Winning Ways

What a weekend! On Saturday H and I went to view a house that I'm mad keen on but he wasn't sure about. Sunday was all about WINNING HIM ROUND. It was a weird day actually. Just as I entered church one of the wardens swept past me, shouting, 'I'm sick of being treated like a complete moron. It's too bloody loud, I tell you! I'm leaving!' Problems with the music evidently. Of course, everyone was shaken, and some in tears, so it made carrying on with the service (wildly celebrating Christ's entry into Jerusalem) a bit tough. But we soldiered on. Husband, too, was blustery and irritable, as all misgivings he had about the house were firmly put aside. I blame it all on this awful stormy weather we've suffered all week. Not a single client turned up to the allotment on Friday. Depression seemed to be hanging over all of us. Our leader was wingeing on and on about how mouldy the potatoes sold to him by the Head of the Allotments (whom I call The Curmudgeon) are. I kept telling him, 'Look you need to talk to her about it...there she is over there..' He pretended he couldn't see her. Still sore from the telling off she gave him about his fire last week. Anyway, myself and another volunteer managed to finish the largest hotbed, and clear another area ready for some asparagus I've ordered. You'll be pleased to hear the cutting-edge laundry basket hotbed has produced a great display of coriander. So it works! The garden's looking great---the slideshow hardly does it justice. The Vincas are producing a lovely carpet of mauvy-blue in the darkest corner, and the scented narcissi near the house are just lovely. Oh, nearly forgot to tell you, I got the winner in the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle and third in the Gold Cup so won a nice sum of money. Another hot tip for those of you trying to feed your gardening addiction on a limited budget. Would you all be more interested in a betting blog than an organic gardening one, I wonder?

Mistletoe and whine...

Lordy, where to start? This week we actually got to the allotment and found about 2 tons of manure parked not where we'd asked for it but in the space planned for the greenhouse. Oh well, it could have been worse. At least they left the shed standing...Obviously 2 tons of manure is too much even for a very ample Victorian hotbed, so we started working out what else we could do with it, with the result that our soft fruit bushes now have an ample duvet covering which should see them through the worst of winter. I then nearly killed myself trying to transplant 2 gooseberry bushes into the plot. Realising I was risking yet another back injury I asked the men (who were all tottering around the mower---they like it because it makes lots of noise), to kindly do the third one while I made the tea. It only took three of them...I got home to find all my Vincas (do you remember them?), and my Chinese lanterns had been delivered. Of course it's done nothing but pour with rain ever since, so I've had no chance to plant them. I continue to have trouble in hyperspace....I was informed this morning that I need to kiss 19 more people under the mistletoe before I can move on to the next level (evidently there's a whole heap of more interesting things you can do under mistletoe than just kiss people---the rest of the world knows about this, I don't). Well, I thought I'd just inform my friends (27!) of this, when I discovered that all my applications had shut down. Will be visiting the doctor next week to get more tablets...

W*nkers!

Thank you all for the overwhelming, hyperspacial response to my plea for friends. I now have a third one. And I've just ordered a set of really nice Vincas from the Guardian newspaper. Now, I know that will upset some of you because you'll say to yourself 'Oh, no not Latin names...How can we ever hope to become gardeners if we don't know any Latin?' Well it's simple, you just associate every Latin word with something crude, and you learn in no time. Vincas is a good case in point. I first learnt about these plants from a friend who said, 'You need to put some Vincas under that tree'. As she was German and pronounced her Vs as Ws and i's as a's, I nearly fell over laughing. It doesn't help that in English they are known as periwinkles. Anyway, because I'm now putting W*nkers in all my shady places (well, perhaps not quite all...). I'm not going to need so many bulbs so these are going to the allotment. How is that going? Don't ask. Yesterday we had two major fruit tree arguments. As I said to one of the clients, gardening with others is certainly a good way to hone up on one's assertiveness skills. Anyway, I stumbled home only to find that the Post Office has gone on strike, so now I may go for months without a license and, more importantly without a residents' parking space for my new car. Yes, my NEW CAR. An absolutely adorable SMART Passion in silver and bright pink. And before you start, it's not really 'new' but heavily recycled---the paint job being an added feature so I can never lose it in a car park. (I don't know if this is a feature of bipolar disorder or just me...).