Tilth & Tillage

Soft on Metal

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:14:03 +0100

At last...

Fancy a bit of soft for the weekend?

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 23:04:48 +0100

...Then try the

Mick Soft Trailer

for

the long awaited

Mick Does Metal Detecting

...coming soon.

Actually he’s been saying that for the past three months so don’t hold your breath.

When I grow up...

Thu, 9 Sep 2010 00:02:13 +0100

...I want to be a farmer.

Thanks to Diana for alerting me to THIS.

I’m up for it if the other two men are.

Gibberish

Fri, 3 Sep 2010 23:31:43 +0100

Said knee damage two posts ago improved enough to drive, eat cheese and sup wine (not always at the same time) for a week in Normandy and I’ll try and post something soon about the benefits of waiting for gardens to grow.

But while I was away, my esteemed colleague James Alexander-Sinclair uploaded the latest offering from 3 Men Went 2 Mow for your consideration.

I expect most of you have already seen it by now.

What you won’t have seen is a most spectacular poo-treading moment by JAS. We assumed doggy-doo by some Baskerville-sized creature but were reliably informed by a small child that it was actually human poo(!) We thought it best not to pursue the conversation (the parents were nearby and wouldn’t have taken too kindly to their boy talking to three strange men lurking in the bushes with a video camera - their only excuse being that they were playing cowboys and indians) but the moment immediately after the treading was caught on film and I have been rummaging through Flip files to find it and redeem this post by publishing it. I’ve just remembered, however, that I used James’s camera and he, being of good manners and decorum, has no doubt trashed it by now.

A pointless post. But, if by chance you haven’t been inspired by our visit to the Gibberd Garden, you can click....

HERE

Allotment Open - Part 2

Fri, 3 Sep 2010 09:12:08 +0100

Not sure why I always leave this until the last minute but our harvest festival is being held tomorrow at Bushy Park Allotments. Can’t promise you a weed-free plot or a prize winning pumpkin (barring sabotage our neighbour, Mary, has got that one sown up) but we can promise good food (pizza/pasta/onion bhajees etc), a friendly welcome and, according to the weather forecast, a beautiful sunny day.

Click HERE for a streetmap link. The arrow is where our plot is. The entrance is at the traffic lights where the A311 meets the A312. We’ll be open from 12 noon to 3pm.

Stuffed

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:14:44 +0100

I’m being told more and more lately that I shouldn’t be doing certain things at my age. Things like: climbing ladders, playing cricket, using hair fudge, wearing orange underpants, running for trains, lifting bags of cement, accepting lifts from strangers and playing cowboys and indians
I’m pleased to say that, in a gesture of defiance and in the spirit of growing old disgracefully, I have done all of the above with the exception of cricket and lifting bags of cement (even though they are considerably lighter than when I used to build my own gardens and back in the days when men were men…etc)

I do, however, regret running for a train last weekend which has led to me spending the last few days on crutches. I was on my way to see Polly Morgan’s Psychopomps at the Haunch of Venison so it was ironic, not to mention a little painful and embarrassing, to end up on platform 1 of Hampton Wick station well and truly stuffed. Actually it wasn’t the running so much as the little hip-dodge around the barriers (that are meant to cause maximum inconvenience for cyclists, wheelchair users, mothers with pushchairs etc) that did the damage. The nurse at Teddington Hospital’s walk-in clinic told me, several hours later, that the medial ligament hadn’t been given enough warning about the said hip-dodge and that I should take RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation) for as long as it takes to get back on my pins. Great.
Top of the list of things that might be in jeopardy is a trip to see a client in Normandy which should double as a long awaited short break and change of scenery. Ordinarily I’d feel sorry for myself but the NHS have developed a marvellous way of making you feel quite fortunate about your ailments and mishaps. Two and a half hours in the waiting room watching the news and a continuous loop of public information videos (about knife crime, AIDS, Chlamydia, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, domestic violence, suicide, what happens when you play on railways, burglary, defrauding old-folk and car theft) had me literally dancing like Fred Astaire on crutches out of hospital and into the pouring rain.
That’s when I took a lift from a stranger. I assumed it was a cab but it turned out that he’d just had stitches removed, saw me struggling and in a moment of madness offered me a lift home. Acts of kindness from strangers are rare these days. I guess he figured I was in no state to mug him and from my point of view, a mugging would have been something interesting to Tweet about.
So I’ve been home all week, spending an unhealthy amount of time in my pyjamas and gorging on a record haul of figs from the allotment. But I haven’t been idle. I’m actually writing my first book commissioned by a bona fide publisher. Based on a proposal I submitted ten years ago, (I had no idea that cogs moved so quickly in the world of publishing) this is a good chance to knock it into some sort of shape before the deadline gets too close for comfort. I can also catch up on a little reading as, apart from holidays, immobility is the only time I ever look at the written word these days. I’ve dipped into a couple of books, flipped through garden mags, peeped at Tweets, and caught up with a few blogs (even leaving the odd comment to offset some of the guilt for not having the time to post comments or @replies). In any case I should work, and working at home is not ideal as there are too many distractions. Toast, is one of the worst (or best depending on how you look at it) distractions and we are fast running out of homemade bread, peanut butter, marmalade and blackcurrant jam.
The bird-feeder (which at the moment is attracting an extraordinary amount of pine siskins and goldfinches), is another distraction and so too are vegetables from the allotment which are just asking to have faces drawn on them.
Sadly, while writing this, a siskin got separated from its family and in its confusion crashed into the window at the other side of the house and broke its neck. It’s as if the Gods are feeling bad about making me miss Polly Morgan’s exhibition and have sent me a present to console me...I know, I know...I should have tweeted it.
I suppose I should post it to her but from her Radio 4 interview last week it sounds like even this tiny thing added to her freezer could end up causing a MrCreosote-cum-wafer-thin-mint-catastrophe.
Another distraction has been my orange underpants. Not a real distraction except that so much fuss has been made of them recently (after they were unceremoniously tweeted by a so-called friend) that my yellow and green undies have looked a little unloved lately so I thought I’d try and redress the balance by showing the full set, complete with crutches.

If you think that’s disgusting just be thankful that I wasn’t wearing them. The orange ones are the most comfortable and it’s very tempting to wear them for two days in a row except that our Gran, (who always drummed into us the importance of clean knickers just in case any of us met with and accident), would turn in her grave.
Er…what have I missed? Oh yes, climbing ladders. Necessary at the moment to pick our runner beans from a stupidly high wigwam at the allotment.

Hair-fudge? Trevor at The Jolly Barber can take some of the blame for this recklessness as he serves free beer if you have a haircut at his gaff in Hampton Wick. Those who know me will know I’ll put anything in my hair after one beer.
Cricket? Well, the only reason for not taking part and offering my services to ‘Team Gardeners World’ for their annual humiliation at the hands of River Cottage is that I’m related to Will Jenkins, a young lad who recently scored 50 in twelve balls. It just wouldn’t be fair would it?
And as for cowboys and indians...are you crazy?...you really believed that???
I can’t even catch a train without injuring myself these days...really...that is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.

Allotment Open

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 08:19:08 +0100

OK, short notice I know but...as part of the Hampton Hill Summer Festival, Bushy Park Allotment is having an open day on Saturday July 17th from midday to 3pm.

Streetmap link below with an arrow showing where the gate is.

If the weather’s good we might even cook pizza.

If you can’t make this then there’s another one on 4th September.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=514214&y=170503&z=110&sv=514214,170503&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=688&ax=514214&ay=170503&lm=0