Another one bites the dust

 For annual ramblings, please scroll down to the 2 December entry

It should surprise no one that we are glad to see the back of 2023, though my health issues brought me into contact with a whole lot of thoroughly likeable and very caring people: it’s an ill wind, eh?

We’ve had a good time over the festives in our elderly way.  As planned, Martyn’s sister Sandra spent Christmas Day with us and stayed overnight, and we had a splendid lunch outing a couple of days ago, visiting our friends Claire and Richard and their kids, not far from where we used to live.  Kids: Steph and David have turned out to be charming and responsible adults approaching middle age…

I suspect we’ll see the new year in through closed eyelids.  We’re looking forward to welcoming Annie on 2 Jan, and have invited friends Chris and Jon to lunch as well: the time-honoured chicken casserole, I think: never a bad idea when we’re at the mercy of the train timetable.  We had hoped Annie’s brother Terry would join us, but he’ll be on babysitting duties.

The remarkably mild weather is kicking a lot of stuff into growth.  Lots of daffodils and snowdrops are poking through, and I see new shoots on at least one of the roses.  I wouldn’t normally prune them just yet, but may need to.  Similarly, the hellebores are putting up new growth, so it’s time the manky old foliage was hacked down.  Mild, sure: but the winds have been anything but.  I fished the barbecue cover out of the pond this morning, and it has already blown away from where I hung it out to dry.  It’ll get wetter again in no time, so it can lie where it fell for the moment.  And we’ll see whither it has flown tomorrow.

Gearing up for the festives

Bird and bacon in fridge, sprouts prepared, last Bramley apple picked to grate and add to the stuffing.  Fortnums’ Christmas pudding and Martyn’s ditto cake waiting in the wings, cheeseboard worked out, bread baked.  For the longer term, the remaining bulbs are at last planted out, so we hope we have some spring colour to look forward to - with luck, the squirrels will already have stashed enough acorns.  For the short term, tonight’s meatballs are made and chilling: enough for two meals, so we’ll have a change from leftovers later in the week.  Fairly easy day tomorrow: just the mince pies to make and the pigs in blankets and stuffing to prepare.  So that just leaves the final Christmas Day veggie prep and timetabling.  We’ll have our Christmas dinner in the evening, so have time to get stuff ready at leisure in the afternoon.  Famous last words.

We’re looking forward to hosting Martyn’s sister Sandra on Christmas Day, and have persuaded her to stay the night, so she doesn’t need to drive home in the dark.  We shouldn’t be so patronising: she has recently done a tour of visits in the Cotswolds and the Wye Valley, so when it comes to driving distances, she’s made of sterner stuff than us.  

Talking of motorised transport, Egg2 has sailed through its thirteenth MoT with - as usual - not so much as an advisory.  Given the tiny mileage it does, the main risk is of tyres, bushes etc going brittle (Martyn replaced a couple of rather cracked tyres last year).  Unfortunately our rescue service doesn’t cover vehicles over 16 years old, so we’ll have to do some shopping round next year.  Said service having refused to turn out when I couldn’t open the fuel filler cap (it was presumably sulking at being ignored for so long) I’m tempted to look elsewhere.  My bus passed the 25000 mark this week after a mere 7 years and a couple of months.  My daily hospital visits earlier in the year added an unusual extra thousand miles or so, but it still did only about 3000 miles between MoTs.  Rather more than four times what Egg2 did.

How I love banks

For annual ramblings, please scroll down to the 2 December entry 

I really am not good at choosing banks.  I took fright at reports that the bank where I kept some holiday euros was in trouble, and at the beginning of last month went to the branch (remember those?) to close the accounts.  Imagine my joy today when, while queuing to pay at Fortnums, the phone pinged with a message announcing that I was overdrawn at said bank.  Quite a lot of Vivaldi-on-hold later, I’m assured that the accounts are now closed, and that the charge that led to the purported overdraft has been waived.  Goodness knows what this does for my credit rating, but since I don’t do credit, I shan’t be losing sleep on that account.  [Later: the following day brought two more peremptory text messages…]

The Christmas cards are starting to trickle in.  I love hearing from family and friends at any time of year, but the many greetings at this season make me feel surrounded by good will.  We brought down the Christmas tree from the attic yesterday, together with the electric candle arches.  I encountered the latter for the first time in 1989 in Sweden, thinking them rather charming and understated, and so went into NK near the main station in Stockholm and treated myself to one.  I got another in IKEA some years later, so our front windows are suitably adorned.

We hesitated about decorating the house so soon after Tim’s funeral, but on balance felt both that we needed cheering up, and also that Tim, that kindest of souls, would not wish us to brood.  His funeral last week was a very emotional affair.  Some find this helpful.  Not I: I’ve pretty much decided that I don’t want a funeral. 

The Egg is due for its MoT (annual inspection) so Martyn booked it in for yesterday.  Last year the morning traffic was so bad that we missed the appointment.  This year we set out early, got there in next to no time, and had to repair to a nearby coffee shop till the garage opened.  On arriving, we found that the MoT man had thrown a sickie, so it’s back again next week.  Paciência.

Second childhood

For annual ramblings, please scroll down to the 2 December entry

As happens more and more often of late, my mind wandered back the other day to my childhood.  My mother used to make jam and marmalade at home and taught me the skills.  Indeed, I still use her preserving pan.  Having recently run out of my 2022 batch of marmalade, I thought I was reduced to the shop-bought variety, which to me always seems rather bland and artificially set.  But then I remembered (and this is starting to read like an advertisement!) that Ma bought prepared Seville oranges in a can when the genuine home made stuff ran out.  

Lo and behold: Sainsbury’s still stock the brand that I remember from the 1950s, and preserving sugar, so we now have an emergency stock of sort-of-home-made marmalade to tide us over until the Seville oranges come in next month.  A brief scientific sampling exercise determines that it’s a good enough half-way house, though the fruit is rather more finely cut than is my wont.  Which brings back a more recent memory: trees in Malaga last December weighed down with bitter oranges.  I think Cunard and the customs might have cribbed at my schlepping home a suitcase full thereof.

I had other things on my mind this January, so couldn’t motivate myself to make marmalade.  Now that those preoccupations are dealt with, things will be different this coming January.  Gods willing, weather permitting and if the creek don’t rise, the production line will roll again.

Annual ramblings 2023

Not the greatest of years.  Martyn and I each lost friends of many decades’ standing: John Cruse, Freeman of the City of London, talented artist, goldsmith and teacher, and so much else.  Geoff Issott, a formidable linguist, proud Yorkshireman, keen cricketer and uncompromising lefty.  Jackie Guild, whom I'd known since she and I were both 5, and whom we'd enjoyed meeting on our trips back to the Ferry, died suddenly at home.  Our brother-in-law Michael Bailey, husband of Martyn’s elder sister, died in July.  A keen hiker and indefatigable volunteer for more charities and institutions than you can shake a stick at, his funeral at Rochester cathedral was so lavish and well attended that I caught myself thinking ‘state funeral’ once or twice.  Shortly after the bastard cancer got Michael, our young neighbour Rowena, of whom we were both very fond, finally succumbed to breast cancer aged only just 39, some ten years from diagnosis, and mere hours after admission to the local hospice.  On All Saints’ Day we learned that Martyn’s nephew Tim had been found dead, aged just 51.

As if Martyn’s year hasn’t been bad enough, he has still not fully shaken off the after effects of shingles.  If you haven’t been vaccinated against it, kindly do so!  Adding to Martyn’s worries, I was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the year.  I had two stays in hospital, and found our local pesthouse pretty decent for in-patients, thanks to the private en-suite rooms that everyone gets.  Following lengthy radio- and chemotherapy in the spring, I had pretty radical surgery in September, and learned a month or so later that it had been successful, requiring no mop-up chemo.

My health issues have rather dominated the year, and kept us close to base.  My daily drives to Maidstone for treatment were at the prettiest time of year, so at least I had the pleasure of seeing Kent come back to life after the winter. 

Garden

We have obviously not been able to travel this year, so the garden has had attention almost comparable to that of the lockdown years.  We grew tomatoes as before: the Sweet Olive variety was as good as ever, but the San Marzanos were a disaster.  The former are very tolerant of pot culture, the latter absolutely not.  And when we eventually got fruit to ripen on some San Marzano cuttings in the raised bed, the local beasties got to them first.  We decided against growing spuds this year, since I wasn’t sure how my treatment would affect my ability to manage them (I needn’t have worried).  For similar reasons we bought plug plants this year and grew relatively little from seed.  Parker’s supplied nicotianas and rudbeckias, and they have both done very well.  We used the dwarf Toto rudbeckia variety this time.  Although they have a shorter flowering season than the Rustics we’ve used in the past, they are usefully compact, and don’t need staking.  We used Parker’s again for polyanthus and pansies, and most are planted out in pots on the terrace.  Out in the conservatory, we have geranium cuttings, taken at the end of October, and plants dug up from where they had been sulking in the garden and in containers.

Arrivals

Our hospitality has been pretty sparse this year, and mostly limited to lunches at home: I was a bit circumspect about eating out while my immune system was getting hammered.  

Before that, Annie visited for a few days at New Year after staying with her brother Terry and family over the holidays.  Since our railway service is totally unreliable these days, Terry drove her here and we had an enjoyable lunch together.  They were back again for lunch in July, together with local friends Celia and Andy.  We subjected the Currahs and Rayners to pizzas and stuff, so we’re keeping our hands in!  Neighbours Annie and Rowena came in bearing cakes the weekend after coronation day, and Rowena kindly took our portrait in silly 'ats.

Departures 

Since I reported last year, we have made only one significant trip: a cruise last December to Spain and Portugal on the Queen Victoria.  We had a pretty hellish drive to Southampton in freezing fog: when the cloud lifted for the last bit, we were driving into very low sun on wet roads: a nightmare: the glare was so strong that I couldn't read the instruments.  It was a comfort, then, to arrive in A Corunha in mild weather: I stood on the balcony in my dressing gown before dawn to watch the ship mooring.  Pleasant city, dripping with history and some quirky architecture and art work, which we had time to explore this time.  Thence to Cádiz, where some intrepid Belgian divers tried (and failed) to replace a propeller blade on one of the azipods.  That cost us an extra night in Cádiz, and deprived us of a visit to Cartagena, to which we’d been looking forward.  Substituting Gibraltar on the way home did not compensate - been there, done that, didn’t like it.  We stayed on board, sitting in the bar above the bridge, watching the flights in and out of the airport - and the pedestrians, bikes and cars on the road across the runway between flights.  We did get to see and enjoy Malaga for the first time, and our last port of call, Lisbon, was as good as ever (if wet…).   

There were lots of little signs of cost-cutting on the QV this time, which I suppose is not surprising given the hit they must have taken during the pandemic.  The piano in the Queen’s Room was badly out of tune, which was a shame, given that Matthew McCombie was aboard again.  We greatly enjoyed his playing as before, though, and once again had a chance to have a chat.  Such a nice fellow.  We had planned to be on the QV again in July for a cruise to the fjords, but had to cancel for obvious reasons.  We’ve moved the deposit to a similar itinerary next June on the new Queen Anne: perhaps we'll get to enjoy the fjords at the third attempt.

Wheels

Our fleet has not changed, and does few miles.  Having recently had the annual bills for insurance, tax, service and MoT, I’m pretty sure it would pay us to use taxis and rent a car when we really need one.  But the convenience of being able to get up and go at the drop of a hat is a luxury we can afford.  The Egg has taken to refusing to spin its starter on occasions, so that will need investigation at some point.  But when it goes it goes like a new car even though it’s in its sixteenth year.  The Ateca is frugal, comfortable and plenty fast enough for an old geezer like me: it didn’t miss a beat during my six weeks of daily treatment in Maidstone.

Food and drink

We’re awfully unambitious, and are happy with home cooking.  Just as well, given the lengthy lockdown followed by self-imposed purdah this past year.  We do occasionally take a trip out for lunch, and wish it to be known that the fish and chips at the Crown, Groombridge are superior to those at the Bill the Conk at Rye Harbour.  At home we are making a lot of use of a two-drawer air fryer, even roasting the occasional chicken or half leg of lamb in it.  And eggs cooked whole at 130° for 15 minutes save the bother of boiling a pan of water.  It works faster than the big oven, and uses less juice.  We still bake bread in the oven, preferring loaves baked in a proper tin to the awkwardly shaped one with a hole in the bottom that you get if you bake it in the bread machine.  We do use the latter, but only for preparing the dough.  Though the San Marzano tomatoes were a failure, the Sweet Olives were their usual exuberant success, so provided numerous lunches, halved, anointed with olive oil, garlic and basil and done in the oven on slices of home-baked baguette.  Or done up in a caprese with salad, mozzarella and jamón de serrano.

 Arts

Bit of a desert this year, though the need to knock something out for the Christmas card has concentrated our minds!  I have reacquainted myself with the acrylics after a long gap: We'd tended only to paint at our Thursday morning art group, which we suspended in the early days of the pandemic, but I've knocked out a pot-boiler for this year's card, and it prints reasonably well.  Martyn has found a suitable watercolour in the archives, so we've got the cards printed and ready once I've arranged the mortgage to buy the stamps.  Our one trip to the theatre this year was to a local recording of the BBC Kitchen Cabinet radio show.  Great fun.  And free!  But the host makes no effort to dress up for his audience at recording sessions: where I come from, we'd have called him a proper ticket!

2024

The New Year ought to bring some order back into British politics, though at the moment it looks as if things'll get substantially worse before they get better.  It’s too much to hope that 2024 will right the wrongs of the past thirteen years of scandal and incompetence, nor the worrying rightward slide into dog-whistle populism.  As for the many wars round the world, it’s going to be a nail-biting year at best.  A visitor from another planet would boggle at the fact that our species systematically abuses the privilege of living on a fertile and habitable one.  Closer to home, we’re hoping that the year will be less packed with sickness and bereavement than 2023.  At our age, it’s best to focus on modest comforts, achievements and ambitions in the time we have left.  We hope that 2024 will be kind to you and your loved ones - and a bit kinder to us.

Martyn & David

Autumn colours

The cornus at the front are in their winter colours now: the strong winds of recent weeks have stripped off all the leaves.  We (and passers by) enjoy the contrasting red of the original plant, a layering from a Tonbridge plant, the mahogany stems of the variegated ones and the lime green of one we planted more recently.  All seem to tolerate the dreadful clay.  The landscapers planted some skimmias alongside the cornus, and they are contributing a bit of colour in their insipid way - not our favourite subject.  There are lots of forget-me-not seedlings around a surviving box bush, so we should have a splash of blue in the spring.  The frost will finish off the bedding dahlias in the tubs unless I pot them up and get them under cover soon.  We have plenty of bulbs and polyanthus to plant in their place when I summon up the energy.

Round the back, the beech has developed its glorious autumn colours, and as it fades to brown, it’ll keep its leaves until the new season’s foliage begins.  It won’t be long before the fuchsias are finished, but in the meantime, Tony's magellanica alba is looking good.  I nicked the cuttings from his garden a good decade ago when the art crowd met to do some sketching in his garden, and our two surviving plants have gone on to provide cuttings to populate other friends’ gardens.  It responds well to hard pruning, but we can enjoy the flowers for a bit longer.  The variegated one at the front is threatening to take over the driveway, so it too will get its usual severe chop back when the leaves die down.

Tim Williams 1972-2023

As if 2023 hasn’t bowled us enough googlies, today brought the dreadful news that Tim, Martyn’s nephew, was found dead this morning.  Fate had dealt Tim a bloody awful hand.  As a child he suffered bad head injuries when the brakes failed on a bike he’d borrowed, and he was hit by a car.  He recovered to a degree from that, but it left him rather vulnerable.  He was twice married, each rather ill-advised marriage ending in divorce.  He had significant health problems: in particular he required corneal transplants to give him some degree of useful eyesight.  And despite all this, he was a delightful bloke: sweet-natured, kind and generous, thanks in no small measure to his mother Gillian’s unstinting care over the decades. The signs are that he died suddenly, which is perhaps a whisker of comfort to his mother, his siblings and the rest of us.

Seventeen happy years

Today is the anniversary of our civil partnership ceremony, though it’s well over twenty years since we knew we were partners for life.  We had already exchanged rings - in Martyn’s old red Peugeot in the station car park at Brighton - and our partnership ceremony was also a quiet and intimate event.

Over the years we have travelled, socialised, gardened, studied, painted and enjoyed making our home together.  We have also been there for each other in times of bereavement and illness, so our love for each other is strengthened by the odd bit of scar tissue.  Martyn still has post-shingles pain well over a year since onset, but is coping very well.  He is also having to cope with my gradual recovery from recent surgery, but we’re both encouraged by the advice that I need no further treatment.  We were already very lucky to have each other - even more so now.

Autumn is certainly here.  We haven’t yet had frost, but I’d better not delay the geranium cuttings much longer.  We have started clearing and re-planting containers for winter colour, and mentally listing all the other jobs needed before winter.  Some will get done…

Awful neologism: ‘repurposing’

 

I finally gave up on the San Marzano tomatoes.  Our total useable crop amounted to one tomato.  The main benefit of growing the twenty-ish plants was the exercise in watering them and digging them up.  Martyn has hauled out the remains of the runner beans, and the bean poles are out and stored.  The raised beds are now host to some rooted cuttings, so their role is now as nursery beds. 

We’ve kept the best of the sage plants, surrounding it with potentilla, cistus, aquilegia and a solitary lavender.  The other raised bed is gradually filling up with little rosemary plants.  I’ve no doubt we’ll spend the next few months hoeing out seedlings of spinach, rocket, etc, as well as the ever-present oxalis and oak seedlings. The little greenhouse is pretty full again: the space gained by planting out cuttings and seedlings has been taken up with polyanthus and winter pansies, a few of which are already flowering.  We’ll shortly have vacancies in the hanging baskets and tubs, and the space in the greenhouse will be ready for geranium cuttings next spring after the frosts: we’ll start them in the conservatory.

Well, them’s the plans at least…

Autumn

 

The rudbeckia that arrived labelled ‘aubergine’ continues to give us pleasure, year after year.  The dwarf variety, Toto, we bought as plug plants have done very well, but seem to have a shorter flowering season than than the Rustic mix of previous years.  On the other hand they are much more compact, which suits our needs better: they don’t get leggy or require staking.

We have bought pansy and polyanthus plug plants from the same supplier, and they are potted up to grow on a bit before we plant them out.  The mini greenhouse is chock full: the rooted rosemary cuttings now total over forty, so if they make it through the winter, we’ll have the makings of a little hedge.

Cyclamens are flowering now, and we’re enjoying the fleeting lemon-yellow blooms on the autumn crocus Sternbergia.  From my armchair by the French windows I look out to an old butler sink: after a superb show of aquilegias in the spring and early summer, we now have lots of flowers on some fuchsias that over-wintered.  Also from that angle, I see the last of the fruit on the Sweet Olive tomatoes that have been feeding us for weeks now.  San Marzano tomatoes have been a real disappointment.  The ones in pots succumbed to blossom-end rot, no doubt because of under-watering.  The two cuttings I planted in the raised bed have brought some fruit to ripeness, but someone else eats them in the night.  Lesson learned.

Quite a funeral - and another in the offing

Michael, our brother-in-law, had many connexions to Rochester Cathedral, so we weren’t surprised at his wish for his funeral to be conducted there.  He and Martyn’s sister Sandra met through their musical involvement with the cathedral, and they were married there, 53 years ago.  Michael was for some time chairman of the Friends of the cathedral, and he and Sandra both volunteered as meeters and greeters for visitors.  Well, the funeral was comparable to many a state do: two anthems and a psalm sung by the cathedral choir, three hymns, a sermon, a eulogy bravely and flawlessly delivered by Sandra, and several tributes from friends and brother  masons, as well as the usual prayers and liturgical devices.  The congregation pretty much filled the choir: well over 200, we think.  The committal was up the road at the Crem, and by comparison was mercifully brief.

Some days before that, our lovely neighbour Rowena died peacefully, mere hours after going into the nearby hospice.  She had undergone much surgery and treatment after developing breast cancer in her late twenties, but the latest lot of treatment just made her feel awful, and did no good.  When she died she had just had her 39th birthday.  We last saw her when we witnessed her will a couple of weeks ago: she was very weak and jaundiced, so one has to be grateful that she is no longer suffering.

The late heatwave has abated, thank goodness.  We have had some pretty lively downpours, and I gather that there was thunder and lightning last night.  Didn’t wake me.  Out in the garden, most of the tomatoes are finished.  We’ll get a few more to pick - and possibly even a few San Marzanos.  The mini-greenhouse is chock full of cuttings, seedlings and bought plug plants, so I’d better restrain my propagating ambitions.

It’s that expensive time of year when the car needs re-insuring, plus a service and MoT.  The renewal quote came in with an increase of over 60%, so I’ve moved to another company.  Still a good bit more than last year, but even without a voluntary excess, it’s a lot cheaper than the quote from my current insurers.  Given the lousy service we had from the same insurer when the hot water cylinder leaked, we’ll be looking to insure the house and contents somewhere else as well.

Late summer gardening

Ben and Duncan were here yesterday, so we got them to dig out the devastated box bushes that used to mark the boundary between us and The Boundary.  I paced out the distance, and reckon we’ll need a good seventy rosemary plants.  I potted up 32 rooted cuttings yesterday, and took another few dozen from the slightly overgrown bush up the garden.  So now I just need to survive to see them flower.  

The baby greenhouse is pretty full now, with rooted and new cuttings of rosemary, as well as cistus pulverulens and three colours of potentilla.  I tried to root some cuttings of the viburnum plicatum, but without success.  The daphne cuttings seem to be alive, but aren’t obviously rooting.

The eschscholzias we sowed in the spring are flowering now, most in the common orange, but a few in a range of other colours: lemon, a deep orange and even a mauve-pink.  The tagetes and bidens in the pots are starting to look a bit straggly, but are flowering well, so we’ll leave them a little longer.  The roses are still flowering, but past their best now.  The penstemons are starting to pick up the baton, but they are less impressive than in past years: I suspect it's time I started some new plants from cuttings.  A couple of fuchsias we planted last year in an old pot sink over-wintered successfully and are coming into vigorous flower.  Less impressive are a couple of hardy fuchsias in a nearby bed: hardly surprising, since I have done little to improve the terrible soil.  I’ll give them a top dressing of muck and see if that gives them a boost.  The miniature roses by the front door need the same treatment, so I’ll get cracking when the weather turns drier and warmer over the coming days.  

Meanwhile, I’ve been harvesting seeds as they ripen: the usual suspects.  Not sure if we’ll be doing a Macmillan coffee morning this year, but if we do, we’ll have plenty of seeds to flog at a pound a pinch as we did at our last one pre-pandemic.  

Fish and chips

Yesterday at the Crown in Old Groombridge, and today at the Bill the Conk at Rye Harbour.  Both pretty good, but the Crown was a nose ahead, thanks to fatter chips that stayed warm longer, and to tartare sauce that came in a little pot rather than a tooth-testing sachet.  (But we’d better not have fish and chips again for a week or so.)

We sat outside at both, and spent a while after supper this evening sitting on the bench at the top of the garden, enjoying the garden and congratulating ourselves on choosing this house 16 years ago.  The fine weather of the past few days has been good for the spirits and the garden.  The fading self-sown verbena at the foot of the drive is chopped down and on its way to becoming municipal compost, together with grass cuttings and some of the tomato plants.  A lot of the rosemary cuttings having rooted well, they are now potted up.  Most of the young potentillas are potted on, and the bit of lavender that broke off a bought plant has rooted and is setting flower buds.

Unfortunately, one of the strongest memories of today’s trip out is the atrocious state of the roads in East Sussex.  A moonscape of potholes, and a lot of cheapo loose chippings where maintenance has actually been done.  We got home with the windscreen intact, I’m glad to report.

Wildlife

There are times when we are less than happy with the local wildlife, eg when the foxes take a dump where we want to walk, and when the badgers scatter the contents of the food waste bin across the back yard.  Our newly planted campanulas have been practically obliterated by slugs and snails.  But of course others are more welcome:

We have planted a buddleia, and many of the other subjects are attracting lots of pollinators.  The sedum is coming into flower, so we’re looking forward to seeing lots more bees.  

Motoring, misc

On the way back from Fortnums this afternoon I saw a car stopped with a flat tyre at the the junction down the road.  I carry an electric pump, so stopped to lend it to the driver.  This is not pure altruism: it’s an earnest hope that someone will do the same for me some day.  But I’m bound to say that nobody has ever stopped to offer help when I’ve had tyre problems.  But I’ll continue - with self-interest aforethought - to build up my capital of indirect returnable favours whenever I can.  

This is the way of life in rural France: on rend service expecting nothing directly in return, but expects others to do the same.  For example, when a truck driver with an oversized load took out Annie’s phone line at Le Roc, a neighbour had phoned in the fault before we knew it.  (Said phone line has a chequered past.  Once when we were staying a fault in the line was traced to a shotgun pellet creating a short.  So rural France, for all its altruism, is not without its hazards.)

Martyn and his sister were talking earlier about the late Michael’s approach to filing.  This reignited the itch in the back of my mind that I can’t find the V5c registration document for my car.  We always used to have it to hand when we were travelling, so I can only guess that it got thrown out when we were clearing out in Lagrasse back in 2017.

 

Gosh: six years ago!  Well, I’ve spent a Premium Bond win on a replacement log book, so should soon be back en situation régulière.

Dividends

I discovered a while ago that a certain Building Society was offering new customers a substantially higher interest rate on identical conditions.  I telephoned and was told to create a new account on line and transfer funds electronically.  Given my clumsiness with on-line transactions, I asked what other approach was available, and the advisor agreed to send me the necessary transfer form, which I duly filled and sent back.  Nothing having happened in the ensuing fortnight, I was not best pleased to receive a quasi-literate letter saying it couldn’t be done.  I found the email address of the CEO and fired off a polite snottygram.  I had a phone call next morning from a complaint handler saying she had received my email and was looking into it, and she called again today to say what was needed.  I’d to grit my teeth and set up a new account on line, not without ach und Krach, new password procedures and all the rest of it.  To transfer the balance I’d to call their head office and go through all the name, date of birth, inside leg measurement and colour of grandmother’s eyes interrogation, but at least the fellow was grown-up and friendly.  So my tuppence-three-farthings are now getting a slightly better rate of interest, they’re sending me £75 to help reduce my blood pressure and will calculate the interest I would have got had they given me correct information and done things right in the first place.  

This sounds rather similar to my earlier skirmish with a bank, and the lesson is clear: if buggered about, email the CEO, and stand by for a £75 ex-gratia payment.

I finally lost patience today with the San Marzano plants, and all bar the last three pots are emptied and on the way to becoming municipal compost.  I’d attempted to grow them in pots as I do successfully with the Sweet Olive variety.  Clearly a mistake: they are much more thirsty, and even after copious watering, natural and artificial, the pots I turned out today were bone dry.  I planted a couple of San Marzano cuttings in a raised bed, and wait to see if they do any better.

Seedlings and cuttings are doing well in parts: the aquilegia seedlings from this summer’s flowers will be ready to prick out in a few days’ time.

I took a zillion rosemary cuttings last week with a view to filling in the gaps left by the box tree moth caterpillars.  They ought to root within a couple of weeks if they’re going to, so watch this space.

Meanwhile, we’re getting the first flowers on eschscholzias that we sowed in the spring from an old packet of commercial seed, and we are harvesting seed from plants that self-sowed last back end.  I’m looking forward to saving seed from the tagetes, which have done exceptionally well this year, for the first time in containers.  

So, one way and another, I try to reap what I sow, though some efforts yield better than others….

Michael Bailey

Our brother-in-law Michael left us today, having suffered for some months with an agressive neoplastic disorder.  Our condolences to Martyn’s sister Sandra.

Long leisurely lunch

Nice to have six round the table again yesterday.  We’d booked Celia and Andy, and since Annie is visiting her brother not too far away we invited them too.  It being Sweet Olive season, we baked some baguettes and served bruschette as an appetiser.  Home made bread, home grown tomatoes and basil (but garlic from Sainsbury’s).  Main course similar to my birthday tea: filet mignon de porc en croûte.  Since the fillet was on the small side, we lined the pastry with sliced prosciutto (Spanish at one end, Italian at the other), a couple of mushrooms, some Speldhurst sausage meat and a big handful of herbs from the garden.  Martyn knocked up a pan of delicious roast veggies, and we had some Alexandra potatoes with a little butter and chopped herbs from the garden.  So, ingredients from far and near - and the egg for the pastry wash came from the farm down the road.  We hadn’t tried Alexandra spuds before: though they came from good old Fortnums, they tasted as good as, if not better than, freshly dug charlottes (and anyone who can tell us where to get Alexandra seed potatoes wins a bottle of Lidl Prosecco).  Simple pud: soft fruit with a drop of cranberry juice.  And Annie brought a delicious lemon cake.

The guests seemed to enjoy each other’s company, as we did theirs.  It’s not often that we meet Celia and Andy without plants changing hands.  We recently got a superb pot of French tarragon (forget the tasteless Russian variety!) from Andy, and enjoyed some a few days ago with baked chicken thighs.  Yesterday, Andy went away with a couple of rooted white potentilla cuttings - probably the fourth or fifth generation of the ones I nicked from outside the Tonbridge sorting office.  

A propos cuttings, two other potentilla colours seem to be rooting: a primrose one liberated as cuttings from the garden of an art group friend, and a yellow one nicked from the Magistrates’  Court car park in Sevenoaks.  Our Rosemary has got rather leggy, so I chopped out a couple of boughs the other day and took cuttings.  Several dozen of them.  If they thrive, we’ll plant them - or more likely, ask Ben to plant them - across the front to fill the gaps left by the box tree moth caterpillars.

Another year older…

A pleasant day at home yesterday, with lots of cards, Facebook messages, phone calls and a surprise visit from Imogen, a friend from Woodside Road days, going back almost 40 years.  One never knows how many more birthdays there may be, so I decided to open a 1950 bottle of Sercial, a bone dry white Madeira, that Imogen and Jonathan gave me for my 40th birthday.  Once the copious sediment had settled, it turned out to be remarkably palatable.

Martyn has given me the Panama hat I’ve hankered after for years: the perfect present.  It’s far too good to be a gardening hat, but that’s what I was about during its first outing.  Nothing too strenuous: the usual round of watering and dead-heading.  The old compost bin has gone: at least four people were interested in it, and I gave it to someone who, unlike me, seems to know what she’s doing when it comes to composting.

No cake, but we had our favourite pizza for lunch - crème fraîche, rocket and spinach from the garden on the (home made) base, then smoked and fresh salmon and big prawns.  Then mozzarella.  For supper we had a pork fillet wrapped in prosciutto, sautéed mushrooms and a few leaves of sage, then baked in puff pastry.  We’ve atoned a little today by having a caprese for lunch!

The birthday present I hoped for but didn’t get was a suitable result in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, but the very slim majority sent a suitable message.  It was held by the Tories because the Labour mayor of London was blamed for the Tory policy of extending the London low emission zone throughout Greater London.  

I do sympathise with people who have to use old cars to get to work into and from the outer suburbs.  Although our diesel Ateca is sufficiently umweltfreundlich, the old Altea wouldn’t stand a chance.  It fires up (when it’s in the mood) with a big puff of black smoke.  Given the mileage we do, it’s not worth changing cars now, so long as we’re allowed to drive the ones we have.  Mine, seven years old, turned 24000 miles recently.  We used to pile on the miles with the drive to Lagrasse, but that’s no longer a factor.   Between them, the two cars barely cover 2000 miles between MoTs.  I suppose that, by taxing both of them, we are helping the government with its headless chicken schemes like barges, Rwanda and cruise ships they can’t find berths for.

Owt for nowt

We had an enjoyable outing this evening to the town theatre, where the BBC was recording for its series, The Kitchen Cabinet.  Given that the venue was Disgustedville, one good question was ‘what disgusts you when you’re offered it to eat?’ or words to that effect.  Various predictable pet yucks, like fried eggs with globs of uncooked egg white, lamb chops with fat that hasn’t been rendered to crisp.  The questioner was asked what disgusted him: ‘gooseberries!’.  One of the panellists responded: ‘When there’s tripe in the world, how can you say gooseberries?’  Tempted to agree: I loathe former and like latter.  Since we were there as unpaid extras to provide audience noises, tickets were free.  It goes on air on 26 August, but all you’ll hear from us is the applause.

We have had our fortnightly visit from Ben and Duncan, so the grass is impeccably edged (Duncan’s specialism) and the compost bin is emptied and the ground cleared (despite Ben’s protestations that we save up the nastiest jobs for him).  And we have at least three people willing to take the bin away and put it to better use than we have.  I’ve never quite mastered the art.

Anything but eventful

Not much point boring everyone with weeding and dead-heading statistics, though we haven’t been doing a lot else lately.  We’re still beset with the noisy machinery and uncouth shouting of the oiky builders two doors up, but their presence does seem to have limited the obscene screaming tantrums of their client.  Such a nice quiet neighbourhood we live in.

Crops are cropping, and though we’ve had precisely one runner bean so far, we’re already tiring of, and giving away, baby plum tomatoes.  

The rain and cooler weather seem to be benefiting the larger tomatoes, though I’m still throwing a lot of rotting ones away, and they aren’t ripening yet.  There is one tomato plant with big round fruit, and they are ripening.  The seed came in the San Marzano packet, but it certainly ain’t that variety.  The Bramley apple is fruiting like mad this year, so I hope we’ll get to the fruit before the beasties.  We even have a few blueberries on the little bush we were given several years ago.  

The flowering department isn’t bad either: Chrissie’s tagetes are blooming in profusion and a large variety of colours - which is surprising as they all came from the same seed pod.  We raised nicotiana and rudbeckia from Marshall’s plug plants this year, and they are doing very well.  I was prepared to be disappointed by the  ‘Toto’ rudbeckias, since the first ones to bloom were all the same colour.  But other colours are coming along now, and their habit is much more compact than the ‘Rustic dwarf’ mix we’ve used in earlier years: they were far from dwarf, and had to be staked.

So it’s Toto for us, I think.  It’ll be interesting to see if they over-winter.  The Rustics did so for a number of years, but last winter’s vicious frosts finished them off.  Meanwhile, the perennial rudbeckia - Goldsturm, I think, despite the ‘aubergine’ label - looks as vigorous as ever, though it hasn’t started flowering yet.  The heavy rain of the past few days (well, it is Wimbledon fortnight after all!) has rather hammered the roses, but at least we have plenty of stored rain water again.

After a peaceful weekend…

 …the oiky builders are back with their mechanical stuff (what ever happened to picks, shovels and wheelbarrows?) and thumping radio, not to mention four vehicles cluttering up the street.  I mentioned last time that there was work at each of the houses two to the east and two to the west of ours.  Well, work has now started two houses to the south as well.  I used to say that, in retirement, it’s just one long weekend.  We’re looking forward to weekends now!

Not enough to put us off our lunch, though.  Home made bread, home grown tomatoes.  Of the tomatoes, mixed news.  The Sweet Olive plants are cropping well, as you see.  We’re trying remedial measures on the San Marzanos, but are not too optimistic.

Still, the flowering stuff is doing well:

The Justice of the Peace is at its best just now, and we have a first flower on the water lily.  I notice a photobombing wild strawberry runner in the latter picture.  They’re particularly vigorous this year: Martyn had a handful of their fruit in a smoothie a day or two back.  They at least suppress some of the other weeds.

Sounds of summer

The blackbirds and robins are still making themselves heard, as is a nearby chiffchaff.  But that’s only when they can be heard over other ambient sounds.  Two houses to our east, they are digging the footings for a nuclear shelter, if the time it’s taking is anything to go by.  Two houses to the west, the garden is being dug up and re-paved.  The two jobs require periodic visits from builders’ merchants’ lorries and grab trucks, so we live in a quasi-permanent headachy drone and a miasma of diesel fumes.  Not to mention the oiky builders yelling at each other over the sound of the machinery and/or the blaring of inane ‘music’ from their radio.

Yesterday was fine, so when the machinery started up we headed out in search of lavender plants.  There is a little strip of soil between our drive and Annie’s next door, originally populated by - what else? - leylandii.  We agreed to have them sawn down by our old friend Jonathan for the price of a new chainsaw blade.  He wanted to haul out the roots with the winch on his Land-rover: I dissuaded him in the interests of keeping functioning drains, and the roots have pretty much decomposed.  We planted all sorts of stuff on our side: pyracantha, berberis, hypericum, hebe, fuchsia, penstemon and whatever else happened to be knocking around.  It eventually occurred to me that pyracantha and berberis were not a good idea where they could lacerate passers-by, so they came out.  The hebes, as hebes will, went terribly leggy, so they are now out as well.  On her side, Annie got Ben to plant lavenders, which have done very well, hence our shopping list, and Martyn planted the lavenders this morning.

We’d hoped to get the lavender plants from a farm near Sevenoaks: I used to admire their lavender fields from the train back in my commuting days.  Their choice of plants was rather disappointing - and pricey - so we went on to a large garden shop nearby.  Ghastly place: a huge surface area and essentially a big shopping mall with garden stuff as well.  They clearly have plenty of footfall to judge by the car park, and presumably in consequence a pretty good range of plants.  Having gone out for three lavenders, we came home with two roses and a few alpines as well.  Them’s the hazards.  Once Martyn had done the kneeling stuff with the lavenders, I set about planting the roses in the raised bed at the back, without benefit of dynamite, though that would have made the job rather easier.

Tomato growing wouldn’t make us rich.  We look like having a decent crop of Sweet Olive, but the warm dry weather and insufficient watering have led to blossom end rot in the San Marzanos.  I’ve upped the watering regime, and hope for the best, but think that variety needs bigger containers.  We’re cropping spinach, rocket and dill from the raised bed, and the runner beans seem to be doing OK.

We sat and listened with incredulity to the Parliament debate on a recent report from the Privileges committee.  The quality of debate was about as dismal  as we’re used to, though the exhilaration of Hon Members at finally being allowed to label Johnson the liar he is was almost palpable.  The word egregious has been bandied about liberally, both by the privileges committee and by the disgraced Johnson in his reaction to the report.  I’ll tell you what’s egregious: it’s the absence of the government front bench during the debate, and the refusal of the latest and for the time being Rt Hon First Lord of the Treasury either to take part in the debate in the House or to take a position in regard to the report’s conclusions.  Certain figures are saying we should get over it and carry on.  Unfortunately, it will take a generation to ‘get over’ the damage done by the self-seeking Johnson.  Damage to the economy, to confidence in the country’s institutions and to the reputation of the country abroad, to name but a few.  I hate to repeat myself, but I’m more than ever relieved to be old and childless.  This is not the country in which I hoped to spend my twilight years.

And, on that happy note, the oiks have packed up and gone home, the evening is warm and still, dinner is ready for the off signal, and I think we might open a bottle of Prosecco.

A good place to be

The garden is a pleasant place to be at this time of year.  It’s always a pleasure when subjects one cultivates, like the roses and the aquilegias grown from saved seed, put on a show.  But every bit as satisfying are the uninvited visitors, such as the eschscholzia that sowed itself next to the sage in the raised bed, and the foxgloves all over the place. 

As well as enjoying the garden ourselves, we’ve been able to show it off to friends: even if it hasn’t been the weather for al fresco meals, the view from the dining room is pretty, and it has been sunny enough in the afternoons to allow a stroll round despite the breeze.  Kate and John braved the strike-inflated traffic last Saturday, and we had a flying visit yesterday from Claire and Richard.

The food side isn’t doing badly either.  The Sweet Olive tomatoes are fruiting well, and the San Marzano fruit are growing before our eyes.  Just hope they all ripen.  Rocket, spinach, dill, leeks and runner beans seem to be doing all right, and a lot of fruit have set on the Bramley apple tree.

Meanwhile in the kitchen we are learning to play with a new toy: a two-drawer air fryer.  So far, we’re quite impressed.  Although it will take a little time to master the split timing controls, we have successfully done a chicken with roast veggies, and in half the time it takes in the ordinary oven.  We have been using a smaller air fryer for a couple of years with good results on a more limited scale.  We like our gadgets, but are starting to have trouble finding room for them all!

 

Geoff Issott, 1937-2023

Sad news today: after a brief stay in hospital, Geoff died last Thursday.   We last saw him in September of last year when we were staying in Bellinzona, and although he was by then a bit confused, he and Pam had walked the mile or so to the restaurant where we met.  That was a few days after his 85th birthday, so although he’d had some physical health issues, he seemed as fit as a fiddle.  His health had begun to slide by then, and although visiting carers had allowed him to stay at home as long as possible, he spent his last few days in Berne’s Insel hospital.

Geoff and I first met in May 1974, when I went to Lausanne to work for a few weeks as a translator at a Universal Postal Union Congress.  Geoff was already on the UPU staff as a translator, and went on to finish that part of his career as head of the English translation service.  We’d met in the meantime at the 1979 Rio de Janeiro Congress, and I visited the gang again at the 1984 Hamburg Congress, though as a tourist that time, not as a translator. I made many friends through the UPU Congresses, notably Claire Smith, whom I mentioned here last month, Barbara Atkinson, whom regular readers will remember, and Anne-Louise Picard, one of the Canadian translators at the Rio bash.

Geoff, Pam and I went on to meet frequently in each other’s various homes, and they invited me to join them on a memorable tour of  Southern India: it had been planned as a cricket tour, but when they couldn’t organise the fixtures, they decided to make a holiday of it and invite some friends.  

Formidable linguist, excellent company and a loyal friend.  I shall miss him.

Spring, eh?

 

As I write on Saturday, the weather is fine, and the first tomatoes are outside where we hope they will survive and bear fruit.  The Sweet Olives have gone very leggy, so will be vulnerable to strong winds.  The San Marzanos are more compact, and are placed where we can tie them back to the wall if need be.  We planted out the runner beans during the week, and wait to see if they improve on last year’s miserable performance. 

Tuesday brought heavy showers, some with hail, which was slow to thaw.  There was enough rain to submerge the fountain head in the overflowing pond.  The marginal bog irises look pleased..

Aeroplane noises as we lunched: a Tiger Moth and a Chipmunk flying round and round in very close formation.  The Tiger Moth (actually, it might have been a Stampe) even flew a couple of very compact loops: we were surprised the pilot dared in such an ancient airframe.  Martyn passed a nearby wedding venue earlier, and it was showing all the signs of a posh do, so we image the aerobatics were part of the bash.  Some have money to burn: meanwhile the food banks struggle to meet the demand.

More from the garden

We got another of those little pots of miniature roses last Christmas, and as usual separated, pruned and potted up the individual plants.  Most of them came on well in the conservatory, and after a week or so hardening off outside in their pots they’re now planted by the front door.  Some of the older ones had died or failed to thrive, so have been replaced: the rest got a good prune, some top dressing and a word or two of encouragement.

In the new bed at the back, the top dressing has pretty much disappeared, so a lot of the newly planted subjects have rather exposed roots.  I’ve treated each to a shovel or two of muck, and hope they respond.  It’s that nice time of year when most days bring something else into flower.  Today it’s the daphne odora and the ornamental cherry.

For years we didn’t realise we had a flowering cherry, since its flowering season is very brief, and must have coincided with our spring trips to France.  Margaret and John gave us two daphnes some years ago as tiny plants, and they each proceeded to grow to a good metre in diameter.  They are not specially long-lived, and indeed one of them packed up last year.  But the survivor is threatening to block the path to the little greenhouse, and is starting to produce its richly scented flowers.

I’ll try again to propagate from it: previous attempts didn’t succeed, so I’ll consult the RHS before I try again.  Other candidates for propagation are the potentillas, which are getting a bit unruly, and the cistus, which have become, variously, very leggy or dead.

The tomatoes are growing fast: some of the Sweet Olive plants already have flower trusses, so I’ve taken out the side shoots with a view to propagation.  We have rather more San Marzano plants, so I’ve contented myself with taking out and discarding the side shoots.  In the propagator, the runner beans are starting to germinate, and we have a few tagetes seedlings from some oldish seed I found in the garage.  No sign of life from the rudbeckias so far: I may be forced, believe it or not, to put my hand in my pocket and get some plug plants.

The Mother of Parliaments, eh?

PMQs, ever a bear garden, now sees the latest Rt Hon First Lord of the Treasury for the time being resorting to red-top style name calling.  His right wing is forcing him to move yet again towards breaking international law on human rights (the Universal Declaration on which was a British invention, long before the UK’s membership of the EU and, of course, entirely separate from it, then as now).  The only other European countries derogating from it are those havens of liberal democracy, Belarus and the Russian Federation.  Not, as the Rt Hon Mr ‘Cleverly’ puts it, a club of which we should be aspiring to membership. 

This utterance may perhaps damage Mr ‘Cleverly’s’ chances of filling the new deputy PM vacancy, so truculently created by the previous incumbent’s resignation to avoid dismissal.  This follows some five months of enquiry by a silk, whose fee will have cost the taxpayer a score or two of doctors’ salaries.  All entirely wasted, since Raab might in other times have been expected to resign or be sacked long ago.  But some might say he lacks the decency to do the former, and his ex-boss the balls to do the latter - not that I could personally express a view.

Integrity, Professionalism and Accountability, eh?  Well, I suppose we can hope.

Easter greetings….

 …to those who observe such things.  

The tomato seedlings have come on well, so we picked up some compost from the stores yesterday and did some potting up.  Six Sweet Olive plants, a variety that has served us very well in the past, and a dozen San Marzano.  The latter are a bit of a gamble, since they ought to be grown indoors in these latitudes, but since our terrace is quite a sun trap, we thought we’d risk it.  There are a few more San Marzano plants to pot up, so I’ll have a look for pots once I’m properly awake.

We were afraid that we might have lost the magnolia Susan in last year’s drought, but here she is, flowering fit to bust.  Annie’s camellia over the fence is doing pretty well, though the rain has browned off a lot of the flowers.  The magnolia stellata and white camellia at the front has been been pretty good, but heavy rain and strong wind have taken their toll.  Next in line is the viburnum plicatum, and it is budding nicely.  Elsewhere in the white inventory, the spiraea are beginning to flower, and I see flower buds on the potentilla raised from a cutting nicked from outside the Tonbridge sorting office.

The Fritillaria meleagris are doing better than ever this year, I think.  

I gave the grass another cut yesterday, but I think the mower blade has had it.  It’s only a couple of years old, so given how expensive it was, I’m kinda disappointed.  I’ll perhaps have a go at it with a file.  Or more likely, I’ll look up the serial number and get one on line.

Claire

Claire would have been 101 today.  Here she is, back in 1979 in Brazil, conducting an impromptu choir of the Brazilian secretariat of the UPU congress.  Also in the rather poor photo are, I think, Pam and the late Pat Lalvani.

Claire was always game for a party, and her last year or so in lockdown must have been a sore trial to her: she died shortly before her 99th birthday.  Thanks to her generosity, there are fine new curtains at Forges-l'Evêque, and her stamp will be on a new reception area for our local Citizens' Advice operation.