Seven years old today and... nope... still got nothin...
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Green fingered fun...
Hard to believe that I've been back in work a year as of tomorrow and so far, so good. My realigned expectations of income have dictated that the old social life has taken a bit of a back seat which has left more time for pottering about in the garden
So I thought I'd drop by and post a few pics of how the garden is looking these days, seeing as it is over a year since I posted the last lot.
The veg bed has finally sprung into life with a few disappointing non-starters, serves me right I guess for trying to use last years seeds again instead of buying new! All the same, there's a selection of onions, carrots, beetroot, radishes and cabbages to look forward to (first lot of radishes were grown and eaten before anything else had sprouted)
Young Jim's giant Californian redwood has grown a few inches in the last year and is certainly looking a lot healthier. Not sure he'll be happy until it's taller than his sister's tree though
The spartan apple tree would be more aptly named "sparce" given the complete lack of blossom or fruit to appear this year. It has certainly filled out though and I'm hopeful of better seasons to come
The Zoe oak is now happily established and has become a favoured scrapping ground for the local blackbirds, sparrows and bluetits, all fighting for the fatballs on there [insert your own inappropriate comment here]
Looking at it now, its hard to believe I picked about 25 tiny apples of this English Cox last year in the hope that it would put the energy into growing into something more substantial. Another apple tree taking a year out I guess
My camera angle doesn't really do "little blue" justice as he's at least doubled in height and width over the last year. May be a while before I'm hanging Christmas lights from it though
and the hazel completes the tour of the trees. Still looking healthy but once again, a while away from contributing to the festive feast (or feeding the local squirrels)
Probably my proudest achievement, the box hedge all grown from cuttings taken from the front garden. Proudest because it's cost me absolutely nothing!
Next stop is the herb garden, varying degrees of success but everything has survived so far. From left to right there's chervil, chives, dill, garlic chives, lemon balm, lemon thyme, mint, oregano, parsley (flat and curly), rocket, rosemary, tarragon and thyme
Moving into the greenhouse, I've gone with three tomato plants: a cherry tomato, salad tomato and beef tomato. Different varieties to last year but they're already well laden with fruit
Following the success (and popularity) of the apache chillies last year I wanted to try something a bit livelier. so from left to right we have jalapenos, scotch bonnets and habaneros. That should help to warm those cold winter evenings...
On the continuing theme of something new, I thought I'd try growing cucumbers (partially challenged by neighbour and Dad never having managed to grown them succesfully). Well there's at least two decent sized on there so I'm happy that I've made back the 50p I paid for the plant
The final newcomer is a physalis, winter cherry, cape gooseberry, chinese lantern plant. Call them what you like, all I know is that they're delicious and if even a quarter of the flowers turn into edible fruits, I'll be more than happy
So there you have it, now if you'll excuse me I need to go off to find my slippers and pipe.
OK, nobody was ever going to buy that - but the gardening bit is all for real :o)
So I thought I'd drop by and post a few pics of how the garden is looking these days, seeing as it is over a year since I posted the last lot.
The veg bed has finally sprung into life with a few disappointing non-starters, serves me right I guess for trying to use last years seeds again instead of buying new! All the same, there's a selection of onions, carrots, beetroot, radishes and cabbages to look forward to (first lot of radishes were grown and eaten before anything else had sprouted)
Young Jim's giant Californian redwood has grown a few inches in the last year and is certainly looking a lot healthier. Not sure he'll be happy until it's taller than his sister's tree though
The spartan apple tree would be more aptly named "sparce" given the complete lack of blossom or fruit to appear this year. It has certainly filled out though and I'm hopeful of better seasons to come
The Zoe oak is now happily established and has become a favoured scrapping ground for the local blackbirds, sparrows and bluetits, all fighting for the fatballs on there [insert your own inappropriate comment here]
Looking at it now, its hard to believe I picked about 25 tiny apples of this English Cox last year in the hope that it would put the energy into growing into something more substantial. Another apple tree taking a year out I guess
My camera angle doesn't really do "little blue" justice as he's at least doubled in height and width over the last year. May be a while before I'm hanging Christmas lights from it though
and the hazel completes the tour of the trees. Still looking healthy but once again, a while away from contributing to the festive feast (or feeding the local squirrels)
Probably my proudest achievement, the box hedge all grown from cuttings taken from the front garden. Proudest because it's cost me absolutely nothing!
Next stop is the herb garden, varying degrees of success but everything has survived so far. From left to right there's chervil, chives, dill, garlic chives, lemon balm, lemon thyme, mint, oregano, parsley (flat and curly), rocket, rosemary, tarragon and thyme
Moving into the greenhouse, I've gone with three tomato plants: a cherry tomato, salad tomato and beef tomato. Different varieties to last year but they're already well laden with fruit
Following the success (and popularity) of the apache chillies last year I wanted to try something a bit livelier. so from left to right we have jalapenos, scotch bonnets and habaneros. That should help to warm those cold winter evenings...
On the continuing theme of something new, I thought I'd try growing cucumbers (partially challenged by neighbour and Dad never having managed to grown them succesfully). Well there's at least two decent sized on there so I'm happy that I've made back the 50p I paid for the plant
The final newcomer is a physalis, winter cherry, cape gooseberry, chinese lantern plant. Call them what you like, all I know is that they're delicious and if even a quarter of the flowers turn into edible fruits, I'll be more than happySo there you have it, now if you'll excuse me I need to go off to find my slippers and pipe.
OK, nobody was ever going to buy that - but the gardening bit is all for real :o)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Hey there blog...
Long time no see. 5 months you say? Tomorrow we would have been together six years? Really, I feel pretty bad seeing that now but I guess it's no great surprise, we could both see that things just haven't been the same now for quite some time.
It's not that there's anything wrong with blogging whatsoever, but the last 12 months have been a bit of a rollercoaster and... well I know it's a cliche, but I've changed.
To be completely honest with you, and it's the least you deserve, I found I was no longer able to offer the same commitment and had become to easily distracted with other social networking applications. They never offer quite the same as we had (even after my photo sharing client disappeared with many of our early pictures), but I suppose thats little consolation to you now.
Let's not draw a permanent line in the sand, but I think we both know deep down that it's time to move on. I just hope that some day we can look back fondly over the last six years and who knows, maybe enjoy exchanging a few more words and thoughts from time to time
x
Friday, June 25, 2010
Tempus fidget...
...or something like that.
It's been great to be back at work again this week and it's been made all the more enjoyable that everyone has made me so welcome, old and new colleagues alike.
Something I'd not accounted for was the in the 15 years I've been away, although there are a lot of familiar reminders of my previous time with the company, other people's lives have moved on significantly. Not that I'm decrying my career progression and experience gained in the meantime, but some lives have changed significantly in the passing of time.
Our M.D. had the morning off today to take his daughter to university and on Monday our receptionist brought her son to work with us over the summer before he starts college in September. Probably nothing out of the ordinary to you reading that, but the "daughter" in question was a mere toddler when I saw her last and the "son" was the recent reason for my colleagues maternity leave when I left.
And there I was thinking how much I'd changed since I was there last...
It's been great to be back at work again this week and it's been made all the more enjoyable that everyone has made me so welcome, old and new colleagues alike.
Something I'd not accounted for was the in the 15 years I've been away, although there are a lot of familiar reminders of my previous time with the company, other people's lives have moved on significantly. Not that I'm decrying my career progression and experience gained in the meantime, but some lives have changed significantly in the passing of time.
Our M.D. had the morning off today to take his daughter to university and on Monday our receptionist brought her son to work with us over the summer before he starts college in September. Probably nothing out of the ordinary to you reading that, but the "daughter" in question was a mere toddler when I saw her last and the "son" was the recent reason for my colleagues maternity leave when I left.
And there I was thinking how much I'd changed since I was there last...
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The meeting of media...
I'm often reminded that I don't update the blog as often any more, but there seems little point posting here when there's nothing much to say and the last three months have mainly consisted of get up, look for a job, potter about in the garden, go to bed. Of course, I'm delighted that's all about to change again from Monday!
I do regularly post on Facebook and Twitter, but then it begins to get complicated. I've always tried to retain my anonymity on here (even though most of the readers know me in the real world) but I particularly like to have a forum where I can rant about work with little fear of it getting back to anyone concerned.
So we have the blog at one extreme which is reasonably anonymous, and Facebook at the other where every comment is blurted out to all of my friends at once and Very few of the Facebook friends know about the blog and posting a link to Facebook from here would compromise my anonymity.
Somewhere in the middle sits Twitter which is probably still my favourite and with a 140 character limit is ideal for the lazy blogger, but for some reason very few of my friends use it regularly. Some of my Twitter followers know about the blog and some don't, but there's no reason why anyone here shouldn't see my tweets so I've added a tweet feed on the left - feel free to browse, or follow if you wish.
Honestly, all this fuss about anonymity, anyone would think I've got something to hide...
Saturday, June 12, 2010
More Bed Activity...
Of course not... what were you thinking?!
Even though it's only a couple of weeks since I last posted a picture of it, the raised bed in the garden continues to flourish (except for the fennel) so having just planted my third crop, I thought I'd share a new photo here and I've labelled this one so you can see what's growing where...
Even though it's only a couple of weeks since I last posted a picture of it, the raised bed in the garden continues to flourish (except for the fennel) so having just planted my third crop, I thought I'd share a new photo here and I've labelled this one so you can see what's growing where...
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