Bloomin' unholy

We don't have much of a garden. Similarly, I don't have much of a green thumb, and nor does Julie. Since we have limited resources and abilities, we try and make sure everything we plant is as easy as possible to grow and maintain.

Unfortunately, there is something of a running battle with the local cat population and since Julie is actually rather fond of cats, my subconscious desire for an automatic machine-gun nest has to remain that way for now.

..uhhh... whoops...
Oh well.

Because of the cats, much of what goes into the garden needs to be pretty hardy. Stuff like shrubs and trees. Well, I say that, but they've done a bang-up job of killing my lovely yellow fir tree by spraying against it. Little bastards. By contrast, the fuschia appears to be immortal and the bay tree unstoppable. Both, however, pale in comparison to the buddleia in the front garden (read as 'strip of earth between house and pavement'), which has to be butchered to the ground annually and trimmed and bound at least twice throughout the growing season. I love it, and so does the insect community.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of pots in the back garden with some lilies, chosen by Julie, which also contain some of her mother's ashes. This year, however, there are a couple of intruders...

I checked (good ol' Google image search) afterwards and found the flowers were indeed snapdragons, which much have self-seeded from somewhere else.

Pretty, aren't they? We tend to call them 'rhubarb-and-custards'.

HUNGRRRRY! (our 400th post!)

Post number 400? Indeed it is! It's not our 400th Gem, thanks to our prize draws, but we're working on it. It's hard to believe that we started this back in February of 2011 with an odd question from Julie regarding a thin soup.

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Talking of food, I have a confession to make; I enjoy food rather too much. It's not a bolt from the blue for people that know me, but it makes a point.

You see, one of the downsides of eating a lot is that you tend to feel hungry more often. Sometimes it's a phantom feeling, but it's more usually a side-effect of your stomach simply getting into the habit of eating a lot. Julie used to have a problem herself, but a stomach bypass operation has changed that. (Ironically, the first thing that Julie had following the operation was consomme - as Gemmed all that time ago!)

For me, I find that I am often feeling at least peckish about an hour or so after a meal - something that astounds my wife. Admittedly, I have larger portions than I should, but salad only tends to go so far, no matter how much you eat. Consequently, on a recent occasion, I was feeling a little more than 'peckish'.

Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors as portrayed
by Gazzycakes on deviantArt.
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Audrey-II-38506578

>ahem<

Anyway, there had been noises issuing from my equator, so I decided to do something about it. Julie couldn't believe it.

No, that's not me.

Well played, love, well played.

Going potty through thick and thin

Having just given the patio and path a much-needed overhaul, Mum decided that now was the perfect time to invest in some patio plants. We already had plenty of pots of varying sizes, so that was something we didn't need to think about.

These aren't the real pots, but they do give you a good idea of the size we're talking about. They're nice pots, good to look at and hold a decent amount of plants. Unfortunately, some of them don't have any drainage holes, which is a problem in England.

On one of my recent trips, I tried to amend this situation. I managed to get a couple of holes in the base of one pot, but another was proving to be something of a problem. Even with a masonry bit in the drill, I was only just making a shallow dent in the bottom of one pot. I mean, look at the picture above - you can see they're fairly robust. Not only that, but this one pot was resisting everything I could throw at it with our resources.

In the end, I had to give up.

A couple of weeks later, I was visiting once more and my mum was telling me that she had also had a go at making a hole in the pot - and failed. I went out to have a look, but couldn't find any sign of further hole-making attempts. Moving the pot off the table, I turned it right side up and noticed a small mark on the bottom, inside the pot.

Odd. Why there? I mean, it was awkward to get at and if you did managed to break through, then the table would also be sporting a new hole. I asked Mum about it - this was our conversation...

Yes, Mum.

Hayling Island Week; Pulling power

Hello and welcome back to a week full of Gems born on the south coast resort of Hayling Island.

After a cup of tea and a stroll through the empty fairground, Julie and myself popped into the tourist information office. The woman there was charmingly candid about the island's size and facilities (ie, there aren't many), but was cheerfully chatty and helpful about what there was around there.

Ten minutes later and armed with a map of the island, we headed west.

As you can see from the map, there is a nature reserve on the north side of the western branch of the island. However, since time was pressing on, we elected to pass that by for now and get a bite to eat at the pub next to the ferry, where I had the oddest lasagne I have ever eaten. For some reason, they were using a sort of gravy as the main sauce... Whatever. I'm just glad I didn't have the burger.

After eating, we went for a walk. However, we had forgotten about the nature reserve, having been distracted by a wonderful shingle beach and a lovely blue sea. That and all the dogs that people were walking.*

On a recent visit to my mother, we had gone for a drive around Derbyshire (absolutely beautiful countryside), and had each picked up a book about British wildlife, plants and animals both. I was now carrying around my copy, trying to identify various plants that I deemed to be interesting. This led to an accusation from Julie that I was turning into my father; I couldn't make up my mind whether to deny this or accept it.

One of the plants we looked at looked, from a distance, similar to gorse, which is a shrub I find to be very beautiful (although a bit of a bugger if the path you're walking on happens to be lined with plentiful and encroaching gorse bushes - complete with thorns. Ahh, nostalgia...). Closer up, I was very surprised to realise that the bushes were in fact lupins. Up to that point, I had always been under the impression that lupins formed single stems. Was I ever wrong...

Julie gets a close-up...

It's a glorious sight in bloom, isn't it? I love to have wild flowers in our garden (poppies, foxgloves and a few self-seeded others), and I really, really wanted to have some of this new find growing in one corner or another. However, I'm also fully aware that the law tends to frown on people ripping up parts of the landscape for their own selfish desires. I'm not saying I haven't gently eased a plant or two, or some seeds from their original setting. However, it's actually quite hard to be surreptitious about such an activity when the plant in question is rather larger than yourself and sited on a busy, public stretch of beach in the middle of the day.

Julie knew what I wanted and had a rather less subtle approach.

You know what? I had absolutely nothing to say to that...



*WANT DOGGIE!

A flowery fate.

Recently, Julie and me finally had a week off together, so we decided to go and visit my mum up in Birmingham.
As it happened, this coincided with the end of Julie's job at the CAB, a place she had worked at for quite some time. Obviously, not every place of employment works like this, but when the news broke that Julie was leaving the Bureau, there was a genuine disappointment (and relief for Julie, who had been trying to leave the bloody place for years). There was also a not insubstantial whip-round. In addition to this, a number of other staff members felt compelled to shower my wife with gifts directly and in addition to what may have been planned.

So it was that I received a phone call, asking me to collect her from the Bureau. When I drove up to the office, what appeared to be a triffid walked out. It was only when Julie's faced peeked out from behind the foliage that I undid the car's automatic locks...
Yes, she was a popular person. Even the boss chipped in, by buying some fake medals and awarding them to her, claiming that they were for long service, toleration of a certain colleague, and success in the face of labyrinthine and constantly changing procedures and protocols.

One such gift was a bowl of flowering plants - absolutely lovely, but there was an immediate problem. Since we were going to be visiting my mother in two days' time, leaving them in our front room without care may have been problematic.

PS
In case you're wondering, the flowers are still alive and flourishing nicely.

Water fool!

The climate is changing, everyone knows this. If nothing else, the tabloids love to scream about it in blind panic. To them, and others who react this way, I bring you this newsflash (normal people - put your sunglasses on now)

The climate is always changing, and it always has. If you want a stable climate, seal yourself up in a bloody crypt. In fact, that's not a bad idea. Why not do it anyway and increase the global intelligence average by a good few points. Sheesh.

Sorry about that. The reason for this little rant is that, as you may know, it's been a rather dry few months in Britain. Unfortunately, the lack of rain or snow this winter has left our reservoirs more than a tad low, so the various water companies around the country are taking steps to make sure our supplies don't trickle to a complete halt. To this end, some companies are contemplating a hosepipe ban, and one or two have already put it into effect. All this means is that you can't use a hose to clean you car (or anything else), or to water the garden  - and yes, that does include attaching the damn thing to a lawn sprinkler.

"Ooooh - I didn't think that counted!"
>SLAP!<

For those of you who think that a hosepipe ban is equivalent to the fall of civilisation, may I introduce to you a handy couple of items.

Now, this is a bucket and a wat - OMG IS THAT A HEDGEHOG?? SQUEEEEE!!!!

We use watering cans at our house. One for watering the plants outside, one for killing the weeds and moss on the paths outside and a small one inside the house for the pot-plants.* Mind you, we're not going to be doing much in the back garden this year. After last year's attempts to try various things were repeatedly fouled up by the neighbourhood cats habit of.. well, fouling things up, a certain ennui has set in. All I'm intending to plant this year is a bed of potatoes, a couple of pea plants - oh, and some landmines, especially for the moggies.
All this, of course, simply leads up to this conversation between Julie and myself.

Oh dear. It turns out Julie thought the ban also included watering cans and any other means of hydrating your hydrangeas.

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*Not THAT sort of 'pot' plants!
By the way, a hosepipe ban doesn't affect businesses or charities where large amounts of water are essential for their activities. Such as car washes. Because you simply cannot make do with a mucky Mazda, can you?  <sigh>

Let me bring you words from the wood..

...to confuse you more than you could know...

A couple of weeks ago, Julie and myself were walking home and I commented on the state of the trees. Bearing in mind the winter hadn't been that cold (apart from our house. It's like a damn icebox, I swear...), the trees were oddly bare. On the other hand, there hadn't been much in the way of precipitation (rain, snow, whatever) for quite some months, so that may have played a part in the arboreal nudity.
Anyways, here's the conversation.

That's a brilliant word, isn't it?
On the other hand, my mind can't get past the fact it also looks a little like 'insidious'
Never mind that, let's end with some music, wot? Hopefully, some of you will have picked up on the homage to some Jethro Tull lyrics in the title and opening line of this post. Ladies, gentlemen and any others, let me bring you songs from the wood...

Oh, that bloody buddleja

We have a buddleja (or buddleia, if you prefer) in our front garden. It self-seeded, which was quite handy - as far as I'm concerned, that is. There's something of a difference of opinion regarding this 'butterfly bush' (so known because its blooms attract insects and butterflies in abundance). I'm all for it - helping butterflies and other pollinating insects is a good thing as far as I'm concerned - plus, I think it's really quite an attractive plant.

It's a hardy plant too - we've cut it down at the start of a winter season and it manages to grow back the following spring. This year, however, health matters have got in the way of gardening and both front and back (which is now a shrine to cat waste, sadly) are in fairly desperate need of attention. This has meant that the buddleja in the front, while I managed to lop off some of the main stems, has been allowed to carry on doing what it does best.

Annoying Julie.

You see, Julie is all for the bush looking pretty and attracting pretty things, but she's not so fond of it being so
close to the house - the windows in particular. Unfortunately, the front garden is not large, so there's not much option for the poor thing there. It doesn't help that the window cleaner uses it as an excuse to not clean that part of the window.
Julie likes things neat and tidy and in their own place.
I like nature to generally run its course and show its own beauty. Apart from the damn cats. They can take their own aspect of nature and let it run elsewhere. Preferably in their owners' gardens.
So, you see, there is a small conflict of interest.

With that in mind, may I present this particular exchange, one which took place as we were just leaving the house to go shopping. One which begins with me offering a gentle, humorous warning to Julie.

Out came the notepad...