Thursday, February 22, 2007
Pumpkin out
The last - not that there were many this year - large pumpkin, having suffered the indignity of being made into a pumpkin man has now expired after about a fortnight in the rain. Top caved in; body part full of water; various small animals in residence.
No moles however - which I see today's DT has picked up on. Presumably quite hard for moles to make it into suburban gardens entirely surrounded by roads.
Otherwise Spring appears to be on the way in the wild and woolly part of the back garden. Snowdrops more or less over but continue to spread. Celandines continue to spread and are about to flower - if they gon't get eaten this year. Didn't find out who the culprits were. Daffodills about to flower and bluebells some way behind.
The rain has more or less washed away the thin carpet of what look to be the husks of oak tree buds. Presumably birds eat the juicy bits inside and spurn the fibre (not knowing about the virtuues of weetabix). Presumably they don't strip the tree as it is quite old and comes into leaf in an entirely regular way. But they might strip my fruit trees if they find them, deer fence notwithstanding. Another animal scare.
DT a mine of factlets today, in the gaps between their relentless onslaught on all things blairful. Pleased to see the gent who bought a bike (make never heard of) for £15 in 1950 something, did 100,000 miles on it and has only just traded it in for £1,400 worth of Trek. Presumably, like me, he eventually found that getting spare parts like wheels and tyres in feet and inches was getting difficult. I wonder what he got for paying twice as much for his Trek as I did.
A minor food fest yesterday. Crab legs, fore rib of beef and treacle tart, washed down with Carling and Vin de Pays (South). It was the smallest peice of fore rib that I have ever bought, being a single rib, and having declined to have it trimed, it looked in shape like a very large (maybe a foot or so in length) lamb cutlet and weighed just under five pounds. Bit nervous about the cooking, being relatively thin with a long tail, but it turned out better than anything I can remember. Hour and a half in a fan oven at 180C with no preheating. Gray, with a tint of pink and damp. Served with cabbage (removing allotment animal life took a while), carrots and brown rice. Not much good for more than half of Troy afterwards. The makers of which did nothing to disturb my belief that it is very hard to make films about the olden days, and that it gets harder with age. Adaptions of Jane Austen struggle and before that you are in deep trouble!
No moles however - which I see today's DT has picked up on. Presumably quite hard for moles to make it into suburban gardens entirely surrounded by roads.
Otherwise Spring appears to be on the way in the wild and woolly part of the back garden. Snowdrops more or less over but continue to spread. Celandines continue to spread and are about to flower - if they gon't get eaten this year. Didn't find out who the culprits were. Daffodills about to flower and bluebells some way behind.
The rain has more or less washed away the thin carpet of what look to be the husks of oak tree buds. Presumably birds eat the juicy bits inside and spurn the fibre (not knowing about the virtuues of weetabix). Presumably they don't strip the tree as it is quite old and comes into leaf in an entirely regular way. But they might strip my fruit trees if they find them, deer fence notwithstanding. Another animal scare.
DT a mine of factlets today, in the gaps between their relentless onslaught on all things blairful. Pleased to see the gent who bought a bike (make never heard of) for £15 in 1950 something, did 100,000 miles on it and has only just traded it in for £1,400 worth of Trek. Presumably, like me, he eventually found that getting spare parts like wheels and tyres in feet and inches was getting difficult. I wonder what he got for paying twice as much for his Trek as I did.
A minor food fest yesterday. Crab legs, fore rib of beef and treacle tart, washed down with Carling and Vin de Pays (South). It was the smallest peice of fore rib that I have ever bought, being a single rib, and having declined to have it trimed, it looked in shape like a very large (maybe a foot or so in length) lamb cutlet and weighed just under five pounds. Bit nervous about the cooking, being relatively thin with a long tail, but it turned out better than anything I can remember. Hour and a half in a fan oven at 180C with no preheating. Gray, with a tint of pink and damp. Served with cabbage (removing allotment animal life took a while), carrots and brown rice. Not much good for more than half of Troy afterwards. The makers of which did nothing to disturb my belief that it is very hard to make films about the olden days, and that it gets harder with age. Adaptions of Jane Austen struggle and before that you are in deep trouble!
# posted by Jim @ 3:09 AM 
