THE CHINESE THIRST FOR MILK.

The Guardian on line has a fascinating 'Long Read' today on how the Chinese were encouraged to start to eat and drink dairy produce.

She has access to amazing goat produce from Ellie's Dairy which her body tolerates happily and means she hasn't drunk cow milk for many a year and hardly ever eats any 'cow' cheese.

But the Chinese consumption has taken off in a huge way, however, this is creating massive problems, for cows have to eat and the growing of their food is reliant on water, lots and lots of water.

They also produce a lot of gas.. lots and lots of gas and manure. The gas goes into the air but what do you do with the hundreds of tons of manure produced by these massive herds?

No green pastures for these animals, they are all kept in giant cattle sheds.

Read the article and be thankful if you can buy your own fresh cow or goats milk from a reputable supplier.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 29th, 2019.
PostScript: The day that Brexit was due to happen but isn't going to. What a cod's walloping mess the UK government has made out of it and how vicious some EU member states have been.   

ROSES & STRAWBERRIES.. IN MARCH!

Every day, yes, she has been going to the allotments every day and it shows! 

As you know, if you read my blog regularly, she is red hot on weeds in the vegetable beds and pounces on them.

Yesterday we woke to sunshine and a slightly warmer temperature and she said "ok Fatty, you're coming with me to the allotments to get a good dose of vit D and wind to blow those moths out of your feathers".. I ask you, how cheeky can a mother be!

We went by tube most of the way and were there before noon. She settled me on the table with an umbrella so I could have some shade if I wanted it and filled up my water bowl.

Then she disappeared behind Shack to sort out the area where she has a lavatory.. yes, you read that correctly.

Many years ago she bought a camping lavatory made by a company called Thetford. If you are out all day you need somewhere to 'go' and whereas it is ok for men to 'piddle' on compost bins, it isn't easy for women and it is impossible to do other things, so a camping 'loo' was needed.

The pallet fenced area had been invaded by that wretched jasmine and a blackberry, so she hacked it all down, tidied up the area, flushed and cleaned the unit, filled the bottom and top tanks with clean water and added the two mixtures which break down everything.

She buried a small amount of food waste in the new bed she made on plot # 41, then went weed hunting.

Because she checks every bed each time she is there, there was only one weed to be found and it was a miserable specimin with no chance of surviving once she had seen it!

But then old eagle eyes gave a squeak, what had she seen, I wondered. 

In the two new strawberry beds where the new plants have settled in and are growing bigger by the day, there, on a Cambridge Favourite plant, were two tiny strawberries!

The pine tree leaf and wood chip mulch that was on top of the beds that she planted them is perfect, for strawberries, like blueberries, like an acid soil.

They are certainly doing much, much better than the other two strawberry beds on plot # 41 which don't have this mulch.

Luckily, there is lots of the pine mulch left up by the gate, people haven't taken it because it is an acid mulch but for strawberries it is perfect and guess what.. it is the perfect mulch against slugs!

In order to grow good strawberries, they require: 

Full sunshine. Good drainage. An acidic-to-neutral soil. 

Mulching your strawberry beds with a depth of about 4" is important as it: Decreases weed growth, minimises water usage because it stops the sun from drying out the soil, insulates the soil from the cold if you overwinter plants and it improves soil quality as it decomposes.

          It's a 'win win win win' thing to do! 

Mighty cheered by the sight of these two little fruits, she came and told me about them and said "Yum GeeGee, we're going to have lots and lots of delicious strawbugs this summer, how lovely that will be, they're the perfect pudding for bbq's with some goaty curd". 

For yes, we both like home grown fruit.. no chemical are sprayed on our fruits or vegetables, she relies on old fashioned bug deterents and killers, like garlic, onions and peppermint and horticultural mesh to stop cabbage moths.

Time to tackle the front hedge rose.. 'Gloire de Dijon' is her name, three rose trees were planted over ten years ago and they love where she put them! They grow at a huge rate, each year she cuts them back and each summer, they come back with a vengence!

But she's a naughty rose for she doesn't like being picked and droops, mama has cut stems and put them immediately into water so she can bring them home but it doesn't work.. she's unhappy. 

Mama pruned and talked to her and smiled as she saw several quite big buds which will probably open within a few days. 

This lovely rose spends her days growing along the fence beside the track where people pass and smile at her, bees love her.. so we forgive her.

Today, although it is a glorious, we are not going to the allotments, she has an appointment with a hearing specialist at a new hospital, the ENT hospital on Grays Inn Road.

It is bang in the middle of the afternoon, so she will spend the morning doing 'stuff', then will disappear underground and come out at Kings Cross station and walk to her appointment.

I will be back later to tell you how she got on. Hopefully they will discover what is causing pain in her left ear, I pray that it is not serious.

All our fingers and claws are crossed.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 26th, 2019.
PostScript: ENT stands for Ear, Nose & Throat.

THE MESS WAS MUCH BIGGER THAN A PIGS EAR!

She actually managed to curtail her curiosity until it was time to leave the plots yesterday and it was worth it!

Dean and she got the chain link fence up and she cleared the space in front of it almost all the way up to the boundary fence but she left the last four square feet full of evil briar and nettles.

It acts as an impenetrable barrier through which no one can get, well, not without choppers and thorn proof clothing! 

There was so much junk in front of this space, that she reckons there was a glass house there but a long, long time ago.

Armed with very thick gloves, rubber boots, a hand fork and a builders rubble bags to put the rotten wood and weeds into and another for the broken glass, she cleared it all and dragged the two bags off to the front of the allotment.

Dean and she will do a run to the local dump in three weeks time, by which time she will have dug out the old gooseberry bushes and the jasmine which never flowered but created chaos. 

Job done and time to head for home.

Walking along the track she greeted a woman planting onions, who appeared only too willing to stop and have a chat and who said "Have you met the new man on plot 14?" to which mama replied "I have but why do you ask?".

The woman smiled and said "You know I live locally and on Wednesday I was here quite early and there was a hell of a to-do going on at the base of the steps on plot #1, a huge white van was well and truly stuck and there was a monster of a tow truck trying to get the van out without get stuck itself, it took a long time!"

Mama smiled and explained her theory about the revenge of the trees and bushes and the woman started to laugh and she said that she too had been sorry to see that he had chopped down the trees and bushes without waiting to see what fruits the trees would have given him. 

Mama walked along the track and got to plot #1.. and oh dear, oh dear! What a mess, he hadn't just made a pigs ear of it.. he had made a boars head! 

The moral of this tale is, if you buy a house and it has fruit trees and bushes in the garden or orchard, wait until they fruit before chopping them down. 

GeeGee Parrot.
March 23rd, 2019.

HOW TO SPOT A PERFECT FAKE.. A LONG READ ON THE GUARDIAN WEBSITE.. AND MICHELANGELO AT THE RA BUT BE QUICK, THE EXHIBITON CLOSES MARCH 31st.

And what a crackingly good long read it is too!

Do you read the Guardian on-line or in the paper form? The range of its' journalism is broad and bang of subject. It covers everything and then throws in extra 'goodies' which are excellent long reads.

The one that she found today was outstandingly good, she came across it by reading the long story of the movement of art around the world for exhibitions.

Have you ever wondered what goes on when an exhibition is put on by a gallery or museum, the logistics of getting the artwork from point A to point B? 

Arranging the shipping fine art of any medium around the world is a highly organised business and the amount of detail involved is huge and they start way before you think they do.

The RA - Royal Academy - is showing some beautiful drawings and she is gong to see them next Monday.

They are part of the Royal Collection. Last year she went five, yes, five times to see the collection of King Charles 1st. It was the first time the collection had been together since the Puritans sold it and it was dispersed.

It was breathtakingly magnificent. What was also breathtaking was the tragedy of what happened to Queen Henrietta Maria's art collection which she had at her palace in Greenwich, the Puritans burnt most of it and the rest was thrown into the Thames.

She was the daughter of Henry 4th of France and Marie de' Medici and you 'could' say that she had grown up surrounded by good art of many forms!

A little known fact for you is this.. the American state of Maryland was named after her.

The drawings that are on show at the RA are by Michelangelo.. well worth seeing and see them she will, they are being shown alongside Bill Viola's work.

Oh, how lucky we are that people lend their priceless goodies to museums for us to see and wonder at.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 21st, 2019.

REVENGE..

When people give up their allotment plots or are forced to relinquish them due to not working them, they are allocated to people who view them with the plot manager and he ascertains whether they are able to work the site.

An couple had worked plot # 14 for fifteen years and besides their vegetable beds, they planted fruit trees and bushes.

However, they stopped working it last year and it had been rented to a man. Who, according to his neighbours on either side, isn't at all friendly.

She went out yesterday with seedlings that had grown in a propagator for the weather forecast for the next few days is for mild weather with a mix or sunshine and rain. 

Aka.. perfect planting weather.

She walked down the steps on to the site and exchanged a few words with Penny, a new plot holder who has worked miracles on her plot in the two months that she has had it.

She walked along and then came to a screeching halt.. Oh no, what has he done, what an idiot this man is, he cannot be right in the head.

What had this person done, you might well be asking yourself.. well, he had chopped down and dug out all the fruit trees.. two medlars, a Brunwick fig, two Egremont Russet, two Pink Lady and a Cox apple trees.

And where was the row of Versailles white current bushes? All gone, they too had been dug out, chopped up and everything was lying in an enormous pile at the side of the track.

She sighed and thought how very sad it was that he hadn't either asked his neighbours about the trees or waited to see what the fruit would be like before chopping everything down, shook her head and walked on up the track.

A couple of hours later, she was planting broccoli amongst the onions that Jane and she had planted four weeks ago on plot # 41 when she saw a BIG van coming slowly down the track.

That's a very big truck for a greenhouse or shed delivery, she thought and carried on working.

After the broccoli, she put the kale and the Savoy cabbage in amongst two beds of garlic. Collecting her sun tunnels from Big Shed, she carried them over to the square bed she cleaned the day before, scattered some slow release granules and planted most of the peas.

Ugh.. cold rain started to fall. Well, she reckoned she had had a very good day for she had worked in just a sweater and her jerkin, so dunked the box of MangeTout seedlings in the water butt, left them on the bed and covered the bed with Sun Tunnels - which have sadly been discontinued by Botanico.

Shack locked, green leaves picked, she left the plots and walked up towards the gate. No sign of the van, strange she thought, as she hadn't heard or seen it leave. Then she saw it.

It was on what is officially plot # 1 and it wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.. for the driver had ignored, very stupidly, several large puddles and had driven slap bang onto the boggiest bit of land for miles around.

After getting bogged down, he had driven forwards and backwards making a real pig's ear of it and now the van was well and truly 'stuck in the mud' for she couldn't see the bottom third of the wheels.

"Bad luck" she called as she walked past a man as the driver revved the engine making things even worse, "have you been stuck for long?"

The man turned and she realised who it was.. why, it was none other than plot holder # 14 and she realised that the chopped up trees and bushes were in the van.

"Two hours, it's costing me a fortune as the AA don't have a slot to come to me with a big tow truck until much later and the dump closes before they can get here and drag the van out."

She said "And, now it's raining, goodbye." 

Walking behind the van and on up the steps, she suddenly had a most evil thought about which she wasn't sorry at all.

The bushes and trees were having their own back.. for revenge is particularly sweet when served cold and in mud.

It made her smile all the way home.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 20th, 2019.

I SAY 'BRING BACK FEBRUARY, IT WAS WARMER!'

Sweater, sleeveless boiled wool jerkin, tweed coat and a lightweight rainproof jacket, a beanie and gloves were her gardening attire yesterday.

In February, she worked in jeans and a cotton camisole.

March, as we know, in the northern hemisphere can be a 'tricky' month and this one is proving not to be an exception.

For, apart from the weather, the state of our poor nation is in a terrible state in more than one way.

Horrific stabbings with people being attacked and killed, some being not known to their attacker and for no reason. 

Political goings-on that leave her shaking her head and thinking they haven't got a clue.. who knew that the speaker of the house of commons could overrule the Brexit proceedings, did you?

And she is almost witless with rage that the current chancellor of the exchequer.. NO, she's not 'happy' with any UK politicians and isn't giving anyone capital letters today, for he has raised taxes again on shops, coffee bars etc etc whilst allowing the online companies to get away with zero or very little taxation.

Grrr.. she's not at all happy.

Luckily she doesn't think about the political state of our nation all the time, for that would surely drive her around several bends.

Yesterday was chilly at the allotments, I'm glad I didn't go, when I saw her getting dressed in those multiple layers, I realised she had looked at the weather forecast and knew that rain was heading our way in late morning and sure enough, it came bang on schedule.

However, much as she dislikes gardening in rain, it's making the woodchip and manure break down quickly, as she forked over a bed which is divided in two with a wooden walkway and found huge worms and no weeds which made her very happy.

Some several self seeded fennel plants were given to Joska and Sirun, the others she transplanted into a herb bed.

Five perpetual Chinese cabbage plants were transplanted to where the perpetual spinach is.

This left a bed, which has wonderful soil in it, to had some slow release chicken manure scattered on to it and forked in.

She rotates a four year crop rotation, this means no bed ever has the same vegetable growing in it for another four years, the only exception to this is lettuce and the permanent herb beds. 

No, of course, she can't remember what was growing in each bed on three plots for four years! She keeps a garden diary into which she writes seed details, planting times and yield detaips. 

The fourth # 35, doesn't have ground level beds but fruit trees and bushes and seven giant raised beds which are full of rotting manure and woodchips. Next year these will be melon and sweet potato beds.

She's a feeling that this year maybe a 'good one', and is planting melon seeds. Several years ago, she grew two varieties, they were delicious!

They grew on plot # 39 in a bed that gets sun all day long and is protected from winds.

Plots 41 and 39 are ablaze with colour! All of the narcissi she found at Lidl for 89p have grown on well, their colour is sharp and amongst the old much taller narcissi they look like little sisters!

And in the cutting bed on the edge of plot # 41, there are lots of dark blue hyacinths and tall double narcissi almost ready to be picked. 

She remembers where she got the hyacinths, a flower stall holder sold her them and there were a lot of bulbs, for a fiver! 

They were definitely 'past their best' and she said "how much do you want for those", the (silly) woman said "Oh, take the lot for a fiver (£5.00)", a note was handed to her very quickly and then she said "But why would you want them?" 

To which mama replied "I've an allotment, they'll be planted tomorrow and give me cutting flowers for years to come".

Now guess what the woman's response was.

"Oh dear, you can plant them and they'll grow? I didn't know that, I've sold hundreds over the years for no money like this and I've an allotment".

You see why I called her a silly woman!

These rescued hyacinths have rewarded her for many a year now, they've multiplied and she has given away quite a few bulbs for the depth of their colour and perfume are lovely.

Oh.. it's past 10am. I've got to go for she's going early to the allotments and plans to come home via the library. 

Think of something pleasant.. because if you focus on all the grim things that are going on around the world over which we have no control, it surely will make you depressed and very grumpy.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 19th, 2019.

SUNSHINE & HAILSTONES..

No one could ever describe her as a fair weather gardener! Yesterday, the sunshine had faded somewhat but it was dry underfoot, so she went off to the allotments with twenty four Dutch Iris bulbs and four mixed Begonia corms.

She had received an email from the allotment site manager, Denis, saying there had been a delivery on Saturday of well rotted leaf mold.

It was too cold for me to go, my vest is still 'moth' eaten so she put fresh water and yumyum out for me, kissed Beaky, told me to be a 'good gir' and left the house at 11.15am.

Half way up Yeoman's Row, it started to spit with rain but with a tweed jacket and a beanie, a little rain wasn't enough to make her come home.

The journey was short.. she was there in under half an hour which is a record, for it usually takes an hour, if she is lucky.

All was well at the plots, lots of new plot holders were there and it made her just a trifle sad to see a man cutting down and digging out Jane's roses, but as he said "it's sad but it is the only place I can use as a parking space", she won't tell Jane, who is probably already upset enough that due to her ill health she has had to give up her plots.

There was an industrious woman working on one of Andrew's old plots, I have no idea how to spell her name, it is Danish and begins with a V.

She was smiley and thanked mama for coming up and saying "hello, how are you getting on?" to her. Apparently no one else had spoken to her.. grrr.

The ground was soft and the four barrow loads of manure that she placed on the beds last Sunday have started to rot down. We have had a mixed bag of weather over this past week and this does the work, plus she has some of the fattest worms she has ever seen doing their work as well.

She soaked the iris bulbs in warm water and then left them to drain, they had responded very well to this treatment and grown a healthy amount of strong looking roots and sent up good shoots.

A couple were planted amongst the narcissi in the cutting bed and the rest were placed under a plum tree and amongst the red tulips. 

The begonias, which had the same treatment, had also sprouted shoots and roots and went in to one of the little beds underneath cherry trees with red calla lillies.

The next job was to collect this famous leaf mold that Denis had emailed her about, so off up the track she went with the BIG wheelbarrow. Only to find nothing there! 

Apparently, according to a nearby plot holder, a big van had arrived earlier and scooped it all up and driven off. Unfortunately, the key that opens our gates is also shared with another allotment site and the two men who took it must have reckoned no one would see them do it.

Ha.. unfortunately for them, the plot holder took a note of their license plate and is going to tell Denis.

But that didn't alter the fact there was nothing there, her long walk up the track had been for nothing, so she turned around and headed back down the track and walked straight into a hail storm!

There was nowhere to shelter, she had to keep on walking and pulling the wheelbarrow.. it 's much easier to pull a wheelbarrow than to push one, try it and see.

By the time she reached her plots it had stopped but oh boy, the temperature had dropped by several degrees, she was glad she had worn that particular jacket which is, although extremely old, windproof and waterproof.

A good way to warm yourself up is to fork over a bed and rake up cuttings and stuff you've weeded out of beds.

And this was what she did for the next two hours, manure she had lain on top of beds last weekend was dug in, another bed was weeded, she moved metal cages about, raked plots, then picked a bag of leaves for supper.

Joska came over and whilst they were talking, they both noticed a solid black line in the sky in the south west and after eighteen years of working this land, she knows exactly what it means, foul weather is heading her way. 

Tools wiped, Shack locked up, she ran for the gate but wasn't quick enough, the hail caught her before she got to the steps and it 'chased' her all the way to the bus stop! 

Oh, ears and whiskers, it was bitterly cold, her breathe was visible as she sat waiting for a bus, she had, unfortunately, just missed one and had to wait for another twenty minutes.

Normally she would have walked to Chiswick High Street but she wasn't going to do that in this hail storm. So thoughts of a hot drink and spicy and tasty food were in her mind as she scuttled down our steps and came home.

How lucky it didn't do this earlier, she thought as she cooked a meal of fish, rice and vegetables, it wouldn't have been 'fun' to stand and take the salute or give out shamrock in a hail storm.

No one likes rain on a parade, do they!

GeeGee Parrot.
March 18th, 2019.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY.

And a fine day it is too. Mister Sun has decided to switch his torch on to a high beam and it's dry underfoot.

What a difference to yesterday, she went to Wimbledon to meet a friend, they did food shopping in Morrisons, then went to have hot drinks and a long talk before going their separate ways.

Mama came home via the market and picked up broccoli, melons and tangerines, which I love, for next to no money.

And it was a good thing that she was nearly home for the weather took a downward turn and both Mister Wind and Rain came out to play.

Ugh.. so cold.. so windy, what a good thing she had not gone to the allotments.

And, thank goodness her beloved Pat knits her those little beanie hats! She now keeps one in her bag for it makes such a difference if your head is cosy in foul weather.

Although it is sunny day but sadly clouding over a bit, there will be a lot of jovility today for it is the day that the Irish all over the world celebrate their patron saint St. Patrick.

Many many years ago she used to go to watch a parade and have lunch with an Irish regiment, we are talking about over fifty years ago. 

These lunches were wonderful, very joyful occasions! The Colonel of the regiment was HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, whose memory for faces was staggering, and the regimental mascot was Fionn, a huge Irish Wolfhound.

All of the men that she knew in the regiment would have retired by now and Fionn is in dog heaven.  

The new Colonel of the regiment is Prince William, Duke of Cambridge KG KT, to give him his full title, and the mascot is Domhnall so everything has changed.. except it won't have!

The duke and duchess will attend the parade at their present base at Cavalry Barracks in Hounslow, Katherine will present shamrock to officers and warrant officers before a march past where William will take the salute.

And following the tradition which was started in 1901, the year the regiment was founded by Queen Victoria, they will be toasted by the longest serving guardsman at the Guardsman's Lunch and the duchess thanked for presenting the shamrock.    

The food will be superb, the atmosphere light, the conversation will flow as will the excellent stout. 

That famous black nectar.. aka Guiness.

Happy days to you all.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 17th, 2019.

SOMETIMES I DESPAIR.. SO I EAT MY ONE BRAZIL NUT & TRY TO STEAL HERS.

Is she a cretin, I asked myself when she gave me her quiz marks yesterday and I saw that some of the questions she hadn't even attempted or put any answer, let alone the right one!

What on earth had happened, I asked her and she said me there had been so much noise coming out of the kitchen that everyone complained but for her being deaf, it made it impossible to hear the questions. But hey diddle diddle, it's not the end of the world.

There were lots of questions on modern music and she knows zilch about heavy metal bands or rap artists and their music.

She knew George 3rd was on the throne at the time of the French Revolution and that Charlotte Corday murdered Jean-Paul Murat, the French revolutionary leader, in his bathtub.

They packed up before 4pm and she put on her raincoat and pulled on a beanie hat for, true to the weather forecast, it was now raining.

However, instead of coming home, she turned left out of the building and went to have tea with Jane.

Upstairs, with mugs of spicy tea, they went to her cosy small sitting room. Sore point: we used to have a cosy sitting room once upon a time where she used to entertain people to tea and supper but that was long ago before hell broke loose in that poor room!

At 6pm she said her goodbyes and left to walk home, the rain had stopped but it was cold, certainly cold enough to remind her to replace the padded liner into her coat that she took it out when it went to be cleaned and hadn't put it back.

Supper was light, IshPol with chicken brawn and steamed vegetables. Pudding was a tangerine and brazil nuts with a couple of hazel and walnuts.

Do you eat this wonderful nut? They've lots of good things packed inside of those hard shells, all of which are extremely good for you and me.. I lurve brazil nuts because they give me and you the following:

Calcium, magnesium and potassium and fibre which is good to lower cholesterol. 

An antioxidant called selenium and here's an interest fact. That taking antioxidant supplements do not provide the same benefits as eating food high in antioxidants!

They have a good quanity of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and these, together with the relatively low saturated fat content, help to decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Because these fats won't make you fat!

They contain copper, which is a really important mineral of our health, plus thiamine aka vit B-1, the lack of thiamine is suspected as being one of the contributing factors of Alzheimers, so not only are they good for the health of our heart, they are good for our brain too!

If or when you don't eat animal protein you have to combine a couple of foods in order to get a complete protein.. rice and beans are the classic example.

However, brazil nuts contain all of the essential amino acids and brazils can certainly help you in your intake of protein.

She eats nine a day. I eat one. I don't do quizzes.

GeeGee Parrot.
14th Mach, 2019.

FRIDAY'S GIFT..

She was up with the lark last Friday but it was far too early for me to even think about getting up, I looked at her, wagged my tail and putting Beaky back between my shoulder blades, back to sleep.

But she left my cage open and a couple of hours later, I clambered out and saw that she had made my breakfast and left it on a tray on her bed.

And the radio was on.. boohoo.. she must have gone out and not having spoken to her, I had no idea where she had gone and had to wait until she came back to find out where she had been.

Apparently, one of her old lamp clients, who had been instrumental in getting mama a HUGE amount of work in years long gone by, had moved out her big house downsizing to a cottage. 

But her very old gardener said he wasn't up to starting or making a kitchen garden again, so she had called mama and asked for help, mama had said "yes, of course, I will help you but on one condition, that you don't try to pay me, for I owe you so much for all the clients you sent to me in the old days" her client had grumbled but agreed.

One of her old drivers is a good man, very tolerant and he loves to garden, so she called him and said "Hello Jorge, how do you like the idea of a day working in a garden with me next week?" He laughed and said "Why not, where are we off to?"

They picked the client up from her home in London and drove to her cottage in the country, after showing them where she wanted to put the kitchen garden, she made them hot drinks whilst mama drew up a sketch of what she thought would do the trick.

"Ah, you do know me so well, that's exactly what I'd like, clever girl" she said.

Jorge and the client went up to the farm and picked up a long wheel based truck and drove to a nearby builder's merchants and came back loaded up with lots of brand new scaffold boards and several metres of 2' by 2' wood.

A scaffold board is 13' long by just over 8" wide and the perfect raised bed size is about 6' long by 4' wide.. so lots of them had to be purchased in order for her to make eight beds as she wanted them to be double height. 

When they got back, the client telephoned Brian who works on the farm and he went off with a trailer and brought two loads of topsoil together with another of a huge amount of very old, well rotted manure and then went off and came back with an electrical saw.

She and Jorge measured the boards and cut them into halves and thirds and the 2" by 2" into ten inch lengths.

Brian, who brought the soil and manure, stayed to help and before long, there were eight raised beds in place. Now, all they had to do was fill these beds with rotted manure, top it off with a good 4" of top soil and call it a day!

She asked Brian to go and get 'boss', who had been working with the farm secretary, to come and see what they had done.

You know when you've done something right.. for people express happiness and the three of them knew they had done right because the look on the faces of her lovely client and the farm secretary were pictures to behold!

Especially Judy's face, for when she had come to open up the cottage for her boss earlier that day, all that had been beside the little house was a field.. just a little field with grass growing it it.

But now there were eight raised beds, stakes to show where fruit bushes would be planted and another eight raised beds would be made and other stakes had been placed to show where a solar house would be erected and a hedge to be planted to act as a windbreak. 

For every foot in height of a hedge gives 6 feet of wind protection.. which is very useful around a vegetable garden!

Then it was time for a well deserved late lunch.. Judy had made a delicious shepherds pie and had cleverly remembered my mama can't eat white potatoes, the topping was made out of mashed sweet potatoes. Pudding was a hot compot of stone fruits.. topped off with cream from their own cows.. yum!

What a day it had been.. the rain held off until they had finished, everything is now ready for all the seedlings to be planted when the weather gets a bit warmer and client was beyond satisfied.. in fact, she grinning from ear to ear.

Mama went upstairs to change back into proper clothes and on her way down was asked to go into client's tiny study.

She handed her a little box and said "Don't refuse this, for it is a gift to thank you for all those years you worked for me, my family and my friends and now for my new kitchen garden where I won't ever have to dig a spade or bend down to weed and I am giving it to you with love and gratitude for our friendship".

She opened the box to find a chunky silver ring with two tiny pieces of gold in the shape of a acorns on the shoulders and the top is of cut out leaves.. a perfect gift for a gardener. It slipped snuggly onto the little finger of her right hand.

Then she said "I'll give this to Jorge" and they went together out to where Brian, Judy and Jorge were waiting by his car and she gave Jorge a very fat envelope and thanked him for all his very hard work.

Hands were shaken and hugs were hugged.. they said their goodbyes and drove back to London.

What a day it had been.. what a lot they had done and how well everything had gone and what a lot of fun it had been to be given a small little field and to give back a proper kitchen garden.

It's good when people work together and things go well, isn't it?

She told me all about her day when she got into bed with a plate of fruit and then she slept the sleep of the dead that night for she was tired but oh, so happy. I like to see her happy.

GeeGee parrot.
March 12th, 2019.

THE WIND HUFFED & PUFFED.

And ripped the fleece off the broccoli bed and the seedlings are nowhere to be seen, luckily she has more at home which will replace the missing ones but not this week, that's for sure!

The temperature is lingering in single figures and with lots of rain and extremely strong winds forecasted for today and the rest of the week, we won't be going out to the allotments.

But she did lots of work on Sunday for Joska told her there had recently been a delivery of horse manure and well rotted leaf mold.

The manure is fresh so she dumped two barrow loads into raised beds on plot 35, where it will rot down over this coming year and she put two barrow loads onto the last year's dwarf bean beds and dug it in.

She has two tall wooden frames which she moves each year onto different beds, it's into these beds that she digs horse manure, leaf mold, chicken manure plus our weekly food waste, so that each year the soil in two beds is super charged with wonderful nutrients.

When I say food waste, it's a bit confusing as we don't waste food, beetroot and cauliflower leaves get eaten, I munch the tough ends of cabbages but avocado, banana, garlic and onion skins together with egg shells, shredded paper and herbal tea bags get buried and Master Red Skinny Worm makes short work of them for they disappear. 

On Sunday she was thankful for Little Shed, he is acting as a windbreak for the new beds that she has created from the old herb beds. 

The fleeces covering the kale and the pointy cabbage seedlings were still in place so they were happy and unmolested by birds or slugs.

We don't begrudge birds anything that they nibble in the winter time but she gets a little bit annoyed when they eat plants that haven't had a chance to grow! 

Everything else is in great shape, the hard work she did at the end of last year and in February, when we had that wonderful weather, has certainly paid off. 

For there isn't a weed to be seen in any vegetable bed! And as she has mowed and trimmed the grass it's looking tidy and 'ready to go'.

The treatment that she gave the red Calla Lilies, she was so lucky to find, has worked wonderfully!

She soaked their tubers, which were in little bags of peat, in water and this gave the roots the incentive to start growing, she has planted three tubers in two of the three beds that are underneath the big Stella cherry trees at the front of plot 39.

The central bed of these three square raised beds have herbs in it for she doesn't dig this soil because of the trees roots, so bulbs, tubers and herbs are the perfect things to grow here. 

All she ever does is to weed them a couple of times a year. Our neighbour, Tereza, gave her scarlet Tulip bulbs many years ago and what a pop of colour they are, the lilies will look great here.

At about four o'clock, the weather turned from cold to icy, she put her tools away, locked up Shack and taking two bags walked over the plots picking a mix of leaves and, after putting a bag with water in it into a pot, she picked a big bunch of narcissi, a mixture of different varieties, some classic single trumpet yellow and white 'daffodils', the rest were multi-headed orange, white or yellow highly scented jonquils.

"Brrr, it's cold, I'm so glad I didn't bring GeeGee" she said to herself as she walked up the path to the gate. 

The bus was late.. they were running on a very slow Sunday timetable! They're supposed to run three times an hour on a Sunday but it was a good forty minutes before one trundled down the road towards her. 

Then she had to wait for twenty minutes at Hammersmith Broadway for a 211 bus, silly mama, she could've taken a train to South Ken but her knees were stiff and she knew that she would have to walk up stairs at the station, so a bus was an softer option.

Getting off in Sydney Street, she turned into and walked down Cale Street, turned right into St. Luke's Street and hung the bag with leaves and flowers on a friend's door, then walked home as quickly as her dodgy knees would allow.

Coming in to a warm flat was bliss, yes, she has turned the boiler on as the weather is cold and damp and neither of us want to be sick!

Then telephoned her friend and said "Thank you so much for your lovely gift, go and open your front door, there is something hanging on the door knob for you."

Oh boy.. hot water and a hot drink did the trick but it did take time for her knees to become flexible again. 

Yesterday wasn't so bad, it was chilly, she had a vest, a sweater, a boiled wool cardigan and a padded jacket on but you can't cover all of your face, can you? And her nose was cold.. but a breakfast with Pat is never to be missed, so having cooked my eggs, she went to Fulham, they had breakfast and a very good long natter for about three hours.

She was so pleased to have taken Pat, who loves good yoghurt, two pots of Turkish yoghurt that she found on Saturday, one made with sheep's milk, the other with buffalo milk and a packet of Freesia corms.. because this is what she said..

"Oh, they are my most favourite flowers, I had them in my wedding bouguet, I love them so much and have never thought to grow them, what a treat, thank you!"

And then presented mama with a charming gift bag which had a hand knitted cardigan in it! The wool is the colour of the newest of new leaves.. what a pretty Easter present!

Then off they went about their days.. mama to the library to exchange books and Pat to take a grand daughter to the dentist.

It's gloomy here today, the wind is strong, we can see the way the tops of our trees and bushes are being blown about, she doesn't have to go out for any reason until later this afternoon and then it is only up into the main house to see Tereza.

We are staying indoors as snug as bugs and hope that you, whoever and wherever you are, will stay safe.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 12th, 2019.

WASABI WITH GINGER IS A MAGICAL MIX.. ESPECIALLY WITH PORK!

Ho Ho Ho.. I know what's for supper, what a pity it's not yet time to have it.

On her way back from the allotments yesterday she stopped off and bought a small amount of minced pork for she had a mind to make some pork balls with ginger and wasabi as you do when the weather is as glum as it is now.

But it wasn't for last night's supper, for which we had lamb stew and buckwheat with home grown greens, it is for tonight but she wanted to 'infuse' aka marinate the meat with the ginger and wasabi so that it would be deliciously spicy!

The weather held fine for her trip out to the allotments and she was mighty pleased to see that the layers of horticultural fleece have kept the seedlings safe from birds and frost.

She had twenty pots of narcissi to plant, some had as many as five bulbs in a pot so with them, she teased them away to separate them and planted them along the yellow walk, eight pots went in under a pair of apple trees and three pots were planted underneath a pear tree amongst some small English lavender bushes.

The six strawberry plants went in as the middle row in one of the bigger strawberry beds. All these plants are only a year old, quite small and in a couple of years she will move half of them to another bed and allow them more space. 

Strawberry plants can last about five or six years but she never lets them stay that long as they can build up pests and the yield drops dramatically, the older two year old ones she has are runners from old stock.

Having picked a small bag of mixed green leaves, she put the tools away, locked up Shack and headed for the bus stop.

Only to see Ros who has Plot # 1 hard at work digging. Poor, poor Ros, last June she was at a junction in her car and was hit sideways, which made her bang her head very hard against her car window. 

There were witnesses and the man got out and they exchanged details for insurance purposes.

Three weeks later, she was found by her daughter on the floor in her home unconscious and was whipped into hospital where they found the bang on her head had caused a bleed on the brain.

She was in hospital for some time and her life has changed a lot. Her memory is not good and she gets frustrated at not being able to do crosswords, she's lost a lot of strength and has been told that she is not to drive.

Thank goodness she has the allotments to work on, for digging and weeding move lots of muscles so hopefully she'll get her strength back and being in the fresh air is good for her (and everyone else!)

But she misses her car but hey, we don't keep a car and no one could / would ever say that stops us from gadding about!

But back to cheerul things like wasabi and ginger.. here is a great recipe for you.

You need for 4 people:

250g of medium egg Noodles - we use rice noodles as she cannot have gluten in wheat noodles.
1 bunch of Spring Onions, chop them & include the green stems.
5cm piece of fresh Ginger root, finely chopped.
3 cloves of Garlic, crushed and chopped.
500ml of water.
3 tbspfuls of Mirin.
4 tbspful of Soy Sauce.
2 tspful of Wasabi paste.
2 bunches of Pak choi, sliced not too thinly.
500g of minced Pork.
1.5 litres of Chicken or Pork Stock.


How to cook it:

Cook the noodles according to which ones you use.
Rinse them under cold water until completely cold.
Put half your sliced spring onions, half the ginger and half the garlic in a large saucepan with the stock, the mirin and 3 tbspfuls of soy sauce.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
In a big bowl, mix pork mince with remaining soy sauce, garlic, ginger and wasabi paste, make into 20 evenly sized balls.
Strain the broth into a large bowl through a metal sieve, then put the broth back into the saucepan and bring it back up to a simmer, add the pork balls and simmer for 8 - 10 minutes, add the pak choi and noodles for a final 2 minutes.
Ladle into 4 bowls and add the remaining spring onions on top.

Oh, I'm pleased that we are having this for supper tonight, for it has turned into a gloomy day.

She didn't go to the quiz this afternoon, she had things to do at home plus some washing which meant that I also got washed or rather dunked into a basin full of water and given a scrub-a-dub-dub.

So a pork ball or two might just take away the shame of being given a bath.. as if I'm not old enough to give myself a bath, I ask you, whatever next?

That's you lot for today, we have a busy day tomorrow with builders etc and may not be back again until the late evening, Friday and Saturday she is designing someone else's kitchen garden so we will be late to post on both of those days.

We hope this gloomy weather passes over soon because it will soon be the Spring Equinox which happens on March 21st. This is the day when day and night are of the same duration, the Autumn Equinox happens on September 23rd. 

So having given you that piece of information which I'm sure you will find useful, I'm off to supervise the garlic and ginger chopping. 

GeeGee Parrot.
March 6th, 2019.

BOY CAME STROLLING BACK AT TEN TO EIGHT PM.. OH, NAUGHTY BOY!

Phew.. what a relief to get a message from our neighbour that our cat friend, Boy, came strolling home as cool (and as wet) as could be at ten minutes to eight last night! 

What a naughty cat! But where had he been for all that length of time? He certainly wasn't telling and just demanded something to eat before settling down on a cosy rug under a chair.

Panic over.. but she has said that she'll buy a red collar today and have the family name and a mobile number put onto a disc for him.

It is a sunny day.. hurray and she is going to make a run out to the allotments so that she can plant the narcissi and strawberries.

The weather forecast is for dodgy weather for the next ten day with lots of rain but with rain, you don't get frost so they will settle in happily.

There's a great deal of activity going on outside our front door, with the huge amount of rain we've had, the steps have gone green with algae and last week, a dustman slipped and was lucky not to break or twist his ankle.

She's been 'banging on' to the managing agents about how dangerous these slippery steps are and for them to be doing it now, makes me think they've had a call from the council! 

We had an hour's cuddle this morning, swiftly followed by our eggs, now it's time for her to gird her loins, the narcissi and strawberries and head off out to the allotments.

We hope this sunshine stays for just a while longer but aren't holding our breath. But we're cheerful for we had news from a friend who underwent a colonoscopy (ugh) last week that they didn't find anything horrid. BIG chirp!

PipPip to you all.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 5th, 2019.

MIAOW HISS SPIT.. THEY CAME HURTLING DOWN OUR STEPS!

That silvery sun changed to proper sunlight and after blowing me a kiss and telling me to be a good girl, as if I had a chance to be otherwise, she went off to meet her friend.

They met at Shepherds Bush station and went down the Uxbridge Road to a nut shop. Which goes by the splendid name of.. Nutcase! It's situated at 352. Uxbridge Road, London W12 and it sells, beside nuts, yummy nougat and wonderful coffees!

They bought what they wanted, she resisted buying coffee.. this makes her sad as she LURVES the taste of their coffees but, oh boy, caffeine makes arthritis kick off in her right hand so badly that she has stopped drinking it completely.. sigh.

They hopped on a bus to go back to the station. Her friend smiled, hugged her and said "let's make our next jaunt longer, sorry to have to have to run, give old Feather Face a kiss from me" and with that, she was gone.

Hmm, she thought, I'm going to go to Lidl and see if there are any of those cheap narcissi left and take as many as I can carry, she crossed over the road and walked into the shopping centre.

Oh dear.. they've all gone.. for in their place were pots of hyacinths, she turned round to go out and spotted out of the corner of her eye trays of the narcissi on a trolley. 

They had been moved to the other side of the passage and were looking a little sad. But, the ones she bought previously had looked sad too and she knew they would be fine if soaked in deep water for an hour.

She poked amongst the trays on the trolley and cherry picked pots with the most bulbs and made sure that each bulb had several buds and didn't just have leaves.

Brilliant, now she's lots of enchanting narcissi for a long grass bed which is full of yellow flowers and backed by a wild honeysuckle.

Thrilled with her swag, she crossed back over the road and caught a C1 bus to bring her and WW home.

It wasn't until the bus was on the Earls Court Road that she saw the rain, which is less than a nano second, developed in to a full blown downpour.

Ugh.. thank goodness she had a hat and gloves and that our bus stop wasn't too far from home. WW and she ran home, for the downpour had turned into a deluge and gave no sign of being of a short duration.

She practically skidded as she turned the corner and picked WW up, hitched the handle over her shoulder and came down our stairs so fast it made her blink!

Miaow.. Hiss.. Spit.. she made strange noises like cats do when they get wet and gave herself a good shake. Shucking off her jacket she put it on a hanger and hung it on the shower rail to drip into the bath.

And came into see what I was up to.. 'Up to?' I had been fast asleep for most of the time she had been out but hoped that she had remembered to bring me some walnuts and hazelnuts.

Her mobile was low on battery so she plugged it to charge and went to make out lunch, which was quick.. two strips of grilled belly of pork, we both love this meat, they were placed on top of a bowl of steamed spring greens with spicy seasonings.

She cast an eye on her mobile and saw that there was a WhatsApp message from our upstairs neighbour.

"Oh no, oh, please no", for it was to let us know that our mouse hunting cat friend Mr. Boy is missing, he had gone out of the kitchen window at about 9am and hadn't returned. She went to check that he wasn't in the courtyard outside our sitting room.. sadly no, he wasn't.

'Please God, please let him come home safely' she thought and send his mum a message to tell her about the family who own the house on the corner who own the back courtyard where he might have fallen, for he has never been out for longer than half an hour before and he has been gone for nine and a half hours. 

Poor Boy, poor girls who love him, we're very sad.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 4th, 2019.

BY THE LIGHT.. OF A SILVERY SUN..

Outside looks very blah.. you all know what I mean, Mr. Sun doesn't have his torch switched on and the light is silvery grey.

Which means it's a hat day, for when you have very short hair it's chilly around the ears on days like today.

The wretch.. aka mother.. gave me a clawicure this morning, that was a nasty shock, I thought she wanted a cuddle but before I knew what was happening, I was wrapped up in a towel and my toe nails were being cut!

And then, to add insult to injury, she filed Beaky with her battery operated hard skin remover! 

Secretly, between you, me and the front door, I rather like having this funny grindy thing on Beaky as it is similar to the effect when I rub a door or perch but does the job better and quicker.

So now I look very smart and polished.

Which is more than I can say for her, she's still in her pj's in bed  waiting for a call from a friend about what they plan to do later today.

Tomorrow is an 'at home' whilst she works on taking furniture away from the wall, this is so that the builder can examine them to make sure there are no other mice 'front doors' in the flat.

I am being remarkably silly and making a lot of verbal noise instead of investigating two plates on the bed. One has egg on it, the other has lots of crunchy things like almonds and my dried Harrisons food, there's a bowl of grapes as well as my huge bowl of water, which to stop it flooding her bed is in a square washing-up bowl.

You see I need or want for nothing when she goes out, I have cardboard centres from lavatory rolls, a perch made out of coffee branches and either the radio or the television are always left on for me, plus a UVA 'daylight' bulb to produce vit D which is vital for birds - and humans.

Ok, she's now spoken with her friend and they discussed todays plan, she also spoke with Leigh, human mother of Otto Cat, and we've been invited to supper next week, let's hope it's a sunny day for she'll work at the allotments in the afternoon and if it is cold, raining or very windy, she won't take me.

So.. let's cheer ourselves up by singing, in or out of tune doesn't matter, you should all know the words.. 'By the light of a silvery moon'.

This song is over a century old and was song on stage by Lillian Lorraine in the Ziegfield Follies ofdoris  1909! But most people remember it being sung by Doris Day in the film of the same name.

Ok, she's off out and I'm choosing somewhere to doze, I might stay where I am, which is on her back pillow which is lying on her bed, it's very comfortable to stand on when all your toe-toes have just been clipped!

Yawn.. time to doze and remember those sunny days in February.. and having said that.. there's sunshine! Mr. Cloud has allowed old Man Sun to come through.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 4th, 2019,

BEST END OF NECK LAMB STEW WITH SPICED MASHED CAULIFLOWER.

Old wimpy didn't go to any museum, the lamb 'called' to her, so the days plans changed from spending the day in a museum she got her pedicure kit out and ran a hot bath into which she shook a couple of big shakes of Epsom Salts.

With her dodgy right knee, she no longer bathes like you probably do, but sits on a very low wide stool in the water so this makes doing a pedicure easy.

We've told you that she drinks ginger, turmeric and pepper tea but have we told you about one of the magical side effects? It makes nails grow and this applies to toe nails as well as finger nails!

Having done scrub-a-dub-dub, her toes and hair, she climbed into leggings, a warm sweater and off we went to yumyum hq, where there were seriously tasty smells coming from a pot on the stove.

Ah-ha, the lamb stew! She turned off the heat, took down a pot and sliced a cauliflower in half.

Steamed cauliflower is something we both love, especially mashed up and drizzled with olive oil 
and Cajun seasoning, it must have a bit of crunch, so don't steam it for too long!

Then ladled the cauliflower into a wide shallow bowl, added a couple of ladles of stew on top and we went back to bed.

Yes folks, you did read that right, we went back to bed together with the stew, a huge mug of hot ginger, turmeric and pepper tea with grapes and almonds for 'pudding'.

What a great lunch we were going to have, she put a spoonful of meat and cauliflower in to my bowl and when we finished, we both thought seriously about licking our plates!

Papers to read, people to talk to and the coming week to sort out, a builder is coming on Thursday to deal with the mice's 'front' door. By deal, I mean stuff the gap with wire wool and cover the gap with concrete, that should thwart those pesky mice.

Jane has arrived back from her trip to Glasgow and called at 6pm, they discussed their week during which she told Jane about finding glorious red Calla Lillies tubers last week. So they've made a plan to go by bus to Shepherds's Bush and have lunch somewhere around the Bush.

And she is SO impressed with those little pots of narcissi in Lidl, she's going to go back for more.

She soaked the pots in water for two hours. Having left them to drain, she put them on the bathroom window, where, bless their hearts, they've rewarded her (for taking them out of the shop) by growing and beginning to bloom.

At 89p each, which won't break our bank, she'll pick up a lot more on Friday!

But before that, she has to pull furniture away from the walls so that the builder can examine walls to check for holes.. and do an enormous amount of ironing!

Our very light supper will be a smidgen of hard goaty cheese with grapes and almonds, slurp. What are you having for supper?

Good bye. We'll see you next week.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 3rd, 2019.

FIDDLE DEE DEE.. WE HAVE LOTS OF RAIN.. BORING!

Veryvery boring as there are five red Calla Lillies, twenty Iris and five Begonia that need to be planted. 

WET weather started to come in late yesterday afternoon and whilst it isn't that cold, it's mighty damp here today.

She had a big surprise this morning, she was lolling about in bed reading something on her mobile when it rang and up came BUB on the screen with a video call!

There was no point in denying that she was still in bed, there she was as large as life in the dark!

How very nice, they always had to be very frugal before as calling the Isle of Man was expensive but now on WhatsApp, they can chat for free as long as they are at home with a free wifi. It's certainly made a difference to her phone bill!

A very pleasant day was had yesterday, she met the Goaty Mum at Bute Street Farmer's Market and handed over a couple of things that she thought Debbie would find useful and made them a cup of ginger and peppermint, you have to let this mix steep for some time but, it's very tasty!

Then she went off to the North End Road market, knowing that grim weather was coming our way, she decided a proper old fashioned lamb stew was what was needed. 

Meat on the bone makes tasty stews and Best End of Neck aka Scrag makes the tastiest of them all.

The queue was long but they had five people serving so she was at the top of the queue quickly and asked for two lamb necks to be chopped up and, did they have a tray of lamb bones?

For this is a proper butcher, they do all their prep work in house and so, if you're not too late, you can buy trays of beef, chicken, lamb and pork bones for a £.. yes, one £.

This is how she makes stocks which she freezes in ice cube trays.

And yes, they had one large bag of lamb bones, she puts the bones on top of the neck and they give lots of extra meat and gelatine to the stew and anti-up the taste!

She added two trays of chicken carcasses and bones to her shopping, she'll freeze these and use them later in the week. In cold weather she keeps a pot on the stove, it's brought to the boil and simmered for ten minutes once a day.

Which means there's always a protein meal that can be heated up when she comes in from gardening.

Then it was off up the market to Geoff's stall, he had three avocadoes for a £ and three good sized,very fresh cauliflower also for a £ and finally £1.50 bought her a huge bag of delicious black grapes - which in Waitrose or Sainsbury's would be over £6.00 for the same amount in weight and, not so fresh!

We are very fussy about grapes!

Back home with all her swag, she chopped onions, garlic, celery stalks, added them to oil and lightly cooked them before adding the neck chops to brown, seasoning and hot water was added, the pan brought up to boil, then simmered for four hours.

The chicken bones went into frosty cabinet for next week.

Grapes were washed, some put into a bowl and the rest into chilly white larder.

We had two belly of pork slices on steamed cauliflower and cabbage, then received a lovely surprise!

When that evil Google updated her diary on the mobile, it wiped her data and she had forgotten that March 2nd was our upstairs neighbours birthday.

She sent us a message asking if we would like a slice of cake.. yum.. is the Pope a Catholic? And down came a slice of cheesecake! How sweet and how scrumptious and delicious it was.

She is not gardening today, it's 'pretty' windy here in deepest Knightsbridge, it would be very windy out on the plots, so she is going to be a culture vulture and head out to a museum.

I'm not welcome at museums, for can you just imagine what chaos I'd cause amongst all those lovely white marble statues?

I'll be home with the television for company but she won't be out for as long and we'll be back later today or tomorrow. In the meantime, stay safe and warm.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 3rd, 2019.

REALLY.. THERE'S NO HOPE FOR HER. SHE WENT TO LIDL FOR WASHING LIQUID & CAME HOME WITH LOTS OF NARCISSI & A PRUNING SAW!

Silly mama, she's usually on top of what the house needs but when she went to put on a 'dark' wash this morning, there was no washing liquid for dark fabrics.

So that meant the plan for today changed, she dressed in proper clothes not gardening clothes, gathered up old WW - wicker wheelie trolley, her basket and set off for Lidl.

Instead of tramping over to Clapham Junction, she caught a C1 bus to White City and went to a jumbo sized Lidl.

And right inside the store, oh lookie lookie.. there were bulbs in pots! Lots and lots of potted up bulbs. But with no prices displayed so she took a pot over to a cashier and asked her to tell her the price.

89p for four or five Narcissi bulbs is a good price, so her basket was filled with as many pots that would fit and on she went to pick up what she was meant to be buying!

Only to come across the most perfect thing and which she could have certainly used this week, a proper pruning saw!

Wow.. what perfect timing for there are still six apple and pear trees that have to be pruned.

You'll be pleased to know she did remember to pick up the washing liquid before she left with all her swag!

What a good trip, the pruning saw was half the price of the one she had seen at Homebase earlier this week and the pots of Narcissi were £2.11 cheaper plus they had more bulbs in each pot.

Tomorrow she's meeting up with Debbie aka the Goaty Mum of Ellie's Dairy who will be at the Bute Street Farmer's Market in South Kensington.

They'll drink hot ginger with peppermint and put their worlds to right, she'll bring her goaty cheese back to put it into chilly white larder, then we will, as long as the weather is ok, go to the allotments.

Goodness me.. it is almost 8pm and we need a snacket of grapes and almonds, got to go folks, I'll be back soon.

GeeGee Parrot.
March 1st, 2019.