OLD AND DUSTY BUT OH.. SO TRUSTY!

Those of you Dear Readers who read this blog regularly will remember her rant about that excellent brand of thermos flasks, Stanley, that used to be made in America.

The company was sold and the items are all now manufactured in China.. sigh.. and now, well, they're no longer excellent at keeping anything hot or cold.

Last week she was rootling about in the bottom of a cupboard in the old boiler room looking for the anti-slip grips that she wears on the bottom of boots in extremely wet or icy weather and lookielookie, what did she find? 

Why, none other than Constance's old and much loved 'Thermos' thermos!

She dustied it off, gave it a good wash and filled it with boiling water, screwed on the top and turned it upside down. Ahha! Not a drop or dribble of water emerged. She screwed on the cup and left the thermos in YumYum HQ and went about her business.

A full eighteen hours later she opened it up and poured a cup of.. still very hot water! 

Yes, her basket is now heavier to carry but on cold days when she's busy digging making new vegetable beds or trundling back and forth up and down the track fetching barrow loads of horse manure, it is exceedlingly nice to be able to pour herself a mug of steaming hot LapySang tea.

Ahh yes.. hot tea. Coffee is delicious but it doesn't carry the same degree of warmth to one's body as tea does. Slurp.. I just lurve LapySang at anytime of the day or evening and luckily she does too

GeeGee Parrot.

November 3rd, 2017.

OH! I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVEN'T BLOGGED FOR 2 MONTHS.

We've been busy, she and I, really very busy indeed. The flat is slightly more organised, you can now walk into the sitting room without any danger to life or limb, the three huge trunks were packed and put away under her bed and lots of 'stuff' has either been given to friends, charity or sold.

There are numerous lamps, four were given to a friend who has just moved house, the remaining pairs will be photographed and shown to local decorators. Old paper work went through the shredder and out of the door.

The plots didn't escape either! A couple of big beds were refigured and boxed in with wood that was, in another life, someone's decking. A friend had asked her for some help and advice and she volunteered to take up a section of the decking on his terrace to see what was causing the problem.

Oh dear! Well the problem was the naughty firm who laid the decking had not over-lapped the layer of waterproofing or sealed it properly and so water and earth were causing merry havoc! End result? All the decking had to come up and her friend decided to have tiles laid.

And guess where the huge amount of decking went? Well, certainly not to the council dump, that's for sure! It slid neatly into the back of Dean's car and he drove it straight out to the allotment, where it will be made into a new flooring in the machinery shed. And besides the few that have been used, there's lots left over to make raised beds on the old asparagus bed (which is no more).

We haven't been very social recently, we have seen out Lebanese friends occasionally but we haven't been away and she hasn't seen Debbie Goat for a long time. There's a huge amount of 'hot' gossip but unfortunately for you, it's not my place to tell you what it is!

She has seen Most Beloved Pat and came home after their last meeting with her Christmas present! Steady on, I thought, that's a bit early.. and then I saw what it was. The most glorious Arran sweater. Pat knits like an angel.. no pattern is too difficult or too intricate for her and this sweater's pattern is very intricate indeed. It's a truly beautiful thing and as snug as a rug.. she, mum, is now on the hunt for Aran wool in sea green as Pat has said she'll knit her another one! Now.. THAT.. Dear Readers is a good friend!

Autumn is upon us, it's nearly the beginning of November. We don't like the last bit of October, because she / we 'lost' Edgar, Bill and Moley with all of them dying on the same day but different years over the past twenty years. Ah well, such is life.. sigh.

On a much happier note, I have discovered by pure chance the most wonderful 'new' hideout! She was cooking ginger in a friend's kitchen (it's only our kitchen which is called YumYum HQ), then came home for an early supper. And opened uo doors so she could sort through a cupboard as there is a charity shop on Mare Street that she likes to support, she's collecting new glasses from her beloved optician EYE Opticians on Mare Street, Hackney.

Everything came out of the cupboard and was laid on the bed, she sorted and put aside clothes that she didn't want and then found two packs of linen that she had bought which were totally the wrong size for our bed. New! They've never been out of their sealed packing!

She separated single bed linens from double sized ones and gave each its' own shelf. I, meanwhile, was standing on her shoulder. I have never been that interested in this cupboard before but suddenly I saw its' potential and hopped onto the shelf and clambered onto a pile of linen.. ooh, dark, cosy, just right for a small fat person who likes snuggly places.

She chuckled, reached for her mobile and took a photo of me, then went on sorting out the various shelves. She finished and got the stepladder to get me down as she wanted to close the doors BUT, I hadn't finished being snuggly and didn't want to come out and so Beaky, it's always Beaky who does this evil thing, gave her one almighty munch on the side of her hand!

She screamed in pain, well, it was a really big munch and then I got the finger treatment of the first finger being waved infront of naughty Beaky and was told, in no uncertain manner, that I was a disgusting.. you name it, she said it.. parrot.

Luckily, either she has the onset of dementia or she is extremely forgiving, for a couple of minutes later when I hopped down out of the cupboard, she said no more about her (poor munched) hand and off we went to collect our fruit and cheese which is our new 'pudding' that we have each night.

Sadly, thieving bastards have recently stolen the remaining apples off one of our favourite trees but luckily there were examples of them and the other apple trees on the trees at the beginning of this month. Because she met an allotment friend at the wonderful, jaw droppingly magnificent RHS Autumn show in Vincent Square and took her apples to a kind man who identified them for her.

Tree by the gate: Temptation. Tree by the asparagus bed: Malling Russet. Tree by the Shack with 3 varities: Idared, James Grieve, Egremont Russet. Tree at end of terrace: Idared. Tree by fence: Jester. Which was supposed to be a Bramley!

And now we have heard news of great excitement! The allotment site authorities have deemed that all of our neighbours trees', which are dozens (no exageration) of self seeded Sycamores, have to go! So this Winter they are to be cut down and rooted out, oh bliss! Finally for the first time, we'll get some sunshine on plots 41 and 39 before 1.30pm! Yippee.

Now we have to go for it's past midday and she has to organise stuff for friends and to finish the other side / half of the bedroom cupboard. So pippip.. I'll be back with another post quite soon, I'm not sure when but you won't have to wait another two months, I can assure you.

GeeGee Parrot.
October 26th, 2017.

ROCKY BIT THE BURGLAR.. I BIT BUB..

It wasn't my finest hour but it certainly was Rocky's, that's for sure! Because having being bitten by Rocky, the burglar bled all over the house and the cops 'got' him the very next day 'cos they entered his blood into the database and lookielookie, there was a match, the blood belonged to a very naughty serial burglar!

I, unfortunately, bit BUB when we first met 'cos I had the thought, very unwisely, of impressing upon him who was 'boss' around here. I know, how stupid can a small, red arsed parrot be? The answer, Dear Readers, is very.

I don't have any exciting news to give you. But one bit is that Connie isn't coming to stay with us, she's having an operation which means that she has to spend time recuperating, not flying across from the USA to come and jaunt about with us for ten days.. sigh.. such a pity.

For not only were we looking forward to seeing her, but that would have FORCED She Who Prefers to Garden to sort out the back room, you notice I don't use the word sittingroom!

That's a good 'joke'! For you can't sit anywhere on anything in that room, except perhaps on one small corner of a trunk, one of three, as everything is piled high on anything that could possibly be called a chair or a sofa!

Whose laughing? Not her, for she's mightily fed up with the chaos in that room and she's just realised, oh lordy, that Autumn is a'coming and that we do have another guest coming, who will be here for sure, in September and that it's time she got her act together and finished sorting it out.

My help or presence is not required and I am banished from perching on that door, sad that, for that door is old, wide and extremely comfortable to sit upon. So I 'lurk' on our bedroom door and utter piteous squeaks in the, unfortunately, vain hope that she'll allow me in there, I say vain as the carpet is off-white, she doesn't like me to sit there at any time if the truth were told, which as you well know, it always should be.

And now it is late.. the Pewsey crew are arriving tomorrow at midday to divest us of masses of stuff which we have collected for their grandchildren.. aka Poppie, Freddie and Charlotte, this is very good news for it will mean she no longer has the excuse about not being able to bring the trunks back into our bedroom. They live under our bed. The bed rests up high on a large sturdy wooden frame, built especially so that there is storage space underneath for trunks and boxes.

So it is bedtime, fear not, I'm actually quite tired and I won't be flying about the room playing the old game of catch-me-if-you-can. There's new yumyum and water in my night-house and I am quite content to go into it, shake my tail and say "Goodnight" to you all.

GeeGee Parrot.
August 11th, 2017.

MAKING LABNEH FROM HOMEMADE YOGURT USING RAW GOAT'S MILK..

There's great activity going on around here in the culinary department.. aka the YumYum HQ. For tasty apples and plums are literally dropping off her trees at the allotment and as we like eating our own fruit in the depths of winter, she bottling and freezing it as fast as she can!

It's a 'cracker' of a year for fruit! Our strawberries have been pretty much a 'waste' of space but as she planted them late in the season, she rather thinks it is her fault, not theirs!

But the apple trees! Wow and wow again! We have five apple trees and four of them, the oldest are creaking and groaning with a huge load of delicious fruit, this is despite her taking off several baby fruits to allow clusters of them to grow to a proper size, luckily, none of them are tip bearers! Two of the trees are carrying three different varieties which is a clever trick if you haven't got acres of room for lots of different trees.

And as for the plum trees! Her favourite plum tree is a yellow gage, she is a Reine Claude d'Ouillin, to give her her full name, which is absolutely covered in these scrumptious fruit from way up high to right down low! They start off green, the colour of jade, then go pale yellow and when they're fully ripened, they are a dark yellow with thin red 'veins' over the top!

The taste is unlike any other plum in the world and you know how mad she is about her Seneca Plums, luckily gages ripen later, so there's no having to chose which one she wants to eat! And it was a punnet of these golden girls which unlocked a Lebanese friend's heart and he made us a large pot (and gave her his recipe on how to make something which we both adore) of Labneh..

It's strained yogurt.. no more.. no less! BUT, to a Lebanese who lived in the Lebanon, or any other self respecting person from the Middle East, it must be made out of ewe or goat's yogurt. Yes, of course, you can make it out of cows milk but it won't taste the same and of course, she knows just where to get her hands on goaty yoghurt.. it's called 'make it yourself at home' out of Debbie's raw Goaty Milk.. from ELLIE'S DAIRY.. even better!

BUT WHATEVER YOU DO.. do not strain your yogurt through kitchen paper towel! It's got bleach in it.. ugh! Anyway.. back to making Labneh.. first make your yogurt!

You will need:
A litre of milk.
1/4 cup of yogurt.
A large glass jar, the big Kilner jars are perfect, it must be rinsed with hot water and dried & it must hold a litre of mlk with ease.. make sure that it fits into your fridge!
A large stainless steel saucepan.
A thermometer.
A stainless steel slotted spoon for stirring.
An oven with a pilot light or a warm place with a thick towel.

OR.. a yogurt maker!

Heat your milk to 180 degrees.
Turn off the heat and allow the temperature to drop to 115 degrees.
Add your 1/4 cup of yogurt and stir it well into the milk.
Pour the mixture into your glass jar.
Place in a warm place for at least 12 - 14 hours.
The longer you leave it, the thicker and stronger the taste will be.
Then refrigerate.

Having made your yogurt, now you make your labneh! Go and buy yourself a Cheesecloth, old fashioned muslin works well. If you're buying muslin, make sure you get a big enough piece! There are two ways of doing this, one is straining the yogurt in the fridge, the other is the old fashioned and in her opinion, the better way, it is quicker and the labneh is slightly 'dryer'.

The old fashioned way first.

You will need:
Your yoghurt, 2 kilos of yogurt generally makes 1kilo of labneh.
Salt.
GOOD olive oil.
The cheesecloth.
A sieve.
A large bowl to catch the whey (liquid).
An elastic band or cord.
A chain with a hook or a long piece of very strong string.
Something from which you can hang the cheesecloth from.. she hangs it from the pot rack which is directly above our stove.

Put the salt into your yogurt to taste.. everyone's tastes are different but it should be tasty not bland!
Put the cheesecloth into the sieve making sure that the corners of the cloth is lying over the edge of the sieve.
Pour the salted yogurt into the cloth lying in the sieve.
Gather up the four corners of the cheesecloth.
Taking opposite sides, make a little knot, this has to be secure, now do the other two corners
Holding them up, twist them together a little bit and just above where the yogurt is sitting, use an elastic band or tie a piece of string, this is to prevent any flies getting into the cheesecloth sack!
Place the drip bowl below where you are going to hang the yogurt.
Hang the cheesecloth sack up.
The whey will start to drip immediately.
The bowl must be large enough to catch and hold the whey but still check it so that it doesn't run / come over the edge.
She let's it hang for at least 24 hours.
When no more whey is dripping, open the cheesecloth and scrape all the labneh into glass jars.
Pack it down so that it is solid with no air pockets.
Smooth over the top and pour in olive oil to act as a sealant / preservative.

The newer way.. in the fridge.

You need all of the above except the elastic band, the chain.

Do exactly as above.
But instead of hanging the cheesecloth up, you place / fold the ends of the cloth over the yogurt.
Put the bowl with the yogurt in the sieve into the fridge,
As the cheesecloth is sifting in the sieve, the whey will take longer for the whey to come out and you must check the fridge frequently to make sure that the sieve isn't sitting in the whey! This method takes at least two days plus a few hours.. now you see why she let's gravity do it quicker for her!

YubbaDubba.. we have it on our boiled eggs in the morning with zataar, it's amazing on vegetables, as a spread, on meat.. straight out of the jar on a spoon! Who said that? Fancy telling everyone our strange habits.. whatever next?

I'm off.. for I know she's going to stew apples and I want those stalks..

GeeGee Parrot.
August 6th, 2017.

I'M THIRTEEN, YES, THAT'S RIGHT AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? YEEHAA.. I'M A TEENAGER FOLKS,

And not one of my so-called fans or friends remembered! She remembered but she would, wouldn't she? I mean, I'm right there in her face or on top of her head nearly 24/7, there's no chance she'd forget. Besides, she puts important dates into her diary, isn't that what they there for, to put important dates in so one never forgets other people's birthdays, why don't other people do that?

But back to MY birthday. Well, there were no birthday cards for me, apart from the one she made out of edible stuff which was pretty clever, boohoo, so to be true to typical naughty teenage behaviour, I nibbled Claudia's basket handle whilst on our way to the allotments this morning.

Oh, sh12,  perhaps I shouldn't have done that, for it's much nicer going by car than trundling along in those two buses which take forever or two buses and a tube which still takes a good forty minutes.

Moving swiftly along.. Yes, so I am now a teenager! Oh, yippee, you should see the look on my mum's face. Poor old bat, she fears for her sanity, you see, I'm already pretty weird.. read daft.. at the best of times and who ever heard of teenagers being on their best behaviour all the time?

Even St. Dagga Parrot ate the back of her Queen Anne Desk, the less said about that, the better!

The day started off fine.. then the British weather came out to play and it turned from a fine drizzle into quite heavy rain, you could see everything growing by the minute. Luckily Shack is snug and dry and she opened the curtains and I watched these two lunatics weeding in the rain.. and Claudia is German! You can't even say she's daft 'cos she British!

There they were, these two nutters, annoying weeds, digging out stones, getting wet, mum was ok 'cos she had her waterproof jacket on but we do have to go to Streatham Hill to get Claudia a set of waterproofs, a jacket and a pair of pull on trousers, for it's not so much fun gardening with a wet bum.  Especially when you then have to sit in your wet trousers and drive for an hour to get home!

Tomorrow she ain't going anywhere! The Prudential Bicycle race  is taking place and typically, yes, the roads we must travel upon are closed! More BOOHOOS.. as she wanted to do a great deal of carpentry work, she is replacing the edging of several raised beds but it will be a flippin' nightmare with the amount of road closures.

So she's staying at home and doing, perhaps I'll just frighten her by mentioning the dreaded word.. housework.. and oh dear, there is much to do, for a start, there's a humungeous pile of ironing and the back room MUST be sorted out.

Ugh.. rather her than me, I must confess.

So there we are. Monday she will be busy seeing folks. For at 10.30 she is meeting her most beloved Pat for a late breakfast in Fulham and then she is having lunch with John at 12.30at Jaffa Bakehouse on North End Road.

Gardening  we must go on Tuesday, those new wooden frames for the raised beds are not going to construct themselves and time is surely a'moving on, we are almost into our third and the final month of Summer. In fact, shock horror! Tuesday IS the First of August! GULP.

So now you're all up to date.. and in deep dudu for forgetting my birthday. Shame upon you.

GeeGee Parrot.
July 29th, 2017.
Get your diaries or electronic organisers out and put in the date.. July 29th GeeGee's birthday.. then you won't feel so dreadful next year.

FANNY'S LETTUCES & PORTUGESE JORGE'S MATTOCK.

They met when they were eight and were at Penderel school in Tenterden, a charming small town in the Weald of Kent. Apart from family members, Fanny is someone she has known the longest.

Having had an extraordinarily successful career, she took early retirement and now lives a very active life on a Spanish island. Speaking fluent Spanish and being fully intergrated with the locals means that her 'life' is there, not here so we don't get to see her very often but letters, yes, proper snail mail letters, and telephone calls mean that they're up to date in each others lives.

She knows my mum pretty well and had picked up on the fact that seeds were being germinated at home on our bedroom window.. put 2 & 2 together and arranged on-line for a marvellous electric propogator to be delivered in time for her birthday. Now that, Dear Readers, is when you know a friend knows you 'pretty' well!

Having reached the dizzy heights of her middle sixties, she no longer sneaks a peek at presents and had not a clue what was in the box which was delivered to MailBoxEtc, which is where all her mail is sent to.. yes, it's boring to have to collect your mail but at least it's kept safely and you don't get those annoying cards saying "Your package was too big for your letterbox"!

It plopped out of its box and having "oohed and aahed" over it, she set it up, poured a little water into its base, put in the capillary mat, filled the two trays with a mixture of vermiculite, perlite and very fine compost, planted a mix of Oakleaf and Lollo lettuces, placed the trays onto the capillary mat, put on the rigid lid and switched it on.

And rang the Spanish island.. and got her ansaphone. She reached back in time to the days when she spoke a little Spanish and thanked her friend for her wonderful birthday gift. And.. the seeds are already up.. one tray has twelve little seedlings, the other has nine and we're calling them 'Fanny's Lettuces'.

We love lettuces that aren't gassed.. in fact, we love all our home grown vegetables and tonights' treat is a dish of a couple of our own Turkish Cucumber with home grown mint and home made yoghurt.

"Gassed", I hear you say. Yes, gassed, because you try picking a lettuce, or leaves of spinach or chard and expect them to be crisp and crunchy two days later, they simply aren't going to be so. Most vegetables are gassed. That's why she grows her own as much as she can.

She's a trifle stiff today, it takes muscle to wield a mattock and yesterday she did the big square bed where the old redcurrant bush used to be. It's a brilliant gardening tool and she loves hers very much. It was given to her for her 51st birthday by 'Portugese' Jorge. He was her driver and such a great guy.

He had a key to her allotments and after a call at weekends to check that she was there, he would regularly pitch up with Isobel, his lovely wife, to dig and help tame the wilderness and it was he that gave her the Perpetual Cabbage.

So that's where we're going folks. And in her basket will be a piece of pork wrapped up in tin foil. Its skin has been scored, rubbed in herbs and spices and it will cook on the little barbecue with a couple of sweet potatoes. They will be our lunch together with a few just-picked beans and salad leaves.

The pork will sit and cool in its' juices and then come with us for we are bidden to supper with friends and she said "I'll bring the main course".

In a few weeks time, we'll be able to share 'Fanny's Lettuces', we've already started sharing our Blackberries and very sweet they are too!

GeeGee Parrot.
July 14th, 2017.
PostScript.. Bastille Day. Look it up if you do not know its' significance!

OUR NEW TABLE.

You're shocked, how about me, she's a'tapping out two posts within a week, whatever next?

We had an extremely pleasant day yesterday, after a leisurely start with a delicious break fasting dish of eggs and all manner of exciting herbs and spring onions, we tube'd and bussed our way out to the allotments.

TO FIND.. oh, he is the kindest of men! Who.. What.. don't worry I'll tell you all about it!

This will fill you in on the story..

Having used one of the two tables in the Shack, she realised that the other would be perfect in the Machinery Shed, we're very 'long' on sheds but this left us with no table for the terrace.. hmmm. Well, the problem was very easily solved last week on Friday, for at B&Q she found a bigger than normal wooden table with fixed seats, you see them in parks and outside pubs.

It was in a kit form.. so back it went to the plots with other pieces of timber and three huge 125 litre bags of compost. She charged up her Bosch screwdriver's battery on Tuesday night as she planned to assemble the table, so yesterday, when we arrived at the plots, you can imagine how extremely surprisingly surprising it was to find it, the table, sitting up fully assembled on the terrace!

The kindest of men had gone to the plots early on Monday and assembled it for her as a birthday gift. How very thoughtful. He'll be getting a BIG bag of crystallised ginger, that's for sure!

Now we are off.. we are having a slooow start to our day, our supper with Leigh and Ossie was, as usual, delicious, "Thank you Leigh and Ossie" and poor Otto still cannot quite believe that Avian Hats exist!

But on the way home, we fell amongst thieves returning to their home and we were bidden in for coffee and nougat! Now who can resist nougat? Not us, that's for sure, so we sat and chatted slurping good coffee, eating fresh dates and nougat until a long way past midnight, which accounts for why we're not 'very quick' this morning!

But now we are up and about, we have another tale for you too about Fanny's Lettuces but for that you will have to wait 'cos we've got things to do and places to go.. PipPip folks.. Chocks away!

GeeGee Parrot.
July 13th, 2017.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS FORGOT HER BIRTHDAY BUT SHE HAD A VERY HAPPY ONE & WE CELEBRATED IT ALL WEEKEND!

Boy, oh boy! What a time we've had!

Her birthday this year had three sevens in it.. 07.07.17 and she always seems to have an extra happy time when these three sevens appear.

There were many jovialities and much to'ing and fro'ing! She was busy all day on her birthday and then we went out to celebrate it with friends who live near-by.

On Saturday, the next day, she went to the allotments and had a bbq lunch with plot neighbours and came home early as she was going out to supper with Tereza and her two pretty daughters (HOW these girls have grown) at Colbert. Then on Sunday, we went out to the allotment and had another bbq lunch.

By now, I was completely full of fresh air and my latest passion, which are courgettes, raw or stir fried are equally delicious and she'd received cards and unwrapped some lovely gifts from friends spread around the world.

Some of which were from the following:

Pretty cards came from: Tom in NYC, his came with a loving message about how much he appreciated her in-put into 'our boy' Bob's memorial service (how she wishes she could have been there in person.. Darling Caroline from Exeter with a note that made her choke and also from sweet John, with whom she worked at Trinity, he has the most beautiful hand writing you are ever likely to see!

Dearest darling Pat had made for her the most exquisite jacket in the colour of a purple bluebell. Probably her oldest friend Fanny had bought on-line and arranged for an electric propagator to be delivered. And one of our Lebanese friends, Raja, gave her the most glorious of books 'A Little History of British Gardening' by Jenny Uglow, the updated version.

Monday was a rest day for me, I stayed at home whilst she went about her business, which, I might say, included eating Baklava icecream with two naughty friends in the Maroush Bakehouse on the Edgeware Road! And delivering truly delicious yumyum to her sweet homeopath.

And yesterday.. it rained! Not just a spitter-spatter but a lovely GOOD downpour of rain! It started at 1.00pm yesterday afternoon and continued throughout until just after 05.00am this morning. How wonderful! Especially as there has been a hosepipe ban issued by the authorities who run our allotments!

Because, and we'd like to know which idiot it was.. a cretin has been using a sprinkler and leaving it on all day! Hello? How dumb can you be? Apparently, VERY and stupid as well as dumb. Never mind, God waters with much better stuff than tap water and so all of our trees and plants got a really good and long 'drink'.

She had a long telephone call yesterday morning from The Wizard. He was calling to give her the news that he is just about to become a father.. now how about that for happy news, dear Rob, he is such a nice man and we wish him and Melanie all the very best of best wishes.

This morning is overcast and we are having a slow start to the day but she has to shake a leg or two and take some books back to the library and pay fines, for she mislaid the books! There were found yesterday where she'd put them by mistake with books that are due to go down to Pewsey! Grrr.. she does hate wasting money!

Then we are going in the afternoon to the allotments to pick yumyum and roses for we are bidden to supper with Leigh and Ossie is a very good cook, we always have scrummydumptious things to eat at their table!

And poor Otto, a beautiful Russian Blue, has to watch me stand upon my mama's head, he's seen it for many a year but still finds it hard to believe that such a thing exists.. an avian hat.

So there we are.. I know, we aren't posting every often but if you could see our allotments, well, you'd understand why! There has been a huge amount of work done in the past six weeks and they'll soon back to how they were circa 2009! Which was very productive, very pretty and extremely tidy!

Many chirps to you all.

GeeGee Parrot.
July 12th, 2017.

THE CHERRY PICKERS..

Thieving bastards! They struck our plots at about 9.00pm last Sunday night and picked every single cherry off our trees and to cap it all, what is really upsetting, these evil people must have done a lookielookie as they came with a ladder in order to access the fruit higher up in the trees!

Oh.. so I cannot tell you how sad she was when she came home last night, she was quite shocked and, of course, is now fearful for the rest of her fruit. This year is going to be a cracking harvest and we have apple, fig, gage, pear and plum trees all laden with fruit and they're much easier to pick than cherries!

'Enough is enough' she thought and contacted Joe who used to be a game keeper, that profession are only too well aware of poachers and thieving and are all up to date with night vision / movement triggered battery operated cameras and that is what she's planning to install on the plots. Dear man has responded and is sending us the contact details.

Apart from that sadness, life is good but she's never at home! Mind you, I'm usually with her so I can't complain too much! But I have refused to go out on the occasion when the temperature has tipped over 30 degrees centigrade, the thought of a hot bus or tube has not appealed and I've chosen to stay home in our cool-in-summer.. warm-in-winter.. home!

We've spent a couple of days with our Lebanese friends in their garden and she taught me a new tune, but sadly for my mum, I only learnt the first bit of it, I now have to wait for her to return from Paris to get the next bit!

Now it is late, almost my bed time and it's been raining since about 11.00 am yippee,  which is what we badly need for everything as lubblyjubbly rain is definitely better for our flowers, fruit and vegetables than tap water.

So we wish you all well and rest assured, we'll post again more frequently when she isn't bent over those raised vegetable beds a' fiddly-diddling with something green or doing carpentry work! Yes, all manner of exciting things are being made!

PipPip.. Chirp.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 27th, 2017.

THIS BLOG IS STILL ACTIVE.. BUT WE'RE GARDENING!

We are alive but veryvery busy on the plots! There is much to do and she's a'doing it!

We told you Little Shed was made secure. Well, last Saturday saw a new roof go up onto Machinery Shed and a new door was handmade and fitted, she still has to cover the west wall with a layer of waterproof roofing felt and paint the shed and.. horror of horrors, rip out and replace the rotten floor but at least the exterior is now sound and watertight so the shed is secure.

Our bedroom window ledge continues to groan under the weight of several seedling boxes. Two varieties of Sorrel, Rocket, Nasturtiums, Spicy Salad leaves, several different varieties of Spinach, a box of very SPEEDY (Bulgarian) French Beans, which were given to us by Tereza's father and our favourite little Yellow Patty Pan Squash.

And we have Lebanese Courgettes, these seeds were sent to us from the Lebanon by a friend of our Lebanese friends, they also sent other seeds which we will grow next year. We've already eaten one of these Courgette, it was a twin with two flowers and mighty tasty it was too!

The seeds of these plants, we have two, were potted up exactly the same day as a pair of Yellow courgettes and a pair of traditional green ones. The green variety have yet to produce anything edible, so we're calling it 'SlowCoach', the Yellow ones each have two teeny courgettes but the Lebanese.. wow! Well, it's a 'no-brainer as to which one we'll be growing next year in bigger quantities!

Plus, the flowers are truly ENORMOUS!

These kind people also sent us seeds for the very short and incredibly tasty cucumbers, the flowers of which are the brightest yellow you've ever seen! We now have three plants and she's erected sturdy frames for them to climb upon.

But now the sun is ris and we've got to go.. we send you all our very best wishes and hope that you 're all happy and healthy.. wherever and whoever you are!

Chirp.. there are still a lot of chirps to be had.. despite the appalling mess that the current government of the UK has created but I should think that HM The Queen is extremely glad that Ascot* starts next week!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 13th, 2017.
PostScript: *Ascot means Royal Ascot Race Week, it starts on Tuesday June the 20th.