pumpkinstrokemarrow

Been a very wet weekend and the ground on the allotment has finally got too wet to do much with. The first time this has happened for several years - in the bad old days before solar warming there were usually a few such weeks in both of November and February, spanning the cold bits when the ground was sometimes too hard to dig.

The moles have broken through into the deer exclosure and there is a nice new mole hill next to the young peach tree. I don't really want to start digging around the fruit trees so we shall just have to hope that either the supply of lady moles or earthworms gives out.

The better rhubard bed showing large signs of life, the shoots now being getting on for a foot high. The first lot having been knocked back by a bit of frost does not seem to have slowed things down very much.

The frogs have arrived at the garden pond and we have the first, rather modest amount of frog spawn. I remember the spogs rather puzzled by their athleticism at this time of years. Almost as disgusting as drinking milk that comes from underneath large dirty animals wandering around in the mud.

Have finally, after getting on for half a year of retirement, made a gentle start to the dread business of decorating the outside of the house - or to be more precise the relatively small number of wooden bits that there are left. No doubt once they have been done, the thought of repainting the white rendering will come to mind somehow or another. But we have made a start with an hour or so on the woodwork. Let's hope the foul smelling but wonderful Dulux exterior wood primer will do its stuff on the rather decayed garage fascia boards. If not, I see one can now buy some kind of tricky cellulose solution which will build decayed wood up again, provided there is enough of a matrix left to build on. I think you can do the same trick with teeth - or at least the same sort of trick - the teeth gear being chalk - that is to say calcium - rather than cellulose based.

Not impressed to see that the police woman in operational charge of the Stockwell tragedy has been promoted - although I suppose it is possible that the promotion might be more by way of a kick upstairs. No idea whether the diplomatic protection service counts that way. The firearms record of the Metropolitan Police is poor - at least it seems poor from the outside - there having been several unfortunate shootings/killings in recent years - and I would have liked to have seen a more contrite response to this particular tragedy. And maybe they should stop getting their firearms training from the SAS. I do not think that they provide the right model for a civilian police force.