HERE IS THE NEWS

First of all I should like to tell you a story.
There was once a farmer who owned a hen house full of chickens. Every one of these chickens laid an egg every day which were collected by the farmers wife who sold them each week at the market as well as feeding her family with fresh eggs every day,a happy state of affairs.

One day the farmer saw and advertisement for another hen house and he resolved to purchase it at all hazard. One enquiring as to the price he discovered that in order to find the money to buy the new hen house he would have to sell a large number of his productive chickens and to make matters worse the seller was insisting that his hen house could not be sold without the chickens who lived in it. These were elderly birds and had not laid any eggs for some time. The farmer, who was all fired up to buy no matter what the consequences agreed the price, sold some of his own productive birds and returned home with the new hen house complete with useless chickens.

He felt very proud when he looked down the field at his two hen houses The following week there were no eggs for breakfast and on market day the farmers wife returned from her weekly trip with only half the usual egg money,. “What happened?” said the farmer, and of course his wife made no bones about telling him, called him a blithering idiot and the next day filed for divorce. There are those among you who will not need me to explain the moral of this cautionary little tale.

I actually managed to get a decent amount of sleep last night,however due to that damn fool of a farmer I was obliged to get up early. The buggy was supposed to have had its annual service this morning, the chap turned up on time, said he did not have the parts and told us he would return in two weeks time.....hmmmmm!

I have been following the phone taping allegations with interest and concern. What astonishes me most is the fact that people have expressed themselves surprised that a news paper editor should go to such lengths. The down right dirty methods employed by the press come as no surprised to me, I have been on the receiving end of their unscrupulous behaviour.

Many years ago I returned from a day out to discover that my home had been raised almost to the ground by fire, we had lost every thing including three beautiful and dearly loved cats. I was overcome with grief and so shocked that I could not speak for a couple of hours . My mother was a tower of strength and took us in that night. As we sat too stunned to think and grieving over the awful death of our beloved pets the telephone rang, My mother answered it and and came back saying nothing. During the next two or three hours the phone kept ringing every few minutes, they wanted to speak to me and would not stop calling until I spoke to them. I took the receiver from my mother and asked them what they wanted.

They asked the usual stupid questions such as how did I feel, was I upset about my cats, forced in to talking about these things I broke down and sobbed hysterically at which point my mother took the phone from me , gave them a piece of her mind and hung up, They called once more to tell me that if I would not talk to them they would print what they liked and that is exactly what they did. In the article they published they hinted strongly that we had burned our home down in order to claim the insurance, this was untrue and besides tragically we were not insured. This did not stop quite a lot of people from believing the article and our lives were made a misery for months. The paper did eventually print an apology, a few lines hidden away amongst the obituaries. The original article had covered a whole page complete with photographs.

The only place that the press could have obtained my mothers telephone number was from the police and the details of the events were better known to the reporter who called that to me.
This type of thing is disgusting, it is unfortnately nothing new.
I can not believe that any one is fooled by the closing of The News of The World, why should hundreds of people loes their jobs to save the skins of a few rotten apples at the top of the tree? It is not the news paper that is rotten but the people who own and run it.
AND NOW BACK TO THE HUM-DRUM

I decided to make individual chicken and bacon pies for dinner tonight each with a crisp puff pastry top and served with a sweet potato well buttered, it proved a good choice as the weather has turned Autumnal all at once. I also baked my special apple cake using some timely windfalls brought down by last nights strong wind. My sun flowers look sick and the garden is bedraggled but hey-ho what else is new.

I have managed to do lots of chores today including the ironing, I would rather have cleaned out a pig sty but at least the job is done for now. The bathroom is sparkling,also for now and I can at last get the laundry baskets lids to close, how long that will last is any bodies guess!

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

Things got off to an early start this morning when my son and I met on the landing at five and decided to have coffee, a combination of heat and bright sun light as been getting us out of bed at so appallingly early hours this week.. Speaking for myself I find that as a consequence I am ready for bed by about four in the afternoon which is of course not practical and so I soldier on until about ten when I collapse in to a heap, sleep until about three and then the whole damn thing begins again.

Normally I enjoy popping back into bed for an hour or so after an early morning wake up but as it is so hot that I no pleasure what-so-ever to be found in lying about sweating. This morning I decided to clean my bedroom and my son , also restless had the same idea, after we had finished we had another coffee and sat watching the news feeling very virtuous. During the hot spell I have adopted the continental habit of airing my bedding by hanging it out of the window,it works well but it has caused quite a bit of comment among passers by; why I wonder am I considered odd for doing this? So many people holiday on the continent now that I should have thought that they would be used to seeing a sheet or two hanging out of the window.

Having made such an early start we were able to have a lazy breakfast and I made, as requested a large batch of date piklets and served them with maple syrup, a northern delicacy which we all enjoy. We had arraigned for the groceries to be delivered today instead of Friday when we discovered that there would be no delivery charge on a Wednesday, on Friday they charge is six pounds, every little helps as they say.

When all was stored away safe and sound Pa got on with dusting his room, he is keeping it nicely during the past week or two and has done some repairs on small items which have needed his attention for ages. When we married he bought for me a lovely little watch which I have treasured ever since. This watch has lain in a box for a long time awaiting his attention and he has now mended the strap for me so that I can wear it again, we have been married for thirty nine years and the watch, like me will soon be an antique!

Thanking my lucky stars that I had the afternoon free I was about to slope off down the garden path when my son sought me out to tell me that his dinner date was off and as a consequence he would be home for dinner. I confess to being a trifle nonplussed at his announcement as I had planned to cook char-grilled salmon with new potatoes, spinach and parsley sauce for dinner all of which,with the exception of the new potatoes he claims to utterly detest. Two beautiful salmon steaks were waiting in the refrigerator and the spinach and the spinach I had already picked and washed....Oh Bum!

I flapped about wondering weather to defrost some chicken breasts of a gammon steak when my son announced that he would like to try the salmon and the parsley sauce, neither of which he has ever eaten to the best of my knowledge. But not the spinach, which he has also never eaten and I suspect never will. This meant a trip to the fish monger for another piece of salmon, a nuisance but far less effort than cooking two different meals. This meant of course that my precious garden had to do without my tender ministrations yet again. Bum!

I shall not say that dinner was an unqualified success, suffice it to say that he was able to eat the meal without to much gagging, I had hoped for no more. On the plus side we managed to watch Top Gear which we had missed on Sunday night and my son remarked that since he had a damnably early meeting at work tomorrow (yes it is supposed to be his week off) it would be well if her went to bed early, it's an ill wind and all that.

Now as evening draws near it has become cooler “Thanks be to God.” as an Irish friend of mine used to say and I live in the hope of staying asleep for more than a couple of hours tonight.
None the less thanks to that other Irish man Murphy, I shall have to be up at the crack of dawn to see my son off to his meeting. May a red plague, a menace and a blight lite upon the benighted idiot who 's arbitrary decision it was to drag my son in to work at the crack of dawn on his week off. Bum! Bum! Bum!

THE BATTLE OF THE CHURCHYARD IS OVER, THE BATTLE OF THE ALLOTMENTS IS ABOUT TO BEGIN

Today saw the confirmation of our final victory in the battle to safe our ancient churchyard and its wild life from the Local Authorities scorched earth policy and we are ecstatic. After years of fighting and losing many battles we have at last won the war and the church yard with all its wonderful trees, flowers, insects and birds will now be safe for many years to come. I wept with relief when the plans came through and I saw that from now on the will be no more indiscriminate hacking and slashing of trees or fortnightly mowing and strimming of grass and flowers.

The site will from now on be managed by conservationists instead of council contractors and the locals who have been used to felling the trees to fuel their winter fires have been warned that they face prosecution if they cause any further damage. The icing on the cake is that we have learned that the Bishop has designated the site as one of historic natural importance which means that the churchwardens will no longer be able to “Tidy up” thereby doing damage to the ancient graves and monuments.
I have spent the day passing the word to members of our group and I expect that our next meeting will be a merry one.

Looming on the horizon is our next battle, we are currently attempting to prevent the felling of a large number of healthy trees on the local allotment site. During the past year an entire hedge containing Damsons, sloes, Elderberry and Rowan was poisoned by the local authority with the threat of more such attacks to follow. Most of the allotment holders are organic growers and such practices as this make a nonsense of their efforts to reduce the use of chemicals. Some allotment holders have been threatened with eviction for growing flowers and although there are one or two people who do not cultivate their allotments at all and perhaps should be made to shape up or ship out it is the flower growers who are bearing the brunt of this purge. Of course they grow vegetables as well but they understand the need to attract bees and other insects in to the area.

In my own vegetable garden marigolds, sweet peas and a number of other flowers rub shoulders with tomatoes and leeks, lettuces and beetroot, this is the natural way to grow. It is well known that to grow marigolds amongst tomato plants actively discourages certain pests which are lethal to the plants, we are attempting now to encourage this method of growing for the benefit of all concerned.

So we fight on but just for today we can enjoy our victory and breath a sigh of relief that our beloved birds and beasts are safe at last. I fought alone for some years and was then joined by a wonderful group of people who gave there time and energy willingly and unstintingly to bring about this happy conclusion. If this proves one thing it is that one person can make a difference..if they shout loud enough for long enough but things happen much faster as more people become involved.

If there is any one out there with similar problems to ours I would say to them never give up, be a thorn in the flesh of those who seek to destroy our country side or our precious urban green spaces,. Do not let them treat you like a crank, they are wrong, you are right, believe that and everything is possible.

OF WEEDS AND WEEVILS

Sunshine and dry weather have meant that there have been far fewer slug attacks upon the vegetables and flowers this year.....so far. Each time it has rained they have come out in droves to munch on lettuces and other tender crops but these wet spells have been few and far between that the slugs have soon retreated to the dank areas of boskage around the edges of the garden.

Weeds have proved troublesome this year, in particular I have been hard pressed to keep the amount of spurge to a manageable level. The attractive little plant has a sting in the tail, when plucked the stalk breaks off and releases a milky sap, if this contacts the skin a truly awful rash is the result particularly if the weather is sunny . Knowing about this plants proclivities does nothing to guard against its bite as it lurks amongst other plants and often goes unnoticed during a weeding session until the itching begins.

Of course, people tell me the answer is to wear gloves but I do not find the even these are much use unless they are waterproof ones which are jolly uncomfortable to work in. Having successfully removed a large amount of this pesky plant from amongst the mint and fennel I very clumsily tripped and sat down with a bump upon the compost pile. As a result I am writing this blog standing up, with luck the antihistamine tablets should start to work soon, in the mean time bums the word!
Note to self, never garden in just a long shirt again!

Perhaps I have not mentioned before that I have a fondness for beetles of all sorts and weevils in particular and this year has been a bumper one for these intriguing little creatures. Weevils differ from beetles in their shape and appear to have a sort of snout with antlers on the ends, they come in an amazing range of colours and sizes, I like them so much that I even have a cuddly weevil by my bed.......well by now you should know that I can be a trifle odd.

If I leave a light on in my bedroom at night and keep the window open I am visited by lots of these pretty bugs, the trouble is that other less welcome critters also turn up top the party, crane flies......yuk, spindle legged horrors whose flight is so unpredictable that they invariably end up tangled in my hair. They are a pest from start to finish as their lava attack the roots of plants overwintering in the ground, in an attempt to dig them up birds rip out the plants which have survived to munching grubs and then in July and August the little perishers hatch out and begin the whole damn business all over again. Wasps hunt oft the adult crane flies and feed them to there young, the trouble is that there are more crane-flies that there are wasps...............what am I saying...I think the-at the heat is getting to me again!

I did not feel like cooking tonight ans so we ordered pizza and I picked a big bowl of fresh salad and made some dips and a lovely orange dressing for et salad. My son placed the order and I think that tiredness got the better of him as he ordered for Pa and I a pizza the size of a dustbin lid as well as a medium sized on for himself and some garlic bread. I must say the pizza was very good. The last time we ordered pizza it was so awful that I swore never to order from that company again, this evening they excelled themselves and we all enjoyed our meal.

Twiggy is not speaking to me at the moment as I have been watering her garden, which means that she has had the resort to sitting in one of her tree houses for the most part of the afternoon. A few moments ago she stalked by with her tail up and really gave me the air, I suspect I shall be forgiven soon however as it is almost time for her dinner, catnip treat and cuddle, it must be marvellous to be so spoiled.

It has been a lovely day, beginning with a breakfast of freshly made waffles with hot jam sauce, I made masses of batter ans so I took some round for the boys next door. One of them has his son staying for a while, he seems pleasant and the more the merrier say I. They will be joining us for breakfast one day this week so that will be fun.

Finally I have a date for my hospital appointment when I hope to find out just what is the matter with my kidneys, when your Doctor tells you that your scan results were “quirky”it does not exactly fill you with joy! I still have to wait almost two weeks but what the hell I could be run over by a bus before then, and with that I shall take my leave for now, I want to see if a cool bath will ease the itching...you know where, I live in hope.

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

The sultry weather has returned and although my pumpkins and tomatoes are flourishing it is I who am wilting rather badly. Even with a fan running all night it has been some time since I slept well. Last night was unpleasantly sticky and I was obliged to leave the window open,this was necessary in order to lower the temperature but I suspect that doing so raised my blood pressure considerably before I finally gave up and closed it again at three this morning.

Before twelve the public house down the road was hosting a band,they do this regularly and the sort of band they usually hire plays folk music and has acoustic guitars, last night was different.
Last nights performers, I will not call them musicians spent several hours stacking up large amplifiers in the bar, even the landlord was,I am told a little nervous when he saw what was occurring. They began to play at eight and continued with only a couple of short pauses until eleven thirty. Everything the played sounded like “The Ace Of Spades” played out of tune, it was ghastly.
A friend of ours who was present told me that they emptied the bar in just under an hour and as it was warm people sat outside all night only returning to obtain refills of whatever they were drinking.

I turned up the television and prayed for closing time to come soon, it came but it brought no relief.
The band..so called.... spent a noisy hour packing their equipment into their tatty old van which was blocking the road and frequently had to be moved to allow cars to pass down the lane. This resulted in some load ill tempered exchanges which echoed around the village ans eventual caused some one to call the police.
They arrived with their usual fanfare as did the ambulance which arrived a few minutes later, it seems that an almighty punch up ensued when the owner of a smart car parked in the lane discovered that the band had stacked some of their gear on the bonnet of his car and , he claimed scratching the paint work. How on earth he could tell that in the dark I cannot say, I merely report the facts.

The ambulance made even more noise as it left and for quite some tie we were treated to the sound of police men talking loudly on their radios as they searched for one of the protagonists who had fled in to the woods at the side of the lane, to the best of my knowledge he is still in there as they left without having caught him. I hope for the sake of what ever poor souls had booked the band for tonight that he remains in hiding.......he was I am told the lead singer!

As the police radios faded and the lane became quiet I curled up at last hoping to sleep, some hope!
There had been a wedding at a local hotel and the guests who were not sleeping there decided to depart all at once and to the accompaniment of some very loud fire works. You know the sort of thing, dust bin sized with a noise normally associated with places like Kosovo or Libya!
In the lane drivers honked their car horns at each other as they left the party and from their radios can the unmistakable sound of Asian drums being played almost as loudly as that perishing group at the pub earlier in the evening.

Silence descended at last and I as did, I imagine everyone else slipped at last in to long delayed sleep. I woke after only a few minutes of sleep to the sound of a blazing argument going on in the lane outside the cottage, A young couple were it seemed having a “lovers tiff,” actually it sounded more like a couple of fish wives hurling course abuse at each other, their language was picturesque if a trifle repetitive and after a few of us joined their chorus asking them “ politely” to kindly go and argue some where else they left with a last hoorah of abuse towards and I quote “you toffee nosed lot.”. The cheek. I am a peasant, and proud of it!

At last real peace and quite fell upon the lane and its blessed benison lulled me to sleep in no time, foe all of half an hour when the first of the morning cargo planes roared over head, where upon I gave up., got up, and made coffee doomed not to close my eyes again for the rest of the night.

This morning I asked Pa how he had slept and expected him to catalogue the nights disturbances but no, he had slept very well and had heard nothing. I now begin to wonder if the ear syringing was such a success after all.

Tonight I have at the ready a set of era plugs, a sedative and a bottle of Irish Whisky and shall resort to one or all of these should tonight prove to be a noisy one, drastic, perhaps but necessary and so I wish you all a good night and a quiet one where ever you may be.

POTTERING ABOUT

It has been a bitty sort of a day, a bit of this and a bit of that and I managed to spend some time in the garden,not enough but some. We got off to a rather late start this morning as Pa and I both felt rusty and my son was late home from work. When we did manage to collect ourselves I made lots of lemon pancakes for breakfast and then the day began in earnest.

Until I needed some lemons for the pancakes I had no idea that we had only three left, this would not do of course and so off I went to buy more, while I was at the shop I decided to buy some oranges and apples too, the boys are eating lots of fruit at the moment and keeping the fruit bowl well filled is keeping me busy. I called in at the garden centre on the way back to buy some red Nicotiana plants, they have been quite expensive but now that the sale is on they were half price so I treated to garden to a tray of these beautiful plants. In the centre of the garden is a sundial and around this grows a gorgeous cranes bill which has just finished flowering. If I cut it back now it will by mid August flower again but while it is growing in it will leave an untidy space, it is into this space that I shall plant the Nicotiana. I already have some of the lime green ones and the bees adore them so the new plants should be welcome.

On my return I went out into the vegetable garden where a good deal of work awaited me. I opened up the green house and gave the plants a good going over, taking the side shoots from the tomatoes, adding more sticks for the cucumbers and the sweet potato and pulling the few weeds that had appeared here and there. The tomatoes are doing very well. The trusses are large and promise a good harvest, and most pleasing are the large plum tomatoes which although still in the green look spectacular. Some where in the green house is a plant which has on it yellow tomatoes but I seem to have lost the labels so I can not tell which it is, time will tell of course. These yellow tomatoes are very sweet to eat and certainly brighten up the salad bowl.

Pa and I both love tomato salad so this year I have taken care to grow the basil in the green house and it has worked wonders and as soon as the red tomatoes are ripe we shall be tucking in to our favourite salad with some anti pasto and home made bread.

Tomato salad
6 large red tomatoes, not overripe
a handful of basil chopped
for tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
a good large pinch of sea salt and a few twists of black pepper.

If you want this dish for lunch make it in the morning and keep refrigerated.
Slice the tomatoes, add the basil and salt and leave for fifteen minutes before adding the black pepper and olive oil. If this mixture is allowed to stand for a couple of hours the salt will cause the juice from the tomatoes to mix with the oil to form a delicious dressing. I know some one who adds a few anchovies to the dish, I think it is guiding the lilly but each to his own.
This salad can be eaten with cooked meats of cheeses, I prefer it on its own with some fresh bakes cacciatore bread so nice for lunch of a hot day.

The containers all needed watering which took an absolute age, the sweet peas are doing well now and I pick a fresh bunch for the house every day. Pa loves sweet peas and this year I grew some pale lavender ones to suit his room, the intense fragrance from just a few of these lovely flowers is glorious and fills the whole room with sweetness. Pa loves flowers and so I grow quite a few with him in mind and as his taste resembles that of the bumble bees there is no conflict of interest.
The marigolds are just coming into flower, I grow the old fashioned calendula or pot marigold. We use the petals to flavour rice dishes and I make marigold buns which taste of sunshine and are very good to taste.
Back in the kitchen I prepared a dinner of pork steaks cooked in cider with a miriade of minutely chopped vegetables and served these with our own new potatoes white fleshed and tasting marvellous. The sauce complements the pork with our drowning the subtle flavour of the new potatoes.
Through out the day the sky has been dark and heavy with the promise of a storm to come so I have closed the green house windows this time, perhaps we shall be lucky and it will blow over, who knows?
I have enjoyed my day of pottering, some times it is pleasant not to be committed to a big task, it if quite relaxing to flit from job to job like a butterfly, that way I see more of the harden and have time to notice the tiny changes which have taken place. The peacock butterflies almost totally absent last year have returned in ;large numbers and are now gracing that lavender with their beauty, there are so many that people have been stopping take photographs of these gaudy visitors.
Today I watched a grass snake slip silently from beneath an old metal tray and into the long grass at the bottom of the orchard, I was delighted, Twiggy however was not pleased run up the apple tree at once. Poor puss she hates snakes.

ON WITH THE MOTLEY

Thursday morning dawned fresh and fair,unfortunately it was almost all down hill from there. On looking out over the garden from my bedroom window I observed that yet another young wood pigeon had fallen prey to our voracious young foxes. While I would be the first to admit that there are far too many wood pigeons about for the welfare of my lettuces I would prefer not to have the evidence of their gory demise displayed so brazenly across the garden path.

Pa had an early appointment to have his ears syringed again, a return bout as it were, and he chose this morning to get up late. We called, we shouted, we begged and we pleaded and in the end he reluctantly upraised himself and then began the slow and painful business of getting him ready to leave. Mt son , always ready with a joke remarked that on Pa's tombstone would be the legend “Here will lie the remains of Pa, .
Whom we shall never forget.
We should have buried him by now
But he has n't got here yet!”.”
It made me laugh but it did not speed the old chap up one little bit.

Having sent him on his way I retuned to the house to wash my hair but was fore stalled by a panicky telephone call from a friend who told me that she had heard that a tree was to be felled in a local park and would I please phone the planning department and ask why? Since she had a telephone why did she not call them herself? She told me that she had already called another committee member about it and that she had been advised to ask me to make the call. I say again why?
Busy as I was I emailed the appropriate department and called my persecutor to tell her what I had done.
“Could I possibly go down to have a look what was going on as she was too busy to go herself?”
How I managed to remain polite in the face of such provocation I shall never know and “NO” was my reply!
Some peoples idea of active conservation is to tell some one else and get them to sort it out,it is an attitude which I deplore.

By the time I at last managed to wash my hair I was well behind with the days duties so I rushed down stairs to the kitchen to begin at last. First on the agenda was a very large batch of treacle oaties, a biscuit of with Pa among others is inordinately fond and since I have nit made them for some time it seemed a good idea to treat him to a favourite cookie of two after his ordeal. They are like most biscuits very easy to make and soon I had six dozen crunch golden cookies cooling on racks on the kitchen table. It was as I cleared the kitchen that I began to wonder why Pa was so late getting home.

I called him on his mobile and got no reply, I began to prepare his lunch and called again, by now it was twelve thirty and this time he answered. He was, he said in Morrissons picking up a few odds and ends and would be home within the hour. I continued to prepare him a lunch of salad, crab terrine tomatoes and crusty bread, he had not eaten before he left home for his appointment and I wanted to be sure he ate well on his return, it was two thirty before he arrived, how can he possibly have spent three hours in Morrison's, perhaps he is having an affair.......perhaps there is another woman.....the poor soul has all my sympathy if so !

Having footled away half of the afternoon waiting for Pa to come home there was not time to do any thing constructive such as make apple jelly of hoe up the garden so I cut my losses and made a few early preparations for dinner which was to be marinaded chicken skewers with tabbouleh mixed salad., roast peppers and fajitas, quick and simple to do, with a griddle much can be done quickly.

I decided not to fret about the jobs I had not been able to do, after all there is always tomorrow,the main thing is that Pa can now hear again as the syringing worked this time. It hurt poor old Pa rather so I was glad that I had a treat ready for him, a tin of his favourite cookies on his desk all ready to be munched with a cup of tea.
One thing about Pa that must be mentioned is his courage, he has gone through numerous serious operations and endless invasive tests without complaint.
He can be a pest at time but he is so very brave and we are as proud of him as we can well be

It is evening now, the breeze which has blow all day has dropped and the sun is slanting low over the trees in the shelter belt. Twiggy is stalking about the garden while Pa picks her some cat nip. From the bathroom comes the splashing of my son taking a bath before work. There is a certain comfort in these small every day things, I feel that as long as these things go on all will be well with my little world.