I WAS NINE YESTERDAY...

I am back.. did YOU miss ME and HER?

Yesterday was MY Hatch Day.. WE spent the day mostly at home.. as SHE had lots to do and WE have guests staying for two days, Barbara and Sara from Germany.. lots of chatting and laughing were done and lots of work.. SHE is very busy doing stuff and a lot of stuff had to be done.

Where have I been, I hear YOU ask.. humble apologies dear Readers.. there has been so much going on that SHE has been getting up, getting ME up, WE broke that norty fast and the day then just whizzed by.. whizzzzz. So come usual Blog writing time.. SHE and I were fast asleep.

And today.. is the first day of MY tenth year.. As yesterday was MY Hatch Day, YOU humans call it Birthday, I had a special supper of zucchini, humous, melon seeds (yum, MY new lurve) and roast chicken.. slurp-the-durp.. I do love human food.

WE have had some incredibly hot weather, which was lovely during the day.. WE love long sunny days but it has been a 'trifle' hot at night, phew, talk about humid.

Today it is raining.. does SHE mind? Not in the slightest as out at the allotment, aka garden, there are many bush, plant and tree roots slurping up the rain saying "thank you", because SHE does not water anything except for things in pots.

When something is planted SHE soaks the earth and it gets another bucket as well but that is it.. it makes for very sweet fruit!

This does not apply to plants that grow at home! Oh no.. SHE gives these plants water every day but they are all in pots, the front of OUR house is covered by tomatoes.. the smallest of which is over SIX foot high and covered in tommies!

And so with rain happening this means WE will not be going out to the garden today, just as well as there is much to do at home and so Dear Readers.. I say.

"Happy Days everyone".

GeeGee Parrot.
July 30th, 2013.

AND SO IT CAME TO PASS ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF THE SEVENTH MONTH AFTER SEVENTY SEVEN YEARS..

SHE is so hyper-sensitive to HER 'sevens' that the only birthday parties SHE has given have had to be in a year with as many sevens as possible!

7.7.77 was a good one and 07.07.07 was also a good 'knees-up'.. cockney slang for a party.. 

So how or why it slipped past HER that it was 77 years this year since Fred Perry won Wimbledon, the last British player to win the mens' title.. heaven only knows! 

And so it came to pass.. that after seventy seven years.. on the seventh day of the seventh month.. a Brit won the mens' title.. without HER having a bet on it.. What is OUR world coming to? 

Well.. the very nice thing is that SHE has lots of "thank you's" to say to all of the Dear Readers who have emailed "happy birthday to HER" today.

And what a lovely day it was too.. WE eat strange things sometimes to break that norty fast and today it was peppers with buttered eggs.. sounds weird.. trust ME, it was truly delicious! SHE slurped coffee, I slurped cold LappySang.. 

HER jaunt to the garden was not until early afternoon, I was originally going too but as the temperature rose towards 30 degrees, I kid YOU not, SHE decided I was better off at home in the cool.. far too hot on buses for small fat grey folk.

SHE had a lovely time and returned with a brown face.. some folk go pink.. SHE goes brown. 

It annoys folk intensely but HER skin has always been like this, mind YOU, SHE does brew a pretty powerful witches potion to use when old Son is shining his torch on HER because SHE makes all HER own skin care products. 

SHE truly is HER fathers' daughter.. there was not 
much Hugo didn't know about the chemistry of skin care.. 

So SHE is home and I want a kiss-and-a-cuddle and to eat human food and to hear all about HER day.. so pip pip Dear Readers.. pip pip.

I'll squeak in the week.. 

GeeGee Parrot.
July 7th, 2013.

BIG DAY TODAY.. SEVENTH OF THE SEVENTH.. IT IS HER BIRTHDAY!

Yes folks.. aka Dear Readers.. it is HER birthday! 

First SHE has to collect OUR Goaty supplies from Goaty Mum aka Debbie, then WE are heading for the hills.. to the garden.. to lounge like lizards in the sun or sit in OUR paddling pool if it gets too hot! 

WE will join garden friends for a lovely day. Eat scrummydumptious food and drink delicious drinks, made with home grown Mint, oh, heavens to Betsy, I lurve mint in MY water. 

I apologise for not posting Posts on MY blog for over a week.. much to do, SHE has been coming home late, SHE has a couple of elderly friends who are very 'poorly' so SHE has been making sure that they eat, are clean and spending time with them. 

And there is much to do at the allotment / garden. But interestingly, the home growing tomatoes are way ahead of those norty allotment tomatoes! 

WE lurve Cherry Tommies for they are just like sweeties, especially the Yellow Tumbling Toms! There are two of these plants in cone shaped baskets hanging from a window frame, little fruits are bursting out from the flowers and soon it will be 'pick-your-own-day'!

Oh yippee.. yellow toms and eggs to break that norty fast. And in the deep pots are their more serious cousins, the 'Beafy' Boys, who are four foot high and climbing! 

Next week is Currant picking week, the Black and White varieties are ripe, protected from Mister Pigeon, aka flying thief, by their drawstring fleece bags, which have been a great success! The red ones need a little longer, they are red but WE like them really ripe! 

But the stars in the fruit department this year are going to be Gooseberry and Blackberry! Old Gooseberry take a couple of years to get going and this is the first year that the crop is a bumper one. 

And wow.. there is such a lot of fruit coming through on Blackberry, the canes are covered in flower and luckily as they are a very early fruiting variety, WE have no trouble with old fat pigeon as he is too busy eating something else! 

But now.. it is 'get-up' time.. shake MY tail time, there are several trays of delicious things in the sitting room to which SHE has to attend.. much to do.. so WE bid YOU adieu. 

And as it is the last day of Wimbledon today.. WE say.. "Let the best man win". 

But before WE go.. I want YOU to sing.. yes, come long now.. it doesn't matter if YOU can't sing as no-one will hear YOU.  

"Happy Birthday to YOU, happy birthday to YOU, happy birthday dear HER, happy birthday to YOU". 

Don't forget mine on July 29th.. that's it, I am out of here and into YumYum HQ..

GeeGee Parrot.
July 7th, 2013.. aka HER birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MARLOWE.

SHE has two twins.. one is HER cousin Graham and the other is Marlowe.. no relation, a grand daughter of a much beloved friend whom YOU all know as 'Granny'.

Marlowe's mother is called Sienna and her father is called Tom.. and 'Granny', who has been called this lonng before she married and had her babies which made her a grandmother, is called Jo..

And so WE extend OUR Birthday wishes to this little un-related twin.. the first of many..

For Marlowe is ONE year old today..

Happy Days.. kiddo.. happy days.

GeeGee Parrot.
July 7th, 2013.

SUMMERTIME AND THE LIVIN' IS EASY.. GOATS ARE JUMPING AND THE BEANS ARE HIGH..

Summertime.. the word alone brings a smile to OUR faces.. WE offer apologies to DeBose Heyward who not only wrote the book Porgy upon which the opera Porgy and Bess was based but also the lyrics for the song.. with music by George Gershwin.

For at lonng last, it seems as if summer has finally decided to stay around. WE have had fresh onions and SHE pulled up one of the strongest looking garlics, the smell and taste were perfect, but they need another few weeks to bulk up. 

Now being picked and eaten are lots of different varieties of very delicious and tasty salad leaves, masses of lubbly-jubbly rocket (arugula) and mizuna.. hot and tasty! 

The beans are growing perfectly but poor peas are suffering from that slow start, there are not as many as there should be which is strange as beans are not complaining. 

Those 'poor' tommies which SHE planted in April, admittedly, with lots of protection, are growing like crazy folk!

WE are pleased to report that the brassicas are all growing on well and having been very carefully netted to prevent those flying thieves munching their way through, it looks as if WE will have delicious green things to eat this winter. 

The fruit is all beyond wonderful, last autumn and again in the spring, SHE scritched and scratched around their bases and put down blood, fish and bone or growmore and with the wet spring, this has fed all of the bushes and trees and WE will have a bumper harvest this year. 

Lots of work means lots of vegetables.. and vroom vroom.. who do WE have here? One of the best reasons for gardening and growing YOUR own vegetables is.. drum roll please.. is so that YOU can eat 'new' potatoes! 

SHE pulled two plants last Wednesday, a Rocket and a Swift.. the Rocket potatoes are planted in slightly softer soil, so SHE was not surprised to see twenty tubers, which is a decent amount off one plant of these delicious creamy yellow tatties, the Swift plant yielded fourteen. 

Snip snip went the clippers and three good sized Globe Artichokes fell into the basket. Then taking a bucket with water.. SHE went snip snip along the Peony walk and amongst the Roses as well.

WE had guests (Joanna and Jean-Jacques Darcy from Dallas) arriving and so SHE wanted their room to have lots of glorious home grown flowers to greet them. 

Back home, the flowers went into the bathroom with a full bucket of water, bathroom is cool.. this allows the flowers to drink and relax from their shock of being cut.

The Peonies have truly excelled themselves! How glorious they are. WE are told by OUR guests that they love looking at them.. 

Flowers grown with love.. nothing better than to be able to grow such things.. in HER garden.. things have to be one of three things.. edibubble, fragrant or beautiful..

I am off to b-e-d.. early start tomorrow.. pip pip Dear Readers.. pip pip.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 29th, 2013.

BACK TOMORROW WITH TALES OF ROCKET & SWIFT..

Goodness gracious US.. what a couple of days it has been! Actually it started on Sunday and only ended this evening.. just about twenty minutes ago!

The phrase 'action packed' does not quite have the desired amount or degree of 'action'.. I know it sounds pretty strange but that is how it has been!

But all is well and WE will be back tomorrow.. WE have two friends coming in from France.. drum roll please.. for they are no other than Joanna and Jean-Jacques, it was she who started MY Blog going along with that norty Goaty mum aka Debbie of Ellie's Dairy.

They have been in France / Paris for the wedding of one of their seven sons.. and are now on their way back to America via US!

WE are going to bed early so SHE can get up early and finish their room off.. Mister Dyson and duster have to strut their stuff. Then SHE has to gallop to the garden to pick BIG bunch of roses and peonies for them and then gallop back to be here when they get off Eurostar in the late afternoon.

So Tale of Rocket and Swift will come but not tonight.. pip pip, Dear Readers, pip pip.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 25th, 2013,

Who is the person who lives in the sea and who could write?

So off they went, SHE and old wicker the norty pair, to the village where it is not only wombly but also very windy.. YOU would know it as Wimbledon. 

And true to Wimbledon form, the two friends, MY mama aka HER and Goaty Mum aka Debbie of Ellie's Dairy, were soon hanging onto the rafters of poor gazebo which was being buffeted very hard by nasty gusty wind.. such a windy day today and stronger winds forecasted for Sunday.

Next to Ellie's stand was a pie stall, Lordy lulu, ooh, such pies. Apricots in frangipane, tarte tatin, quiche Lorraine. HER mouth watered but not today, it wouldn't survive the journey SHE was going on. 
 
Next month, the fourth Saturday in the month, she will treat Debbie and HERSELF to one of these pies, a truly very, very Scrummydumptious pie.

After collecting Goaty ingredients, a pack of diced meat, tubs of Goaty Curd, SHE bade Goaty Mum farewell, "see YOU next weekend (Ellie's Dairy is at Parson's Green Farmer's Market on the first and the fifth Sunday every month). 

A train to Clapham Junction, a 295 bus to Fulham Broadway to collect fishes from nice Mr. Fish, lots of fruity-tootie from Karen and kilos of granulated sugar with which to do HER very special treats! NO, not for ME, for special folks aka friends. I get the raw stuff which I lurve. 

Then home, I was not expecting HER, I thought SHE was gardening.. so caught 'napping'.. aka fast asleep. 

But what did SHE have in the blue bag? Ohh.. a fish that I have not seen for the longest time.. I wonder if YOU can guess who it was? They have many arms and could, I suppose, write as they have a vital ingredient for writing! 

Drum roll please for Mister Sqiddley-Diddley.. he could write because he has ink! Which is why SHE brought a couple of the BIG guys today, SHE wanted their ink for a sauce. 

The cherry plum tomatoes are delicious sweated with garlic, those tiny sweet peppers and yellow zucchini, heat turned up and squid flash fried, then heat turned down and the ink mixed with the juice of the vegetables. With fresh tagliatelle, what more could YOU want? Not a lot.. 

SHE busied HERSELF with hair, clothes washing, cooking and before YOU know it.. it was time to go to b-e-d. 

I hope YOU have had a happy day wherever YOU are? WE did and WE plan to have another one tomorrow as well.. 

SHE had such a nice surprise last night, a call 
from a very dear friend who lives in New York 
City, they talked and realised that Tom has not been to London since 2003! Don't feel too sorry for him.. WE know he has been on a couple of amaazing trips to Italy, Florence in particular!

And then they realised that SHE has not been to 
New York since 2007! SHE used to be there every month, how HER life has changed!

Now SHE is MY mama and a gardener!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 22nd, 2013.

SHE'S OFF WITH OLD WICKER ON A JAUNT..

Good morning to everyone.. this is just to let YOU know that SHE and old wicker will be off on a jaunt to Wombleland.. aka Wimbledon.

On a bus.. off a bus.. up steps.. onto a platform.. they're going by train to Earlsfield! This is the nearest station to Wimbledon's Farmer's Market.

SHE will meet up with Goaty Mum aka Debbie to replenish OUR supplies of those Goaty products.. yumyum.. WE will post again later this evening.

Oh.. did YOU all celebrate the Summer Solstice yesterday? Well.. WE are halfway through 2013.. gulp.. and there is still so much to be done at the garden.. never fear.. hey, stay cool kids.. for it is already a very muggy-buggy day out there!

GeeGee Parrot.
June 22nd, 2013.

RAIN.. WHAT RAIN? AND WHAT THUNDERSTORMS?

It was a dark and stormy sky at just past eleven of the clock this morning.. SHE kissed Beaky, told ME "to be a good girl" and went off to the garden.

The forecast was for heavy showers and thunderstorms and whilst SHE was on the two buses it rained for a little while but not very heavily, SHE thought, if WE have a storm, I will work inside Shack and see what norty mouse and rat have been up to.

SHE knew there were at least two bottles of sterilisation fluid and a couple of scrubbing brushes plus a face mask in the cupboard, don't scrub where those two vermin have been without wearing a mask and gloves.. not wise.

When SHE got off the bus.. there did not appear to have been any rain at all, how very strange.

What to do? There is so much to do SHE actually has a choice! Do little terrace SHE decided.. little terrace is outside Shack and it had been messed about a lot when the concrete bases for the two big security posts were put in.

So today was the perfect day to dig up the twenty 
four paving slabs.. twenty four inches by twenty four inches and relay all of them.

A line at a time is the way to do it.. otherwise YOU get yourself in a big messy muddle! 

It was very hot and sticky, SHE started to laugh, for when YOU do something like this normally, you are not miles away from civilisation nor do YOU have to travel by bus, two buses in fact! SHE was very grubby.

The job was done but it had been a long day and the sky had been, until about five of the clock, very overcast and it was extremely muggy. At six of the clock, suddenly the sky cleared and it turned into a glorious evening.  

However, it was time to go and SHE was extremely pleased to sit down on the little bus, changed to the big bus and got off outside a small supermarket near to home. HER beloved Italian Deli closes at half seven of the clock, SHE had missed them by an hour but this store sometimes has fresh pasta.

Yum.. there it was.. fresh Tagliatelle! 

A packet went into basket and SHE came home. SHE had pulled a fresh onion, so the sauce was onion, halved red cherry tomatoes and two slices of chopped green zucchini, these sweated for about ten minutes.A big pan of water on to boil, pasta boiled for four minutes. 

Done, oh, slurp the durp, simple and delicious.

Tomorrow.. SHE really is going to do housework as friends are coming to stay and although their room is immaculate.. old Dyson and duster need to do a bit of work in the rest of the flat.

Bed time for both of US.. lonng day.. Good night Dear Readers, good night.

GeeGee Parrot.

june 20th, 2013.

POOR RIGA CASTLE.. RIP JEAN-LOUIS SCHERRER

Good morning to YOU all Dear Readers.

WE have two pieces of sad news to report this morning.. 

The first is that SHE read the castle in Riga, the capital city of Latvia, suffered a bad fire last night. Apparently renovation works are being done and the roof has been extensively damaged.

Besides being the official home of the Latvian President, this large and beautiful medieval castle, started in 1330, is also a museum. WE hope that it is fully restored with a very efficient anti-fire system. 

Those medieval castles are very vulnerable because of the sheer age of the roof timbers, in this case.. nearly seven hundred years old!

Postscript: Sadly, the news is that an enormous amount of the roof has been destroyed and the two top floors have suffered extensively damage. 

The Curator of the Natural History Museum says that they will not know the full extent of the damage until their teams can actually get into the building, which, of course, is still smouldering and 
dangerous.

The other sad news is that Jean-Louis Scherrer, the French Couturier died on Thursday. He was only 78 but had been ill for a long time. He started his design career with Christian Dior, working alongside with Vyes Saint-Laurent.


He was a tall, good looking man who made truly divinely beautiful, very feminine clothes, a few of his high profile clients were Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren, Jackie Kennedy, women who were not afraid to wear elegant, sophisticated clothes. 

The first time SHE was in Paris, staying with eldest brother who lived there, SHE was taken by to this glorious place by Mona, who was having a fitting for winter clothes.. SHE was dumb-struck by the designs, the fabrics and the expertise of the fitter. 

Whilst Mona was getting dressed back into her street clothes, the fittings had all gone well, SHE wandered out to the front.

Jean-Louis appeared with this hat on his head and a very silly expression on his face.. "Ha" he said 
"here you are.. I have decided that this would look a lot better on you than it does on me". 

He scooped HER long hair back and plonked this enchanting thing on HER head.. the top of the hat was flat and embroidered, the rest was creamy fur. 

Yes, I know that people tend to be 'nice' to people who spend lots of money in their shops but it was a very sweet gesture and made Mona howl with laughter when she came out to see HER in HER summer dress with a furry hat on HER head!

Rest in peace Jean-Louis.. such a nice man.

That's it for now folks.. Time to start the day.. break the norty fast and do some housework. I will watch from pole, don't want to be fluffed with a duster thank YOU.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 21st, 2013.