IF YOU DON'T TELL PEOPLE HOW YOU FEEL - HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO KNOW & OTHER SUCH THINGS.

You can tell it's grim outside, for here we are back again.

She has received an email from her GP - General Practioner - about her drugs, the drugs she hasn't collected from the pharmacy.

And this, together with something she needed to check with the surgery, prompted her to call them.

"Have you received the results from my latest blood test" she inquired and was very pleased to hear they were absolutely fine and all levels of whatever they had tested her for were where they should be.. always nice to know.

Then the receptionist asked if she had received the email about the 'heart' medications and she gathered up her courage and told the woman, whom she has known for several years, that she wasn't going to take them and why.

And that she had already discussed this with 'young' doctor Ben. "Hmm, yes, it's here on his notes, talk me through it as well" she said and so mama did, that the wretched blood thinners had kicked off a major attack of anal bleeding and that the statins had made her feel like a zombie.

And as the zombie sensation stopped 36 hours later, in the evening of the day after she stopped taking them, she put 2 & 2 together and made 4. 

And last but not least, she told her about yesterdays visit to Burchells, which prompted the receptionist to say. "Go straight to A&E to have your foot x-rayed. If Joanna, the podiatrist, thinks it is a fracture and she's certainly, if not more, qualified about foot bones than our doctors, then you should get it done as soon as possible" she said. 

As it's pouring with rain, she's feeling snug and her foot isn't sore at the moment for not a lot of walking has been done today, she'll do this tomorrow early, she knows from experience that A&E's are like bun fights on Friday afternoons!

In the meantime.. back home on the ranch.. I know what supper is.. it's brown basmati rice which she will cook with ginger and turmeric roots, barberries and two chopped up chorizo sausages. 

When the rice is nearly done, she'll place on the top, chopped red onions, purple sprouting broccoli, crushed garlic and a tablespoonful of flaxseeds on the top when she puts it into a bowl.

It's a dish to drool over, do you do one pot suppers like this, you should, for they're simple, easy on the digestive system and very tasty. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, just omit the chorizo and perhaps add a bit of seaweed to give you iodine.

And now I am going to fly off to supervise the preparation of this dish and to scrounge whatever is edible and accessible.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 27th, 2019.

NATURAL ANTI-INFLAMATORIES BUT PLEASE BEWARE OF VERY BRIGHTLY COLOURED TURMERIC POWDER BECAUSE IT ISN'T ALL THAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE..

You would have to not be a reader of my blog to know how she dislikes and won't take certain drugs.

The only ones that she will take are for her open angled glaucoma. The rest, including blood thinners and pain killers, nah! 

She uses a teaspoonful of ground ginger powder for pain relief and thanks Dr. Michael Greger for his very informative book.. the details of which are immediately below.

HOW NOT TO DIE by Dr. Michael Greger.
Published in 2015, then republished in soft cover form by Macmillan in 2016.
ISBN # 978-1-4472-8244-0

She makes a tea out of ginger root, turmeric root and freshly ground black pepper, this strange 'tea' is allowed to brew for about ten minutes and then is strained and drunk.

These three spices are a magic bullet at working on several ailments, the first two are anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and extremely efficient at tackling pain.

And used together they are a drug free way to counteract numerous conditions with no evil side effects. 

And a day or two ago, a scientific friend pointed her to research published by Stanford University.

Apparently brightly coloured turmeric powder started to appear when Bangladesh suffered severe flooding, for when the turmeric roots were harvested, they were found to be of a much paler colour than normal.

So what was done? It isn't a happy story this.

Some spice manufacturers in Bangladesh have been found to have added an industrial lead chromate pigment to 'brighten & enhance' the colour of their turmeric.

Lead is a source of cognitive and other severe ailments. Lead pipes, of course, have long been banned from use.

The lead in powdered turmeric dates back to the 1980's and the flooding we wrote about earlier, so poor unsuspecting customers have got used to the brighter, richer colour and their food looking brighter too and it has become a vicious circle.

Luckily we don't use powdered turmeric as she much prefers the taste of fresh turmeric root and buys it fresh every week. And mighty fussy she is too about the quality of the roots she buys (this applies to the ginger roots as well).

Lead is a neurotoxin, which increases the risks of heart and brain disease and interferes with brain development.

The report is long and we recommend that you read it.

Neurotoxin lead sometimes added to turmeric for brighter colour - ScienceDaily.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190924101446.htm

IF you must buy it in the powdered form, buy the palest coloured powder, this also applies to ginger powder you buy. Think of grated ginger root (yum), it is not dark, so powdered ginger should only be a fraction darker than fresh ginger. 

We're experiencing monsoon type rain! It's deluging down from a very dirty grey sky and making a loud rat-a-tat-tat noise on our steps, oh, how lucky Big Juli and Andreea are. 

But I know what we are having for our very late / early supper and so I have to go and inspect the happenings (is that a real word, or is a GeeGee word?) in yumyum hq.

Time to flap a wing to go zoom-a-zoom-a-zoom.

What? You called me silly? Of course, I'm silly, so would you be if you had a parent like mine.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 27th, 2019. 

KARMA.. SOMETIMES HAPPENS QUICKER THAN LIGHTENING!

Those of you who are up to date on my blog know that she is keeping her mouth zipped about an unfortunate incident - the other person involved is very litigious, despite being in the wrong as they initially accepted full responsibility.

So she hasn't said a word but Karma, the all-seeing spiritual 'eye' in the sky, saw what happened, swooped down from the Heavens and has dealt with it.

ON TO MUCH HAPPIER NEWS!

She had an amazing extraordinary day yesterday!

She's recently been experiencing horrendous pains in her left foot and has periodically, for three years now, had chronic pain in her lower back (think kidney region).

The weird thing is that this pain only comes when she is standing in one place for a length of time and when she sits down on a low seat.

But never materialises when she walks or works at the allotments.. curious, no?

She discussed this with her darling Pat, who told her to go immediately to see Burchells, the podiatrists on Fulham Palace Road.

She went to see them and saw Rob Thomas, the manager, he looked at her foot and said that he was going to make an appointment for her to see Joanna who specialises in tendons.

So she went to see Joanna yesterday morning.

Joanna has both x-rays eyes and a huge amount of knowledge! 

For she immediately pinpointed the first area of pain on the area directly under her ankle bone on the inside of her foot, then worked her way over the arch of mama's foot pointing out another area of pain and went again immediately down to the source of pain on the outside of her foot - for which mama had wrongly blamed her strappy sandles.. the ones that give her striped suntanned feet!

The result?

Mama's right leg is minutely shorter her left!

And due to the polio she contracted when she was six, her right knee is not quite as fully formed as the left one.

This minute difference in length in her legs is, therefore, causing the lower back pain when she stands still for any length of time and when she sits down in a low seat, who knew the smallest fraction of loss in a leg could and does cause such pain?

She was given a pair of insoles and the heel of the right one was raised by a minute amount. The difference was instantaneous! 

But then came the 'bad sad' news. Joanna told her that she must not wear them all day immediately (BOOHOO) but only for an hour for the first three days, a couple of hours for the next three days and so on, this is so that the hip aligns itself slowly to being in the proper position.

Mama has to have an x-ray as Joanna's clever fingers also think she might have fractured the skinny bone on the edge of her foot, no, I don't know which one, I'm not up to speed on human feet. 

And she wants her to visit the osteopath she recommended to check out her lower spine and to do a minor correction which will help her balance which is a bit wonky at the moment.

The rest of the day will be put into another post, suffice to say, she travelled out to Essex by bus and train to see Emma, the lovely daughter of ValerieAnn Worwood.

Long time readers of my blog will remember ValerieAnn as a magical woman with miraculous fingers who stopped mama from going blind.

Well, meanwhile we're deeply envious of Big Julie, Andreea, Amelia and Lukas who are in sunny Spain and living the life of old Riley on a beach.

PipPip meanwhile back here, splosh goes the rain.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 27th, 2019.

HOW MANY TIMES DO / SHOULD YOU 'SAY' "THANK YOU"

Well, let's work through this question carefully.

I think, for instance, if you went to have a meal or stay with someone that you should say it twice.

The first time you say the magic words is when you actually take your leave and the second time is when you write your thank you note.. please not an email but an old fashioned note / letter.

Now if someone gives / sends you something then I think you say it once, probably in writing.

And having said it, that is it. You don't have to say or write it multiple times.

But some people, or to be more precise, the person she has recently had unpleasant dealings with, is either not reading her mail or is stupid and expects her to say it at least twice in one day.

Dream on.. is what I say.

On to certainly more pleasant subjects!

We've discovered, I tell gross fibs, she discovered the most divine crisps! Oh, they are so tasty and not made from potatoes!

Do not fret folks, I am only allowed to have the most minute pieces and never more than three pieces per evening and when I say minute, I mean if you don't peer at it very closely, you won't see it.

They are made from, wait a minute whilst she looks at a bag, sweet potato, beetroots spinach and corn and they're studded with golden linseed.

Don't fret, of course I'm going to tell you where to buy them but it's going to be sad if you don't live in the UK, because they're sold by the CO-OP!

She has attempted, in the past, to make crisps but they were not a great success, we certainly didn't offered them to friends, that's for sure.

But recently she was talking with a very savvy young friend of hers who is a cracking cook, Lucy is a wizard and came to work the next week with an airtight box full of the scrummiest crisps, all made by her own fair hands.

Man, they were good! So she is going to ask for the recipe as why buy them when you can make them out of your own homegrown vegetables - like Lucy does!

So she is pleased that she gives her (Lucy) more than the odd bunch of roses and other goodly things as 'thank you' gifts for taking in her parcels and courier deliveries.

Full circle back to thank you! How tidy was that? 

Now I'm off to investigate her bedside table, there are all manner of things that Beaky wants to prod, poke and push onto the floor.

I know, it doesn't take a lot to amuse a small fat grey bird.. but it certainly gets her attention when she hears stuff go 'plop' on the floor.

TeeHeeHee.. 

GeeGee Parrot.
September 25th, 2019.

IT'S A VERY LARGE POT.. IN FACT.. IT'S SO BIG I COULD PADDLE IN IT!

Our lubblyjubbly butcher has all manner of meats to sell and last week she bought a large cut of pork, it has a bone in it, a big bone but it wasn't being sold by the weight, it was, hold onto your hats folks, £3.89 a piece.

And she knew exactly what she was going to do with it. 

Up on the top of one of the cabinets in yumyum hq, aka the kitchen for those of you who haven't been reading my blog for the past eight years, there live two pots, one medium sized one and one huge one.

Their official name is a stock pot for that is what this shape and size pot is usually used for and it was exactly that she was planning to do with this cut of pork.

She put the pork in, then added all manner of vegetables - no carrots, plus spices and herbs, covered it with filtered cold water and brought it up to the boil, then it was heaved over onto a much smaller gas ring and left to hubblebubble for several hours.

I pity any hungry person who walked past our house that night for the extractor fan was on and the smell was wafting out onto the street and a mighty fine smell it was too.

Off went the gas and we went to bed.

The next day she skimmed some of the fat off and put it back onto simmer. After several hours of being on a low heat, she turned it off again and went out about her business.

The next day, more of the same happened and then taking two large glass jars, she ladled stock into them, cleaned the ouside of the jars and put them into WW aka her wicker wheelie.

They were given away as presents and the recipient was literallly speechless! And very sweetly later that evening she telephoned to say how she had used one of the jars.

She had gone and bought a packet of pork belly strips and cut the strips into small pieces and had poached the meat very gently in the stock until the meat was tender, then she added purple kale and some black rice she had in the fridge, then she and her boys had had it for supper.

"Mummy, that was delicious, what a tasty dish", the elder boy said, so sweetly she called us to say how much they all enjoyed it.

If people give you something, anything, please say "thank you". It's such a slap in the face of the giver when you don't.

She remembers giving a pretty cloth and leather bad to an friend a couple of years ago, it would have been perfect for her knitting or needle but the recipient looked at it and said, and I kid you not as I was there, "oh, West African" and put it down on the floor.

Ahh, let's not go there, for all of them have to be the rudest family we know.

So guess what we had for our lunch today? She had pork belly in frosty white larder aka the freezer and took it out last night to defrost. 

So now we know why the boys liked it! For it was delicious, she added barberries and black rice, a couple of stalks of purple sprouting brocolli and half a courgette which sat to steam on the top of the meat for the last few minutes.

Do you make stock? You can also, of course, make vegetable stock which is well worth making, she makes and uses stock throughout the year and freezes it in ice cube trays. 

Chicken & Garlic stock is always in frosty white larder.

She is off to do her feet, this involves Epsom Salts, Tea Tree oil, Savon de Marseille, a nail brush and warm water. I once played the fool and attempted to splosh in the water, being young and foolish, but I was banished and am now never allowed into the bathroom whilst she does her feet.

So I'm going to fly up onto my shelf and chew the fat with Frosty Tiger and Daffy Duck, doubtless we'll be back with another post before too long.

Chirp.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 22nd, 2019, 

WHICH TYPE OF APPLE SHALL WE PLANT GEEGEE?

Bless her heart, she does credit me with an enormous amount of intelligence. How the hell would I know which variety of apple to plant, I don't read books on fruit, I eat it and occasionally look at our existing apple trees but only to check that some naughty bird isn't doing a scrump.

You don't know what a scrump is? Of course you do, it's when you set out to steal fruit and go scrumping!

There's been a lot of scrumping going on this summer out at the allotments.

First of all, some unmentionably evil people stole 99% of her cherries, then there was a massive raid on all of the pear trees on the entire allotment site, stealing everyone's fruit in one night, there must have been a gang of people stripping the trees and it must have been done early one morning. 

But almost the saddest of all was the raid on her little Violetta fig. It happened last week, for we were there last weekend, she watered the small tree and picked a couple of very tasty ripe ones.. yum slurp.. then tucked and pegged the horticultural mesh securely back around the tree.

Birds of all breed loves figgies and as they've eaten all the Marseille figs above the height of two metres, she reckoned they had had their fair share of her figs this summer, so she wrapped the Violetta up to prevent beaky people from scrumping.

Yesterday she walked down the path to the little fig tree yesterday and upon spying trampled grass, she thought 'Oh no, not these as well', the thieves hadn't even bothered to replace the mesh, it was hanging down on one side and sure enough, had been stripped of figs.

Again, it must be someone who has a plot on the site, someone who has access to the site and comes in very early. 

For there are families who have suppers out there and as the weather has been glorious, a lot of plot holders come down later than normal to water.

Yes, she's saving up for two surveillance cameras!

But onto happier things, she cut the grass and tidied up a few of the beds, tied in a few long blackberry shoots, which will grow along the chain link fencing which borders Brian's old plots.

Which leads me to write about a very unexpected gift she received.She arrived one day about a month ago to find, parked outside her gate, a large green wheelbarrow and a matching watering can. 

'How strange', she thought, then remembered that Brian, her neighbour, had these, so she went onto his allotment which is now a jungle and peered into his shed, upon seeing neither a wheelbarrow or a watering can, she assumed they must be his and sent him a message and received a message back saying 'yes they were his and he'd given them to her as the wretched Sycamore trees had defeated him and he was giving up his plots'.

How sad she thought, he had been a pleasant neighbour and very circumspect about weed control, particularly weeds that have seeds!

Ah well, people's lives change, isn't that true!

Her life has certainly changed in the past twenty years, it will be the 19th anniversary of her taking on the plots this coming January, and apart from the three Cypriot families at the other end of the site and Joska, who came to the site a month or two after she took on her plots, she and Rose, the owner of Gerty, her Jack Russel, have been there the longest length of time.

Elaine and Stephen went well over four years ago, Jack Baker died three years ago, his wife did take the plots on but in a very half hearted fashion, the charming Iraqi family with Nancy, their African Grey have been gone for at least six years, Jane gave up her plot due to ill health and so too has Stefano, the wonderful chef.

But let's go back to apples.. I lurve a crunchy apple and so does she and my bet, yes, I am a betting parrot - it's a good thing I don't get pocket money (no pockets to keep it in) as it would all go on the odd flutter.. gettit! Flutter.. feathers.. perhaps not, not everyone is as mad as we are in this house.

Anyway, my bet is that it will be a variety of Russet apple, all the rest you can buy at Farmer's Markets but it's rare to see Russets for sale, yes, they're an old breed of apple and I think she'll go for an Ashmead's Kernel.

This variety dates back to the 17th century! And has an unusual, almost pear like, taste. It is an extremely versatile apple as it is delicious cooked, is brilliant in a salad (!) and keeps well.

So that's a no-brainer, but as she has room to plant two trees, which other would be a good one, perhaps a D'Arcy Spice but as she hasn't been able to find any available, it will probably be a Saint Edmund's Russet. We already have a Egremont Russet and the St. Edmunds are richer and juicer, so that is what she'll go for.

She'll order them this week for delivery this 
Autumn and at some point before then, will prepare the ground for their arrival, buying two stakes with the rubber ties and get a load of mulch ready to put around the trunks of these trees when they are planted.

Jolly Dolly is what I say or should that be Tooty Frooty? Whichever, you get the drift, the more fruity tooty the better.

Goodness me, it's way past one of the afternoon clock, where's my lunch? I had better let her go and rustle a pan or two in yumyum hq. Stay happy, healthy and safe wherever you may be.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 22nd, 2019.

YELLOW PICKLED RELISH - YUM.. TASTY!

She'd seen them in the market for years but never bought one, the long white radishes called Daikon.

But recently a young friend gave her a jar of very crunchy bright yellow pickle, the yellow coming from turmeric.

She thought, I am not an idiot, I can make this, so off she trotted, her foot wasn't sore then, down to the market.

You need PURE rice vinegar, always check the ingredients of rice vinegar as a lot of them have very little vinegar and LOTS of water in them!

She gathered turmeric, both powder and root, homegrown bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, garlic, black pepper corns, filtered water, salt and sugar, plus the rice vinegar.

She cut the radish quite finely as per the example in the jar, put the ingredients, minus the radish, into a stainless steel pan and boiled the liquid for some time to get it infused with the spices and herbs.

Then added the radish to the liquid and poached it for about twenty minutes. Then tipped into a large glass bowl and left it to cool.

Before she went to bed, she put it into a tall Kilner jar and into chilly white larder.. aka the fridge.  

She let it sit for two days before she tasted it. I thought that showed great restraint!

Yum, she thought, now that's another tasty thing to make for gifts, I'll add a piece of ginger root to it as well to add a bit of heat to the taste.

Yes, Christmas is a'coming folks, she'll soon be starting to make crystalised ginger that so many of her friends love and now she'll make the Yellow Daikon relish as well.

Gifts do not have to be expensive, more fool you if you think so or if your so-called friends expect expensive presents. You clearly know the wrong kind of people.

As she obviously did for a few years, as someone has accused her of being dishonest.. ouch! That's pretty 'rich' coming from a person whose life and behaviour is, what Bill would have described as 'decidedly suspect'.' ie dodgy!

But now she knows and that person is 'history'.

It's tea time! See what happens when she is under my feet all the time, I think of nothing but food, but then I know there are the most divine drop scones* in chilly white larder, made with a wonderful mix of ground up nuts instead of flour.. oh, slurp the durp with fresh almond butter.

Goodbye farewell.. yumyum hq is calling me.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 18th, 2019.
PostScript: Hugo used to call them Babies Feet.

9/11 DAGGA DIED THAT DAY & OTHER THINGS.

What a horrible day that was, it's never a 'good' day - 9.11 - for all of the thousands of people who were affected by the terrible things that happened and, of course, New York City itself.

For her, it's like Valentine's Day, the day that Hugo died or October 30th on which Edgar, Bill and Moley died, all on the same day but in different years. 

Darling Dagga, he would still be alive if that idiot hadn't put the box of washing tablets behind the mirror, he died at almost the exact time the first aircraft hit the north tower.. on the deadful third anniversary of that day of terror.

When she came back from burying him later that day, she took down the huge dressing table mirror from which he had fallen, put it in the hall and gave it away that next week.

It didn't matter that she loved it and had known it all her life, she would never be able to look at it again and not hear the scream of pain as his neck broke.

Gruesome days.. ugh and she had another last week when the nurse taking a blood test, couldn't get any blood out of her first needle, so she had to take it out and put another needle in.

Her lovely GP had called her in to the surgery to talk to her because he had come back off holiday to find her emails and to be told all about the fun and games that happened two weeks ago.

So various blood tests were ordered.. but as she bumped into a lovely friend on her way out, that was a treat as she lives miles away and we don't get to see her very often.

Fifteen years ago, such a lot has happened since then. She misses that big bird, Dagga Parrot, more than she lets on. She seldom talks about him and 
it's only old friends who knew and remember him and his funny ways.

However, there was a story published recently about her and the three African Grey, yes, you read that correctly, because if it hadn't been for her meeting Tunku, an African Grey in Malayia when she was eighteen months old, I wonder if I or Dagga Parrot would have come into her life.

She's loved us birds for a long time, she and Dagga met when she was rising thirty eight, she's now sixty nine, she has had Greys for over thirty one years but if she had had her way, she would have had one when she was eighteen months old and the parrot would probably still be alive!

Our species live, if loved and treated properly, for a very good length of time! Longer than a cat or a dog, that's for sure!

I have her 'captive' at home! The strappy sandals she has worn for three summers which make her feet striped with suntan, have caused a huge bump on the outside of her foot, which is so weird as they have never in the past caused her to have the slightest pain and in fact, were extremely comfortable to wear for both walking and working in.

But the strap that comes from underneath her foot and then over her arch has caused this extremely sore area on the edge of her foot which is also slightly underneath, it is probably a bursa, as in bursitis. 

Boring! And incredibly painful. The rest of that side of the foot swells up if it is contained in a shoe or boot so that puts the mockers on her working at the allotments, that's for sure!

She had breakfast with her much beloved friend Pat on Monday who asked mum why she was limping, mum explained and Pat immediately told her to go to Burchills, the podiatrists on the Fulham Palace Road, as they'll be able to help you. 

She knew immediately where they were as she passes them every time she goes to the allotments or to Charing Cross hospital, which is located on the same road, so when Pat and she parted she hopped onto a 430 bus and made an appointment with them.

She came back via our lubblyjubbly butcher in the North End Road, she was in need of comfort food and a ham hock was what she was after!

Have you ever cooked one? 

You need a big cooking pot, we've two stock pots and it was the smaller of the two that she brought down from the top of a kitchen cupboard, after giving it a rinse, she put in three large carrots, three celery stalks home grown, three bay leaves, a big bunch of both rosemary and thyme, two heads of garlic chopped in half with the outer skin taken off and two huge white onions, everything was chopped in to large pieces, she is mighty proud of the fact that all these before mentioned vegetables were home grown!

A large piece of fresh ginger root was added together with a handful of black peppercorns. But NO salt was added!

She put in the ham hock, topped up the pot with filtered water and put it on to boil, once it had come up to the boil, she dropped the heat down and reduced the liquid to a simmer. It simmered for a long time, a very long time indeed, she took a bone out, the flesh dropped off and she knew it was ready.

Having turned off the heat, she stripped the flesh and skin off the bones and allowed it to cool. Then added more celery, carrots and a monster Patty Pan squash which had grown too large, put back the bones and the skin into the pot, added more water and brought it back up to a rolling boil, then turned it back down again to simmer for another hour.

We now have a large bowl of the most succulent pork and a massive amount of pork and vegetable stock, most of which she will freeze and some she will give away as a treat to a family who don't really cook this sort of food but oh, they love it!

For who doesn't like home made pea and ham soup and guess what, frozen peas make brilliant soup! 

Now, it is lunch time and I'm annoying her by tooting and whistling whilst perched on her head, she finally has got the message as she's just looked at her watch and realised.. guess what?

It's lunch time!

So, we hope that you are all somewhere safe, the worlds' press has seemingly forgotten about those thousands of unfortunate people and all of their animals in the Bahamas. 

We haven't.. 

GeeGee Parrot.
September 18th, 2019. 

PEOPLE'S RUDENESS NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME & HER .. PLUS MUCH HAPPIER NEWS!

You do someone a favour saving them quite a considerable amount of time and money and get kicked in the teeth. 

It certainly leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth especially when it means that, through no fault of your own, it ends up costing you nearly £500.00!

This happened to her this last week and why is she surprised? You may well ask. But because of the litigious nature of the person involved, she has decided to zip her mouth. Pity that, for it's a good tale!

On to happier things..

Like reporting that a lot of the vegetable beds on her plots are winding down slowly but that doesn't mean that things aren't growing. 

Beetroot are growing, as are Cucumber, Onion, Cabbage, Purple Sprouting Brocolli, Shallot, Chard and Kale and ROSES!!

The White Marseille figs have been quite the best ever and she's still harvesting them, they are like no other fig for when they're fully ripe, their flesh turn to liquid which is like honey.

Now it is the turn of the dark fig Violetta to come to the fore, she was bred in Bavaria and will take quite a degree of frost, when she comes to ripeness, if there is such a word, in September / October. This is the first year she has produced big figs and it has certainly been worth the wait!

Mama has hard pruned her from the get-go and now she is on quite a short trunk with a huge amount of branches. They say tht you should only prune fig tree in June but 'phooey to that' she says and nips out every single little growth after it has grown two leaves right up to the end of July.

If you are a professional Fig Tree grower, do not bother to cry and shout "Fig Abuse" at her, because, guess what, she's going to continue to do it!

She didn't do this to the White Marseille fig, she didn't know about pruning fig trees and look what happened to that tree! She's now over 5 metres tall and feeds all those norty Starlings who sit on the uppermost branches gobbling white figs as fast as they can and who squeak back at her when she shouts at them.

So Miss Violetta and her new Miss Brown Turkey fig tree will be pruned and loved - this is not to say that she doesn't love Miss Marseille - and taken care of and wrapped in horticultural mesh when their fruits are of a decent size and she'll tell the birds that they have to be content with white figs.

But fruit thieves are about! Two weeks ago on the Saturday night, they struck at every pear tree on all the allotments! Almost every single piece of fruit was stolen! And none of them were ripe, pears ripen later than a lot of apples and none of them were even approaching their proper picking size.

So who would want literally hundreds of unripe pears? All of the plot holders are quite mystified. But having looked at a couple of old recipe books, she's seen there's a LOT you can do with them, so they were obviously stolen by people who intend to sell them as cooked items.

Next year, she intends to net her fig and pear trees with horticultural mesh and she has been given the 'go-ahead' by the allotment site secretry to install a couple of poaching cameras, they're what farmers and gamekeepers use to monitor their lifestock.

And any member of the allotment seen on camera (or in the flesh) stealing from another persons' plot will be evicted immediately. Dennis, the site secretary, who was a magistrate for 30 years (!!) is absolutely positive it is someone who is a plot holder, for all of us holders go in and out at strange times and so someone there late at night or very early in the morning is never thought of being 'up to no good' as it were!

Sad that.. stealing.

Onto happier things. We had a brilliant day yesterday! She went through a huge amount of paperwork, magazines and other 'stuff' and threw away masses of it, the sensitive stuff she takes out to the allotment and burns in her incinerator along with dried weeds, the cooled ashes get spread onto the vegetable beds.

But everything, aka the rubbish and other things she wanted to save, was tipped onto her bed and what a fine mess it was too! Made even messier, if that was possible, by me landing down in the middle of it and tramping about seeing what I could rip or chew!

All she did was laugh.. I do hope your mother laughed when you got into her messes,

Then the bed was stripped, clean sheets and a clean bedspread were put on and lo and behold, you would have never known chaos had ever existed! The carpet was vacuumed, shelves were dusted, bedside tables sorted and cleaned.. and oh, LOOKIELOOKIE! Her second pair of reading glasses reappeared from where they had been hiding under a book!

Now she has to go to Squires of Twickenham, which is absolutely her favourite Plant and Garden centre, she has a credit note and intends to spend it on seeds. 

And on the way home she will stop in at a brilliant new food shop on King's Street in Hammersmith to purchase: 2 red onions, a bottle of Pomegranate molasses, a Pomegranate and a packet of Barberries.

She also needs a box of Black Rice, you can sometimes find this at Sainsbury's, where it's called Thai Black Rice and always at Whole Foods, which is where she will buy a packet.

Why? I'll tell you in another post as it's a surprise gift for a friend. So that's all for today, we will be back later in the week. Stay happy and healthy folks and above all.. please be kind.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 10th, 2019.

2 MIXED BAGS OF FRUIT & VEGETABLES WERE GIVEN AWAY TODAY..

When you have friends who do you favours and you have a vegetable and fruit garden, it is a 'no brainer' as to how to say "Thank you".

Yes, a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables to people who live in cities with no allotments are always well received, that's for sure!

Her kind optician who mended her sunglasses free of charge received a motley selection this morning as well.

Halfway through today, she became grumpy, she is in the process of changing suppliers on her second mobile phone and do you think their wretched website would accept her card number.

So tomorrow she's going to the store and asking an assistant to do it for her and will let them come up against their stupid website, however, knowing her luck at the moment, it will probably go through first time and leave her with egg on her nose.

Onto happier things.. she has two very young friends, as in really young! The eldest is five and his brother will be three in January and she saw the perfect gift for them on a friend's nursery floor!

It is a collection of squares made of dense foam, with the alphabet and figures from 1 to 9 printed on them and they join together to make a mat or a cube.. it's very clever
1
Indestructible.. perfect for young boys!

That was why she made two deliveries of fruits and vegetable today, for our kind friend, Andreea who had Amelia and Lukas last November, went into her file and ordered another set of the foam squares to be sent to her.

Now it's bed time, you will be pleased to hear that sometimes I climb onto her hand and from that onto a perch in my night cage.. the operative word being sometimes..

But tonight I was willing to go to bed and in fact, I wish she would hurry up and post this post so we can turn the light out and go to sleep.

Well, that has to be a first, you have never heard me say that before, have you!  

Good night everyone. 

GeeGee Parrot.
September 2nd, 2019.

I'M BACK.. OH, YUBBA DUBBA.. HAVE YOU MISSED ME?

Yes, it is me! Not a fakey makey pretend parrot, it is I,the real McCoy and it's with the greatest pleasure that I'm watching her tap out my post.

Goodness me, what a Summer we had! 

First of all, we actually had a Summer!

 By this I mean, old man Sun came out and shone his torch on us, rain fell in appropriate quantities and everything - flowers, fruit, grass, vegetables and weeds, grew like crazy things at the allotments!

We had lots and lots of bbq's, either on our plot or across the track on Joska's.

Melons grew in profusion, as did cucumbers of several different varieties and the yellow figs are out of this world!

We have had one scary day, she woke up very early and thought she was starting a heart attack and she hustled about and got herself to A&E at our local hospital, strangely enough, the previous evening she had had a call from a divine doctor, one of our GPs.

She had wanted mama to go into A&E about something but mama had refused to go. Saying that she was in bed, very tired and that she would go to her gastroenterology team the following day at Charing Cross.

The end result was it wasn't a heart attack but they picked up something else, that she wasn't and shouldn't be on blood thinners of such a high dosage.

So, in a way, as the very sweet doctor up in ACU said, it was a good thing you came in and we noticed this in your blood level.

Now, she is off to deliver lots of very fresh vegetables to our friends Andreea and Juliano, you will remember it was she that gave birth to twins last November, Amelia and Lukas are now nine months old! Time has flashed by.

It will be a busy week but I'll be back soon. 

We pray that hurricane Dorian doesn't cause the loss of lives of animals and humans. Please follow the advice of officials if you are within the danger zone.

GeeGee Parrot.
September 2nd, 2019.