And so it begins......

Onyer

Spring is well and truly here or so it seems.

T-shirts are on and heavens to Betsy I almost went for the shorts drawer yesterday it was that warm, indeed on Saturday Percy Jerome Lucy Southwellski (left), or Onyer (Uncle Luke) as he is known to little Coco, and I had to have a siesta in the afternoon.  But we did get some of the outstanding jobs done.

Are they King Edwards? No, they're mine!

The potatoes are in, nice and deep ready to miss the snow on April 7th, but not so deep that they forget which way is up!

We've planted four times as many as last year and there are more to go in so this year, hopefully, they'll last us a bit longer.

Peppers! Yum!

Coco and I have continued to sow seeds, and having learnt our lesson last time we now only get one packet out at a time.  The Tomatoes and Peppers are sown and starting to come through already, although we do appear to have a small mouse problem however the remedy to this is a work in progress.

Tomatoes! More Yum!

We have many other seeds well and truly into the germination and first stages of development race.

The weather really has been wonderful, and at both ends of the day the skies have been stunning with rich red sunsets only outdone by beautiful misty sunrises, even Nanny Southwellski made a brief dash to the window to see this one!

Hockwold sunrise.

And talking of beautiful things, Nanny Southwellski had a birthday yesterday.  Coco and I made a cake, we did wash our hands before we started and very nice it turned out too.

It did take a couple of goes to put the candles on with the holder downwards and the wicks upwards but we got there.

1-2-3 Nanny,   BLOW!!!!!

The icing was all Coco's own work and much grunting and squeezing went into getting the icing out of the tubes.

There was also a bit of icing taste testing that had to be done, wouldn't want Nanny's cake not to taste nice would we?

Luke and Kirsty were home for the weekend and Little Nanny Mero, who for reasons best known to Coco will now be known as Big Nanny Mero, came over too.

The reasons my life is so good!

Uncle Robin and Aunty Angela dropped by for a cuppa and a piece of cake, they also added to the choir for the singing of Happy Birthday!

We had a lovely day!

So, hosepipe ban on the way, we are looking at more butts and will have to do what we can to keep the veggies sufficiently supplied with water.

Seems a little strange that we have some northern parts of the country with more water than they can shake a stick at, and yet this area which has annual rainfall comparable with Israel sends water down to Essex and North London.

Hosepipe ban? I've still got another week!

Is it really that hard to divert water down from the North?

Well, we'll do what we can and what we can't do won't happen.

But anyway, it's sunny and warm and who cares!

Bye Davy Jones, Nifty Fifty and that feeling of mortality

Davey Jones

I was very sad to hear that Monkee Davy Jones died suddenly last week, I had the pleasure of meeting him once when he opened a fete in Bury St Edmunds in the late 1980's and I can only say he was an absolutely genuinely nice guy.

I have not seen anything detrimental about Davy on the news channels which in itself is a tribute to someone in the music industry.

I worked with his sister Lynda, for a few years and I know she will be absolutely devestated and our thoughts are with her.  It's quite sobering to think that he was so young by todays standards, makes you feel a little vulnerable doesn't it.


Some may remember that a while back that Fifty magazine asked if they could link to this blog and then promptly went bust, well they are back on the web but now known as Savista.  They haven't asked yet but who knows they might.

Just as an aside, and remaining on the age theme for a few moments longer, have any of you more mature gentlemen out noticed the alarming rate at which nasal hairs grow as you get older?  Flipping scary if you ask me.

Anyway, here it is post number 50, do I really have that much to say? If I do is it worth reading?  On second thoughts don't answer that.

Onto the garden, our mystery seed boxes are beginning to shoot, although it remains to be seen just exactly what is in each cell, as my beautiful young assistant insisted on mixing the seeds when we sowed our first  trays a couple of weeks ago.

In a couple of weeks I will post a photo and you can take turns at guessing which are which.

Walking stick cabage

Anyway, she did insist, and who am I to argue or say 'No' to her?

One of the more interesting seeds we have for this year is the Walking Stick Cabbage, that should stop the chooks!  It's supposed to go up to about 6 to 8 feet, 1.8m to 2.4m for those too young to remember proper measurements.

We will probably look at having another seed sowing fest in a week or two when it should start to warm up a bit.

Last year at this time we were in shirt sleeves and on Nanny Southwellski's birthday (25th March) we went for a picnic in the forest in shorts and tee shirts!

The herb bed is also springing back to life with a strong showing from the chives, thyme and both fennels, the parsley and mint are also showing signs of life, but no sign of the horse radish as yet.

I have box hedging to plant around the herb bed it came originally from a 6 pack of box hedging plants from the now defunct Focus DIY store and I managed to split it into 47 individual plants, Bargain!!

We rebuilt the polytunnel a couple of weekends ago and I am extremely happy to report it is still there despite some very strong winds of late.  The guys at work built me a new door for it out of some scrap wood I took in to work so that it can be made a little more secure this season.

Anyway, that is it for this one, save for this thought I will leave you with,

'What a wonderful life I have, I only wish I'd realised it sooner.'