Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Trenching
continues and the second potato trench is now two thirds dug, two fifths leaf moulded and one third back filled. One good shift should do for this one. Discovered a rather cross looking frog on the way, more or less black with leaf mould and presumably hoping that he would spend the winter undisturbed at the bottom of the heap. Didn't look too lively sitting on the margins of the heap so I dare say a crow had him (or her).
Also a rather bold deer, on watch between my allotment and the leaf mould heap. Let me get to within maybe twenty yards before doing a runner. Pretty brown thing with a couple of nice yellow patches on the rear end.
And I am not the only person with a rat problem. Met an older gent in Homebase in Tunbridge Wells, in possession of a large number of credit cards and a middle size box of the same rat poison that I bought the other day. His rat problem was also compost heap flavoured but he had gone for the tray option - a cheap plastic affair compared with the rather grand tray that I had constructed. Have decided that Homebase - despite being a sprout of the Sainsbury empire - is a better place to go than Wilkes. This last as well as having piped music and the other marketting accessories of a supermarket has always struck me as being a rather cheap looking place, full of cheap, low grade, own brand goods. The sort of cheap look that large co-ops used to have in the days when then were still trying to cut it in department stores. Homebase is full of own brand too - but it is slightly dearer and hopefully of slightly better quality. While the man in the proper trade plumbing supplier round the back of the Epsom Wilkes is very sniffy about all such places. I suppose they have pinched a good part of his trade over the years.
In between times been pondering about sin. I am told that Lord Lewis of the Wardrobe has written some handy guides on the subject which can be found in devotional bookshops. The thought being that I am conscious of a fair amount of sin on my own part - mostly fairly minor, perhaps not much more than bad manners - but it is surely healthy to worry about such things. So maybe the Catholics with their purgatory (a place where, amongst other activities, one is purged of sins which one has stopped commit(t)ing but have not yet stopped thinking about commit(t)ing) and confession have a point. Make the punters think about sin and then maybe they will do less of it. Not something I imagine contemporary schools can fit in between the endless round of tests and examinations, the filling-in of multi purpose and many paged (sometimes self) assessment forms, preparation for yet another inspection, sex education, diversity awareness, substance abuse studies, obesity awareness (where not included in the foregoing), animal rights and all the rest of it. But then, do our Southern European - and Catholic - brothers do less crime than us? I am told that one would not think so in Southern Italy which is the land fill site for the dodgy waste from all the rest of us, courtesy of some deal struck with the local hoods.
Last but by no means least, another heretical recipe for bubble and squeak. Take left over mashed potatoes and sliced leeks, stir in the chopped fag end of a black pudding. Gently fry the whole lot in dripping with the lid on. A savoury and no doubt salty variation on the real thing but not bad, for a change, at all.
Also a rather bold deer, on watch between my allotment and the leaf mould heap. Let me get to within maybe twenty yards before doing a runner. Pretty brown thing with a couple of nice yellow patches on the rear end.
And I am not the only person with a rat problem. Met an older gent in Homebase in Tunbridge Wells, in possession of a large number of credit cards and a middle size box of the same rat poison that I bought the other day. His rat problem was also compost heap flavoured but he had gone for the tray option - a cheap plastic affair compared with the rather grand tray that I had constructed. Have decided that Homebase - despite being a sprout of the Sainsbury empire - is a better place to go than Wilkes. This last as well as having piped music and the other marketting accessories of a supermarket has always struck me as being a rather cheap looking place, full of cheap, low grade, own brand goods. The sort of cheap look that large co-ops used to have in the days when then were still trying to cut it in department stores. Homebase is full of own brand too - but it is slightly dearer and hopefully of slightly better quality. While the man in the proper trade plumbing supplier round the back of the Epsom Wilkes is very sniffy about all such places. I suppose they have pinched a good part of his trade over the years.
In between times been pondering about sin. I am told that Lord Lewis of the Wardrobe has written some handy guides on the subject which can be found in devotional bookshops. The thought being that I am conscious of a fair amount of sin on my own part - mostly fairly minor, perhaps not much more than bad manners - but it is surely healthy to worry about such things. So maybe the Catholics with their purgatory (a place where, amongst other activities, one is purged of sins which one has stopped commit(t)ing but have not yet stopped thinking about commit(t)ing) and confession have a point. Make the punters think about sin and then maybe they will do less of it. Not something I imagine contemporary schools can fit in between the endless round of tests and examinations, the filling-in of multi purpose and many paged (sometimes self) assessment forms, preparation for yet another inspection, sex education, diversity awareness, substance abuse studies, obesity awareness (where not included in the foregoing), animal rights and all the rest of it. But then, do our Southern European - and Catholic - brothers do less crime than us? I am told that one would not think so in Southern Italy which is the land fill site for the dodgy waste from all the rest of us, courtesy of some deal struck with the local hoods.
Last but by no means least, another heretical recipe for bubble and squeak. Take left over mashed potatoes and sliced leeks, stir in the chopped fag end of a black pudding. Gently fry the whole lot in dripping with the lid on. A savoury and no doubt salty variation on the real thing but not bad, for a change, at all.
# posted by Jim @ 10:32 AM 
