Giant Limb falls Off and String waltzes in at number one on the fashion chart

sensational drama on the dangerous road bend today ,as a  giant oak limb fell, for no reason, (well maybe through stress of lack of water ) on to the road ! luckily the very nice boys from our Olus composting crew took the brilliant initiative (don’t you just love men and big machinery ) and shoved  the big thing off into our woodside verge, thus avoiding inevitable carnage among the commuters screaming along to work ! cars which (small rant alert) do not slow down at all and whizz by like terrifying dodgems … cue the chain saw crew , me and Paul ! it’s those chainsaw pants that just make men look so god damned hunky ! Paul chopped it all up and we carted the offending wood away .. but worried in case more fall off ! and also fall on pig fence which could result in a scarey release of the porkers ! keeping the things in now is a mighty test of wills and cunning. Pigs spending far too many hours plotting their next moves and generally rabble rousing whenever food appears.

Another thing  I need to talk about today is the magical properties of string and how a simple piece of gardeners twine can easily become a sensational and very necessary fashion accessory , or belt. Trousers falling off  ( that mulching must have done some good despite , kitkats and french fancies ) I simply reach for some string and voila ! decorum is restored ! and I can truthfully say I spent but pence on a very practical piece of kit and sartorial elegance in the garden knows no bounds!

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the times they are a changin’

Albane's watercolour of our farm

and time to make our lives extra ordinary … our wonderful french interns Elodie and Albane left today after two months of being here with us like an extended family and we feel sad and bereft of their youth , enthusiasm and exuberance for life… I secretly bottled some it so I can take a few swigs when there are a milion things to do (as always) and no one here to do them all … cloning myself would be a plan but Paul couldn’t stand the tenfold Shouty McShouts that would inevitably follow.. and I would drive my own self mad too !

Forgot to give them the box of french fancies bought especially to show them what real “french” patisserie could be like .. oh dear !  well the whole size zero idea for summer was never going to happen was it !! having opened the box (to look at them and assess the packaging ) the colours are still surprisingly and refreshingly “70’s”.. and are oozing with delcious E numbers… whoa there horsey … I will not be tempted by their siren call tonight …

Otherwise have FINALLY put up the Billy the purple steel  Buffalo at the roadside (its ok now keith ! neither Rome , nor Sussex Prairies  for that matter, was built in a day !)

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bad tooth,bad Berkshire,burnt orange cake

what do all these things have in common ? one common denominator – -moi !

the orange cake had just been popped in the oven, I was stoked up with enough painkillers to stun a horse (terrible toothache !) and looking forward to watching the Apprentice .. all running to time ,when frantic ringing of doorbell and ashen faced lady explained they had just met a pig on the road , the B2116 ! our pig of course (the same villain which featured in a blog oh so recently !) dusk falling and clad in a very fetching pinny I sallied out to try and catch said porcine pest.. after frantic flagging down of bemused car drivers, running up and down through stinging nettles and much swearing and helpful suggestions from my assistant pig catchers like “can you not catch it by the ear and drag it ? “er no .. the thing is going to shrug off any such lightweight tactics with no trouble … more frantic running,shaking bucket,throwing bucket , tripping on bramble,(me not pig) swearing sotto vocce as realise nice impromptu pig catchers might disapprove of  bad language , pig finally escapes into my mums veg plot through hedge and thence back to its woodland glen where I fill troughs with enough food to feed them til next week…therafter begins the thankless task of bashing in pegs to all the fencing on road side to stop any further escape manoeuvres… with a trusty head torch I stumble along the fence line , sometimes torn at by brambles, stung so many times by nettles I am devising a new nettle therapy ,cars whizz by no one cares.. pigs annoyingly club together and grumble and pester through the fence wondering what I am up to… our good life has gone horribly askew… fall into bed plotting new pig retaining fences to be installed tomorrow..

and the cake of course burnt to a dreadful cinder !

butter wouldn't melt ...

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Bee afraid,Bee very afraid

If you have bees you have to take the rough with the smooth and the stings with the not so stingy

peaceful beautiful hive at Sissinghurst

things. Yesterday Paul was “manipulating” the bees ; well sort of sorting through the  hive after the (wretched ) queen had flown with her swarm .. but not so dire actually, because a good several thousand bad tempered bees remained (all vicious ,ugly and mad for no reason except that they had had a bad day as far as anyone could work out  ).. it reads sort of like a low budget  thriller or historical (hysterical in my case, if I have to go anywhere near the things ) novellette as we are hoping they will hatch a virgin queen to replace the queen that bunked off,  but until such times as they do this, it is all hormones,aggression and tears before behive time. So much so that the evil varmints got into paul’s beesuit and stung him on the neck ! .. well if you are thinking this could be curtains for our hero , its wasnt thankfully ! although it could have been ,had he had a bad reaction … I would have been none the wiser as he could have collapsed half a mile away , and the silly thing NEVER has his mobile with him …as he stumbled back with the tell tale bee sting still stuck in his neck he asked me  to scratch the thing off before the poison was pumped through into his neck… you do this with a grisly looking kitchen knife applied to the neck .. would have looked well dodgy to anyone passing by.. anyway all well that ends well !

Just remembered a brilliant rhyme from my childhood … half a pound of mulberry dust ,half a pound of treacle, that’s the way the money goes, pop goes the weasel… now what is all that about and how did it come back into my mind ??would love a mulberry tree ! and a medlar !

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murder in the cutting garden

I am sick of pink !pretty pastel shades,candy floss,sherbets,I’ve had enough ! I want dark brooding vermillion;crimson.. big bloody reds, deep scarlets and all things venal ! cutting a bunch of melton pastels is too much .. where are those heaving passionate depths and dark carnality ? Its murder out there and its not pretty in the borders ! and a careless slip of the secateur brings me howling into the house on the rampage for plasters ! .. time for change and time for revenge !

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Water, water , nowhere, nor any a drop to drink

Mrs McBride takes watering into her own hands

well well well … if only i had a well and a pussy to put in it !(why would you want to even do that ? sheer cruelty to animals !!)

the well would help the desperate water crisis for one thing (have we even had any rain since march , apart from this morning !and that doesnt count .. half an hour of desultory precipitation at best )but we wouldn’t easily find any water with our 600 metres or is it 600 miles deep  of clay.. far better to start a pottery than search for the illusive water veins running through the sandstone. In fact I might just do that !

We have started to water the big silly garden .. but sadly me and my watering can couldn’t cope with six acres. On a less watery vein ,we were at a most fabulous set of gardens today Uppark House and the legendary Woolbeding… treats indeed… true garden rooms and enclosure.. so refreshingly different from our open and layered plains here…there is a sort of freedom with our style of planting though ,that makes you want to throw off those crinolines and bonnets and run wild…  Today though I could have froliced like a nymph in those oh so wild tumbling waters of a Bannerman artifice ! I have fallen in love with their hazel twig lined rustic nook as well. If Paul had any caring he would be fashioning me a bower of beauty as we speak.. tweaking fircones to his will and thatching a woodland grotto !

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jealousy,contrariness and high drama

nesting place for pied wagtail

honestly it is like a soap opera out  there… firstly Birsay  (last year lamb now obnoxiously precocious teenager) has taken an absolute fit of jealousy , green eyes et al , against the new little chocolate coloured lamb , Woolsey . She cannot abide me feeding the wee lamb with its bottle and would rather just give her a wee thump or boot her out of the way. Failing that her frustration now seems to be including me in the good thump for good measure too. I don’t blame her, she is all wound up with hormones I suppose (arent we all ) and the lambs can be pretty attention -taking -up-ful which means Birsay doesnt get her half an hours rub and cuddling… so you can understand that.So picture the scene .. me trying to feed lamb; Birsay behaving badly and Barra (another cosseted last year lamb)( its all coming back to haunt me these prima donna alpha females) pawing at me like a demented spanish bull… plus Dotty . Now Dotty is a lamb from last year who is gradually getting sort of friendly , but has this loopy looking slack jaw so she always looks a bit silly… and gormless..so thats another evening gone by the time i have given them all their due attention and eased myself out of the woolly mele.

Tonight we are on defcon one alert as frost is predicted… polytunnel has been battened down and the heat mat switched on for all the wee seedlings and bedding plants … pray for heat !

Plus today was “get all the tulips out of pots ad line out in cutting garden day “… now thwarted by pied wagtail living in this pot of tulips .. with nest full of hatchlings … they are all out to get me ! wildlife who would have it !

But the cutest thing is that whenWooldset is finished we all hunker down for a bit of stroking and then Birsay settles down as close as possible but with her legs all tucked up like a wonderful wooley ottoman. So stylish and “homes and garden-ish”… if youcould transport her back to the loundge she swould be the perfect foot rest.. so thick and warm…

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