OH WOE.. THE TALE OF HER TOE!

Huh.. what a few days of high drama we have had, well, to be precise the dramas have taken place between our home in deepest Knightsbridge and the local A & E dept. Let's go back to my favourite place to start tales, which as you all know is at the beginning.

It happened last week, she drew the curtains and saw a MONSTER black spider! Eek.. she clapped the fabric together between her hands but the monster escaped her clutches and scampered off. Later the same day, she was getting something off her bedside table when.. ouch.. something bit her!

Now, you're all bright and so you know what it was.. yes.. the monster had bitten her. She went to the bathroom, scrubbed the bite with surgical spirit and thought no more about it. Went out to dinner with our Lebanese friends for a delicious supper, came home late, rolled into bed and woke up early as she  had an early appointment.

She made our breakfast. Ran a bath, lifted her right foot up to get into the bath.. only to come to a screeching halt.. EEEK.. her toe was brown and puffy! She called the person and said "I'm sorry, our appointment has to be postponed, I've to go to A&E as I've been bitten by a spider".

She got dressed and flew out of the house to catch a bus to the local hospital, Chelsea & Westminster, on the Fulham Road. Luckily the department wasn't too busy and a triage nurse saw her quickly, She didn't like what she saw at all and mum found herself being fast-tracked in to see a doctor.

He didn't like it very much either and examined her toe very carefully, asked copious questions and then disappeared to seek out a man who knew all about spider bites. Apparently there are more and more highly poisonous spiders coming into the country and most of them are coming in via bagged bananas!

He came back and pronounced that it wasn't a poisonous species, if it had been, there would have been pain and throbbing in the area plus much more swelling and horrors, signs of the poison moving towards her ankle! Eek!

He cleaned it with a smelly liguid, let that dry, put an ointment on the bite, a plaster around her toe, told her to keep it dry for 24 hours and she was good to go. So kind, so thorough.

I know, I know, we have been remarkably remiss.. aka idle.. with the amount of posts this month. She Who Taps iPad has been incredibly busy at the allotments, so busy, that they are actually beginning to resemble the allotments how they were nine years ago! That was in the days when she was very fit, Mr. Beastly Briar hadn't grown his evil roots and there wasn't a weed in sight!

Now you can actually get into Little Shed! Poor Machinery Shed isn't able to be entered because be is still surrounded by Mr. Beastly Briar but this is for a reason. He is full, well, we hope he is still full of valuable machinery but his roof is damaged and one Saturday, our dear friend, her old driver, Dean is coming and they will renovate his roof and put in a new door and make it, we hope, thief proof.

So in the meantime, Mr. Beastly Briar is surrounding Machimery Shed keeping its' contents safe.. if they haven't already been stolen!

Little Shed has now the same anti-theft security on his door as The Shack and yes, it's boring as you can't just open the door to get your tools out but at least we know the tools ARE in there!

Now we're having a very early start today, she is going to finish a job she did for our Lebanese friends yesterday. I went too and had a marvellous time! I was spoilt rotten.. absolutely rotten but how I was spoilt is for another tale to be told at some point in greater detail.

Then after we do that, we're going to the allotments to plant triffids! You'd call them Climbing Runner Beans but I think they're really something else, she only planted them ten days ago and yet they're up and growing, whilst her normal beans are still lurking in a mixture of potting compost and vermiculite and deciding if they're going to germinate or not!

So toodle pip.. we're off.. for there is much to do and there are only, as you know, 24 hours in one day so you have to squeeeeeze every minute so that you can get everything you want done.. done!

GeeGee Parrot.
May 26th, 2017.

WHAT DO CAT LITTER TRAYS & CAKE CARRIERS HAVE IN COMMON?

The answer is that they make brilliant seedling holders and propagators! Yes, the litter trays are higher than seedling trays so that you can carry your seedling pots very safely and the cake carriers make brilliant propagators! Who knew? Well, she must have as she's been using both these items for ages.

The latest, but actually she thought of this last year and it worked very well indeed, is to use cupcake carriers as seedling trays, they hold twelve cupcake papers into which she puts good potting compost, having sprayed it gently, she puts in a seed, fills up the paper with a little more compost, another spray of water and then the plastic clear lid is clipped onto the base.

Hey presto.. hey li cheese.. when the seedling appears, she places the paper into the designated previously dug and watered bed. The vegetable roots grow straight through the paper which, of course, disintergrates.

What's not to like about something so useful?

There's been much work done at the allotments, not only can you now actually see and touch Little Shed, she's slashed and burnt all the crap that had grown up and around it.. and in the process, has found wondrous things!

They are very old terracotta flower pots, given to her by her beloved Mary, when she was very little and Constance and Hugo travelled, Mary was her official guardian.

She was the most lovely, lovely woman, who in 2001 when she heard about the allotments, rang mum and said "I've got a present for you, I'll be with you by 3.00pm and I want to see your plots", and bless her heart, she piled them into a wonderful basket wicker that mum uses to this very day, and drove from Sherborne, in Dorset, up to London.

But her 'get-up & go' was pretty legendary, for this is the woman who in 1958, decided to take on the Dutch Tomato Growers at their own game, she had spent many years in France as a child and knew about the very old varieties of this culinary treasure, goodness knows how she found the seeds but she started growing the most amazing varieties which, of course, the chefs of the very fancy London hotels couldn't believe were being grown in Kent! And so she invited several of them down to see what she was doing.. and never looked back!

She was thrilled that Constance's daughter was picking up her mother's and her gardening habit and gave her these very old pots as a gift.

Yesterday she made the salad bed.. salad doesn't like to be too hot, so this long narrow bed is situated in the middle of the plots with a massive rose - 'Compassion' planted in 2003 in memory of her aunt Hay darling - at its' southern end, the rose is tall and wide and filters the sun perfectly.

What else has happened? Oh yes, she met herself coming through the first part of the beastly briar patch! She'd slashed and cut through on the northern side, now the next thing was to do the same on the western side but without damaging two 'Jacques Cartier' roses which are on the edge of this patch.

Having dressed again in slippery clothes and tall boots, she waded in to do damage to Mr. Beastly Briar! Oh.. yes, it Indeedy, it is highly satisfying to suddenly find yourself with a clear space in front of you! It's all been cut into manageable bits, will lie in a hideoes heap for about a week and then be burnt in the incinerator.

The first lot of climbing French beans have been planted out, she put glass cloches on them for A. for it's certainly not yet that warm at nights and B. these glass cloches will deter Mr. Slimy Slug from munching these new tasty things!

Nothing else much to report.. I am in disgrace because I got 'ants in my pants' and nibbled my little top feathers on the left wing yesterday, so I wasn't taken to the allotments today. That'll teach me to be stupid. I was left 'home alone' with the mice. She had a visitor which was pleasant, Corinne who has two plots opposite ours, came to call, that meant she could stop feeding the ever-hungry briar gobbling incinerator and sit and chat for a few minutes.

Corinne is a new comer to the allotments but is already a seasoned gardener, she shares the plots with Stuart, who is tall, strong and does the heavy duty stuff! We are most envious of Corinne for having such a useful person sharing the plots with her!

Whoops.. is that the time? Got to go, very early start tomorrow, we're going to the allotments with Claudia, she is from mum's other life when she worked with decorators, designers, architects etc and she's as passionate about gardening as mum is, so today will be a day of much hard work being done and lots of good food being eaten.

Chirps to you all.

GeeGee Parrot.
May 6th, 2017.

A HARD APRIL FROST.. AND HURRAY HURRAY, IT'S THE 1st OF MAY!

Old Jack Frost paid a visit to our allotments last week, she thinks it was on Friday night and he's burnt all the new leaves on the fig trees. All of the other fruit trees are all ok but Jack has 'nipped' a lot of the cherries whose blossoms were the last to form. GRRRR! It must have been one hell of a cold night as we've never had leaves burnt like this before, most are six feet off the ground for goodness sake, what was he doing scattering his icy wares so high up?

Everyone's potatoes were hit by it, as, too, were the vines, the leaves look as if someone has put a flame thrower over them, poor little things, they're scrivelled and twisted, not a happy sight at all.

Apart from that she's slowly, very slowly, winning the battle with the beastly briars, which is what you call blackberries when they go wild and just produce huge amounts of growth with not a piece of yummy fruit in sight.

And you can now actually see Little Shed! She got dressed from top to toe in slippery clothing that the briar thorns couldn't catch upon, climbed into long boots, put on leather gauntlets and set about the briars with long handled loppers and a special pair of secaturs.

It took her the best part of a day, so you can imagine the gratification she felt when she pulled and cut away the last long piece that was growing across Little Shed's door. The incinerator was still there.. heehee.. this is where beastly briar is going to end his reign of terror, as every inch of him is going to burnt! She cut every piece into small sections so that they would fit into the bin.

The door needs replacing, she's not surprised, it was very old when she took on the plots and that was over sixteen years ago. She has planks of weathered wood that will do the job, it can't be a shop bought door as someone built this shed by hand a very long time ago, she re-inforced it and renewed the weather proofing in 2003.

She plans to install the same anti-theft protection that protects the door to Little Shack. For this she needs to dig two holes at least a foot deep, this is filled almost to the brim with ready-mixed cement and into this goes a 6' high piece of 4" x 4" of timber, through which holes are drilled, D shaped bike locks are fitted through these holes. A piece of heavy duty metal grill, originally part of a supermarket cage, hangs onto these locks in front of the door.

Meanwhile.. back home.. It is the First of May and she's just had a coffee with the Pewsey folks, I was not invited! I was left squeaking piteously by myself whilst they drove off but she reappeared about twenty minutes later skipping down our steps in a hurry for it had started to rain and it's chilly.

The forecast is for rain for most of today, she has no plans to go anywhere, which is a good thing as there's much to do at home! We have two large slabs of plastic lurking in the hall, they are the two tables which are going out to the allotments, one will go inside of Little Shack and one's for the terrace. Their legs snap in and out, so at the end of the Summer, she can take out the legs and it'll be stored inside.

There is also a stack of chairs lurking there as well, you can see why I am glad that I fly over this stuff! Imagine if one was a dog!

Huh, the sun has come out but she ain't tempted to go, she will finish tapping this, put a chicken into the big roasting pan which has the ridged top, pour in a little water with herbs and spices together with a couple of homemade stock cubes from the freezer, put it onto to simmer over a low heat and she'll do laundry and housework

It matters not that it is a Bank Holiday, it is Monday and old habits die hard! Anyway, the museums will be packed with tourists, she has much to do and the week is already getting booked up, she's got to go to out Romford again on Wednesday and a dear friend, John, has asked if he can work with her at the allotments to get exercise and fresh air!

Well, there's plenty of both of those waiting for him out there! I went out there with her yesterday and had forgotten how very pleasant fresh air is, but they, the football teams, were playing at the other end of Dukes Meadows, that was a bit disappointing, I haven't blown my referee's whistle for ages!

She's got to go off to do her chores (rather her than me) and I'm off to doze on the pole. PipPip to you all.. PipPip.

GeeGee Parrot.
May 1st, 2017.
PostScript: Michele of Pewsey's birthday tomorrow.. we picked her a lot of roses yesterday and put them to soak in a rubber gardening trug and yes, we know that she grows her own but one can never have enough highly scented roses in the house, especially if they were 'home grown' by a friend, can you?