Kenley Air Day

I enjoyed Kenley Air Day, despite the fact that the atrocious weather meant that very little actually took to the air, including the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight which was grounded somewhere due to the low cloud base. This was a real shame because it would have been fantastic to actually stand on Kenley airfield remembering the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and hearing the sound of Merlins overhead. Ah well.

The great thing about the day was how "village fetey" it all was compared to other airshows I've been to like RIAT, Mildenhall, Biggin Hill and so on. It was a dream driving in (I got there at lunch time in a huge downpour) but not so good getting out of the single exit (in another and even worse downpour) along with everybody else who'd seen the clouds gathering and put two and two together in mid-afternoon. There were the usual stalls, but not many of them, and it really did seem to be a local event for local people. The static line was small but perfectly formed with several vintage UK aircraft on display - Tiger and Hornet Moths, Chipmunks and a Percival Prentice - marvellous!

















All credit to the organisers, Kenley Airfield Friends Group, and I really do hope that there's another event next year upon which the weather smiles a little more kindly ....

Madness!

Travelling by train last Saturday, alone, from Euston to Stone in Staffordshire for a family party. My wife is already there having driven up a couple of days earlier to stay with her parents en route. Just settling into my first class carriage (£18 - yes, £18! - single) and hoping for a quiet trip (see blogs passim) when 10 or 12 blokes, some of them carrying musical instruments descend and my heart sinks, particularly when four of them sit together and get the cards out. However, they're all perfectly affable and I fall into conversation with the guy sitting opposite me - I'm guessing you're a band (top marks for observation, eh?). Yes. What kind of music do you do? Oh, pop type stuff, we're just going to the V Festival in Stafford. Really, what band is it? Madness. Madness! Where's Suggs? Two rows behind you. And so he was! And I have to say that it was a really agreeable trip spending a couple of hours with a very pleasant group of people who had no affectations at all. Thanks, guys, I really enjoyed your company and I hope the gig went well.

After that excitement the family party went well and we drove back happily the next day with a boot full of runner beans - despite having loads of our own. The blessings of all your veggies coming at once! Talking of veggies, I've planted some turnips "Tiny Pal" (first time I've tried growing them) and some carrots "Nanco" which are supposed to provide me with carrots for Christmas - it'll be interesting to see if they work. I've also just sowed some "green manure" seeds. Now, growing green manure is meant to be a key part of organic gardening (and I guess I am mostly organic in my approach - I tend to squash blackfly rather than spraying them, but I do resort to sprays as a last resort) but I note on the back of the packet it says that the seeds weren't produced organically! Now, if I was a zealot that could cause me real grief. But I'm not, so it hasn't.

Off for a "Taster Breakfast" with a company on Friday so need to get on with preparing my presentation. Weather is really grim, cat's behaving strangely (perhaps she knows about that woman dropping the cat in the bin) and there's not much else to report. Oh, except that my beautiful daughter, Laura, has got her place at her first choice university to do Classical Civilisation - well done, Sweetheart!

August Garden

This is my first year of using raised beds and I've had successes, failures and mixed results. The main failure (let's get it out of the way first!) was parsnips (White Gem). Last year I just chucked my seeds into a fairly scraggy patch of ground and had reasonable results. I thought, therefore, that planting seeds this year in my beautifully soiled and composted raised beds would be no problem. I planted them with "tracers" of French Breakfast radish and, although I had good radishes, I've not managed to grow a single parsnip. Mmmm, back to the drawing board on that one. Another issue, but not really a failure, was salad leaves which just seemed to bolt away. Next year I shall plant these more sparingly and pick them much quicker.

Successes though, have been numerous: garlic (Thermidrome), onions (Senshu Yellow) perpetual spinach and Swiss chard (Bright Lights - see below) have been fantastic as have my lollo rosso and, to a lesser extent, iceberg lettuce (Saladin). My carrots (Amsterdam Forcing and Early Nantes) have also done well, although I made the mistake of planting my rows too close together this year - raised beds are meant to allow this, but I went a bit too far (or, more accurately, too close!). Next year I shall plant things a bit further apart. My ground grown new potatoes also did very well, although my experiment with growing them in sacks didn't work very well and the suppliers' claims for them were extravagant to say the least.

Mixed results include Broccoli Romanesco and Autumn Calabrese, some plants of which are really thriving whereas others just haven't taken at all. Spring onions (White Lisbon) proved to be a bit disappointing and didn't grow particularly well. Also I grew two types of broad bean, Aquadulce and Express which did OK although my dwarf beans (Sprite) have been a bit disappointing.

Having reflected while writing the above I reckon that I need to streamline things a bit more next year and not grow so many varieties. I also need to plan my crop rotation a bit better (particularly as I'm planning to plant some stuff now for "summer growing"), to think about spacing a bit more and to make myself keep better records of planting, germination and harvesting times. It's also important to keep some outline climate notes because, although it's hard to remember now, March and April were very cold and wet and this has to have had an impact.

Cat

This was first published privately on 17 May 2008:

Saturday. So there I am. Full of the joys of spring, even in the rain. Come trolling out of the house. Climb into car, turn engine on. Look to right. See cat lying on driveway. Not my cat. Someone else’s. Dead. Dead as a doornail, in fact. Not been there too long, but long enough. Turn engine off, go to have closer look. Beautiful thing, look of a pedigree about it. Don’t recognise it. Not a mark on it. Really peaceful. What to do? Tell wife and daughter. Shudders and pulled faces. No help there, will have to move it myself. Just check neighbours first. No, Peter doesn’t know. Kevin, however, has had a note through door – please check shed for missing cat. Called Tango. Oh God. Go to Tango’s house. Raining. 3 men outside, building a wall. You lost a cat? Yes. Sorry, mate, I think he’s outside my house. Dead. OK, I’ll come and get him. Walks back with me. Sees cat. He’s not mine. Not Tango? No, he’s smaller, wears a collar, paler. I’ve got black sacks. He helps me pick it up. Stiff as a board. We put it in sack. He leaves. I call council. Emergency number. Not sure if it is emergency. But what else to do? Really sympathetic man. We’ll send someone round. Leave it by the front gate. We’ll check for chip and tell owner. Do so. Rain stops. 30 minutes later. Sack's gone. Very impressive. Could have been a dream. Except ….. except that there’s still a cat silhouette. On the drive. Where it stayed dry beneath it in the rain. Like a murder victim’s chalkmark. I’m strangely upset.

Way Down(s) South

Just back from a lovely few days in the mobile home in West Sussex. Weather was fine, with one beautiful day and a few showers on the others. We managed to cram in quite a lot, and could maybe have crammed in a bit more if the service in a couple of places where we had lunch had been a bit quicker!

On Monday we went to Arundel for the first time - a beautiful, if a little twee, place which reminded me a bit of Farnham. And did I tell you that I once met the Duke and Duchess at an event I (well, British Offset really, but I was the boss!) was sponsoring at Windlesham School? No? Well I did! And very charming they both were. Anyway, after a quick mooch around and a coffee at Belinda's Tea Rooms (very C16 - beams and home baking) we drove up to the car park in Houghton Forest for a picnic lunch preparatory to setting foot on the South Downs Way for the first time. Lunch was totally ruined by wasps, which seemed to be plaguing everywhere we went but once we'd finished eating and swatted them away we had a lovely five or so mile circular walk down to Amberley Station and back. The weather was beautiful and the views were just superb. The view below was taken from the terrace at the back of the "George and Dragon" at Houghton where, bless them, even though they were closing as we arrived at 1500 they allowed us to buy a drink and have it outside. I can't remember the last time I came across a pub that wasn't open all day, although I do believe that they only close on Mondays. We'd just traversed the left to right slope in the picture and almost fell over a stoat or a weasel as we did so - it was just too quick for a positive ID, but was definitely a member of the mustelidae family.


Not such a nice day, the next one. However, having let the morning rain clear it was off to Chichester for a browse around the shops. Now Chichester is a beautiful city with lots of chi chi emporia but, on a summer holiday weekday, not much sign of chi chi people. My favourite was a fat, tattooed woman of unprepossessing mien with her belly hanging over her leggings (or they could have been jeggings, I suppose) with a fag gripped between her teeth and wearing a much too tight vest (vest - with her figure? UUUrrrgghhhh!) bearing the logo "World Cup WAG". Dream on, love, dream on. The Waterstone's on West Street is a proper bookshop and, much to the benefit of the rest of us, is probably not much frequented by the aforementioned wannabe WAG. It has a lovely cafe on the first floor and we had lunch there at a window table with a fantastic view of the cathedral. Service was lovely and friendly but sloooooooooooow and we had to wait over half an hour for a soup and a pate. The latter was gorgeous but the accompanying "hunk" of granary bread was about three inches of brown baguette and nowhere near enough to do the pate justice. After that, we drove down to the Sidlesham Quay side of Pagham Harbour but were only able to grab a short stroll before the rain came down again. I love the desolation of the place and it was a shame that the visitor centre had closed early, doubtless because of the weather. I was only slightly depressed by the sightings poster in the window which had listed on it, among lots of interesting birds, a "mole - dead". Poor thing - I've only ever seen one mole myself and that was way back when and also dead. Anyway, we drove back via Sidlesham to have a look at the Crab and Lobster, where we may eat one day for a special occasion. I say "may" because our last posh restaurant trip to The Hambrough in Ventnor was a disaster, as my TripAdvisor review here shows, and I may well just pick somewhere that's not quite so serious for my next important event.


Day three found us in Bosham and Fishbourne. We had a wander round the former and a quick (very quick - exit stage left, pursued by wasps!) al fresco coffee before putting on our walking gear for a nice flat stroll to the former and back. Bosham was gorgeous but beginning to get really busy as we set off for our stroll (dodging the incoming tide as we did so) and I was glad to get away from the swarms - of people and/or wasps - for some wide open vistas with distant views of Chichester cathedral. We had lunch - quiche for me and soup (again!) for Diane - at the Lime Cafe at the Roman Palace site (no, we only went for lunch, we're saving the visit for next time when we'll drive there). Now, this was much better VFM than Waterstone's and really tasty but we had to wait 40 minutes to get our food - I know the pace of life in the country is slower, but the really do need to do better.

On our final day we had a walk down to the beach at Pagham in beautiful sunshine and went for lunch in Amberley which as been, quite rightly, described "as one of the most attractive of all downland villages". The Black Horse is a really quaint old English pub with sheep bells on the ceiling, a part stone flagged floor and more beams and interesting bits than you can shake a stick at .... and yet, even though it was busy, somewhat lacking in atmosphere. Maybe it was because, like us, lots of people had driven there and were partaking of non-alcoholic beverages (great ginger beer, by the way!) or maybe it was the weather. Whatever, a chicken sandwich and a ploughman's took 45 minutes to be delivered. Once again, simply not good enough, but not sufficiently bad to totally spoil our trip to Amberley. Walking around it is quite delightful with some beautiful cottages, a lovely church and an amazing castle which, sadly, can only be visited by guests of the hotel which now occupies it.

And so to home via Sainsbury's, and back to earth with a bump!

Take that!

Bought and installed a "Sprayaway" which, as it says on the box, is a "motion activated water repellent" to deter "vermin". Bet you can't guess which particular vermin this is aimed at! And if any passing cats get in the way then I'm sorry, guys, OK? I wasn't aiming it at you! Although I'm not a big fan of cats' poo it's actually much easier to deal with than that of foxes (the things you read about, eh?!) - the former at least usually dig a bit of a hole and try to bury it (so the damage they do is incidental to their toilet habits) whereas the latter just do what they like where they like and the consistency of what they leave is gross and the smell is indescribably vile.

After attaching this thing (it's battery operated so much more reliable than solar and not as dangerous as mains) to the hosepipe you simply stick it in the ground, adjust the range and height and wait for results. And I have to say that it's been in use for two days now in two different parts of the garden to keep the b*st*rds confused and, touch wood, I've found no evidence so far of any visits last night. Mind you, you never know though - the other morning I found that one had actually climbed on top of a patio trough to crap on the lobelias. Charming creatures, aren't they?! Anyway, setting this thing up was great fun because you have to test the sensor by moving about in front of it and getting thoroughly soaked - wish I'd had one when the kids were younger and using their paddling pool, would have saved me hours of standing around squirting them with the hose. Maybe I should unleash my entrepreunerial spirit by marketing these things as toys! I bought my Sprayaway from a company based in Hartlepool called Pest-Products and they gave absolutely brilliant service - best price I found by about £5 and free delivery which took only two days. Marvellous! And while I'm recommending people, another company which has given me excellent service is PowerBee - they provided my solar fountain and the foxes actually bit through the cable between the battery and the solar panel. I rang to get a replacement unit and they simply said I should patch it up with electrical tape and it should work fine. I did and it does, so bless you PowerBee!

In last week's blog I reported that my October work had been deferred to February. Well, it's now been deferred for good because I've decided not to pursue my interest with that company. It's clear that they'd launched a new product on the market too soon and that this had created big problems for them. Why I was the one having to suffer for this I don't know (remember that I haven't done any delivery for them at all) and given my experience and skills I don't really think I need to prove myself by working unpaid for five or six sessions. One or two, yes, - observe, co-deliver, deliver usually seems to work OK - but that's just taking the proverbial. So now, to borrow an expression from the world of acting, I'm "resting" for the summer. I would be able to rest if only the foxes would leave me alone ......

So now, it's back out to the garden to do a bit of fencing.