UPON BEING DISAPPOINTED BY PEOPLE.. AND REALLY RAISED BEDS!

Ah.. I know we / she / I haven't posted for a month but life has been a trifle (to put it mildly) strange around here!

The main source of strangeness was someone whom she has known for many a year and had never had any reason to think or voice a cross thing about.

A sequence of weird things that happened has resulted in her having to cease having anything to do with this person and to ask them to return any keys and not to come to the allotment ever again. She informed Denis, the allotment manager, and his rsponse was something that really shocked her..

"Did you never think it was them that took your cherries and those apples, they were certainly here very early a couple of times with their car". And no.. she had never thought that but it did explain how no one had seen anyone 'strange' around and about.. because the person wasn't strange.

Anyway, the 'cirfuffle' upset her greatly but she has done as Denis suggested.. "Never mind, just change every lock and if we see them we will tell them that trespassing is illegal". And bless his heart, he turmed up with four new padlocks for her that afternoon.

Onto much happier things..

One morning she met up with a small bunch of gardening friends and had a guided tour of the kitchen gardens at Hampton Court Palace with Vicki Cooke, the Keeper of the Kitchen Gardens.. what a wonderful title to have!

Not a weed was in sight.. but what was on the site and IN sight were replicas of 1700 century melon pits!

She couldn't get to Hitchcocks & Kings (timber merchants) fast enough! And she's transformed the 'slightly sad little' plot number 35 into what will be a highly productive place for melons and deep rooted vegetables.

The REALLY raised beds are of two sizes, down the middle, facing the clematis and rose walk, are a trio of big guys, length of 2 metres with a depth of 90 cms, the back height is 70 cms, the front height is 50 cms, flanking them on both sides and facing inwards are two pairs of slighly shorter beds.

She covered the entire plot several weeks ago with sheets of thick cardboard on which she piled vast amounts of wood chips and even though the ground was dry with our lack of rain and high temperatures in June and July, our dearest friends, Mr and Mrs. Worm, have already started to break down the cardboard and to munch the chippings.

Draught.. what draught?

We've now had copious amounts of lubbly-jubbly rain. The grass is as green as ever, so too is Mr. Weed and Evil Slug and Snail are back but never mind, the birds are happy and Old Thrush is estatic!

The boxes will be filled with compost, wood chippings and the fermented stuff from her brilliant Bokashi bins, we recycle ALL our food waste and have our Lebanese friends and our upstairs neighbours saving theirs as well, we supplied each family with several airtight buckets and either they leave them on our doorstep late at night or we collect the buckets every other day.

Bartek, our wonderful Polish Deli, are thrilled to give us their buckets! She collects them once a week, sometimes they have lots & lots of them, sometimes there are only a few but they said they always felt awful putting them out for the rubbish trucks and having explained to them why she wanted them.. other people are now keeping their food waste and giving it to neighbours who have allotments or have composting bins in their gardens.

It is exactly like this.. a small idea that creates a change and we no longer have a wiff of anything from our dutbins as paper and plastic have no smell!

And it stops food waste going to landfill!

When the beds are full to a height of 50 cms, she'll give them a good watering, tuck a heavy sheet of black pastic over the top and leave the contents to rot down over the coming Autumn and Winter months. Come early next Spring, she'll start Melon, Persian Cucumber, Carrots, 'Hamburg' Parsley seeds and Sweet Potato slips off at home in the propogators and, when the time is right, they'll go out to the raised beds.

Each bed will be covered up with a Sun Tunnel, she bought nine of these over 14 years ago and they have been worth every penny of the £9.00 that they cost! They'll stay in place until each seedling is fully acclimatised to being planted out.

So she happy again. Corinne and Joska, who are two of our allotments neighbours, both said "Good riddance, all that person did was pick your produce and they never did any work apart from when they first started" but Corinne even went so far as to say "What DID they do, they raked windfall apples together but never picked them up and then they stupidly put plastic, broken glass, wood and weeds all together in a pile that you and I had to sort out before we could take the separate lots to the council waste dump".

Isn't it 'funny' what other people see..

Well, I see a new bowl of fruity-tootie and pumpkins seeds.. adios amigos! Yumyum calls.

GeeGee Parrot.
August 29th, 2018.

HIPHIP.. HURRAY!! I'M 14 TODAY!

None of the usual suspects have not sent me a card but as they didn't send her on her birthday which is on the seventh of July, I'm not surprised! Neither have any of the usual suspects children thanked her for their birthday presents this year. Well, they're all in for a shock next year, that's for sure.

We have spent today at home. It started to rain just before sunrise and went on through into the afternoon. You would have to be living in an isolated igloo not to know about the extreme heat that europe and we are experiencing here in the UK.

On the evening of the lunar eclipse on Friday, it rained whilst she was waiting for a bus at Hammersmith Bus Station, she was in shorts but had, luckily, taken a waterproof jacket with her, she'd been working at the allotments and her feet were dirty - read black - for she was wearing strappy sandals.

As the rain started, she lifted her head up and let it fall onto her face.. oh, how good that felt and it also washed her feet clean! Everyone else who was waiting for the little 391 was inside and it was only herself and another woman out on the bus stand getting wet.

The woman caught her eye and said "Gardener, I know you're a gardener, that look on your face is how I feel about this rain falling on my garden at home.. and you had dirty feet.. you're certainly a gardener", she laughed and confirmed that, indeed, she was a gardener and wasn't it blissful to feel cool for a change.

The allotments are in full production mode, a lot of leafy things have bolted, for it's only rocket, oakleaf lettuce, mizuna and Japanese leaves that can survive this heat.

But roses, dahlias, white carnations and sweet peas are brilliant full production mode. Courgettes in every colour and shape are busting their guts and exploding into mega growth - she picks them every three days before they turn into marrows. Jalapeños, scotch bonnets, peppers are growing very well and two varieties of Persian cucumber plants are copying Mr.Jack and the Bean Stalk!

Crisp and crunchy and dunked into either labneh or yogurt with mint.. they're sensational this year.

She gave a bbq on her birthday and we've had lots of people out to lunches or suppers because the building works are still going on at home and our sitting room is un-useable! Thick dust lies everywhere and after trying to keep on top of it, she's given up and will tackle it when the works finally finish.. in apparently another months time.. oi vey.

Thank goodness we have had the plots to escape too, for she can't open the back window to let air into our home, the level of dirt and dust which is being created just the other side of our window is appalling, she took photographic evidence and sent it to the owner to show how her builders have been treating her window and window ledge.

Lots of work has been done out there on the plots, she cleared the terrace of the massive amount of herbs gowth that had grown over the paving. Reinstated her old bbq area, for which she bought a new sink with a draining board from Screwfix for very little money!

B&Q wanted her to spend lots of money, she laughed at their prices and went off to see the lovely Lisa at ScrewFix in the Fulham Road and paid a tenner for one complete with its' drain and magic stopper!

She dug about in a cupboard back at home and pulled out her old solar shower, it holds 20 litres, you lay them flat in the sunshine, the water gets hot.. very hot with the temperatures we've been having.. then you hang it up and hey presto.. you've got HOT running water with which to wash up!

She and Dean erected a chain link fence and moved one of the three parts of the wooden fence over onto the entrance to plot 39. This was painted green with wood preservative and next to it is now a 1.80m high gate which she keeps locked.. And eureeka.. The fruit and vegetable thefts stopped immediately!

Because to get onto her plots now, you either have to have two keys and go through the new gate or if you go over or through a fence, you risk being torn to shreds by pyracantha, old blackberry briars or a very thorny rose.

She's got plans for a funny concrete 'door' mat.. we have a dear friend who has a mat that she puts out around Christmas time.. it reads "We only drink good wine in this house, I trust you brought some?" She'll make a large slab out of quick drying cement and either 'write' that into the cement or she has lots of tiny mosaic tiles which would make it look even funnier!

And on that silly note.. I bid you adieu.

She's off to cook my birthday supper of Pork Belly with gren and yellow courgettes in labneh, with strawberries, merinques and double cream for pudding. Diet? I never need to and neither does she, she works 8 to 12 hour days when she's at the allotments which is mostly everyday, in fact, you'll find that very few vegetable gardeners need to diet!

Chirps to you all.

GeeGee Parrot.
July 29th, 2018.

SHE'S CONFINED TO BARRACKS BECAUSE THE WASP MAY HAVE WON THAT BATTLE BUT SHE WON THE WAR.

Ha.

Back to the beginning mes amis, for you all know that is my favourite place to start a tale.

It was Monday morning that she noticed the fine wood dust on the floor of the shack and in the afternoon she realised what it was, wasps had squeezed between the outer wall of the shed and the lining of plyboard and had built a nest.

"Oh, I'm not having that" she said to herself and picking up a very long handled fork, she banged it hard on the plyboard and out flew about twenty angry wasp

They all headed outwards into the daylight except one.. there's always one bugger who has to be different, isn't there?

He flew onto her, unfortunately bare, arm and stung her. The bastard! Luckily she was in the shed and right in front of her was a bottle of TCP, a liquid disinfectant she keeps for cuts and bramble scratches.

It stung quite a lot and went red but she went on with getting rid of the nest and the larvae out, then she soaked the nest and the surrounding area with vinegar. 

The nest was abandoned by the wasps, a couple of them came back and crawled in, only to come straight out again when they found 'no one at home'. She got on with her other work and thought no more about it.

When she got home late on Monday night, she cleaned the area with a antiseptic wash and applied neat Iodine. Do you remember being painted with this marvelous yellow stuff? 

Tuesday morning, we had an early departure with a huge amount of cardboard boxes which were given to us by builders who are installing a new kitchen in the house, we needed petrol for the lawn mower, to make a trip to the dump with broken stuff and tools that had been damaged when Big Shed's roof blew off last winter.

Lots to do in other words.

At about 4pm, she stopped for an apple and water break and looked at her arm which was, to put it mildly, now VERY red and mighty swollen.

A&E for me, she thought, so put her tools away, locked up the sheds and caught a bus to take us home. She checked my food and water and left for the hospital.

A triage nurse saw her very quickly, took her temperature and drew a line around the swelling. She was seen by a doctor who said "if it starts to swell beyond this line or if you notice a red line moving out of the swelling area, come back here immediately" and handed her a prescription.

She took the prescription to a chemist and got the pills. It made her drowsy, so we had an early supper and went to bed.

Only for her to wake up in pain at 1.30am, she turned on the light to see that the swelling was way over the line and angry looking!

Out of bed, dressed, out of the house. Down the road at a gallop into A&E, where she was seen quickly. It must have been because it was poison related and not a broken bone that wouldn't get any worse sitting in a waiting room.

However, she did have time to read the notes with the drugs which she had taken with her and realised that they were not for her! They shouldn't be given to someone with glaucoma.

The new doctor changed the pills to a different antibiotic with a more powerful dose but only one a day and told her about the 24 hour pharmacy on the junction of  the Earls Court Road and the Old Brompton Road and off she went. 

It's many a year since she walked home from anywhere in the middle of the night and it was surprising hw quiet it all was! She was glad to get home, to take a pill and get into bed.

I woke her up at 10.30am, for it was past fast breaking egg time! She's tapping out my post and lolling about, it seems  weird not to going to the allotments but she's taking notice of the doctor and not gardening for two days.

She'll get up later and do a quick but gentle trip by bus down to the market for there's very little food in the fridge.

And about those 'Thieving Bastards' who have robbed us blind at the plots, I'll write a separate tale.

In the meantime.. the Shack's clear of wasps and after what she has done to it, I doubt they'll ever contemplate making a nest in there again, for yes, although they scored a 'goal'.. she won the war.

GeeGee Parrot.
June 27th, 2018.

THE FIELDS WENT THAT A'WAY DOWN THE HILL & WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO.

Lots of rain.. yes, lots and lots of rain has fallen recently and a lot of it has fallen on the area of Kent known as the North Downs. The soil of this particular area isn't chalky but has a lot of clay and when water mixes with clay.. soil gets very heavy.

So the long term residents, farmers and good folk of the area around Lenham and Faversham weren't really surprised to find that a couple of their fields weren't where they supposed to be when they woke up one day this last week.

They had gone for a slide down a hill.. as you do when you're arable land with no grass or trees to tell you that 'going for a slide down a slope' isn't a good idea! 

And that they would have the undignified end of being scooped up by a giant beast on the front of a tractor and dumped back from whence they came.

But I guess it was worth it, because more than one naughty field went for a slide over the past week, thereby blocking several of the lanes and causing the necessary diversion of lots of traffic.

I know.. we haven't posted for over four weeks.. it has been a 'strange' month to put it mildly. Where to start?

Well, let's start at the allotments, the weather has been spectacular with sunny and warm days, all those seedlings I wrote about at the end of April were transplanted and have grown on happily. 

She and Dean moved fencing to the side of plot 35 and where she had the two mini greenhouse is being turned into an area with high raised beds for root vegetables and herbs.

She turned over the soil in last year's courgette and squash beds, late last Autmn she had covered them with a 12" layer of compost, leaf mold and rotted horse manure and the soil is now wonderful, for over the winter Mr and Mrs Worm, helped by Mr Jack Frost, have made the soil in these beds as light as a feather.

And every time we came home, she brought with her a large bag of leaves from every plant that was edible..

Meanwhile.. back at home. She and I lived a very quiet life, she read a vast amount of library books, we went to bed and rose early. 

She didn't socialise very much but did take three friends to see the marvellous exhibition at the Royal Academy, for it is the only time that King Charles 1st glorious art collection will ever be together - with a few exceptions - everything was sold at the Commonwealth sale in 1649..

She ate sparingly. Nothing, except Swedish Bitters and three tinctures, that she put into her mouth had been prepared or cooked by another person. She drank a lot of water and ate those leaves every night with a sprinkling of olive oil and fresh lemon juice.

Sometimes, if she wasn't hungry, that was all she ate at night with a dollop of hummus. She always has chickpeas mixed with tahini and garlic for me, for I love hummus and eat it at every possible opportunity!

She visibly shrank, she acquired 'a deep gardener's tan'. She prepared herself as best mentally and physically as she could for her surgical proceedure.

Darling Pat was with her step-by-step.. what a blessing it is to have this woman in our lives.

Last Friday they went to hospital together, she had had a bitch of a day on Wednesday at Moorfields when they discovered her pressure had rocketed up 50%! 

Luckily her lovely consultant was in the hospital and came immediately to see what had happened and changed her liquid drop medication to another drug but this time it is in a gel formulation. 

Thursday was bowel operation prep-day.. need I say more?

Early Friday morning.. she was prepped up with a stent with multiple lines, signed her forms and was wheeled off with a hug and a kiss from Pat.

Later.. "Ok.." said the charming man who had 'been in to deal' with a malignant tumour. "All that is left is an area of bright shiny new skin. Tell me what you've done, I know you 'ate' a stomach ulcer a few years ago but this was somewhat different.. fess up".

So she did.. and her list of 'NO's' was endless. 

NO sugar, potatoes, mushrooms, peppers, aubergines, tomatoes, wheat, rye, barley, red meat, no food made by anyone else, no additives, no E's or MSG, no chemicals in soap or hair shampoo, homemade toothpowder, only vinegar and pure soap as cleaning agents. 

The essential oil of Tea Tree rubbed on to her finger and toe nails at night after having being soaked in warm water with cider vinegar. 

Vast amounts of her herbs and vegetable leaves plus Swedish Bitters plus tinctures of Dandelion, Elderflower and Nettle. 

The leaves a mix of: Marjoram, lemon balm, fennel, sorrel, dandelion leaves, sage, dill, chives, various mints and thymes, green and golden oregano. Spinach, cabbage, chicory, mizuna, Japanese spicy mustard, various chards. 

Sauerkraut. Fermented cabbage leaves. Home made kefir made from raw goats milk. 

A great deal of heavy-duty exercise and lots of sleep, restricted contact with so-called friends. 

She only told a couple of people, one being Pat, about it and, of course, her GP knew but she certainly didn't give the tumour any 'oxygen' by talking about it. She deliberately starved it of ANY sugar.

So we 'live' to fight another day.

And God, in his wisdom, has now sent us rain.. a lot of it. So there's no need to slepp those heavy watering cans about but she fears that her arch enemy, old Mr Slug and his family are out and about. 

It is raining here now and there promises to be a storm at some point today, but she'll be off out there later on to scatter egg shells about her tender plants and to stake more of the peonies, who are as tall as she is.. and look her in the eye!

That's your lot. I hope we'll be back again with tales from this parrot in 'Glorious June' but at least you are now up to date.

Oh lookielookie, she's opened the linen cupboard, now there's nowhere quite so snuggily as its' top shelf which has pillowcases on it, the perfect place for a grey person to have a doze.

PipPip.. don't rely upon other people to 'keep' you fit, happy and healthy.. be pro-active about your health and happiness and if you are dealt a 'bum' deal, go to your choice of 'medical' people as soon as you can and do as much as you can yourself.

GeeGee Parrot.
May 31st, 2018.

LIDL ARE STOCKING MY FAVOURITE BREAD AGAIN - RYE WITH SUNFLOWER SEEDS.. OH YUM!

Oh.. how very scrummydumptious my life is.

For I've a mother, my human one not my avian one, who brings me home edible treats and if you have been a Dear Reader for several years, you'll remember how upset I was when Lidl dscontinued their Wholegrain Rye with Sunflower Seed bread. "BooHoo" I cried because it was so delicious.

So you can imagine how happy I was when mama unwrapped a package and offered me a small piece of bread.

Yubba-Dubba-Doo.. it was the sunflower bread The recipe is slightly different but I am not complaining.

We heard yesterday that the weather in Paris was cold and that it was raining.. well, surprise surprise..it was doing it here in London and in Kent, in fact, I think it was raining all over Britain yesterday and so windy!

She had to go out and find a locksmith who would cut lots of keys and not charge her a fortune.. and guess what? 

She found just the place..
182. King Street, Hammersmith, London.

A charming couple of guys took great trouble in duplicating a full set of her allotment keys for her and she's off today to the allotment to make sure they work and to plant lettuce seedlings and 18 French Lavender plants.

Because, hurray hurray, it's the first of May and NO.. I am not going to write the rest of that very cheeky ditty.. it would get this blog taken 'off air' for being 'rude' but you all know it, of that I am sure!

So hey nonny no.. off I go!

GeeGee Parrot.
May 1st, 2018.

THE RAIN'S COME BACK AND IT'S COLD AGAIN.. BOOHOO.

Sneaky weather, yes, weather can be sneaky and it's being so at the moment, for having had over a week of pleasant mid Spring days with sunshine and warm temperatures, those grey clouds and rain have now returned.

Now yes,  of course, we do require rain as well as sunshine but it's turned cold again, as in chillybilly cold. We were at the allotments on Wednesday and I had my first experience of a hail shower! I didn't think it was nice.

The weather forecast had been for rain all day but we only had the one shower plus a couple of minutes with that hail so got away with it lightly and lots of work was accomplished.

Dean and she did two trips to the dump with old pallets, clippings and rubbish and picked up three bags of compost and lengths of new wood for the vegetable climbing frames which are now up and waiting to be grown over!

Yesterday was a day of being at home, but mostly by myself which was a bit dull, she went to the dentist to have her crown fitted, she's not very happy with it, so it'll have to be adjusted.

Ignoring the rain and wind, she went to Clapham Junction to Lidl where they had French Lavender plants for sale at a good price.

She would have preferred English Lavender plants but they're much more expensive and our supplier of everything glorious, but not expensive, in the way of plants and trees, Phoebe's in Catford, no longer exists.

Our French cherry and pear trees came from Phoebe's and they delivered them right onto site for her!

It was their ninth anniversary on Wednesday, April 25th 2009. She looked at them covered in white blossom and thought of how amazing that company had been, with their knowledgeable staff and wondered what had happened to them all.

The company must have had to pay many, many thousands of pounds in redundancy to their staff but as they sold the site for several millions, that was easy.

The hard part was done by us.. their customers for whom Phoebe's was the best horticultural suppliers you could want and the hard bit was finding another company who had and gave the same quality of goods and service.

She found Squire's at Twickenham but it's rare to find the same staff outside in the tree and plant section.

Well.. shit happens. It's raining here in deepest Knightsbridge and 10 degrees! She thinks we've a frost coming so these lavenders will stay at home for a few days, she'll put them outside in the daytime and bring them in at night.

How boring to have this rain again, she'd almost finished incinerating weeds and clippings having cleared two lots and a day would have finished the last pile but now it'll be wet.. grrr.

Never mind, there's seed planting to be done at home and with two propagators going, everything will germinate and be ready in no time for planting.

Library, that's what she's up to this morning, a new stack of books is what's needed but first, we need a plate of buttered eggs and LapySang tea.

GeeGee Parrot.

April 27th, 2018.

PostScript: And she's turned the boiler off..

SUNDAY.. COOLER BUT WARM. PERFECT WEATHER FOR DOING A LOT OF HARD WORK.

Lots of hard work has been done, the old fenced-in area has been surface cleared of briars and nettles, when I say surface cleared, I mean that their roots will now be dug out in order to stop those two evil things growing again.

She's going to move this fencing to make a boundary fence between her and the wilderness plot on our left side and it means that people coming onto our plots have to come through the front gate and hidden in the trees, facing the gate, will be where she plans to put up a camera.

She was more than a 'bit' annoyed to have fruit stolen last year and intends to put up two of those 'motion activated anti-poaching' cameras to see who it is who steals it and if it happens again and she captures who it is, the evidence will go straight to the local police.

This area will be a place for several narrow but very high raised beds where she plans to grow root vegetables.. beetroots, carrots and hamburg parsley - which looks like a parsnip, it has the most divine taste and she uses it whenever she makes vegetable stock. It's delicious in chicken soup/ stock.

Today she tackled the worst job of all.. a very large pruning and weed dumping ground! She fired up another incinerator and burnt a great deal of it but after getting down a certain level, she found the clippings and the weeds were still damp. So having pulled and pushed it up into a big heap, she hopes that it will stay dry for a few more days so that she can burn more of it asap!

Grass trimmed.. more trees pruned.. me vastly amused by the clippings.. crunchy apple and cherry wood! The bottom of my cage got messier by the minute but I had lots of fun and it was good for Beaky to munch and crunch through wood!

Wednesday.. there's a trip being planned to B&Q. For 2.4 and 2 metre lengths of wood, she's making another wooden arched walkway, there's one on plot number 37 which has three Clematis Montana 'Mayleen' climbing up and over the wood. This new walkway on plot number 41 will be for squash and cucumbers to climb upon.

And she's going to paint both walkways in a glorious colour.. Chinese Laquer red!

She received a lovely surprise this afternoon, a friend emailed her to say that his girlfriend is coming to London tomorrow and is bringing with her all manner of delicious salad and vegetable seeds! How kind and nice is that!

And he and his mother are coming to London mid May, her roses will be showing by then, she'll pick a huge bunch and deliver them to their hotel.. for there'll be nothing like gloriously perfumed roses as a "Welcome to London and thank you for the seeds" gift, will there?

And for the girlfriend who is arriving tomorrow, she picked a monster bag of fresh herbs and leaves and will give it to her when she picks up the seeds. Yippee.. just in time to plant them in the propagator!

Aren't some people lovely? How kind to think of doing this for her? He isn't a gardener but he knows she is and that she has the allotments and he thought it would be fun to send her some 'truly' different varities of vegetable and salad seeds.

And on that happy note.. we are off to bed to sleep the sleep of dead folks. We are full of fresh air, she's done five days in a row of strenuous hard back breaking graft and tomorrow is going to be another one, it's the day she's taking down three panels of 2 metre high fencing and moving them to make the boundary fence.. I'll watch.. Apparently it will be cooler, we don't mind that as long as it's bright, it's those dull gloomy wet windy days that make her become a duvet diver.

Chirps to you all.. we are completely full of chirp.

GeeGee Parrot.
April 22nd, 2018.

HUMANS SHOULDN'T CHEW BONES & GIVING AWAY THINGS YOU DON'T NEED OR WANT.

I admit that's a strange title for a post but read on and you'll agree that human teeth are not the same as animal's gnashers.

There was a huge amount of household activity taking place here earlier this week.

I was asked to stay on my door pole and to stop jumping onto her back.. sad that.. I haven't seen her on her hands and knees scrubbing a carpet or washing woodwork for some time, so hopped onto her back to see if she was doing it correctly.. as if I knew how to do it!

Well, she obviously could remember how to do it for in a short while the hall carpet was back to being its' proper colour and she had pink cheeks from all that scrubbing and brushing.

Next she sorted out several enormous bags and boxes of children's clothes she had been keeping for a friend to collect.

'Sod it, they can go to Andreea, I told them about these clothes over a month ago', so picked up her phone and sent Andreea a text message asking her if she wanted children's clothes in very good condition, unused Nike shoes, tennis raquets, lots of books and masses of Lego and other toys.

Plus clothes that she had tried on and were either too big or too small and wonderful table linens and guests towels that Myra had given her.

"Yes please, shall I come and collect them on Friday evening, at what time will you be home?"

'Done and dusted.. and out of the door.. yippee', she thought and went off to make supper.

Supper was a plate of short ribs.. yum! And a salad grown on the allotment.. a wonderful mix of spicy and tasty leaves.

It was on the third rib. She bit and there was this horrendous 'crack and snap' and she knew she was in BIG dudu. Sure enough, her tongue told her that one of her front teeth had cracked and shattered.

She said all manner of rude words.. as you can well imagine.. and went off to look in the bathroom mirror, where she saw the damage was as bad as her tongue had told her.

So you know what she did first thing the next morning.. yes, call her dentist! Such a darling girl said "Oh no, come here at 2.15 this afternoon and he will see what needs to be done".

So she did and he pulled a face, then laughed and said "You wouldn't believe how many teeth are 'killed' by ribs, we dentists could make our living out of them, now let's see what I can do, hopefully there will be enough non-shattered tooth left for me to put a crown on, otherwise you are going to have to have a denture". 

Grrr..

Well, she is lucky! For there was enough and not wanting to have a temporary tooth whilst her crown is being made, she trotted off and decided that she would garden for the week.

And lo and behold! The weather changed from being dull and gloomy to bright, sunny and hot!

So we have been going every day and it has been glorious, yes, I've had to be in my big travel cage but it's been warm and bright and I can see what she's doing and she's been doing a LOT!

Yesterday she tackled a monstrous pile of clippings, she took a barbeque firelighter, put some dried out clippings in the incinerator and lit it.. whoosh! We aren't allowed to have bonfires because of the smoke but oh boy, there wasn't any smoke!

What there was was an incinerator full of orange flame which she fed with the pile of clippings and old pallets until the pile was nearly all gone.

Then a look at her watch told her that we had to leave in order to be back in time to meet Andreea.

Quick quick.. hurry scurry.. put away tools, lock up shack, catch bus home. We arrived home at 7.30pm and took the bags upstairs into the porch, Andreea sent a message saying they was leaving their house.

The bags filled the boot, then upstairs to collect the box of toys which Juliano picked up and carried down the four flights of stairs.. yes, he's very strong!

They hugged her and drove off, she came into the flat, shut the door and looked in delight, for there was nothing there anymore, except what should be there, the table and a small chest of drawers, the bags had gone and she could walk in a straight line down the hall.

Today is again dry and sunny, so another pile of clippings and weeds will burn. Her crown is being fitted on Tuesday and.. suffice to say she ain't going to be a'chewing ribs with her 'new' tooth!

Such a good week.. because she hasn't actually wanted to see people because of her missing tooth, this has meant that she's done many hours hard work at the allotments and has the tan that goes with working outdoors in sunlight.

And I smell of fresh air!

GeeGee Parrot.
April 21st, 2018.

SLAVERY TODAY..

Today is April 16th, 2018 and we are spending today at home, for despite there's gardening to be done, there is a room that needs to be sorted out.

But before any work started she read the papers online and looked at the BBC website, which is where she found this story. 

It is about a woman called Sara, not her real name and her nationality is not disclosed. She worked as a cleaner in a UK college for 20 hours a day.

The job was obtained for her by her husband, who was the holder of the bank account into which her wages were paid.

She was a slave.. threatened by her husband that if she didn't work, her children would be killed. Her children are now grown-up, she hasn't ever seen them since they were young, her husband has left the UK.

The story of this woman's imprisonment by someone by whom she bore children is appalling.

She's now free and beginning to lead a new life but realises that she will never see her children or her 'home' land again.

And after reading it, she thought of the women whom she sees in those awful 'Nail' bars.

How many are there voluntarily? Breathing in those disgusting chemicals hour after hour, day after day, bending over hands or feet doing manicures and pedicures because women are either too stupid or lazy to do their own nails.

The 'chains' of slavery are not always visible.


GeeGee Parrot.
April 16th, 2018. 

DRIZZLE..

Unfortunately, we don't mean the cake variety!
Now, isn't that a chirpful thought.. a slice or two of Lemon Drizzle cake, with a cup of LapySang tea, would go down really well.

No, we are in the midst of a 'drizzling shower', the rain is so fine you almost can't see it but stand outside and you would be sopping wet within a few minutes and the pavements of deepest Knightsbridge are turning green because we've had so much rain!

Ah well, what can you do? Well, she did a lot today for she certainly had no wish to go out in this dismal weather, not even the desire for new library books was enough to get her to go outside.

She picked up rugs in our bedroom and put them in the washing machine, vacuumed, washed and polished cupboards doors, dusted the television and its' shelf, the two bedside tables and put down clean rugs.

Put away a few winter clothes either with moth balls or lavender bags that she had refreshed with essential oil, sorted through two bags of wool and put the balls aside for Pat together with a large selection of knitting needles and crochet hooks.

Washed Mr.Bissell's, aka the vacuum, two filters.

Stopped for a quick lunch of cold lamb and salad, the lamb was from last night's delicious dinner, which we had had at Andreea and Juliano's home to celebrate their Orthodox Easter.

Then horrors of horrors.. she ran warm water into the sink and dumped me in it! I made my usual fuss but actually, it was very pleasant! Either that or I am getting used to being bathed!

At least she did have the kindness to blow me dry
with her hair dryer, the cool air blowing through 
my feathers meant that I was dry in no time, but she hadn't finished, she had me upside down and was filing my toe toes with an emery board before you could say pedicure!

And then did Beaky! Poor Beaky, but it is a good thing to have a good scratch and file now and again, so I didn't make any fuss over this at all.. do you think I could be growing up?

Perish the thought, I'm not yet fourteen!

She took the rugs out of the machine, hung them on a rack to dry over the bath, went upstairs to Tereza's home to feed Rebecca's fish and took some  mail up for her.

Net-a-Porter came on the dot of 7.00pm to collect a return parcel, she boiled a few beetroots with their stalks, mixed in a large teaspoonful of creamed horseradish and grated a carrot over the top, this was her supper and now, we've finished for today.

Tomorrow she'll do bedlinens and sort through her clothes for those that no longer fit or are required. They're going to Andreea who has a couple of cousins who aren't well off but need some smart clothes for work.

She'll coming on Friday night with her car to collect a massive box full of Lego and other toys which Tereza's two girls no longer want and take the clothes at the same time.

We're getting there.. Rome wasn't built in a day.

GeeGee Parrot.
April 9th, 2018.