Dyed in the Wool

Today promises enough rain for a month within 24 hours....summer continues, then, and I don't think much progress will be made on the allotment this week. So, I'll talk of other things. Like my visit to the carpet department of the new John Lewis emporium yesterday.(You remember the house I told you about a while back...the one I liked but H didn't? Well, it's now ours...). It was a memorable event. Seeing me tossing samples into the air, an assistant immediately came over (it works every time). What was Madam looking for? A white carpet, I said. That's not possible, he said. You can't have a white carpet because sheep are not white. They may look white, but in fact they're not. They are dirty grey. I blinked hard, and steadied myself on a pile of Axminster samples. But you seem to have the products of blue, yellow and purple sheep here, I noted. That's because you can easy dye the wool those colours but you can't dye it white. I felt my brain start to implode. Surely I was not to be beaten by a mere technicality? But then it got worse. Much worse. The awful man then directed me to....I hardly dare say it....THE SHAGPILES!!! How dare he, I thought. And after I'd taken the trouble to daub myself with Chanel No5 as I passed through the perfume department, too. I glared at him and he scurried away, after showing me the drawers holding the tiny take-home squares. I helped myself to every off white, pure wool and utterly expensive sample I could find and then headed off to the Brasserie for breakfast. Phew, I'd only made it by ten minutes! My waitress (yes, my waitress, I always get very special service in the Brasserie as I order the smoked salmon breakfast...), didn't seem that interested in carpets at first, but I soon had her sitting at my table discussing samples as the other diners (breakfasters?) looked on in disbelief...

The Basket Case.

Thank goodness things are back to normal---a wonderful Friday spent shovelling horse manure at the allotment. To be honest, I wasn't sure this week that I didn't have the dreaded virus that is going round: I had 'the runs' and I certainly felt sick. But then, as we all know, I am a hypochondriac, so we can't be sure. Anyway, I felt a lot better after getting started on the hotbeds. I made a small one on my own using an old laundry basket (hush, we may be at the cutting edge of organic gardening here, I'll let you know of its progress.) I got started on another in an ex-compost bin, and the third, real Victorian one, was marked out with plastic posts by our leader...I'm sure you're all at the edge of your seats by now wondering how to make a Victorian Hotbed, so here goes. You basically dig a hole between two and four feet deep. You then at least half fill this hole with horse manure which you then walk on to squash down. You then put the soil back, but adding compost as you go so you end up with a 1:1 mixture. You cover the whole thing over with something transparent like glass or polythene. As you can tell from the above, I'm trying to do some small ones without the digging to see if they work. The point of it all is that you end up with a really hot, well fertilised, patch where you can grow things at least a month early. Next week some of the blokes will hopefully turn up and do a bit of digging...As for the rest of the plot...well, the broad beans are doing fine, but the onions I planted seem to have caught damping off or something (I think they knew they weren't loved, don't you?). Oh yes, in case you're wondering. The reason I had an old laundry basket was because I bought a new one in the new John Lewis's in Cambridge---reduced from £30 to £10! What a day that was. I celebrated by having a salmon and scrambled egg breakfast in their restaurant, with waitress service...Even we greens have our moments.