Some Pics

I had to buy a separate usb cable for a phone/pc connection - I'm not sure it was worth it but here are a few I've taken so you can get an idea of the limited scope of the garden and what I'm trying to do:

(1) Caterpillar-infested brassicas popping through together with a rather lovely aubergine plant which already has two small fruits. Also caught in the pic are hanging baskets with tomatoes, a trough of peppers, one of the troughs of strawberries and the old bathroom fittings and suchlike.  The beautiful wall to the right, built with Devonshire stone, was smothered in ivy with stems up to an inch thick - nightmare.
(2) Clematis 'Elizabeth' beginning to scramble up a dark and dank corner of the back yard.  Nothing was here before except falling stonework and peeling paint.
(3) The infestation of ivy has been taken down from the walls of the front garden and around the front door and replaced by Trachelospermum ('Star Jasmine') growing up the porch support beam with another Clematis 'Elizabeth' to the right (you can't go wrong with Elizabeth).
(4) The grafted Giulietta tomato growing in an old wicker Christmas hamper - and thriving with beautiful baby plum tomatoes already showing through :)
(5)  A metre square potato and onion bed in the sunniest part of the back yard - lucky if it sees 3/4hrs a day but the potatoes love it. I'll reserve judgement on the onions.
(6) The weathervane - not a very good pic I admit but I couldn't get any closer.
(7) Me, amidst all the boxes and the mess, waving hello to you.

Sunday Reflection

In Hoc Signo Vinces

TheMG63

From generation to generation

Ignore the soppy Mary Hopkins soundtrack - the words are true: our children will never know such freedom. How and why did we let this happen? I thought it was enough to love and care for them, point them in the right direction and let them go. I've never worried as much about my children as I do now when they're grown and flown. There are too many laws and regulations and few people think to question them.

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." Thomas Paine

Straying into politics

For some reason I've wandered into a LibDem-heavy area (Adrian Sanders is 'my' MP):

(Click to enlarge)

How nice to see an MP with strong opinions! 'Very strongly against stricter immigration controls'.

They work for you.

There are two MEPs: Giles Chichester (Conservative) and (Sir) Graham Watson (LibDem). Enough said, really. I've fallen from one political den of thieves into another.

Taking the EU's shilling. We're constantly reminded by the media and politicians at every possible opportunity that we Brits are too stupid, lazy or fat to work and as for the English, well, please don't mention them at all; they're just an irrelevant group of regions. A dying scream on the cool morning air of Torquay was heard this morning when immigrant after immigrant phoned into a well-known London talkback radio station to say that (a) we need more immigrants; (b) the indigenous people are stupid and lazy; (c) English 'colonialists' and 'Empire-builders' are getting a long overdue payback. Nice!

Giles Chichester MEP.
Graham Watson MEP (and what has he ever done to benefit to this country that he deserved a knighthood?)

I grow weary but we must fight back through the ballot box. If the ballot box fails, as it seems it will, then we must consider other measures.

This man makes sense so, to anyone living in the Torbay area who is not totally disconnected from the world at large, I give you Pat Condell:



If you've seen what I've seen, you wouldn't be so complacent and thoughtless when it comes to casting your vote.

All is for the best...

... in the best of all possible worlds or, to put it in English: 'mustn't grumble'.

Day One of the drops: one drop every two hours in left eye and one drop every four hours in the right. Tick.
Day Two: Only three times today - been out and about so couldn't stick to the regime - not looking hopeful for establishing a routine!

Have found a fab hairdresser; he was recommended by B, a neighbour, mainly because of price but I'd recommend him for doing a great job as well. He's the first since 1997/98 to give me the haircut I asked for all those years ago. Top tip: don't wear makeup when going to the hairdresser. Go completely bare-faced and if you look more gorgeous going out than you did going in then you know you've struck gold. If anyone wants his name/telno etc just email me and I'll be happy to pass it on. He also has a lovely little terrier called B who's a soft sweetheart. There are no frills, no added extras, just a good honest job. When I had my hair cut & highlighted in London it cost £108 - this time it's barely a third of that so that's another plus.

I now have two Cabbage Whites hovering and laying their eggs on my brassicas - I feel bad chasing them off but it's either them or me. I've found quite a few tiny green specks of caterpillars on the underside of the leaves and I'm squeamish about squashing so I've bought some organic pest control before I'm left with nothing at all.

P and C have almost finished the ch/hot water/bathroom. They would have finished today but when it came to fitting the bidet they discovered a manufacturing fault so the company is sending out a new one that will get here on Friday. The boys are taking tomorrow off anyway to let the system run and bed in and it also gives me time to go from room to room with my pen and notebook and make another 'little list' of what still needs to be done. There are only two more major-ish jobs I can think of at the moment: one is bookshelves, of which I need many all over the house, and the other is re-plastering the walls in the dining room alcove where there was once a cupboard housing a hot water cylinder - oh, and the fireplace that housed the Baxi back boiler. I need to measure up and find some nice Art Nouveau-ish tiles for that. It's all go!

The worst job, which I keep putting off, is to go through the piles of clothing on the floor and in the wardrobes and sort through them to see what still fits after two years in storage, what is still suitable given I'm no longer in Spain and a special bin bag (or three) for 'oh no, what was I thinking?' clothes.  Then it will all have to be washed, ironed and put somewhere.   On the other hand I could just bin the lot and start again - infinitely more preferable but definitely more expensive.  It looks like I have no choice but to pull my finger out.

I ordered the special carpet for the bathroom today so that should be fitted next week and at least one room will be decent. It's a gel-backed, waterproof, stain-proof, soft underfoot, marine blue and should look very nice indeed. The bath is fantastic - I must be a hedonist at heart - and everything is looking good to go. When everything gets too much I'll be able to lock myself in a lovely bathroom, surround myself with heavenly scents and drift away.

I hope it's all finished before too long because the Princess Theatre has some shows I'd love to see: Jersey Nights; Welsh National Opera; Sean Locke, the Vienna Festival Ballet and, say it softly, Rat Pack Live, which is some sort of tribute to Sinatra, Martin and Davis Jr ("charisma, panache and swagger").

Back soon with updates on the drops; they say it can take up to six weeks for definite improvement so I'll continue until I notice something - anything :)

Sunday Reflection

Through a glass, darkly

Have been diagnosed with cataracts, of all things; I can't say I'm thrilled but it explains a great deal.  Nil desperandum and all that so I'm going to try THESE before submitting to surgery and I'll let you know how I get on.

I can't help but think (a) the drops would be more widely known about by now if they were truly effective, and, (b) I noticed that in the supporting video clip there was no mention of a product name - it was simply implied.  Still, anything's worth trying at this stage.  Will post updates :)

P, the builder, and C, the plumber, have been a pair of Stoics for the past two weeks.  The central heating and hot water system was thirty years old and pretty much defunct so they've done some serious work to install a new system, together with a new bathroom since they had to go there anyway (the only place the new boiler could go and once you're moving the loo, what about everything else?).  I think I should have been offering them home-made iced lemonade rather than tea and coffee but there you go.

It's a funny old house: the more you uncover the worse it gets.  Have found some rotten plaster and old tiles (black, of all colours) on the bathroom walls, hidden behind some lovely and innocuous white-painted weatherboarding.  And don't get me started on the slugs! I went on slug patrol the night before last and captured six in a daring shoes-on, vomit-bag-at-the-ready 2am raid.

I'm not looking for trouble, trouble came looking for a blonde and it found me:



Torquay continues to enchant.  When I walk out it's as though I'm in a Disney wonderland of happy, smiley English people and I can't remember the last time it was like this - probably when I was back home in Yorkshire.  The Devonshire people are fiercely proud and rightly so; it's only London that isn't with us.  London has always been a City in its own right with its own Police Force; the HQ of financial centres; working all the hours God sends; immigrants, and welfare. It's strangely ironic that Canary Wharf, home to multi-national Banks and epitomising the money-creating financial sector, is situated in Tower Hamlets, one of the most deprived Boroughs in the country.

My new phone came a couple of days ago and I took a lovely photo of a pair of tennis shoes while I was figuring out how it works.  Now that I have the capability I find I'm loath to post pics of ripped-out baths, radiators and boilers for you so instead I'll try to find a cabbage in my raised bed that hasn't already been eaten by Cabbage Whites.

Back soon :)

Is there anybody out there?

My new mobile still hasn't arrived so I can't show you pics of the mess or the wilted cabbage and swede in the raised beds.  Think yourselves lucky ;)

P and C arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Monday morning to sort out the central heating/hot water system and the bathroom.  My once clear front garden is again filling up with rubbish - old radiators, 30yr old gas fires, toilets, baths, pipes and all sorts of contraptions.  Fortunately I'd had the forethought to stake out the area for my raised beds and I managed to plant one of them today.  It actually took me three days: one to put it together, another to fill it with soil (carting 100L bags is no joke) and another to plant.  I doubt I'll get much this year because the cabbages and swedes were really sorry-looking by the time I planted them and some had to be discarded (over-watered in their original packaging) but, as usual, we'll see.  The heat may well finish them off.

I know I'm doing the gardening all wrong this season but I was so desperate for a corner of earth to cultivate and call my own again that I took chances with bought-in plantlets.  In another life I'd have grown from seed, nurtured in a greenhouse or conservatory and then planted out at the right time but this year hasn't been good for me so far in gardening terms and the timing is wrong.

I'm following the square foot gardening method - lots of produce in little space. It's a method by which you can grow successionally, week by week, month by month and feed a family with fruit and veg all year round.

Suki has settled in well now: he's very quiet and taken to sitting on one of the chairs in the front now that the weather is more reminiscent of his homeland. Apparently two neighbourhood cats died last week (one from a heart attack and another from old age) and that, no doubt, explains why he no longer feels the need to patrol the borders but is content to stay at home.

I met another neighbour today, C, who told me not to believe everything I hear from certain people in the neighbourhood. I learned very early on who are the gossips, which reminds me, I haven't seen A for ages now, not since he helped bring Suki back home. I wonder if he's attached? M has been holiday for the past two/three weeks so it's been quieter than usual around here.

For what it's worth, it may not be Yorkshire (nothing can ever compare) but Torquay is lovely: trees, sea, parks, people. It's the top, it's the Coliseum.



PS I almost forgot, though perhaps you'd rather not know, that last night I couldn't sleep so went downstairs to make a cup of tea. When I trod on something slippery on the way to the kitchen I thought nothing of it because I'd had red peppers for dinner and thought one might have slipped off my plate. I bent down, picked it up and, oh my! a slug. Cue screams and disinfectant. So gross. I'm seeing fewer woodlice too now so it can only be good and I hope that's the last of the slugs. Bleurgh!

Who Knew?

Paul Newman is dead.  Who knew?  Not me.

The past two years have been slightly tricky and many events have passed me by.


Hmm: there's no wonder I'd rather watch films and heroes of the past when I'm faced with the EU:



Note how he says: "We're all in this together".  Today's phrase is "hardworking families".

Once and for all: Europe is not the EU and the EU is not Europe. The EU does not represent the people of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Romania... or us.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland signed up to the Lisbon Treaty (takes full effect in 2014 courtesy of David Miliband and Gordon Brown) - check it out and then see how much faith you have in government assurances.

Barroso is a twat and so are Cameron/Miliband/Clegg: