Brown Dog's Somerford Rambles

The Naked Gardener

2010-06-18T12:33:00.001-07:00

I’ve been incredibly busy with work just recently, hence my inattention to Somerford Rambles amongst other things…
So a quick catch up is probably in order.

As I went out this evening – about ten to seven, just in time to catch the shop to pick up the paper – I noticed a small person of the naked variety, squatting down among the pebbles on my neighbour’s drive. There wasn’t anyone else about, so I asked her where Mummy was.

“Doing Ouija,” came the reply.

I must say, I didn’t have Kerry down as an experimenter in the occult, but I suppose you never know what goes on behind closed doors in a sleepy English village. Images of Britt Ekland and The Wicker Man sprang to mind.

I was in two minds whether to leave it at that – the shop would be closing in ten minutes – but fortunately Kerry came dashing out, looking for a stray absconder from bath time.

“Doing Ouija,” the little person explained again.

“Yes, I think that’s probably enough weeding for today,” suggested Kerry, who was obviously more in tune with the small person’s turn of phrase. Much to my relief.

* * *

I got down to the shop just in time – Malcolm was already totting up the till and Debbie had a pile of unsold papers on the counter, ready to put out for collection the following morning.

“Don’t you like getting up on a Friday morning?” asked Malcolm as he handed over the now-almost-out-of-date paper. I realise this must now be a regular occurance as I try to get all my work sorted out before the weekend, which will be filled with chores like washing school uniforms and plying my family with something approaching regular meals.

“Well, not until about five,” I explain nonchalantly. Not wanting to burst the bubble of an impression of myself as some kind of lady of leisure idly lounging around in a lilac negligee watching daytime television and perhaps doing a little light nailfiling or somesuch until teatime.

“So what are you up to between five and nearly seven, then? Enjoying a leisurely breakfast?”

I take my paper with what I hope is an enigmatic smile, picking up a packet of all-butter shortbread fingers as I leave, for good measure, keen to prolong an image of someone unsullied by the vulgarian world of work, someone who knows the finer things in life when she sees them. On the way out, unfortunately, the image is shattered as my wellies snag in a piece of bailing twine just outside the door, sending me staggering Dick Emery-style...

* * *

On the way home, I take a detour through the allotments. Too much work has taken its toll on the intensive weeding programme I had planned before the NGS Open Gardens event this weekend. I am manning the welcome table for a couple of hours – well, I sincerely hope someone is coming to relieve me – and make a mental note to position myself well away from my allotment so no-one makes the connection between me and the sorry spectacle of pigeon-mangled cabbages and rabbit-nibbled runner beans.

If anyone reading this is labouring under the misconception that gardening is a gentle activity, man working hand-in-hand with nature, let me put you straight right now. It’s a veritable battlefield. Nature pitted against man and man pitted against nature. Constantly. If it’s not the weeds, it’s the rabbits. If it’s not the rabbits, it’s the slugs. If it’s not the slugs, it’s the fact that we’ve had no rain for weeks and weeks. And if it’s not any of the above, it’s forgetting to make a note of what you planted where and accidentally hoeing them all up under the mistaken impression that they were weeds.

To add insult to injury, someone has misguidedly pulled up the clump of nettles I had in the corner of my allotment. No doubt they thought they were doing me a favour, but it was my one attempt at biodiversity. Now if they’d thought to pull up the marestail growing in between my onions and what remains of my cabbages, it might have been a different matter…

Beetroot, Body Parts, Blogging Woes... and a Beatification

2010-05-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a while since my last post – for a number of reasons: And in the meantime, Spring has turned to early summer, the blackthorn blossom has come and gone, the cuckoo is back somewhere down by the Red Hatches (doubtless pushing plenty of unsuspecting young chicks out of their way in their bid to find a foster mother for her own, but nevertheless, we’re always pleased to hear her), we have a brand new government at last and the cows are out in the fields again.

Well, I’m not going to bore you with all that’s happened in the meantime – that would take far too long – but here are the highlights (or lowlights – it’s not been an easy couple of months).

Down on the allotment, the rake’s progress has been mighty slow. The weeds seem to be coming up faster than the things I’ve planted and the Great Beetroot Experiment has all but ground to a halt. And I spent so much time selecting the right day, getting the soil ready and raked, working out when the tides were so I could plant the blighters right at the optimum time.

“But you forgot to organise rain,” said John, whose tiddly crop of beetroot sprouts are hardly bigger than my own.

I knew there would be something.

I came down to the allotment one day a couple of weeks ago to find what looked like several shoots of some exotic pinkish asparagus coming along nicely. Must have been something left over from John D who had the allotment last year – funny, I never had John down as an asparagus man. Closer inspection proves the mystery plant to be marestail – it seems John was very much a marestail man. His perpetual spinach, too, seems to be living up to its name, springing up everywhere just when you least expect it. This year, he appears to be growing tyres.

I tend to tackle my weeds on a need-to-hoe basis, letting a few odd ones sprout up where they’re not doing too much damage. I think it’s important to have a bit of biodiversity, despite the stern looks I occasionally get from other allotment holders who run their plots with military precision. Yes, my potatoes aren’t exactly in a straight line, either, but I ran out of string when I was planting them.

* * *

We were driving back from Cricklade the other day when something that can only be described as a girt big chunk of metal dropped off from under the car, clanking and scraping along the road as we ground to a noisy halt. I peered underneath the chassis to see if it was anything important – it was hard to tell: it was a kind of plate-thing with some holes in, dangling half on, half off and making an irritating sort of dragging noise.

One good thing about breaking down in the country is that you’re never too far from a length of bailing twine, and true to form there was a handy piece, just about long enough, sticking out of a nearby hedge. We managed to hoist up the offending bit of metal and tie it up to the bumper where it stayed just long enough to get us home.

I fervently hoped Richard would declare the car unfit for purpose, thus necessitating the purchase of something new that wasn’t quite so green and rusty, and that I wouldn’t need to park round the corner out of sight when I pick Alex up from school, but as usual he grappled around underneath the car, came out looking slightly sootier, shrugged and said, “well, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

Which is probably just as well, because it looks bloomin’ awful.

* * *

Ah yes, the blogging woes. I’m afraid I had to close my other blog on account of having put someone’s nose out of joint with my forthright ways. It was bound to happen, I suppose. I should be thankful it was just one person excommunicating me from their Facebook page and not the entire town of Melksham or the local Green Party bearing down on Great Somerford with pitchforks and flaming torches. I didn’t actually think what I said was that bad, but I’m trying to take my mother’s advice, as she was so often telling me as a child to “think on”. So I guess I'll probably be thinking on for a while. I don't mean to upset anyone, really I don't.

But on the bright side, I do have some admirers, it seems. I bumped into Miles the other day while I was out walking the dog.

“Have you heard your new nickname?” he asked me.

I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to, but before I could say anything he told me.

“St Jill of Compostella.”

I like it. I like it a lot.

The picture at the top is by my fabulously talented friend and neighbour, Adam Lloyd.

Beetroot Day

2010-04-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

“Husband been knocking you about?” asks Bernard, not unreasonably since I am sporting an impressive black eye.

“Freak handbag accident,” I explain briefly. To Bernard’s evident confusion.

I try, perhaps for the millionth time this week, to explain about Janice’s evil red satchel and a hapless visit to Lydiard Park, but he just looks perplexed. Frankly, I think it might be simpler to blame it on the husband.

* * *

The big Beetroot Day has finally arrived, and John and I have been liaising via email following detailed consultations with my Moon book. Gardening according the phases of the moon is helluva complicated, but I think I’ve finally worked it out, and it seems that the 7th, 8th and the morning of the 9th are ideal for sowing root crops with the moon ascending in the constellation of Taurus. It's a particularly fortuitous time for planting root crops apparantly, Taurus being an earth sign as well as the sign of the Moon's exaltation.

But it’s not quite as simple as that. Apparently, despite being about forty miles from the coast, it’s important to plant the seeds when on the tide is receding too, to balance the effect of the ascending moon. I have forgotten to tell John this, but hopefully this will not hamper the growth of his beetroot too much. Unfortunately I have missed this morning’s receding tide and will now have to wait until 9pm this evening. More importantly, I realise, I have forgotten to actually buy any beetroot seed.

Never mind, if I leg it down to the shop now, I should be able to get my seeds ready and soaked in time for tomorrow’s receding tide at 9.45. Unfortunately, tomorrow is exactly the day I have to wait in for the delivery of a shower part from Screwfix. If I don’t manage to get my beetroot seeds in by lunchtime, I may have to wait until midnight tomorrow for the next tide, which will be pushing it a bit with the moon stuff – did the ancients have all these problems to contend with, I wonder? At least a midnight planting, I suppose, will avoid searching questions about my black eye and give a certain resonance to the theory of moon planting. Although with a waning moon there won’t be much light, and I may find myself either A) planting them in the wrong allotment, or B) tripping over one of the other John’s many garden implements, thus risking the chance of a second black eye.

If the worst comes to the worst, I suppose, I could always chuck them in anyway and call it a control sample.

Compost Queen

2010-04-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

Friday night and the lights are low
Wond’ring if there’s time to go
Down to the allotment, need to do a bit of digging
I need to fill that bin

Anything you want to throw in?
Teabags, socks and cardboard, that last splash of gin...
Gotta lotta peelings, piled right up to the ceiling
I’m in the mood for weeds

And when I get the chance…
I am a compost queen,
Young and sweet, only forty-three

(well, give or take a year or two… I’m sure I could pass for forty-three on a dusky night with a following wind, if you weren't looking too closely…)

* * *

“If I was something in the garden, what would I be?” I made the mistake of asking my husband a couple of years ago, angling desparately for a rare compliment and hoping he would come up with something flattering along the lines of a fragrant rosebush, an exotic pot plant or a pretty spray of honeysuckle.

“A compost heap,” was his reply. “Just chuck everything on, give it a good turn now an again and Bob’s your uncle.”

I have to say I was not best pleased. Well, honestly – who would like to be compared to a large pile of rotting vegetation? Romance has never really been my other half’s strongest suit.

However, I’ve since changed my view (that’s not to say I’ve stopped sulking, though). A compost heap is actually a wonderful thing. You chuck all your grass clippings onto it, your old apple cores and potato peelings and eggboxes and banana skins – even old T-shirts, holey socks and mankey old bits of carboard box... and in the fullness of time everything is magically transformed into a wonderfully fertile, nutritious, odour-free growing medium.

It’s so easy, even I can do it. Everything that’s ever lived can go into compost – admittedly if it’s meat or dairy or if it’s been cooked like bread, you do need something called a garden digester (if you’d like to know more, please don’t hesitate to contact me – I can point you in the direction of something small and discreet enough for any type of garden, and at a very reasonable cost…).

Yes, having completed my training, I am now officially a compost ambassador for Wiltshire, dispensing weeds and wisdom to all whether they like it or not, on the subject of composting and decomposing vegetative material.

Of course, in the olden days, they didn’t need compost heaps or digesters – there was something called the Wiltshire pig. All your peelings, leftovers, mouldy crusts, old deformed bits of veg went in one end and perfectly balanced garden fertiliser came out the other.

‘Pig’ by the incredibly talented stone carver and artist Judith Verity of Startley, who drew this in about 45 seconds

...Feel that heat, watch that steam, I'm having the time of my life (well, I don't get out much)
Oooooooh, See those peas, clock those beans, I am a Compost Queen

Froggie came a-courting

2010-03-22T07:40:00.001-07:00

The frogs and toads are out and about – and not just in Frog Lane. The warmth, the rain and a new moon around the time of the Spring Equinox all seem to have combined to bring them out of their hidey holes under rocks and in the damp, cool earth along the banks of the streams and ditches along the sides of the fields. The evidence is all around – sadly all too often in the form of a squished little splayed green shape on Winkins Lane or halfway across the Dauntsey Road as they hop and wait and jump along from where they’ve been overwintering towards their breeding grounds in the lakes up at Broadfield farm.

Kind folk have been popping out with buckets and bowls to help them over the road – it always happens about the same time of year over the course of a week or s0 – but all too many just aren’t quick enough. Nature seems so wasteful sometimes. How do they know when to come out? Or remember where to go?

It’s actually a huge problem countrywide, as tens of thousands of frogs, toads and newts get squashed on the roads each springtime. Visit Froglife to find out what you can do to help.

“Look,” said Alex. “That one’s giving one of the others a piggy back.”

It’s nice to think of frogs with an altruistic streak.

* * *

Meanwhile, down on the allotments, John and I are gearing up for our great Beetroot Challenge. We’ve been preparing our seed beds, and I’m eagerly waiting for my copy of In Tune With The Moon to arrive. We’ve chosen beetroot, because they’re supposed to be pretty easy to grow, and I’ve been told the circles in the centre correspond with each new and full moon. We’ll keep you posted.

Spring!

2010-03-13T11:59:00.001-08:00

There’s one day in the year when you suddenly realise that Spring has arrived. That day was today. And not before time. It’s been a long, cold winter and it’s about time we saw some sunshine. Although we’ve had a few sunny days lately, it’s been jolly cold, but this morning was appreciably warmer, birds sang louder, people were out and about without their coats and as the day wore on I became distinctly aware of that emblematic sound of approaching summer: the distant – and not quite so distant – hum of lawnmowers. Even though the clocks haven’t yet gone back, already the evenings seem lighter. I’m not sure it’s time to put the potatoes in just yet, though.

* * *

We’ve had a weird series of unfortunate – and apparently unrelated – events with our plumbing over the past week. What started with a small leak in the shower quickly turned into a burst radiator on the landing, then the water softener started to make a strange roaring sound – so much so, I had to turn the water off at the mains every time I wanted to make a phone call. On Thursday morning I came downstairs to a distinct damp patch on the kitchen ceiling, and an ominous dripping sound outside. This week I’ve seen more of Erik the plumber than I have of my own husband. It doesn’t look good.

“I can’t ring Erik again,” I said to Paul as he disappeared off to work, “he’s going to start thinking I’m stalking him.”

Thankfully, I was on Erik’s list of house calls, and he disappeared up into the loft to sort out the pipework, reappearing again to sort out another problem with the shower and fix another radiator valve that had inexplicably gone wrong, probably wishing he hadn’t popped round in the first place. It seems we’re not the only people in the village to be suffering an unexplained rash of plumbing problems at the moment – another symptom of the relentlessy long, harsh winter – and Erik’s services are much in demand.

Erik is tirelessly cheerful and efficient (and thankfully he doesn’t whistle, unlike the plumber we had at our last house. Whenever Tony came round to fix something or other, this eerie whistling sound would echo and reverberate spookily around the house through the copper pipes. I used to think to myself that, if the plumbing work dried up he would always be able to find work providing soundtracks for Spaghetti Westerns). Still, every cloud has a silver lining – even plumbing-related ones. I’ve now learnt how to fix recalcitrant radiator valves (you give them a swift tap with a hammer) and get stubborn limescale stains off a shower cartridge (boil it up in a pan of Sarson’s White Vinegar), and I can now find my way confidently around the plumbing section of the Screwfix catalogue. But that’s probably enough about me and my plumbing…

* * *

The allotment is beckoning. At the moment, it looks a bit bleak and sparse. I’ve given up trying to dig all the weed roots out, but I went out for some more seed potatoes from Nurden’s Garden Centre in Malmesbury (excellent cafe there, too, if you ever find yourself feeling peckish on the A429) – if you haven’t already got yours, I suggest you nip down there pretty sharpish, they’re nearly all gone – and I’m ready to go with my onion sets if I get a chance amid all the doubless lavish Mothers’ Day activity my family has doubtless got in store for me tomorrow…

And it’s the annual Allotment Inspection on Tuesday, April 6th – a time-honoured tradition enshrined in Great Somerford's Enclosure Act of 1806, when it was laid down that the allotments should be allocated Yearly and every Year on the Tuesday in Easter Week.

I’d better get my spade out, then.

And some more good news – I’m going to be a Compost Ambassador for Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. Well, let’s face it – it’s probably the only kind of ambassador anyone will ever ask me to be. The allotment holders are probably finding it difficult to contain their excitement at the thought of the Ambassador spoiling them with news of new and improved compost containers, ways of avoiding embarrassing ‘compost slime’ and getting tiptop compost out of even the least promising bits of garden rubbish.

Don’t ever say there are no perks to having an allotment in Great Somerford.

* * *

PS I’m afraid it seems I was misinformed about the would-be shop robbers – it turns out the Police didn’t catch them after all, but at least they didn’t get away with anything, and I guess it’s unlikely they’ll be back in a hurry.

The Archers

2010-02-28T06:07:00.000-08:00

People sometimes ask me whether my life is like The Archers – well, living in a village in the depths of the English countryside midway between a couple of market towns, I suppose there are superficial parallels, but I usually put them right straight away. For one thing, I can’t imagine people round here would have very much time for that ludicrous storyline about Helen wanting to have a baby via sperm donation. And I particularly don’t understand why there aren't any dogs on The Archers. At least none that you ever hear. Most farmers I know round here have at least three dogs and most of them are far from silent, but on the radio, doorbells ring and visitors enter the house unmolested, folk go on holiday without having to make complicated arrangements with the kennels, postmen bring letters without being in fear for their lives, bin day comes and goes with some trusty mutt tipping everything up and rooting through to see if there’s anything worth eating… Hmmm, I think our next dog might have to be a radio dog...

And apart from anything else, I can see that I would be the obvious candidate for the insufferable Lynda Snell, the nosy incomer with a poor, downtrodden husband and several fingers in every conceivable pie, which is just too upsetting to contemplate. I suppose if I really had to be one of them (and let’s face it, that’s far from likely), I possibly wouldn’t mind being Caroline. But the chances of us ever being able to afford Grey Gables or the Dower House are pretty slim to say the least. Dour House, more likely…

Not that I ever listen to it, you understand…

* * *

Of course we don’t need The Archers, because we have our very own real-life archers here. Down in the field next to Hector’s forge at the bottom of the hill in Little Somerford on a Sunday (if it’s not raining too much) or on a summer’s evening after work, you can see them under the boughs of the ancient oak, lining up their sights, fleet arrows buzzing swiftly through the air before piercing one of the targets with a soft thud. Well, at least Hector’s do. Alex perhaps needs a bit more practice. But he’s not doing badly...

Hector is one of our local heroes. Standing over six feet tall with flaxen hair and strong workman’s hands, he looks as though he could easily have been transported here from Saxon times in his softly-timeworn leather apron as he stands with his bow and a quiver of handmade arrows, or at his forge, puffing the bellows until the coals glow red hot. A master arrowsmith and archeological ironworker, he’s a leading authority on historic smithing techniques, his expertise is frequently sought out for TV programmes such as Time Team, and he was responsible for the magnificent ironwork gates at nearby Highgrove. As well as being incredibly skilled and talented, Hector is immensely generous with his time, too – guiding and encouraging young archers and arrowmakers locally with his unstinting patience and enthusiasm.

As you come down the hill from Malmesbury into Little Somerford’s grassy valley, the sight of soft grey puffs of smoke rising gently from the chimney of the forge at the bottom confirms that Hector’s in his forge and all’s right with the world.

* * *

Unfortunately, all was far from right with the world this week when our little village shop was targeted by robbers who threatened the shopkeeper with a knife, demanding cash. Luckily another member of staff was able to raise the alarm and the man ran off empty-handed. I’ve since heard that he was subsequently caught by the Police. It’s thankfully very rare to hear of such things in our quiet little part of the world, but it would be so sad if this incident were to make us all suspicious and untrusting of any visitor.

But perhaps it’s as well to know that bad things do sometimes happen in unexpected places and understand that things are not always as peaceful they look.

Yes, we have no potatoes

2010-02-20T05:17:00.000-08:00

And I thought I’d been so careful. I spent time chosing my varieties painstakingly – pest-resistant, blight-resistant, disease-free, easy to grow – and having consulted just about every potato-grower on the allotment as to where best to chit them – Bernard keeps his in the study, John’s are carefully stored in egg boxes on the windowsill of his back bedroom while Henry, rather worryingly, suggests I consult my allotment book – I plump for the cool and bright, yet frost-free, garage windowsill.

Shirley and Gerald, who’ve been growing potatoes on the allotments for decades, helped shepherd me through the labyrinth of first earlies, second earlies, Desirees and Maris Pipers at the Malmesbury Potato Day sale last month, warning me off the tempting-looking Jersey Royals (I do like a nice salad potato) and steering me towards the – well, I wish I could remember which ones they steered me towards, but the mice appear to have eaten my carefully written labels, too. At least, I’m hoping it was mice. The alternative is just too creepy to contemplate < < SHUDDER > >. Well, I suppose it’s not too late to start again...

It’s that funny time of year between Winter and Spring when there’s nothing much going on and everybody seems to feel a little bit gloomy. I can’t help thinking that this must have something to do with the decision to make February just that little bit shorter than all the other months. It’s too wet to dig, too early to plant anything, too cold to stay out for very long – I even saw the odd flurry of snow earlier on this week. It’s the sort of weather when you feel you ought to be making a rich, nourishing soup or be safely inside, stirring a glistering vat of molten marmalade in a warm, fuggy kitchen… Except I realize I’ve missed the Seville oranges, too.

I have a sinking feeling it’s going to turn out to be one of those years…

But of course there’s always something going on in Great Somerford. It’s that kind of place. Doubtless thinking of a way of cheering everybody up in the midst of the cold, dank bleakness of this time of year, Carol and Maritsa have decided to put on a village concert in the Community Room with an exclusive line-up of local talent at the end of the month. There’ll be singing, there’ll be folk music, there’ll be one or two of Mary’s famous, wonderful, monologues, there’ll be a bit of Jazz, there’ll be more singing… I tell you, it's not to be missed. No stone has been left unturned to seek out local acts of all description.

Thankfully, no one has yet got wind of the singing dog…

Yet...

...I think perhaps he needs a little more work on the piano part, though...

Groundhog day

2010-02-03T15:00:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was Groundhog Day, or Imbolc, or perhaps more commonly in this country, Candlemas – exactly half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, and traditionally a day for predicting the weather.

On Candlemas Day, if the thorns hang adrop, Then you can be sure of a good pea crop

Well, everything was certainly hanging adrop, but I don’t know about a good pea crop – every day I go down to the allotment it seems to be Groundhog Day; I dig up half a wheelbarrowload of weed roots, and the next time I go down, it’s exactly the same again. It’s all a bit dispiriting. But I suppose on the bright side, we’re halfway to Spring.

And it’s all so very muddy. The long frost has broken down the soil structure and made go a bit spongy, so it feels like there's gallons of water down there.

Still, the groundhog or the badger, or whatever it might be wouldn’t have stood a chance of seeing his shadow yesterday, so if the folklore is right, Spring is on its way and we can all start growing peas. Except we can’t, as John reminds me – it’s a waning moon.

* * *

I went up to Westonbirt in the afternoon with the Malmesbury Dog Walkers (you’d have thought I’d had enough mud for one day, but no...) Sally was there, and she has an allotment in Little Somerford, so I picked her brains about what to do about the endless quantities of subterranean marestail and bindweed root that seem to rear up overnight like some gardening version of the many-headed Hydra.

“The first thing to do is only dig over the bit you're actually going to grow things in - don’t bother with the rest, you’ll just find yourself fighting a losing battle,” she suggests quite sensibly. “You’ll never get rid of all the marestail – it's been around since the dinosaurs and survived the last ice age, so it's not going to worry too much about the odd bit being yanked out here and there.”

Already things are beginning to look up and I’m beginning to see some distant mirage of normal life forming hazily on the horizon, in between lengthy episodes of digging interspersed with muddy dog walks. I’ve lately begun to feel I’m in danger of developing an unhealthy relationship with my spade and I realise that I can't actually name many people in the village that haven't either got a dog or an allotment. Except for Adam and Cheryl, who I’m always popping round to borrow things from or ask to borrow the spare keys because I’ve forgotten to take mine down to the allotment with me.

“And if you can manage to get down there for about an hour every other day, you should soon find yourself keeping on top of it”

“Blimey!” says Fiona, who hasn't got an allotment. “It’s like being out on a walk with a couple of seventy-year old blokes!”

Not that I have have anything against seventy year-old blokes. In fact I can count several among my best friends.

Mind you, I suppose I have met most of them down on the allotments.

* * *

...and for badger lovers, here's a little clip taken by our neighbours in the snow. (See, Adam – I’m not the only one who comes round on the scrounge...)

Making tracks

2010-01-17T15:42:00.001-08:00

At last the snow has just about gone, but for a few grubby clumps in the Glebe field and the sad lopsided remains of a once-proud snowmen and a ruined igloo... And not before time. Snow can do strange things to a person – enforced confinement compels us to fill our time with things we wouldn’t think of doing under normal circumstances, and it’s all too easy to lose track of what day it is.

I’ve spent a good few hours gazing at a Farrow & Ball colour chart this week, idly wondering how on earth they came up with names like Savage Ground, Dead Salmon and Mouse’s Back, speculating on the likelihood of getting away with repainting the kitchen in Elephant’s Breath without my husband realizing, doubtless to the detriment of more pressing tasks. I’ve done an awful lot of rummaging through old recipe books and tidying out cupboards – I’ve sorted out my sock drawer, scrubbed the grout in the shower… Desperation for a change of scene has propelled me over the field in my wellies for a shopping spree at Debbie’s shop, where I spent a good 20 minutes perusing the magazine racks and came home with the second issue of Crochet Art, which is absolutely no use at all without a crochet hook or the first issue if, like me, you’ve never succumbed to the urge to learn to crochet before. I blame Gizzy. “It can’t be that difficult,” she told me as she rearranged the Duchy Originals behind me while I dithered between that and Country Living.

Although it was lovely while it was fresh and white and new, snow does begin to get on your nerves after a while. I no longer find it surprising that the Inuits have 64 different words for snow – I think I may have come up with one or two new ones myself. The children enjoyed it, though, both the small ones and the big ones – an abiding memory of this winter will surely be the image of our wonderful blacksmith, Hector – a grandfather himself – all six foot something of him, whizzing down on a sledge through the powdery snow from the top of the hill behind his forge with a great big smile on his face.

By the weekend, the snow had vanished, almost as quickly as it had arrived. The river now is full of snowmelt, brimming and lapping over the banks, eddying and swirling over the wiers, sending the watervoles scurrying from their bankside holes and transforming the willows where the kingfisher lives into something that looks like a mangrove swamp.

Working from home

2010-01-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

What is it about extreme weather conditions that brings about the urge to make do and mend, become more self-sufficient and cobble together thrifty meals out of an unlikely assortment of ingredients? At least for some reason it does with me. After a lightning dash into Malmesbury yesterday to find the Co-Op looking like something from the pre-Perestroika Eastern Bloc with shelves empty of milk and bread and a few sad looking tins of things like butter beans and jars of Picalilli, I grabbed a few ill-thought-out impulse items and drove back home as the grey, slushy road behind me turned to impenetrable white. Thank goodness for Debbie and the Village Shop.

The Met Office is advising people not to travel, unless it's a life-or-death emergency, said a voice on the radio. I looked at my tins of tomatoes, my jar of mayonnaise and the packet of two sad Little Gem lettuces I had bunged in as something of an afterthought - well, I suppose we might be still stuck snow-bound by the time it comes to salad-weather - and wondered whether this was life. Or death. Meanwhile, I realised we only had a couple of days worth of dog food left.

There are other irritations to contend with. School is closed and my husband is working from home. I'm not sure whether this shouldn't be 'lurking' from home - I feel (possibly irrationally) that my visits to the biscuit tin are being monitored, and apart from anything else, it means two extra mouths to feed and the cold weather seems to make everyone hungrier. I busily rummage through the freezer and unearth several tupperware boxes from which the labels have disappeared - if indeed there have ever been labels - and come up with a clever idea for frozen-pea soup with crispy bacon croutons. It's a miniature triumph, albeit one that results in several bowlfuls of washing up. It is then that I discover that 'working from home' also means an implicit exemption from washing-up duties.

The dog needs to go out, but I remember the radio warning, concluding that technically, I suppose, dog-walking is travel, and not life-or-death. My husband looks at me with an expression somewhere between disapproval and dispair, dons another few layers and takes the lead.

I put the radio on for company, only to find it has inexplicably re-tuned itself to Geoff Boycott in Durban. Geoff is pondering why everyone in snow-bound Britain doesn't just get on a plane and fly out to Cape Town for a fortnight of blue skies, balmy evenings and the seductive thwack of leather on willow... Silly me, what was I thinking? I supposed the small matters of a dwindling post-Christmas bank account and a total lack of interest in cricket were just piffling details...

* * *

Halfway through the afternoon (and many hours of washing-up later), the dog comes back shivering and encrusted with several large snowballs that need to be cut off with scissors. Then Alex bowls in, fresh from a morning of igloo-construction with a couple of friends who drip noisily through the kitchen to the sitting room where they commandeer the TV and the PlayStation. Tea, cake and biscuits are demanded, and as the sky starts to look a bit dusky I suggest it might be a good idea if the friends think about going home, then the idea of a sleepover is mooted. A small Homer-like yelp inadvertently escapes my lips; we have three large potatoes, a jar of horseradish cream and the Little Gems (which I'm saving in case we're in danger of succumbing to scurvey). Plus the remains of a tin of Quality Street - just the round penny-shaped ones that get stuck in my teeth, for some strange reason. And the Mystery Freezer Food, of course.

Mention of the Mystery Freezer Food thankfully sends both boys scuttling back to their homes. One is a vegetarian and doesn't want to risk the (admittedly strong) possibility of it being something mince-based, and the other has sampled my cooking before. Another freezing day has (almost) been survived. The forecast is for more of the same tomorrow.

A quick browse through an old copy of BBC Good Food and I realise I have the ingredients for Chocolate Hazelnut Torte. Tomorrow's lunch sorted.

* * *

The pic is of the triumphant pea-and-bacon soup, although I'm afraid you can't see the bacon because I'd eaten it. I had to wait until my lurking-from-home other half had left the room, or he'd have thought me very odd taking a picture of my lunch. The bacon, I'm afraid, was just too tempting...

Carry on grazing

2009-12-10T02:00:00.000-08:00

I do like old plates. But I do think they look better with a couple of hobnobs on. Or perhaps a piece of freshly made flapjack. Or some chocolate fridge cake.... Ok, I'm stalling for time here. Apparently I'm scaremongering about the houses - it's only a consultation document. But isn't that how things start out? Anyway, all the information is in the public domain, so I'll leave you to make up your own minds. Find it on http://www.wiltshire.gov/wiltshire2026 or pop along to the exhibition at The Activity Zone in Malmesbury. OK, I'll shut about houses now. The sheep can carry on grazing.

* * *

Down in the relative safety of the allotments, things are burgeoning - at least they are on my plot, despite my stalwartly No Dig approach. Some strawberry plants have appeared (thank you, Henry) and a lovely blackcurrant bush (thank you, Philip). I must say, I wasn't too sure about this no-dig business, but it certainly seems to be working for me.

"You need a mound for the strawberries," John points out helpfully.

"And you'll need to dig a trench if you want some raspberry canes," suggests Philip.

I busily dig my trench and construct my mound, carefully planting each strawberry plant along the ridge of the summit. Then I pop back home to fetch some vegetable peelings from the compost pot to line the trench, and I'm feeling quite pleased with myself until John points out that my mound and my trench are too close to each other and I won't be able to pick my raspberries without standing on my strawberries.

"I could always pick them from the other side," I point out. But John's expression tells me this isn't the Proper Way, and besides, it would probably entail treading on the other John's carrots. So I spend another hour carefully un-planting my strawberries and painstakinly moving my mound six inches to the West. Much to the amusement of the other gardeners.

* * *

Elsewhere, life carries on pretty much as always. Arthur seems to be making an amazing recovery from his car accident last month and is already home from hospital and getting about the house. The Little Somerford tree is up and draped with sparkly lights and everybody seems to be getting ready for Christmas. Everybody except me, that is. Better start mixing that Christmas cake. Might just treat myself to a couple of hobnobs first...

Where sheep may safely graze?

2009-11-30T08:20:00.001-08:00

But not for long if our local council has anything to do with it, it seems. This is one of the sites earmarked for 40 of the 116 new houses that appear to be planned for Great Somerford as part of Wiltshire's ambitious 2026 development strategy for delivering the 44,400 new homes John Prescott in his wisdom has decided we need. That's quite a lot of houses squished together onto a site this size.

Where all these people are going to work, park their cars, do their shopping and spend their leisure time, John doesn't appear to have mentioned. 116 houses will mean at least 230 more cars - the roads are only wide enough for a single line of cars and I can't see any mention of any extra bus services or plans to reopen the railway line that was sold off years ago. Villages don't need more commuters, they need people who are going to live there and make a contribution to the community. I've been sniffing around, as dogs do, but oddly enough, no one seems to know anything about the village's development plans.

Strange.

Now, I'm all for a certain amount of carefully planned expansion to keep the community vibrant, keep the school and shop going, bring people into the local pub. But 116 extra houses? Better get stacking those shelves, Debbie.

Find out more on Wiltshire Council's website or go straight to the map (you have to scroll down a bit and zoom in on Great Somerford) to see where else the affordable homes the council seems to think we're so keen to have might be popping up.

Calm after the storm

2009-11-15T09:15:00.001-08:00

It's a beautiful Autumn morning in Great Somerford, and what's left of the coppery golden leaves hang from the trees like cascades of brightly polished pennies. A sharp contrast to the last few days of high winds and lashing rain. The river is right up to the banks – in places it's lapping right over – and just yesterday, I heard a dog had to be rescued by his owner after finding himself in a rapid current, unable to make his own way back to the shore.

Radio Wiltshire somehow picked up on Adam's Bank Aid escapde and asked him to come over to the studio for a drive-time interview. Sadly, Adam's car had other ideas and was last seen with a plume of smoke coming out of the engine somewhere along the hard shoulder of the M4. At least I'm assuming it was the engine and not Adam's ears. Understandably, he was not best pleased. Mike somehow managed to get to the studio, though, and was great (although I can't say the same for the snatch of music they played) - I have an MP3 of the interview if anyone missed it and would like a listen.

Those people who managed to brave the weather to Katie Mayhew's fundraising coffee morning for the Sondeza Youth Camp were not disappointed. Not only were there a fabulous selection of cakes to be drooled over (I wish I hadn't had so much breakfast) but it was also an opportunity to see some of Katie's breathtaking photographs featuring images from Botswana, Northumberland, Lacock and her own back garden. Believe me, watch this space. That girl has serious talent.

There was also a Jazz and Poetry evening at Startley Village Hall last night featuring my dear friend T and several other poets from the Somerford Scribes. Unfortunately, I was unable to go – I was sorry to have missed it; it promised to be a great evening.

* * *

I know I've expressed some views that not everyone agrees with, but honestly they were sincerely held, not personal in any way, shape or form and I really had the best of intentions at heart. They say you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs... Trouble is, I'm not altogether sure I actually like omelettes all that much...

Although it's been nice today, I understand the storms are coming back next week. We're not out of the woods yet...

Bank Aid. In which I appear to be chanelling Adam. Scary...

2009-11-06T02:00:00.000-08:00

Well we're nothing if not topical in Frog Lane. So with the breaking news that RBS has just reported record losses at a cost of an average of £30 to each taxpayer last month, local philanthropist Adam Lloyd (aka The Twisted Omentum) decided he had to do something. So he invited a few celebrity friends round to his Frog Lane studio one evening with the promise of a free drink... (And we all know there's no such thing as a free drink...)

Could this be the next Christmas No 1? Possibly in Great Somerford. But only if The Fruitbats don't realease something first...

Ain't no stopping us now - Adam's already talking about scratch super-band(Keb)Abba recording a Wiltshire version of Portaloo. (Well, Sweden, Swindon - it's only a difference of a couple of letters...)

Owl post

2009-10-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

“What you need there is an owl box,” suggests Gerald, looking at our poor paint-peeling excuse for a garage door. He’s right – up by the roof pitch just under the bit where the ivy hasn’t quite reached there’s a space that’s just the right size for small-ish owl.

What Gerald didn’t know at that point is that we actually have an owl. I heard him to-whit to-woohing in the small hours the other night when I couldn’t get to sleep. (I know it’s a him, because he just does the “to-whooh” bit. The object of his to-woohing, however, seems to elude him, since there is no hint of an answering to-whit. Perhaps if he had a des res, perfectly placed in the pitch of our garage roof, he might find himself more popular with owls of the opposite persuasion, gender-wise).

I saw him, too. The other night when Paul rang me to say his bike had broken down and would I drive over to Chippenham to pick him up, he flew out of the hedgerow just in front of the car and I found myself following him for a few yards. It was one of those perfect moments just as dusk was settling in for the night, in the silent hour when everything on the radio is rubbish (it’s either a totally unfunny Radio 4 “comedy” show, The Archers or some football phone-in programme featuring a lot of northern men who clearly should have all been football club managers, but for the fact that they woz robbed) so for once in the car, it’s silent. A milky white form, silent wings carving the still night air, claws poised, eyes peeled...

I must find out what you need to do to make an owl box.

* * *

I haven’t posted for a while because – as well as being away for a few days (Belgium. On Eurostar. Very nice, thank you, although not nearly enough chips or chocolate for my taste) – I’ve been suffering from writers’ block. Which is rather inconvenient when you’re a writer.

Although I can’t say I’ve actually found my mojo yet, I think I know where it is. I’ve just got find a good time to pull out the sofa and have a proper rummage under all the cushions…

The plot thickens...

2009-10-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

It’s perfect autumn weather here – cold, misty mornings gently giving way to clear blue skies and strong, low rays of golden sunshine that warm the soul. And as the afternoon sun spreads out across the landscape like clear Little Somerford honey on a thickly buttered English muffin I’m beginning to regret insisting Alex wore a vest for school this morning – he’ll be baking.

I’ve finally managed to get down to the allotment for a spot of digging. The digging John D kindly offered to do seems to have consisted of rolling up the damp bits of carpet that have been covering up the plot for several months, then sitting on a bench, taking a large handkerchief out of his pocket to dab his forehead and say, “By gum it’s ‘ot!”

But that’s fine. Digging is good for the soul, and in a Spartan sort of way I think that many of the world’s problems would be solved if we all started doing a bit more of our own digging. Metaphorically speaking, I mean. Every time I put my wellies on over the last few days it's started to rain, but I can now see the value of rain, and the time all that water has had to soak into the unyeilding, sandy loam breaking it down into soft, crumbly chunks. I think I’m finally starting to become a gardener.

I hadn’t realized, though, how political life on the allotment is. They all seem so nice and smiley down in the pub, but out on the allotments of an October afternoon it’s a different matter. I’m between Dick and John D – two of the most experienced allotmenteers on the plot. Dick is huffing and puffing about a large pile of damp weeds that have suddenly appeared on his bonfire. It suddenly occurs to me that they’re probably my weeds, which John D has put there because he doesn’t hold with having bonfires on his part of the allotment. I think my best bet is probably to keep quiet.

Henry strolls by and offers me some beetroot. He asks me how I’m getting on.

“Well, it’s quite hard work,” I tell him. He looks up at the tall hedge of ash trees which plunge nearly half my plot into deep shade.

“John told me it would be nice to have a bit of shade in the summer, “ I explained. “He said the other part of the allotment gets really parched when it’s hot.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” says Henry. Not looking entirely convinced.

Phillip comes over to join the conversation and tells me the trouble he’s having getting anything to grow under the shade of the ash trees and points out a mole hole and a little pile of slugs eggs I’ve missed.

“Oh, well,” I say. “I can ask the Parish Council to get them pollarded at the next meeting.”

I have a feeling this is all going to be a bit more involved than I’d imagined.

Sales shopping

2009-10-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

It’s been a busy weekend here in Great Somerford. I counted seventeen horseboxes on my walk down to the shop this morning – there may have been more, but Brown Dog was distracted by one that seemed to be whinnying rather loudly, and I found myself wondering what villagers of past centuries might have made of horses being shipped around the village in motorised metal boxes on wheels. Of course they were all bound for the Dauntsey Park Horse Trials, which are held here, at Brook Farm, and down the road in Dauntsey.

In addition to all the horse boxes, the roads were also lined with tractors and pick-ups with trailers bound for one of Graham Singer’s famous sales in the show field at Great Somerford. And as if that wasn’t enough, someone had decided this would be a good weekend to cut the maize. Heaven help anyone who might be trying to get anywhere in a hurry.

Graham Singer’s sales are fantastic – but be prepared for disappointment if you were hoping for a pair of killer heels or this season’s latest handbag. Whenever I see the sign go up, or hear the familiar trundle of ancient tractors and clanking trailers trundling down the road, I perk up and find some excuse to go down there and have a quick shufti.

There are tractors, trailers, mowers, sprayers, discers, spreaders, mixers, feeders… Contraptions for weighing pigs, charming little henhouses, horseboxes, toolboxes full of tools, rusty old milk churns, bits of cattle grid, wheelbarrows, girt big stone water troughs that could only have got there by magic or the brute force of about 30 neanderthal henge-builders; an ancient plough, a once-loved painted pony trap (without the pony)… There are several things that look like – well, I can’t seem to work out exactly what they look like…

“What do you suppose that could be?” I ask Julian, who seems to be examining something that looks worrying like some kind of medieval instrument of torture. Julian looks as stumped as I am, but just then a burly looking farmer who looks as though he might know comes striding over.
“Is there a catalogue?” I enquire, trying to look as though I could well be in the market for a 1950s tractor or a few lengths of fencing.
“Catalogue?” he asks, looking slightly perplexed.
“Yes,” I’m trying to sound like a serious salegoer. Someone who knows the difference between one end of a combine harvester and the other. Which I don’t.
“We were wondering what this – er – thing was…”
Julian looks at me as though I’m trying to rope him into some kind of transaction he had no intention of getting involved with.

The farmer sucked his teeth for a minute or two.
“If you don’t know what it is, chances are you don’t need it.”

I suppose he had a point.

Other little bits of local news

 I popped over to see Jane and Guy the other week in Draycott Cerne. They’re in a lovely cottage in a most picturesque spot, and I must say I can’t remember either of them looking so relaxed and happy.

 Charlotte the spider’s babies finally hatched – what looked like about 50 of them. I must say, I let Charlotte disappear beforehand. I read in Alex’s spider book that the baby spiders often eat the mother if she’s not quick enough off the mark, and poor old Charlotte only had five legs, so I didn’t altogether fancy her chances.

 John tells me they were his bees. I thought they were…

Michelmas

2009-09-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been a while - I've had a lot going on: the rest of the potatoes to dig, several barrowloads of fruit and vegetables to deal with, a visit from my mother, a christening, and a Very Big Wedding Indeed. It's a good job I managed to pick some blackberries yesterday, as after Michelmas the Devil is supposed to spit on them. Or worse.

Lovely John D showed me my new allotment yesterday. At least I think there was an allotment there somewhere beneath all the weeds.

"How much to you want?" he asked me.

I tried to plump for an amount somewhere between a size that wouldn't be too daunting, yet wouldn't seem ungrateful. It wasn't easy. Anyway, John in his kindness has offered to dig it over for me. Just this once. But after that, all that mares' tail will be mine, all mine.

The new landlords moved into the Volly last week (although I'm not sure Arkells has got round to updating the website yet). Francois is French and used to be a chef on the QE2, so I have high hopes for the food. Olives and dipping oil have been mentioned... Mike comes from just over the border in Gloucestershire, but I don't think we should hold that against him. He has a working cocker spaniel called Eddie with a full tail, so he must be all right. Actually, it probably means he's a bit mad.

Alex, who's not quite eleven, spotted Adam walking down there on Friday evening to check it out, and grabbed his bike.

"I'm just popping down to the pub with Adam, Mum."

I've made Mike promise not to serve him for seven more years. Which may well be an improvement on previous service.

T0 bee or not to bee?

2009-09-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

Are these John's bees? I was convinced they were - they seemed to have just the right kind of cheeky-chappie look that I imagine bees of John's might have. And they seem to have made themselves right at home, about thirty of the little blighters, among my sedum. I was feeling quite pleased with myself that John's bees seemed to have found their way into my garden. But, having spoken to John this morning, I'm now not at all sure they're not hover flies. Which is slightly disappointing.

"You have to look at their eyes," John says. "And their bottoms might be a bit more pointed. And their wings might not be quite so tucked in".

I'm not sure I'm up to bee identification. So what do you think, John? Are they the bees knees?

This little episode put me in mind of a wonderfully evocative poem by New Zealand poet, Amanda Eason.

The Beekeeper's Granddaughter

I thought my grandfather's bees flew everywhere
and I could prove it. Twenty miles away in Manurewa

I'd cup a bee in my hands - amaze the kids next door.
Wings whirred against my palms, I heard them

but they didn't sting because they knew me -
because they were my grandfather's bees.

Amanda Eason, 1992

As I walked out one September morning...

2009-09-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well, the big news is, I’ve finally got an allotment. Yes, after all this time, and just as I was beginning to come to the conclusion that I didn’t really need an allotment as every time I venture over there I’m plied with courgettes or runner beans or a few raspberries – yes, and not always of the rude variety – without having to do any of the hard graft. This is just last Friday’s little haul.

* * *

It’s amazing what you can get done on a dog walk. And as it was a most glorious September morning and we’d run out of tea (and I wasn’t exactly managing to knuckle down to anything very much at home – well, you can’t really get much done when the sun is shining so brightly and without a ready supply of tea, I find) I set out across the Glebe field to the shop. On the way, I bumped into Sue and, after having a conversation about bees and the pros and cons of top-bar hives as opposed to Warrés, I suddenly remembered her son was a tree surgeon and we needed a tree or two chopping down – perhaps he could advise. Then, further along I met Jon who does the Village website, and it suddenly occurred to me that he would probably know of a computer bloke who might be able to set us up with a new pc and sort out some cabling for the office… Coming into the allotments, I ran into John and Henry, who were discussing raspberries. I now know how far apart you need to plant them “About this far,” John shows me with his hands spread wide. About five times as far apart as I planted mine.
“And if they’re summer ones, you want to cut them back about this much, but the autumn ones don’t want cutting back until about February” Or was it the summer ones?

“Do you still want a bit of an allotment?” John asked, evidently sensing a latent interest in gardening that obviously needed an outlet. “I’m nearly seventy-one-and-a-half and I'm not sure I’ve got the energy to keep up with all this.”
Well, I supposed I did. It’s going to be a bit of a challenge being up by John, Dick and Phillip, though – probably three of the most experienced allotment holders on the site, apart from Bernard and Arthur, of course. Oh, and Aubrey and Trevor. (Have I missed anyone out? Probably.)

I got to the shop; predictably I’d forgotten my purse, so I tried to have a sneaky look through the Western Daily Press, an activity which garnered one of Gizzy’s Hard Stares. I couldn’t blame her really – there was a bit of a queue and Henry was trying to read the paper over my shoulder so we were taking up about half of the counter and there were people behind us wanting to buy things. I sauntered out again and collected Brown Dog, who’d somehow acquired a ball, and took him up via the old school field in West Street as I had a few letters I needed to drop off. Unexpectedly, there were cows in the field, so we went up to Shipton’s Lane and down to the river through Shady Lane – the quiet end of the village. I don’t often do the river walk in summer, precisely because there are usually cows down there. There seem to be fewer cows this year – I’m not sure whether there are, or whether they’re just somewhere else, but I was told earlier this year that there are no longer any milking herds in Great Somerford, which is sad after so many hundreds of years.

Coming up to the river I caught a flash of iridescent turquoise from the corner of my eye – the kingfisher was there. I stood stock still for about ten minutes, waiting to see him again, but he was somewhere up in the willow tree, out of sight. It’s a bit like the Pleiades – you can only really see them out of the corner of your eye; look at them straight and you won’t see them at all. I sometimes wonder whether happiness is a bit like that – an unexpected flash when you’re not really looking. I stopped on the bridge by the hatches to watch a water boatman skating gently towards the weir while what looked like a late honey buzzard wheeled high in a leisurely arc over the ripening corn. Brown Dog had found another ball, so he was happy. He always seems to find balls. It occurs to me that he’d be the ideal sniffer dog if ever the Police needed to hunt down the evidence in a mass tennis-ball robbery, although realistically it's unlikely this skill will ever be required. We can but hope, though. It would be nice to think he might be of some use that doesn't involve rolling in something unpleasant or irritating the neighbours.

* * *

During the course of the day, I find myself in the shop no less than four times, having once forgotten my money, and the other three times forgotten various other things. I’m beginning to wonder whether this might be a sign of some worrying mental-health problem so I ask Malcolm, as he’s ringing up my bread whether anyone else comes into the shop so often.

“Well, Debs is just as bad,” he reassures me. “Mind you, she does work here.”

Phew!

2009-09-09T15:38:00.001-07:00

Dispite the gloomy forecast, the weather was actually fine for the big allotments birthday-party picnic this weekend, and everything went - well, better actually - than expected. That morning, under a glowering September sky, Sid, John, Jackie and I had hoisted up a couple of gazebos in case of the odd shower, and later that afternoon, over a hundred allotment-holders and villagers turned out bringing hampers, rugs, bags, rucksacks - and in one case, a picnic in a wheelbarrow - to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the oldest allotments in the country.

The birthday itself had actually been a couple of weeks earlier - an even gloomier day, as it turned out. I didn't even go down to the allotments that day, but managed a blustery walk with Brown Dog past the old rectory, where the reverend Stephen Demainbray would have arrived back hot and tired, no doubt, after his long ride from the Angel Hotel in Chippenham where he'd signed the papers which assigned over eight acres of land over in perpetuity to those poor cottagers, parishioners of and residing in Great Somerford otherwise Broad Somerford, due regard being had for the number in family of such poor exactly 200 years ago.

It was a lovely afternoon, and all the better for being quite informal, without any speeches or ceremony, and we ate and drank and talked among the waving trees and fat cabbages until the sun went down.

Cake was shared, sandwiches passed round, someone found some cricket stumps, old friends were remembered and in one case, a friendship of over 30 years was renewed...

I think Stephen Demainbray would have approved.

No business like show business

2009-08-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

Locals among you will know it was one of the highlights of our year in the Somerfords last Saturday, and I'm sorry I haven't got round to reporting back before now, but I've been – well, rather busy, one way and another.

It had been raining just about continuously for the three weeks before, and Emma, the Horse & Pony Secretary's, phone was hot from people ringing in from Hampshire, Herefordshire and Hertfordshire to find out whether it was still going to be on.

"Of course it'll still be on," she told them all blithely. "Well, you know that field..." It's true, there's something a bit magic about the Show Field. It can be bucketing down with rain for weeks, but somehow the water just drains away.

"It's always nice for the Show," said Debbie in the shop (mind you, I thought to myself, it wasn't last year...)

Anyway, it turned out that neither Emma's nor Debbie's unbridled optimism was misplaced, for Saturday morning dawned clear and bright and, apart from a bit of a puddle near the gate where the horseboxes had been coming and going since the crack of dawn, all was dry and the going, as racing people say, could not have been better.

Entries for the Industrial and Horticultural sections started arriving long before eight, and there was hot competition, particularly in the Men Only Sponge Cake class – I don't think I've ever seen such a large collection of Victoria Sandwiches in one place – big ones, small ones, supremely airy ones, ones with generously jammy fillings – and I'm beginning to wonder whether there aren't rather a lot of men about with perhaps a bit too much time on their hands. Either that, or a few with a very strong will to win...

John was looking confident as he arrived with his giant marrows, which had just been modest courgettes before he went away on holiday – it's amazing what three weeks of rain can do – clouds and silver linings and all that.

Onions were arranged, beans were assembled, jams, pickles, flower arrangements and pasta pictures were all brought along to impress the judges....

The little funfair was set up and before long sausages were sizzling and pink clouds of candy floss was being whirled round sticks sending sticky, sweet, savoury smells mingling with a top note of diesel as the dodgems were cranked up.

The door of the Horticultural tent was zipped firmly shut and everything went very quiet while the judges perused, deliberated, measured and compared – for what seemed like hours. And then, and then... Finally, the door was unzipped again and the crowds surged in to find out who had won the perpetual cup (Ross, as it turned out, and well-deserved, too), whose jams had passed muster and of course who had managed to produce the biggest marrow...

(sorry, Adam).

So much jam and so little time...

...and some very confused alpacas.

And, of course, I can't not mention the dog show (in which, yet again, there was a terrible travesty of justice in the Dog With the Waggiest Tail class, but I'll try my best to rise above it...) Best In Show was a very smart Grand Vendeen Griffon all the way from Oxford, and there was a well-deserved third in Most Appealing Eyes (well, if I'd have had two, it would obviously been a first...)

Feeling smug as a slug in a spud

2009-08-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

It’s almost been like Spring Watch at our place this week, although admittedly it’s the wrong time of year and we haven’t got Bill Oddie in a hide down the bottom of the garden. Alex’s friend has got a hedgehog in his garden, and she’s just produced a couple of tiny, prickly babies. As far as we can see, there’s at least two, although we don’t want to get too close.

And as I walked over to Little Somerford to pick up my car from Richard on Friday, I noticed a pair of velvety ears poking up through a sea of barley in one of the fields by the railway line. A young faun, which could only have been a couple of meters away, suddenly noticed he was not alone and turned tail, bouncing gracefully away towards cover. The dog, at silly mid-off, gave chase, but he wasn’t nearly quick or tall enough – his wildly flailing ears bounced ridiculously through the long grass before he reluctantly gave up the ghost.

Later that day, Alex found what looked like a very fat tube-web spider under the sofa. We spooned it up into his magnifying bug viewer where it obligingly laid an enormous egg, which it wrapped up into a parcel. I’m not sure how the baby spiders are supposed to get out when they do eventually emerge – it says in our spider book that spiderweb is stronger than steel rope, once it’s had a chance to harden. Still, I suppose it must know what it’s doing. We’ll keep you posted.

Down on the allotments this evening, several dusky black swifts were skimming the veg patches while I dug up the last of my early potatoes. Swifts are only here for a few short months and apparently never land on the earth – if they did, they wouldn’t be able to take off again, they even sleep on the wing. I’ve been growing veg for a little while now, but I still never cease to find it amazing how just four little seed potatoes tucked away in a corner of Adam and Cheryl’s allotment can somehow manage to produce all this. I really didn’t do an awful lot – just popped down whenever I remembered and raked up the soil a couple of times.

I pedalled back home, feeling slightly smug and wobbling slightly under the weight of all my spuds, where I rustled up a courgette quiche (thanks Cheryl for the courgettes and Suzy for the eggs). I popped some of my freshly dug potatoes on to boil with a couple of sprigs of mint, marvelling at how clever I’d been to rustle up such a quick, delicious meal with just about everything sourced from less than a mile away (ok, the flour and the butter did come from Somerfield). This, surely, was what the good life was all about. It was only towards the end of supper when the rude awakening came. I’ll give you a clue – what’s the one thing that’s possibly worse than finding a slug in your dinner? That’s right: finding half a slug.

I take a little comfort from Dr Mark Porter’s comments on Case Notes earlier this week to the effect that stomach acid is actually stronger than car-battery acid, and therefore better at dissolving things. However, I’ve suddenly gone right off home-grown veg.

Hard rain's gonna fall

2009-07-24T03:03:00.000-07:00

Well it didn’t rain on St Swithun’s day, as it happened – which is just as well as Coffee Pots had scheduled their annual summer outing for that day. However it has rained at some point every day since, and the forecast is – let’s say – less than hopeful. There is, however, a silver lining to these dark grey and billowing storm clouds as far as I’m concerned; our friends the Joneses have decided not to camp at Womad this weekend, so that means we don’t have to. We can’t camp without the Joneses, because they have a portable stove and we don’t. They also remember to bring things like towels and coolboxes and torches and spare inflatable pillows, which we invariably forget.

I’ve been treated to mutinous faces at breakfast every day this week as it gradually got wetter and wetter, and I pointed out that I really didn’t think it was a good idea to pitch a tent five miles up the road if we really didn’t have to. Apart from anything, there’s the hygiene facilities to contend with. For some reason, the words ‘swine’ and ‘flu’ keep popping into my head every time I think of the combination of 20,000 people from all over the world and about 30 portaloos with no running water or proper handwashing facilities. I know it’s wrong of me and probably hugely politically incorrect, but I do. It's no joking matter, though - someone from one of the villages nearby died of Swine Flu last week.

It’s interesting, though, how localised the weather seems to be. The forecast for Friday was hard rain all day, yet when I looked out, the garden was dry and there was barely a cloud in the sky. By the time we got to Malmesbury, though, there was rain of biblical proportions gushing down onto the roads and welling up in the gutters. When I got back to Lea, about 20 minutes later, the roads were bone dry and there was no sign of anyone even with an umbrella. The rain did get here, eventually, though. I was cleaning the church with Anne later that morning, and the most humungous storm broke out, gushing through the roof at the font-end and cutting off the electricity for a few minutes. It was all very dramatic until Anne produced a plastic bucket from the cupboard behind the pulpit and the gushing dwindled to a sporadic clattering.

St Swithun's Day

2009-07-14T18:59:00.001-07:00

A removal van turned up this morning. I thought it must have got lost, at first, and taken a wrong turning down our lane, then I remembered our neighbours, Jane and Guy were leaving today. Guy has been the rector here for nearly 27 years. They’re not going very far – to Draycott Cerne, Kilvert country proper – but I’m sure it’ll be a wrench. It seems the Church has rules about clergy – once they’re retired, they have to move at least two miles from the benefice. It doesn’t seem to matter that the village isn’t getting another rector; at least not one who lives here – rules is rules. It’ll be odd not having them around. I know that life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday, but sometimes I wish it would tarry just a bit.

* * *

The allotments are looking particularly lovely this year. More plots than ever are being cultivated, the clover’s up and everything is growing like crazy. I think the prize for the prettiest allotment at the moment goes to Sarah, in the corner, with her waving hedge of cornflowers and Californian poppies – clouds of cobalt, red and gold – and a tubby little wigwam of sweet peas. Clare’s at the top – at least I think it’s Clare’s – is lovely, too, with its gold nasturtiums and scrambling runner beans in scarlet flower. And I do like Janice’s bunting. Funny how it’s the girls I’ve picked out. Philip’s very good at dahlias, usually but I think the slugs got to them this year.

There’s been another attack of Asbo animals. Bernard had had a mole, which he’s been trying to divert towards Trevor’s plot with an ingenious plastic-bottle device, but the mole’s having none of it. Up he keeps popping between Bernard’s cabbages. Meanwhile, Dick came down to his plot one morning to find a grass snake wedged in one of his wire cloches. The snake seems to have spotted a toad among the lettuces, dived in through one of the holes in the chicken wire, guzzled the toad, only to find it was now trapped by dint of a large, toad-shaped bulge too large to slither back through the chicken wire. Dick somehow managed to squeeze the toad out of the snake’s mouth and freed the snake, who took one look at what was left of his breakfast before slithering off. I'm not at all sure I'd have fancied any breakfast after that, either.

* * *

St Swithun was a champion of the poor and needy who lived in ninth-century Wessex.

I wonder whether it’s going to rain today?

With cordial thanks...

2009-06-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

I finally got round to making my elderflower cordial. I would have made it earlier, but could I get citric acid either for love or money? I scoured the length and breadth of Malmesbury High Street – even good old Knees was sold out. It seems everybody had the same idea. The situation was even worse in Chippenham. I discovered there are other, more nefarious uses for citric acid and it's been withdrawn from sale from most of the high-street pharmacy chains.
“Do I look as though I'd be using it to cut cocaine?” I feel like asking. “I'm a respectable middle-aged woman!” Mind you, I'll be looking at those doughty matrons flocking along to the home preserving section at Knees in a different way, now.

Anyway, moving swiftly on... There really is nothing quite like home-made elderflower cordial. Infused with the fresh, delicate and slightly fruity scent of newly opened elderflowers in their very first flush, it's something that can only really be drunk in June. Wait until the flowers are fully open and perhaps just starting to go over, and it will just taste of – well, there really isn't any nicer way of putting it – wee. It doesn't keep, either, even when spiked with a liberal shake of citric acid you've got to drink it up in under a month.

I could have drunk all mine in one sitting, but that would just be greedy. So I've bottled it, and taken it round to say thank you to some of the allotment holders who've been plying me with asparagus and allowing my potatoes squatting rights on their beautifully-tended plots.

“Can you mix it with vodka?” was Adam's first question.

Here's the recipe - if you can find a sheltered elder on a north or east-facing slope, you might just be in time...

25 elderflower heads
3 litres boiling water
900g granulated sugar
2 unwaxed lemons, sliced
50g citric or tartaric acid

Carefully rinse the elderflower heads, picking out any small bugs and place them in a non-metallic bowl or a clean bucket with the sugar and sliced lemons. Pour the boiling water over the top, stir well and leave to cool. Once cooled, stir in the citric acid, then cover the lot with a clean tea towel and leave in a cool, dark place for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.

The next day, strain the cordial through a muslin-lined sieve and decant into sterilised bottles.

Keep it in the fridge for up to a month.

* * *

Mad as a bag of frogs

There are frogs in Frog Lane – at least there were last night. We were just doing a spot of gardening when my other half shouted over to come and look at something that was shuffling about in the bottom of a bag of compost. There they were, two little frogs looking very hot and slightly distguntled.

“They'll boil in there,” I said, and dragged the bag over to under the bench where there was a bit of shade.

Next morning, it was still hot as hot, and Brown Dog being particularly well-endowed in the fur department was skulking around the garden disconsolately looking for a spot of shade.

Ah yes, I could almost hear him thinking. Under the bench. And he flopped down squarely on top of the compost bag.

There Will Be Mud

2009-06-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

The rain is coming down in stair rods this morning and Frog Lane is already a river, so I don't imagine there will be much gardening going on – well, for several reasons, really. The Garden Club – all twenty-something of them – have just set off for their annual gardens tour. This year the destination is Wales; Caernarfon, Penrhyn, Porthmadog, Bodnant and the famous ffestiniog steam railway... They'll just be tucking into their strawberry breakfast now, I should think, whilst whistling along the M4 towards the Severn Bridge. There was a lot of strawberry picking going on yesterday.

And for those of us left behind, what better day for tuning into Gardeners' Question Time, where there'll be some familiar voices amongst the questioners – Bernard, with his credit-crunch vegetables and my father-in-law with his unyielding blue clay. 3pm today, 2pm on Sunday, and for the rest of the week you'll be able to pick it up on the BBC iPlayer.

* * *

The National Gardens Scheme Open Gardens event at the weekend was a huge success – over 350 people came to visit and they all but ran out of cakes at the Mount House (although I think that may have had something to do with the fact that word had got around about Diane's fabulous cakes – and I can confirm, they were indeed fabulous, and I'm not given to easy praise where cakes are concerned). The gardens were of course spectacular, too. I wish someone would show me how to do a proper herbaceous border. Mine always just look like odd bits of plants dotted around interspersed by bits of earth the dog has had a bit of a dig at and flattened clumps of catmint that the cat has sat on. Ah well, maybe one day...

The secret life of beekeepers

2009-06-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

A swarm of bees in May
is worth a load of hay
A swarm in June
is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July
ain't worth a fly

I thought there were a lot of bees on Mrs Jones's geraniums at the NGS Open Gardens event this weekend. "Oooh," I thought. "John will be pleased." But I didn't realise quite how pleased until this morning, when I opened my monthly BeeMail.

John, for those of you who don't already know, is our local bee man. What he don't know about bees, ain't worth a swarm in July – heck, the man even makes his own hives. For the last couple of years he's been trying to establish a local bee colony, but as with the course of all things true-love related, it hasn't gone altogether smoothly. It was a bit of a struggle, I gather, finding somewhere for the bees to live – surprisingly, not all that many people seemed to be all that keen on having honey-producing yellow-and-black-striped neighbours who buzzed a lot. Monthly BeeMail updates have have featured details of some of John's ingenious ways of outwitting the dastardly varroa destructor mite (a swift dusting of icing sugar, apparently), the perils of pesticides and tricking the queen into laying eggs. Anyway, this month's news was that John had collected two swarms - without wearing gloves, apparently – one which looked as though it was on the brink of death following a stormy weekend and another found hanging from the roof of a bird feeder in Chippenham.

Over 5,000 bees in the second colony, he reckons. I wonder how many jars of honey that translates into...

My other news is that Brown Dog has a new hairstyle - very Didier Drogba, don't you think? No, he hasn't been to an expensive salon – I may be daft, but I'm not that daft. His new orange ball rolled accidentally into the river this afternoon and, being heavy, it sank to the bottom. It took him a while to realise I wasn't going to wade in and fish it out for him, and slightly longer to work out that he had to hold his breath if he was going to dive for it, but persistence payed off in the long run. The hairstyle was a bonus.

Green Shoots of Recovery?

2009-06-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

Not in my house, I’m afraid. Brown stumps of doom, more like. I was so relieved to see my neighbour’s car back home from holiday yesterday. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to be able to keep this poor vestige of a living thing, living.

Before he set off on holiday three weeks ago, Mr A (who I’m not going to name since it feels a bit disrespectful, and some people are more careful of their privacy than I am) came over with three tiny root cuttings which he’d lovingly nurtured into something that looked vaguely like independent life. Tiny stalks stood up proudly in what looked like better quality compost than I normally use, and the almost imperceptible first leaf buds were almost visible. Almost. Mr A looked pleased with this progress. Could I possibly look after them until he came back?

The trouble is, ever since the allotment book (which I’m not trying to plug in any way – although have you got your copy yet? I only mention this because I noticed they’ve only got two left in the shop and I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out… ) people assume I know about plants. Well I’m afraid I don’t. Or rather, I do sort of know a bit about vegetable growing – in theory, at least – however I seem to be cursed with the polar opposite of green fingers and everything that comes within my reach, er, dies. Sorry to be blunt about it, but there really isn’t a more tactful way of putting it. My husband calls me the Plant Butcher of Great Somerford. And that's when he's being nice.

But somehow it seemed a bit churlish to say no.

I sat it on the windowsill, watered it whenever I remembered, even tried a spot of conversation occasionally. It started to whither almost immediately – virtually as soon as the sound of Mr A’s car disappearing down the lane faded away. Not enough sun, I wondered? Moved it to the south-facing kitchen window… a leaf promptly fell off. The days ticked by, any hint of green the plants had once had gradually dwindled away and, short of sticking it on a life-support machine I couldn’t realistically see a way of prolonging its life any further. Perhaps it was life, Jim, but it was certainly not as we know it. You can imagine my relief when I spotted Mr A’s car neatly parked back on his drive this morning.

I dashed round bearing the pot, the plants possibly performing their few last acts of photosythesis and rapped on the door. No answer. Rapped again, a bit louder. Still no answer. I really didn’t want to risk the twenty-yard dash back home – it was drizzling slightly and I wasn’t at all sure the plants were up to the journey. Finally, Mr A appeared at the door in his dressing gown, looking not best pleased. I’m not sure whether it was the sight of his beloved plants or the fact that I’d just got him out of the bath.

Had a good holiday? I ventured…

(Actually, I'm exaggerating as usual. 'Mr A' was actually very nice about it. I could tell he was a bit disappointed, though...)

Inspired by travel

2009-06-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

There's something rotten at the heart of Little Somerford... At least, there was last night. The ladies of the Embroiderers’ Guild had to reconvene in Joan Wigmore’s sitting room for the monthly embroidery talk, as the Village Hall was mysteriously plagued by a terrible smell. Ian and Gordon were dispatched to investigate - closer inspection revealed the source; the decaying corpse of a badger under the floorboards. As neither Defra nor the rat man from the Council seemed to be particularly interested, Ian and Gordon came to the rescue with some woodworking tools and their spades, while Joan somehow managed to find enough seating for – well, rather a lot of ladies.

The Speaker, Christine Harley, took the assembled gathering on a fascinating tour as far afield as possible from the offending badger – South East Asia, as it turned out. Samples were passed round – such fabulous colours, such tiny stitches – a whistlestop armchair tour taking in exquisite baby carriers, shoes and jacket panels – a delicate, multicoloured embroidered magic-carpet excursion to Southern China, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, accompanied by plenty of colourful travellers’ tales (one of which involved a pig. I won’t lower the tone by relating now – suffice to say, it involved a lavatory and was in much the same category as the badger. Only the pig wasn't dead - I'm sensing a feeling of too much information already...).

It’s a beautiful evening cycle ride back to Great Somerford, with the dipping sun turning the sky pink over hedrows dripping with cow parsley and elderflowers and flower-filled meadows which looked just perfect for an evening picnic. Exotic, colourful and fascinating though this evening's tales were, there’s no place like home. I think I can feel a spot of elderflower cordial-making coming on...

Village fate

2009-06-14T16:14:00.001-07:00

Friday's Church Fete at Mills Farm went off without a hitch - well, not one that anyone would notice - and was a great success if exhaustion levels are anything to go by. Beans are being counted, but understand things are looking good, and we may be on track to rival the record takings of two years ago. Watch this space...

But it's not all about money. A lovely time was had by all - it didn't rain and Plum and James's garden looked gorgeous with its fabulous backdrop of clematis and climbing roses and the quintessentially English sound of the Wootton Bassett Brass Band. The animals were a big draw for the children - pony rides in the paddock and a clutch of fluffy two-week old chicks (who were finally rounded up into their box in the nick of time after nearly an hour trying to catch them all). A record number of books were flying off the shelves and some marvellous bargains were to be had on trinkets and White Elephant.

The older children from the Village School entertained us all with an interesting Lebanese-style dance, which went down particularly well with the children as it meant boys dancing with boys, girls dancing with girls and hand-holding with the opposite gender was kept to a minimum. There was a martial arts demonstration. A tug-of-war (I can't remember who won - it never really seems to matter and everybody always falls over at the end anyway), and it did not rain.

The Pimm's went down particularly well. Well, it did as far as I was concerned, thanks to Adam's determination to supply refreshment to the stallholders. Well, it's really just a bit of alcoholic fruit salad, isn't it?

Rain

2009-06-07T06:21:00.000-07:00

The rain came at last. Of course it did – it’s cubs’ camp this weekend. And I have a car-boot sale in Malmesbury.

“When d’you think it’s going to rain,” asked Bernard as I passed him in the allotments on Friday.
“About six o’clock.” I didn’t even need to look up at the gathering grey cumulo-nimbus clouds overhead. The cubs would just be arriving at the camp site in Bristol then. The rain came at 5.55.

I am not a happy camper – I hate cub camp. The only thing worse than being at cub camp under the endless rain, wind and drizzle, baked beans and billy cans and compulsory activities, is not being there and worrying about my 10-year-old boy who’s been looking forward to it for weeks. I’ve had two sleepless nights and made at least five phone calls, just to check he’s ok. He is – apparently he’s having a whale of a time, but I send over an extra blanket with Georgina’s husband Jeremy, just to be on the safe side.

To take my mind off it, I’m doing the car boot sale. My car is stuffed to the gunnels with what can only be described as a load of old cr*p. Unfortunately, there’s no room for a gazebo or an umbrella – I’ll just have to hope the rain eases off. Of course it doesn’t – it’s cub camp, isn’t it.

My pile of old cr*p looks less appealing than ever under the rain. A woman in a raincoat meanders over and picks up a digital camera.
“How much?” she asks.
“£4?” I suggest, without much conviction.
“I’ll give you two.”
I haven’t the energy to haggle.

Simon, who has the stall next to mine – ingeniously covered by an oblong of tarpaulin perched on two canes – takes pity on me and offers to buy me a coffee. I feel I need to reciprocate and fish in my purse for 50p to buy a bag of home-made biscuits from his stall. There's an ominous rumble of thunder, then a Cluedo game catches my eye.
“How much?” I ask.
“£4.” It’s noticeable there is no question mark after his answer. By 10.30 I’m 50p down.

I sell a stuffed sheep for 20p, and manage to somehow wangle 30p for some lipglosses disguised as cup cakes, and things at long last are looking up. Then I spot another woman selling plates, and it’s downhill all the way.

Back home, my husband asks how I got on.
"Umm, well - you know," I shrug.

Local Elections

2009-06-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

You hardly need to have been following the news over the last few weeks to be feeling slightly jaded about the state of British politics. In fact, it’s hard to come up with the name of an MP who doesn’t look as though he’s had his (or her) hand in the till – whether it’s for an ornamental moat or a jar of Branston Pickle (although I still can’t quite understand how some people still seem to be able to argue it’s right for the great British public to be stumping up for salad condiments. Why Mrs Mitchell can’t pack her husband off to London with a jar of home-made chutney in his suitcase is beyond me. But would she still have charged us for a couple of pounds of shallots and a jar of pickling spice?).

But I still feel passionately about the importance of exercising one’s right to vote. After all, it’s not even a hundred years that women have had the right to vote – the mere blink of an eye in historical terms. People lost their lives so we could vote. To think, save the odd historical blips of rulers like Boudicca and Queen Elizabeth the First, the world as we know it was almost entirely run by men until 1918 – mind you, I suppose it might have saved us from Hazel Blears (who has, today, I notice, done the decent thing and finally resigned).

Anyway, I’ve been doing my homework and reading up about our local candidates and what they stand for (I don’t think we have to worry too much about the MEPs – it’s all done on proportional representation there, I believe, so you just plump for the party you like best). Locally, the Tories tell us they believe in “local democracy, efficient services at the lowest possible cost”, while Labour believes that “local people and communities possess the ingenuity and common sense to run their own affairs,” and the Lib Dems would like to see “a freer Britain, where people and communities are able to exercise real political power on their own behalf”.

Which sounds a lot like the others to me.

Or maybe I’m missing something…

Anyway, I will be going to the polling station tomorrow, and I know who I’ll be voting for (however that’s between me and my ballot paper, which is just as it should be).

See you there.

This week, I’ve been watching…
The Unsellables – another TV property programme, as if we needed one – with our family friend, John Rennie and Kirstie Alsopp’s younger sister, Sofie. Once you get over being mesmerised by John’s particularly mobile eyebrows and wondered idly whether in fact it's Nigella Lawson Sofie's related to, rather than Kirstie, it is actually quite entertaining, and Sofie is considerably more charming (in my opinion) and smiley than her bossy older sister. The formula is this: they visit a house that the owner can’t sell, Sofie wrinkles her delicate ski-slope nose at their décor and the number of stuffed toys in the bedroom, does a bit of tidying and gets the decorators in while John gets a feel for the neighbourhood and put the estate agent right on one or two things…
11am weekdays on BBC1, if you’re interested.

Neighbours...

2009-05-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Radio Four's Today programme has been focussing this week on the subject of how well people know their immediate neighbours, and I've been astonished how many people have said they don't really know them very well at all. One of the best things, I think, about living in a small community several miles from your nearest Tesco or Asda, is the countless opportunities for getting to know the people next door. I'm not sure what I'd have done without Adam and Cheryl...

Things I've borrowed from Adam and Cheryl over the past year:

Four tomatoes
A two-ring electric hotplate
A Feng Shui book
A lawn-edging tool
A book about pickling and preserving
Some Borlotti beans
A tin of coconut milk
A small jar of cumin
A chainsaw
A small area of their allotment to house some potatoes
A pruning saw
Our spare keys (several times...)
A pair of tweezers to get the bit of my key that broke off out of the front door lock
Spare keys (again)
Car (plus driver) to get to Malmesbury when mine suddenly started to spout smoke
A pouch of cat food
Two cans of Stella (strictly speaking, these were for my husband, although I have to confess to taking the odd sip...)
Babysitting services
Car (plus driver) to get to sister's house in Wales and back
Cat-sitting services
Dog-walking services (when ill)
Child's shepherd outfit for school nativity play
A dongle (memory stick)
Sloe gin recipe
Small child's hat
Strong painkillers
Small bag of potatoes (no, that was Janice, and I have been meaning to return them...)

Things they've borrowed from us:

(er...)

I imagine you're probably thanking your lucky stars you don't live next door to me. Funnily enough, the house immediately next door to us has been on the market rather a long time...

ASBO animals

2009-05-21T02:56:00.001-07:00

Men at work? No, it’s tunnelling badgers who are responsible for this unsightly heap of sand in a field just off West Street. Futher inspection shows a deep hole that’s just the right size for tripping up an unsuspecting rambler, swallowing a curious terrier or dispatching a horse to the vet’s with a broken leg. And there’s more – 27 molehills in a nearby garden at the last count.
Just this week I’ve witnessed jaywalking deer – two chunky bucks cantered out in front of me as I hurtled along the Swindon Road – well, not exactly hurtled – my car is almost 20 years old, and as Richard at Somerford Motors will tell you, its hurtling days are long past. Thank goodness. If I’d have been going a few miles an hour faster, or the deer had chosen a second or two earlier to dash out, it would have been a different story.

“I hope you’d have had the presence of mind to sling it in the back of the car and take it off to Michael Thomas for butchering,” suggested my husband, with typical concern for my health and safety. But I digress…

In the last few days we’ve had burrowing badgers, menancing moles, jaywalking deer, kamikaze pheasants – and even the odd baby rabbit dashing out from the hedgerows in a dangerous game of chicken.

I’m all for encouraging wildlife, but it has to be the right sort of wildlife…

2009-05-14T05:07:00.000-07:00

It's official - Great Somerford's long-awaited cuckoo is back. As far as I know, it hasn't been spotted yet, but I'm reliably informed by two villagers that they've both heard its unmistakable call whilst out walking towards the Red Hatches over by Peter's Wood yesterday. Perhaps summer really is on it's way... Although not if the weatherman on the lunchtime news is to be believed. He tells us we're in for gales and deluges over the next 24 hours...

Mind you, we do need some rain. I don't think it's rained properly for about six or seven weeks and the river's the lowest I've ever seen it. Sid Jevons got a call last night to say that the best part of a herd of cows had waded across and were now in his meadow. Apparently it often happens when the water's low. The fishing club have done their best to take out most of the branches that fell into the river during last week's high winds, but it's still not very much more than a trickle coming down over the wier.

"I've heard they're taking water out at Malmesbury," someone whispered to me, conspiratorially while I was out on a dog walk the other day (unfortunately, like the river, I cannot reveal my source). I nodded sagely, giving my nose a knowing tap for good measure thinking it probably best to humour such eccentricity - but apparently it's true. Malmesbury is allowed to extract a certain amount of water upstream from us. They obviously don't have the same problems with cows.

There's still enough water for a dog to take a dip - just.

Great Scott!

2009-05-09T04:30:00.000-07:00

If you happened to miss yesterday's broadcast of Gardeners' Question Time, featuring Peter Tytherleigh's famous creeper and Bob Flowerdew's disappointing prognosis for my horse chestnut tree, you can still catch it tomorrow (Sunday May 10) at 2pm. Failing that, it'll be available on BBC iPlayer until next Friday. Unfortunately, I missed it, as I was in Bath with Janice and Sarah B, although my friend Jane texted me to tell me it wasn't too embarrasing. There's a piece in today's Telegraph (gardening section) about the allotments, too, with a lovely picture of the Jones family and Arthur - thankfully with his name spelled correctly. (Phew!)

Just back from the school plant sale in Crudwell, where I scooped some begonias, pelargoniums and the last tray of whispy lavetera. Interestingly, Bob Flowerdew stayed in Crudwell when he was up here for the recording, however he called it Crunchwell. Which I think sounds much nicer.

The Red Arrows were practising over the village yesterday - well, at least three of them. Looping the loop in tight formation, sending Brown Dog into a top spin. Thankfully peaceful today after yesterday's excitment - the only air activity going on here today is a kestrel hovering noislessly over an imagined shrew or a fieldmouse up on the Show Field.

Learning to swim

2009-05-07T05:53:00.000-07:00

Two kingfishers down at the hatches today. A fleeting flash of brilliant turquoise down by the creaking willows, then another, and they're gone. Blink and you've missed 'em. There was a mother duck, too, on an outing with her brood of downy brown and yellow chicks. Tiny little things, and probably only a few days old, they know how to swim almost as soon as they're hatched and within 24 hours they're usually foraging for themselves. It's a couple of months before they'll be able to fly, though.

Apparently, the old village schoolmistress, Portia Hobbs, used to take the village schoolchildren down to the river for swimming lessons. She'd stand on the bank in her knitted woollen costume – so I'm reliably told – and woe betide anyone who was unlucky enough to get an attack of the giggles.

“We’re all as God made us,” she’d tell them in no uncertain terms. And it would be straight into the chilly river water, pike or no pike.

A lot of hot air and a bevy of bluebells

2009-05-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

Never let it be said that nothing ever happens here. Sid and Doreen Jevons came home from a recent holiday to discover a tree missing from their lovely riverside garden. Well, not so much missing as chopped down. A few phone calls established that the cause had been a freak ballooning accident – it seems a well known celebrity balloon enthusiast had run into problems and tried to make an emergency landing,however he slightly misjudged the angle of his descent, somehow ending up in Sid’s tree. While Doreen’s penchant for Milk Tray chocolates is well known (they do sell them at the shop, Sid), unfortunately she was away at the time. Sid has always been a man to set a trend, but whether tree-surgery by balloon catches on, however, remains to be seen.

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A walk in the woods and tea with 'T'...
Despite the compulsory Monday bank holiday grey skies and drizzle, over 70 people joined the annual Bluebell Walk to Seagry Woods earlier this week, raising a record £350 towards the new Seagry, Startley and Great Somerford (now have I got that in the right order? I’m sure someone will tell me if I haven’t) Village Hall. Tea was served in the old village hall afterwards – in spite of the unprecedented numbers, luckily there was just enough to go round – and Terence ‘T’ and Chrissie Hutchins provided the entertainment by way of a quiz. T also read one of his poems, aptly entitled Seagry Woods.

Seagry Woods are looking good now,
Spring bursts buds and wakes the frogs,
See the bluebells, wood anemones,
Pheasants, rabbits, winter logs.

April showers set the season,
Bursts of sunshine, blackbirds sing,
In their hides the summer creatures
Slowly stir, as here comes spring.

Last year’s leaves are rotting nicely,
Giving back their health and wealth,
Now the bright new shoots of summer
Twinkling green, prepare for growth.

Nests are building, deer are running,
Tadpoles soon will fill the ponds,
Graceful willow’s hanging branches
Breath of spring caress their fronds

Easter’s gone and out come children,
Mums and Dads in boots and macs,
Through the woods, a fun-day ramble,
Walk the walk and follow tracks.

At the hall they fill the kettles,
Scones with jam, and steaming cups,
All is calm, serene and peaceful –
Seagry Woods are waking up.

© Terence 'T' Hutchins, 2009

The permissive society...

2009-05-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

No, no – the Naked Rambler hasn’t yet reached these parts – at least, if he has, he hasn’t been spotted by me – I’m talking about permissive footpaths and the excellent news that we now have a new permissive footpath leading from the entrance to the Show Ground to the Red Hatches footbridge along the banks of the River Avon.

One of the very best things about living here is the impressive number of footpaths that wander lazily through some of the area’s loveliest scenery. There may not be many hills, or dramatic cliffs or prehistoric monuments as in other parts of the county, but there’s something very English about the tussocky rolling meadows that flank the meandering Bristol Avon as it wends its gentle way through the Somerfords, and the abundance of wildlife – both flora and fauna – to be found here. This time of year, the countryside is at its best: the Old Rectory's mighty candle-bedecked horse chestnuts dipping into the shallow river; hedgerows lined with frothy blackthorn, may and cow parsley, and if you’re lucky you might catch a glimpse of a young deer or two darting back into the cover by the old railway line, the turquoise flash of a kingfisher or a little owl flitting from a gnarled old hawthorn to the safety of the trees of Peter’s Wood.

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View from the allotments
Well, strictly speaking, this isn’t exactly a view FROM the allotments, so much as from the footpath THROUGH the allotments. Peering enviously over the serried ranks of runner bean poles, usually in the direction of Bernard’s asparagus, which is coming along nicely, and – thanks to Bernard’s generosity (well either that, or his uncanny ability to recognise a heavily dropped hint when he sees one) – I can also personally vouch for its exceptional deliciousness.

There I was thinking a seat on the Parish Council would be a passport directly to allotment heaven, but No Siree. No nepotism in this village (well, if there is, I haven’t managed to sniff it out yet. although be warned – no stone will be left unturned, no gatepost left unsniffed, appropriate measures taken and legs cocked accordingly). The trouble is, I’m being a bit fussy. I’ve asked for a plot up by the shop – well, you never know when you might feel the need for a packet of Bombay Mix or a Farmer’s Weekly, and when the urge strikes, it has to be addressed quickly – and the only free one seems to be smothered in weeds, which will need dousing thoroughly with John’s weedkilling apparatus (come on, John – chop chop, I haven’t got all year…)

But thanks to the kindness of strangers (well, not exactly strangers – I have to confess to a passing acquaintance with Adam and Cheryl over the occasional half of Moonlight in the Volly, not to mention many episodes of cat-sitting and the generous loan of a chainsaw and several hundred culinary items. Ok, ok - I know them quite well...) I’ve managed to find a temporary home for a couple of rows of early potatoes and a very small tomato plant. No takers for the rambling squash plants yet, which are currently bursting out of their seedling containers in our wood store, but I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time… They are organic, you know…