees. That will bring more light to the tree, and also more light to the rest of the garden, includind the vegetable beds.

Not only that, I managed to make my way out the other side too into clear space for the first time for 11 years and that really is something to celebrate.

And then tonight we have the rain …

I’m not sure what to do tomorrow.

-3

Wednesday 24th April 2014 – I’VE SPENT MOST OF THE …

… day in the garden today. And a long day it was too as I was awake and out of bed before the alarm clock went off – such are the benefits of an early night.

So after the customary few hours on the web site I went outside, and the first job was to sow some Witloof chicory seeds. Well – perhaps it wasn’t. First job was to hoe the raised bed in which they will be planted, put some potash in there and then hoe a few other raised beds while I was at it, and THEN sow the witloof chicory.

After that, I repaired a couple of bean frames, fixed them to a raised bed, and then sowed a pile of peas. We’ll see what happens to them.

After lunch I really got stuck in.

I sowed another row of parsnips and carrots, and put some beetroot and spinach seeds in to soak. I then went through the seed list and the little plastic greenhouse to see what there was, and now I’ve added some more

broccoli
aubergines
tomatoes
cayenne peppers
gherkins
peppers
cucumbers

Finally I gave everything a really good watering, but I needn’t have bothered as we have just had a torrential rainstorm.

Tomorrow i’ll sow the spinach and beetroot, and then I have other things to do.

-4

Monday 30th JUly 2012 – YOU CAN TELL …

… what kind of day I was having today. When I looked at the clock after heaving a bucket-load of concrete into the lean-to wall, I noticed that it was 19:24 – 24 minutes after knocking-off time.

But at least, the one part of the wall, outer shell, inner shell and infill, is now complete. That’s the part from the field-end up to the window aperture. I can now turn my attention to the next bit.

But not tomorrow – I’m fixing Liz’s car. and not Wednesday either – I’m walking with Marianne on another one of our Wednesday walks.

In fact, Marianne and I were out walking this afternoon for a couple of hours. In a few weeks time she’ll be doing a walk around the village of Vergheas and she needs to plan for it.

It just so happened that this afternoon someone from the regional tourist office was giving a talk in the church to another group of people about the history of the village. Marianne accordingly blagged a couple of invitations, I went down to Pionsat to pick her up and off we went.

It was quite interesting too, for Vergheas is a very important place for such a small village, with something of a history.

It’s right on the border between the Limousin and the Auvergne and during the 17th Century many of the locals made their living by smuggling salt. The salt tax, or gabelle – was at a different rate in different areas and while Vergheas was a cheap area, the Limousin just down the road was one of the most expensive areas.

Buying salt outside your home area was not allowed, but the inhabitants of the Limousin came to Vergheas by their hundreds, with just 6 tax collectors to stop them.

But if Vergheas is famous for anything, it’s famous for its statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. This was brought back here by some Crusaders after the 4th Crusade and may well have been loot gained in the Sack of Zara (modern-day Zadar) in 1202 or even the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.

The Crusaders donated it to the Church and here it sits, attracting pilgrims from all over the place and it is said that various miracles have been performed here.

The biggest miracle of all, though, is what happened to the statue in 2001. Nothing can surpass this.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have mentioned on several occasions that the Religious Authorities every now and again take an inventory of the relics and possessions of the churches.

In 1973 there was an inventory taken of the treasures of the church here, and as soon as this was published, the church was raided by burglars and the statue was amongst the items stolen.

And that was the last that anyone heard of the statue until the astonishing events of 2001.

In 1997 an antique collector from Le Mans died and his executors spent the next few years hawking his collection around the antique shops of Paris in order to obtain the best price.

They called at one antique shop in 2001 to offer the articles for sale, just as the owner was reading a 1943 book that showed a photo of the statue.

And, by pure coincidence, at the same time on his desk was a newspaper article with a photo of the statue. It was the anniversary of the theft of the statue and the local residents using the medium of the Press to plead that someone might have a pang of conscience and return it.

Truth being stranger than fiction, the shop owner recognised the statue straight away, bought the collection and promptly returned the statue to the village.

From the church we then went for a tramp in the woods. Unfortunately he got away and so we went for a ramble to the edge of the village and the fontaine – the spring from where the locals formerly obtained their water.

Pretty similar to the one that we visited last week in St Maigner but, as far as I am aware, no miracle has ever been acclaimed for this fontaine

I suppose that one miraculous event is enough

And I was told that I am apparently persona non grata with a couple of English people in Chateau sur Cher.

At the petanque yesterday, one of them went to pay his entrance money with a €50 note. Me being me, I turned to Marianne and said “I know these people. Make sure that that note is dry!”.

Apparently my comment was not appreciated.

Ahh well – ask me if I care. I hate people who don’t have a sense of humour.

And while we are on the subject of the petanque, I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw the doppelganger of a very dear departed friend. That quite knocked me back a little.

Apart from all of that, I’ve had the usual few hours on the website this morning.

This afternoon though, I managed to find an hour or so and I’ve planted some more carrots, spinach, radishes and some lettuce that I had setting in a few pots.

I’ve also noticed that a few of the lettuce seed that was out-of-date and so which I threw away on the garden a few weeks ago, some of that is sprouting.

Fancy that!

Thursday 21st June 2012 – I’VE HAD ONE …

… of those days that doesn’t happen very often, where I can sit back at the end of it all and say to myself “haven’t I done well today?”

Take the garden, for instance.

I was out there at about 13:00 hoeing at the raised bed that you can see in the foreground.

The front two rows are spinach, and I weeded and cleaned out a space behind them and that is where I planted 5 of the tomato plants that François gave me yesterday.

You can also see that I planted some bamboo canes there and I’ve tied the plants to them to keep them off the ground. And they needed it too – they are over 30cms tall.

As for the other 5 tomato plants and the chili, they are in the mega-cloche. You can see the bamboo canes that I put in there to hold up the plants.

If you look in the bottom left-hand corner you will see two old caravan windows covering part of another raised bed.

When I grubbed away a pile of weeds from in there, I discovered that half a dozen or so beetroot had taken and were busy growing away. So what I did was to clear a corner of the raised bed just there and plant a few more to see what happens

The carrots though have been a disaster. I planted a few rows before I went away and I have ONE CARROT. I hoed right through the part of the bed where I planted the seeds and I’ve put in another row to see what happens with that.

Everything that I planted, I covered with the caravan windows. It worked in spades for the leeks and spinach, covering them over while they germinated. It’ll do no harm to see what it does to the carrots and the beetroot.

At the bottom of the garden, the beans that I planted before I went (well, the four that did anything) are now really running wild.

As well as that, those that I planted the other day are bursting out of the soil like nobody’s business.

I had a rummage around in the barn and turned up with a couple of offcuts of wire netting and so I grabbed a few of the laths that we ripped off the barn roof in 2010 and made three climbing frames for the beans.

I’m going to need a lot more than three and so does anyone want to swap some brassica thinnings for any wire netting? Otherwise I’ll have to go into Commentry on Saturday and buy a roll.

You’ll notice too that the pea frame is doing fine too. The peas are finally starting to appear and the frame will give them something to cling onto too.

This morning I spent three hours on the laptop (I was up early for once) and I made an index page for my recent journey to Canada and uploaded another few pages.

I’m up to late morning of Day Four so far. It’s going to be a long, hard trip.

This evening I had a lovely, warm shower. The solar heat had pushed the temperature up to 37.5°C this afternoon but by 19:00 it had cooled down to about 34°C. However the hot water in the dump load was running at about 62°C and so 5 litres of that into the solar tank pushed that back up to 39°C and it was gorgeous.

And so this new nice and clean me then then went and hit the road to St Gervais d’Auvergne to see this music extravaganza that I had been promised, and much to my surprise I met Liz and Terry there, as well as a few other people who I know.

That’s a group that features on keyboards the young guy who is the assistant at the controle technique. They weren’t too bad but the drummer wasn’t up to much.

But then I come from a background that is much different than here and I have greater expectations. Living in this part of the world, I have to bear in mind the words of Samuel Johnson, who once famously said “it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all”.

However, all in all, a good time was had by all and if the temperature hadn’t have plummeted I would probably be still there now. A good way to celebrate the Solstice.

A very good day for a change.

-3

Monday 23rd April 2012 – I’m blogging early tonight

And for two reasons too. Firstly, seeing as how this is my last night here for a while, I’m going to have an early one. And secondly, I had tea early. And that was because I was round at Bill’s for a while setting him up as he is going to be doing the communication for the Anglo-Français Group while I’m not here, and by the time I was back from Bill’s it wasn’t worth coming up here to relax for half an hour.

Tea was nice as well – I used up all of the leftovers. So it was two large spuds, an onion, some garlic, some mixed veg and some mushrooms. And while the spuds were boiling, the rest was frying and then it was all fried together and covered with mixed gravy and spices. and I’ll eat that again.

While I’m away, Liz says that she will keep an eye on the garden once or twice in exchange for the thinnings, and so I thought that I had better do a map of the garden so that she will know where everything is, now that it’s all finished.

There’s just one empty bed and that’s for the leeks that are hopefully growing in a seed tray. Mind you, the leeks that I planted in the open soil have taken, and they are coming up now.

In fact some of the stuff is doing really well while the rest is taking its time, although I seem to remember that this is what always happens.

Anyway, I sowed some more carrots, parsnips, sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach and beetroot, and that will be my lot. When I come back, I’ll just have to see what didn’t take and plant some of that. And the chicory in the new potato bed and that will be it apart from weeding.

I raked and hoed the two cloches today and in the small one I planted (in their pots) all of the shrubs and bushes, so that they will be ready for when I come back.

Apart from that I’ve been doing stuff off my list today. As well as the water heater the dump load will be powering 250 watts of light – 5×50 watt bulbs. This is useful because I have the potential to charge up about 700 watts on the dump load circuit and there’s already a 500-watt water heater element there. So the lights will help to complete the load. and 5 bulbs means that if one blows, then it won’t be too much of a problem. Light bulbs and water heater elements are good because the will take a graduated load – it’s not all “on and off” like, say, an electrical appliance might be and so which would not be satisfactory for this.

I’m nothing like ready really – I can’t find the spare camera battery or the charger that I take on voyages with me, and lots of other stuff. But it’s too late now. I have my tickets, passport, money, camera, dictaphone and Moose, and when I’ve recorded my rock music programme tomorrow I shall go with what I’ve got and that will be that.

-3

Wednesday 18th April 2012- I’ve finished the heavy work in the garden.

That’s all that it’s getting this year anyway. It can whistle for the rest.

If you compare this pic with the photo from a couple of days ago you’ll be able to notice the new frame that I made this afternoon. The soil that is in it has been dug over, hoed, raked and then hoed again, and it’s now covered up with a couple of offcuts of corrugated sheeting, for nothing is going to be planted in it until I come back and I don’t want it running to weeds while I’m away.

I’ve also sown a huge pile of beans in one of the beds, a few more rows of peas in another, and in one of the beds for root vegetables I’ve sown another row of beetroot and a couple of rows of carrots.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be sowing some more brassica, some parsnips and some spinach, weeding both the cloches and that will be the garden finished until I come back. And when I come back, there will just be weeding to do and (hopefully) not much else. I’m glad I managed to do it all anyway but I can’t wait to crack on with other stuff. I want to finish the lean-to this summer.

This morning I have been working on my website again and I’ve finally finished what I want to do – namely cross the St Lawrence from the Charlevoix to the Gaspé from my voyage in early September 2011. Tomorrow I can bring up-to-date the radio pages and then start on the footy pages. No more footy for me this season which is a shame.

Another thing that is a shame is that one of the ferries that I was planning on taking on my journey in a few days’ time, L’Heritage from Trois Pistoles to Les Escoumins across the St Lawrence River, has had its annual opening put back. I’ve been on it before and it was a bit of a rust-bucket then, but this winter it failed its four-yearly inspection and so it’s had to go for a refit at a cost of … gulp … $1,368,000 or whatever the equivalent is in local currency, and the start of the ferry season has been put back from April 21 to May 15, something which is going to inconvenience me rather considerably.

There’s another ferry that does something like the same route but that doesn’t cater for cars. The advert says something like “don’t forget your bike”. I can imagine one polar bear looking at another polar bear as I go cycling past, and saying “oohhh look – meals on wheels”.

I’ve also started backing up all of the files on my computer – moving copies onto a portable hard drive. You never know what is likely to happen when I’m on an adventure. If the ferry sinks and takes my computer with it, I shall be sunk – I’ll tell you that.

And not only am I likely to be sailing over a route where a passenger ferry was sunk by a U-boat in World War II, I’ll be passing over the site of the wreck of an ocean liner that went down with the loss of over 1000 lives, within sight of land, in peacetime 2 years after the Titanic disaster.

So as you can see, anything is possible.

-2

Monday – 16th April 2012 – Ouch!!!

Yes, I have an ache in my back. It’s all this work in the garden that I did this afternoon. There are two beds that weren’t dug over at all last year and this afternoon I tackled one of them with the aim of sowing some spinach and parsnips in there.

But it didn’t work out as it was supposed to do. The actual wooden frame of the bed was one of the first that I made when I did the earlier vegetable garden back in 2008. And made of 10mm timber instead of 25mm timber which I use now, it simply disintegrated when I dug around it.

It’s quite difficult having to replace a frame that is already well-settled into the ground but it had to be done. It took a while too, but at least now it’s in place and doing what it ought to be doing, as you can see in the centre-foreground.

I only ended up giving it one dig-over, but it’s thoroughly hoed and raked and hoed again. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll give it another digging over, a hoeing and a raking, and then do the planting. Then I can see what it’s like.

As for the other bed, that will be for the leeks. But it’s not likely to be used for a while as I have only just sown the seed (in a tray in the verandah) and so it’s not so important if it’s not done before I leave. It will be nice to do it, though.

I had to cover everything up this evening. Last night the temperature dropped to 0.9°C here outside and it’s threatening to be even colder tonight, as the sun made a slight appearance late this afternoon. That means a likelihood of frost and I don’t want everything to die off.

This morning though, I had to spend much of it lying down in a darkened room. I needed to sort out my Belgian credit card ready for my trip, and this involved ringing a call centre there. And to my surprise and astonishment, I received a very helpful reply and (for once) some decent service. Totally astonishing. I also did that work that was outstanding – this morning the inspiration arrived from somewhere and I took full advantage before it went again. But my list of things to pack is looking larger and larger, and I can’t find half of the stuff that I want, like my earphones and my spare camera battery to name just two things. I can see this voyage turning into something of a debâcle if I’m not careful.

Monday 30th August 2010 – No photo tonight people.

That’s because I forgot to take one, and probably there wasn’t anything worth photographing anyway. But what a day it was!

This morning started with the website. I’m trying to bring August 2010 right up to date and then that will be all the arrears sorted out and I can move on to doing some new stuff. I’ve not had the opportunity to do anything to it properly for over a year.

So when the battery went flat I went outside to try to sort myself out a wheelbarrow. The Caliburn-coloured one won’t be going anywhere for a bit. It was okay until a huge pile of slates from the house roof landed in it from a great height last year and that blew the tubeless tyre off the beading and try as I might I can’t get it to go back. So into the barn to look for the B&Q wheelbarrow that is in pieces and I eventually tracked all of the pieces down, despite doing a good deal of tidying up … “Aren’t you feeling well?” – ed … and discovering more things I never even knew that I had.

That inner tube is perished and the two tubes that Claude gave me – so are they and so that was that. I’ll have to bite the bullet and get some wheels or tubes the next time the lorry comes round, or see what there is on ebay.

This afternoon I played a round of the French national sport of “here we go round the mulberry bush” trying to get a Social Security number. Seven different numbers I was given, and seven different people I spoke to until I finally found someone who could help me with this. Apparently I need to produce a birth certificate giving not only the details about myself but also the details about my parents.

Now many people reading this blog, especially Turdi de Hatred and everyone else from OUSA, will be wondering how I will be able to find out the details of my father, and they would be surprised at how close they might be to the truth.

But having said all of this I can understand why it is that so many people in France work on the Black Economy. It’s not that they have any lack of goodwill, it’s just that they get totally fed up of this absurd and relentless paper chase and I can’t say I blame them as I was pretty fed up by this time too and ready to renounce my registration and do it all stumeling, as they say in Flanders.

And the best is yet to come. I need to change my driving licence over to a French one so I rang the sous-prefecture. They told me that I can’t do it there but at the prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. They gave me the number but told me not to ring as apparently the guy doesn’t answer his phone in the afternoon. And do you know what? They were dead right too.

It’s not surprising that no-one ever does any business around here.

I mentioned Turdi de Hatred just now, and that reminded me. When I was at the brocante yesterday I came across a video entitled Return Of The Living Dead. You know, I had no idea that anyone had filmed her reading out the Open University Students Association election results.

So after my marathon session on the phone I went into the garden and sorted out the veg for tea – a veggie burger with onions and garlic, and with spuds, carrots, beans, spinach, sage, rosemary and mint from my garden. Beautiful it was too.

But the meal is in the future. While the veg was soaking itself I mixed a bucket of mortar and started on the pointing of the house wall in the lean-to. High time I did that so I can put the lean-to roof on again. But it’s going to take me forever I reckon. It doesn’t go as quick as you like it and you might remember what happens if you take the cheating way out and just crepi it to hide the gaps. There’s a pic of the results of that on this blog from a few weeks ago.

When the bucket was empty and it was 17:40 – not worth mixing another – I went to chop some wood. An after a little while I rediscovered the branch cutter that had seized up and stopped working. Now that I have a workbench and a place to work I stripped it down to look at it and sure enough there was a bolt that was badly worn that was distorting the cutting angle. So I swapped it round with a less-important bolt from another part of the machine, cleaned and greased it, and now that’s that fixed.

My day isn’t finished yet either! Bernard from the footy club rang up. Apparently my name is now on the referees’ list for the forthcoming season and so he gave me the telephone number of the sports outfitters who supply the club, and told me to order what I need in the way of referee’s clobber.

No wonder I’m knackered after all of this!

-3

Friday 27th August 2010 – It’s been an exciting day today.

This afternoon I had a good wander around the vegetable plot checking up on things as it’s been a while since I’ve had a really good look, what with one thing and another.

One of the things that I did was to check in the smaller cloche where I have the strawberries and the one surviving cucumber plant. That has just been growing and growing with plenty of flowers but nothing much else, however today I noticed for the first time that the cucumbers are set.

There’s just three of them at the moment, still quite tiny but it’s nice to see some kind of progress in there. If the way that the courgettes have burst into life is anything to go by, within a week they should be monsters.

After that I went and checked on the tomatoes in the mega-cloche. They are just growing and growing with tons of flowers and fruit and so I took an executive decision and topped them all. No point in growing stuff that is never going to ripen and letting perish the fruit that is already there. Topping them will hopefully concentrate all of the energy into the fruit and they may even ripen.

There’s a stray tomato plant in the greenhouse so I went to check on that. And fighting my way in past the gherkin plants I noticed that they are finally starting to do stuff.

And that’s about time too. Thousands of flowers and not the least sign of a fruit, and all of a sudden a few of those have burst into life.

Now what do you do with a gherkin? If I could get malt vinegar over here I might be tempted to pickle them but I can’t so I’ll have to think of something else. All suggestions are welcome

I followed that up by pulling the veg for tea. I had a veggie-burger lined up and so I pulled up some carrots and spuds, and picked some beans, spinach, sage and rosemary. Add a garlic clove and an onion to that lot and it really was a nice tea. Quite enjoyable. And I sowed the last of my parsnip seeds in where I’d removed the carrots. I’ve no idea what they might do but they won’t do anything in the packet.

The rest of the afternoon I’ve been sawing wood. I need to move the wood to erect the dividing wall in the lean-to where the composting toilet is. I keep on moving this wood around and nothing ever happens to it so I’ve decided to remove it by cutting up for burning, no matter how long it takes (and it will take a while). Winter’s not far away, you know.

This morning though I spent until midday working on my website. It’s almost up-to-date – I reckon another week will see the monthly pages done up to August 2010, and about time too. Nevertheless I was interrupted by a buzzing coming from across the yard – the water boiler that Smon gave me sprung into action at about 10:00. The weather today was terrible (it’s still pouring down now) and there wasn’t enough current to really fire it up, but it ran for a total of 3.5 hours. And more of this anon.

Once I’d knocked off computing at midday I went with Caliburn round to Lieneke’s and tidied up there. It seems that Terry and Simon have finished.

I rescued the breeze blocks, the sand and cement, a huge pile of buckets my tarpaulin and ladder and a host of other stuff, heaved it all into the Sankey trailer and brought it round here.

I reversed it down the lane (hard to think that 20 years ago I did that for a living) and parked it next to Terry’s tractor where it can live for a while.

And it’s amazing how much room there is on there. I still reckon that the money I spent on having that done was money well spent. There’s room for another couple of cars on there I reckon if I tidy up a little bit better.

But the exciting bits involved the water heating.

Of course the day that I get everything ready for blast-off is the day when the weather turns miserable. The immersion heater in the house ran for a grand total of two minutes. But it was trying its best to fire up as the charge in the batteries bounced along the critical voltage. It was quite a windy day so I reckon that if there had been a wind turbine on the roof it would have worked a treat. I’m going to have to sort out this wind turbine.

As for the water boiler, even though the solar energy levels were pretty miserable it fired up in early morning once the batteries in the barn were fully-charged and ran for a total of about 3.5 hours. And the water, all 2.5 litres of it, was boiling away merrily to itself. So much so that with it being POETS Day ….
“POETS Day?” … ed
“Yes, that’s right. P155 Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday!”
… today I had a lovely hot wash and shave out of that boiler at 17:30 when I knocked off. And had it been less windy, I would have gone for the hybrid shower – the solar water (that struggled to reach 30°C) diluted by the 2.5 litres out of the boiler. Now THAT would have warmed it up.

I topped up the water with cold water once I’d emptied it, and it carried on warming itself for a short while until the sun went down and the solar charge stopped. And when I went to do the washing up after tea at 22:00 it was not very far short of being hot enough to do the washing up. A couple of minutes on the gas ring sorted that out.

All in all, I reckon that this is major progress and I’m really pleased with all of this. This place is slowly starting to take shape one way or another. I just want a nice sunny day now so that I can see what the immersion heater will do. But with all this rain that’s going on right now that isn’t going to be for a while.

-3

Tuesday 24th August 2010 – Just look at the size of this!

Never mind the Winter of our Discount Tents, this is the Summer of the Monster Courgettes. This one has burst into life from being a cigar-shaped nonentity, is just a few days. Now it’s 44cms. I’ve got a luvverly bunch of coconuts indeed.

It’s so big that I only cooked half of it tonight, and with the spinach (out of the garden), carrots (ditto), beans (ditto) and chili (ditto) together with sone onions, lentils and garlic I made a huge mega-curry and there is enough to last for three days.

As well as the other half-courgette of course, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with that.

The pan was full to overflowing but as most of the courgette is nothing but water it soon simmers down to a reasonably size. And it was absolutely delicious.

Mind you, I’ll be eating courgettes until they come out of my ears. It’s the one thing that seems to do well here.

It was raining when I woke up and so after I let Terry and Simon into Lieneke’s house I carried on here – but not outside. The composting toilet will have to wait.

What I did instead was to carry on working in the bedroom – the first time for about three months I reckon. And I now have the back wall finished as well as one of the sides of the fitted wardrobe that I’m building. That’s what is going down the far side just there.

I can’t do the other side of the wardrobe as it’s out of there that the electric wiring is coming and I need to work out how I’m going to fit it. But it’s nice to see progress all the same.

The weather brightened up this afternoon and so I reckoned on a shower, but the temperature has plummeted. 19°C it was outside, and the water temp was only 31°C. But not to worry – I tipped a kettle-full of boiling water into the solar tank. That took the temperature up to … errr ….45°C so a half-kettle of cold water took it back down to 42°C and that was my shower sorted. Delicious! Mind you, won’t have to boil up water much longer as Simon gave me the boiler out of his van. It’s only 2.5 litres by the way but it will go nicely in the garage running off the excess charge over there. I’ve made a note of the maker and I’m going to see if they can do me a 50-litre one. That would be progress.

But the temperature is still falling, and with a clear sky, full moon and no clouds at all, it seems that the weather has turned (already!) and autumn is just around the corner. That’s depressing.

-3

Monday 16th August 2010 – We start off today …

… with a couple of photos that features the inside of the roof, by way of a change.

Don’t mind the loose lath that is on top of the wall just there – we will be moving that in due course. But the rest of it looks pretty impressive.

You’ll also notice the black damp-proof membrane up there. That’s to stop the snow drifting in underneath the tiles and falling inside, something that’s a real problem around here in winter.

You can see that we have extended the walls by mounting breeze blocks all the way up and we’ve put chevrons on there.

You will also notice the cross-beam that we fitted to the wall of the house the other day. The chevrons are supported on that. The cross-beam goes all the way across the wall of the house and it’s a good job that there were three of us to lift it as I remember it being flaming heavy.

From the outside, however, it looks even more impressive. We had quite a few tiles left over from when we did the roof of the house and so we nailed the laths to the chevrons and popped the tiles onto the roof of the lean-to.

We didn’t have quite enough as you can see if you look at the top left-hand corner, and so we’ll have to go and pick up some more tomorrow. But we aren’t ‘arf cracking on with the job and we can be proud of this.

So my day has been spent in non-stop cement mixing – load after load after load, with a slight break to go to the quarry for more sand. So I’ve mixed a ton and a half of sand since the other day. No wonder I’m exhausted.

And so when we knocked off I went round the garden, weeded the carrot patch, pulled up some carrots, beans, spinach and a courgette, and sowed some lettuce and parsnips.

After crashing out I made tea – lentil courgette and split pea curry, with carrots spinach and beans. All followed by fresh strawberries. And it was gorgeous.

-1

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality