...but the beans are in. I'm sure I started them too early, or so everyone tells me, but there's still time to start again if the first lot fails. I've planted four yellow runners and the one borlotti that germinated, and seven dwarf franch beans. The little raised bed, which already has a couple of rows of sturon onion sets and a few herbs in it, is looking well populated, with perhaps just enough room for a row of leeks when they're big enough to plant out.
We'd a pleasant drive down to Brighton today to assemble a new flat-pack for Barbara, and to replace a few light bulbs. The latter job is a breeze for me, since I don't even have to get up on tiptoes, but a challenge for someone a shade less tall and living alone, who would have had to get up on a step ladder. The former ought also to have been easy, given my IKEA-assembling years as an expat. I noticed early in the process that there were two gauges of washers in the pack, but didn't twig for a minute or two that the reason why the bolts weren't going in was that, logically enough, the pack also contained two gauges of Allen keys, and the one I was using was just spinning in the bolt head. The penny having finally dropped, we were soon in business again, and Barbara now has a shocking pink modernist dressing table. She treated us to lunch at a nearby hostelry that we have all used a lot over the years, though its name has changed a few times. Currently Breeze: recommended.
The drive was painless, except for the slow progress, as always, through Brighton itself. I've heard the city described as ostentatiously anti-motorist, which may account for some of the reported disenchantment with the Green city council. Nevertheless, Brighton remains a focus for old car gatherings. We encountered a fair few old Austin 7s today as they puttered their way down the A26. All utterly immaculate, and with a range of different bodywork including an American-style roadster two seater with a rounded tail - and presumably a rumble seat. One, indeed, was registered in the Swiss canton of Vaud, and I earnestly hope it came over on a trailer! I was just saying the other day to a friend that the Romandie is almost anarchic compared with my stamping grounds in cantons Bern and Zürich. As if to demonstrate the point, our VD-registered Austin 7 was driven briskly through a red traffic light.
Not the worst driving of the day: today's cactus goes to, or ideally up, a young man in a Y-plate metallic grey Polo with the front number plate on top of the dashboard, yet to be affixed to the exaggerated new plastic front bumper. [The French call this 'tuning', by the way...]. As he followed us, he seemed to be groping around in the footwell for something, consequently driving into the kerb. He then proceeded to swerve violently from side to side, and after we turned off (and stopped to watch), hurtled on round the bends at full throttle. It's enough to turn me into a vigilante - but perhaps not till I've retired from the current hobby.
Spring is really getting a hold now. The forest is a blaze of colour, from the pinks of buds that are still to burst to the acid and lime greens of the emerging foliage. The roadsides are a riot of primroses and cowslips, and there's a pale pink thing everwhere that I've yet to put a name to. The beautiful white wind anemones are in flower, and to judge by the foliage, the bluebells aren't far behind. As for the less desirables, there are vast fields of oilseed rape, and up in the Ashdown Forest the broom is in flower. So, having just about got rid of the cold, by dose is ruddig ad by eyes are stiggig. I'm glad we've chosen not to drive south this coming week. At this time of year, the drive is torture for those of us of the hay-fever persuasion, pollen filters notwithstanding.
Here in the garden (flowers department) the daffodils are over, and the tête-à-tête narcissi are also getting there. The fritillaries are in full flower, the primroses just go on and on, and more and more polyanthus are in flower. Roses are shooting away like mad; even Peace, which I'd just about given up for dead. I've planted a box where the pyracatha used to lurk in wait for the passing unwary, and trimmed the one that I hope it will match in my lifetime. We thus have a couple of pans of box cuttings to go with our inexhaustible patience. The compost bin is full to bursting, and I'm glad we'll have left for the airport by the time the chaps come to collect our donations to the municipal composting process: there will doubtless be dirty looks again when they come to move the brown bin!
I've done so many return trips to the County Town lately that the car must have felt it strange to be taking a different route today. The last in the current series of interviews, for me, at any rate, is tomorrow, and I won't be sorry. At least today's prep was a bit less intensive: I saw three out of tomorrow's four in the first round. That's not quite the end of the hobby before we go south: I have the half-yearly meeting on Wednesday night, leaving me the chance of about six hours' sleep before we head for the airport. Lots of fresh air and sleep in Another Place, we hope.
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