Overstretched

Email to Bristol City Council :

Dear xxxx,

When I wrote to you three weeks ago, you complained of being overstretched as your colleague was on sick leave.

I hope the situation is better now.

I've just been attempting to clear dog faeces from the pavement directly outside my elderly neighbour's front gate and it feels timely to point out that you would be even more overstretched if members of the public like myself didn't clear away such mess and flytipped rubbish from the neighbourhood themselves.

Each time I pass the alleyway behind Saffron House in Whitehall it is strewn with flytipped rubbish but I have delayed informing you so as to give you a quiet life. I have not complained about the piles of dog faeces around the neighbourhood lately for the same reason.

However, feeling somewhat overstretched myself, disgusted at the state of the streets and with my own employment to occupy me, I thought it time to communicate with you.

If you'd like to give me the contact details of a superior officer at the council, I'll gladly write to them and plead the case for you to be given more support and resources to carry out the difficult job that you have to do.

Regards,






(I'm doing you all a favour by not including photos of dog turds)

NHS Dentistry

Harry Carpenter

Harry Carpenter the iconic BBC sports commentator who died this week aged 84 was a fellow South Londoner, born in South Norwood, who gave up some of his time back in the 1980s to give a talk to a packed classroom at my school. Most of those present either wanted to see a legend or to be sports commentators. Or both.

He was much parodied on TV at the time and I remember that we had to constrain ourselves from doing his trademark grin at each other. He sat with a box of his index cards on the table in front of him and taught us the importance of preparation.

He wouldn't have needed a computer because over the years he'd digested so many of the index cards that he'd developed the RAM and processing power of a computer anyway. And the glitches just made it more interesting.

An ITV crew tried to interview Frank Bruno once and he said, "You're not Harry. I want Harry. Where's Harry?"

Thanks Harry, so long.

Chris Hutt

Shocking and sad news to hear that Chris Hutt has died.

Chris was author of the green bristol blog and although I never met him we both shared views and disagreed about a range of local issues relating to trees, cycling and the cyclepath. He last got in touch in January about the newly planted trees on the site of the proposed / forthcoming developement on the verge of the cyclepath by the old chocolate factory.

More information and tributes here.

Lungful

What better way to spend the sunset hours after a busy day outside than listening to Richard James aka Aphex Twin as the featured artist on Stuart Maconie's BBC6 Music show. I've always particularly liked 'Acrid avid jam shred'.



Anyhow, back to the land.

Sowed :

Peas
Mangetout
Carrots
Parsnips
Fennel
Spinach
Butternut Squash

Sweet Peas
Sunflowers
Cosmos
Night Scented Stock

Planted Out :

Potatoes
Lupins
Peas

Harvested :

Kale
Chard
Spinach
Parsnips




Parsnips



Spinach



Kale (spent twenty minutes rearranging the nets on all the surviving brassicas)



Garlic's looking good



Daphne (not mine) is smelling divine - you can get the waft of the sweet citrus smell 20 metres away.



Opening at last this week.

Early Springers

Despite the coldest winter for thirty years there's frogspawn in the allotment pond, possibly even a little earlier than in previous years. I took a little home to put in a big jar and try to repeat the success of a couple of years ago. (Click the Label links below to see previous photos)

Keynsham Loop

The Avon towards Cleeve Wood



Phoenix boatyard at Keynsham

4x4=0

Go on - park on that in yer 4x4.

Ready Lets Go

Take Care In The Community

The allotment featured in a documentary on BBC2 last night about the tragic murder in 2007 of Philip Hendy our site rep, who gave me my key to the gate in 2005 and was a thoroughly nice bloke.



The programme 'Why Did You Kill My Dad?' was made by Phil's son Julian and examined the failings of mental health trusts in protecting the public from people with psychotic illnesses, such as Stephen Newton, who stabbed Phil outside the newsagents in Greenbank.



"... the court had heard Newton believed there were tunnels under his house from a neighbouring chocolate factory which allowed people to get into his home and abuse his mother." - BBC News Oct 2008

Julian is understandably upset that often the relatives and perpetrators of psychotic attacks are given more support and sympathy than the victims and that patient confidentiality prevents the extent of an illness from being known by those likely to be at risk of harm.

In a very moving documentary, for me the moment came when Julian was seen collecting his father's personal effects from Trinity Road police station which included his glasses, a penknife he'd promised his grandson and an allotment key exactly like mine.

Choked Up

A major incident room has been set up following the theft of a globe artichoke plant from the gated alleyway. I'm sharpening my shears. W@nkers.

Pitch Inspection

Welcome back Mrs Rhubarb



Some holey spinach that survived the winter under glass.



Not sure that the garlic with protection has done any better than that without.

500 Not Out

Where was I ?

I had technical problems last week that forced me to do without a computer which, despite the initial frustration and panic, wasn't such a bad thing. Sure, I had to do without a daily fix of new music and let go of catch-up telly & radio and email correspondence paused, but it gave me the opportunity to re-evaluate what this blog is for. I've also just noticed, before uploading this, that it's my 500th post. Huzzah!

I only got around to installing a web counter at the start of the year, but it seems to suggest that there are a few of you out there reading this, even if some of you are bots. (If you don't know what a bot is, you'll be happy to know that I don't intend writing loads of nerdy guff about the technical problems last week, but if you do, perhaps you'll be disappointed and rolling your eyes at the prospect of more rants about vegetables and green things). If indeed you are a human reading this, please leave a comment from time to time, if only to make it look a bit more like all the other blogs out there.

One of my favourite blogs, sadly no longer live although the archives are still available was by Chris Taylor of The Bays. For those of you who don't know, you won't find any records by The Bays because they only play live, improvised jazz / electronic music. The reason that the blog was so good is the reason for its demise - it was a warts 'n' all commentary of life as a musician, documenting dealings with other musicians, friends, promoters, festival organisers etc.. He didn't mention parsnips once. Without being at all vicious, it wasn't afraid to tread on a few feet and name names and of course for me and any other musicians / producers in vaguely the same field, it's a fascinating read. I came across it when searching for info about Simon Richmond, who released music last century under the name Palmskin Productions and was responsible for the rather fine Remilixir album in 1996.

The Bays.com/Taylors Tales

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Simon+Richmond

Then of course there's comedian Richard Herring's 'Warming Up' blog, written every day for more than seven years. Reading it used to be part of my daily routine, to the point where I felt like a stalker, reached oversaturation and didn't find it funny or interesting anymore. He's now also notched up over a hundred podcasts with Andrew Collins (who also has a less frequent and slightly less self-centred blog) and the pair both appear randomly on BBC 6Music, trawling their schoolboy diaries and the toilet for humour. Herring brought a book out fairly recently that was just his blog printed out. Neither of them mention parsnips either.

Off in a completely different direction is a Norwegian blog, Ida's Little Corner Of The World which makes you wish you could afford a better camera and not live in the inner city, with its stunning photography of pretty things. Then there's the plethora of music blogs devoted to previews of new releases or waxing nostalgic about yesteryear or providing links to free mp3s of ancient and modern and an only slightly less amount of gardening / allotment blogs, although these tend to be updated less regularly than the music ones.

Here in the Green Lung, you're just as likely to get this ...



... as this ...



... or this ...



... press the button to select your option below ...

Back To My Roots

Trying to root some carnation and curry plant cuttings. -3° outside doesn't help.

Signs Of Life

80% of the broad beans sown from saved seed a couple of weeks ago have germinated. I'll leave it another week or two before planting them out.

Curry No Favour

Walked out of the house this morning to find my curry bush on the pavement, snapped off from the main stem. It hadn't been large enough to hang over the front wall and get in anyone's way, so I can only imagine who and why. Perhaps a reluctant toddler, hanging on to anything rather than go to nursery school but no, it would have been out of reach. Maybe the passerby in recent years who told me that they didn't like the smell culled it before it flowered, or someone doing parkour grabbed it to prevent a fall or perhaps someone meant to pull a bit off as they passed, to appreciate the pong, but grasped too much and yanked away the branch.

It's been bugging me all day, especially as I don't think it was done until this morning, which rules out alcohol. Ho hum. It was over ten years old I suppose and not in the best of condition, although the pruning I'd given it a year or two ago seemed to have restored it to life a bit. The yellow flowers in summer are great and the aroma intense. I've taken some cuttings for what it's worth and I've been thinking about what to replace it with, probably a mahonia.

Hummable Brass

Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit

Circular, offbeat and poly rhythms, tunes that turn corners, optimistic urgent meandering rivers of melody, nine (10?) members and not a vocalist in earshot. Sadly, no samples of dogs panting in this one but the brass is as tight and hummable as ever.

Lathyrus odoratus

Sowed half a dozen early sweet peas with seeds saved from last year. There didn't seem much need to soak them overnight as most of them had started sprouting already.

Local Warming

I found a large roll of roofing felt in a skip a few years back. I used some of it to cover the shed roof, some as curtain lining and today I used some to cover over a freshly dug bed in an attempt to warm up the soil ready for some crops next month. It might prevent a few weed seeds from germinating too.



Blackcurrants fruit on old wood but no stems should be more than four years old. These bushes are about four years old and so don't need much pruning. They're a bit close together and the idea is to see which ones do best and remove the others.

Going Underground

That'll be leek and parsnips again then, what with everything overground being a bit frost bitten.

Foes' gifts are no gifts:

"Foes' gifts are no gifts: profit bring they none" - Sophocles



Maybe Bristol City Council think that by planting about 20 trees near the site of the former chocolate factory in Greenbank, along the Bristol-Bath cyclepath, we'll turn a blind eye to the highly dubious sale of the verge here to developers Squarepeg, who'll soon be ripping out mature trees and the hedgerow to build houses in this linear park.



It'll take more than a few Discovery apple trees and Conference pears to camouflage the impending eyesore, although perhaps I'm being a bit harsh and shouldn't look a gift orchard in the mouth. I should mention that I'm only assuming that BCC are responsible, going by the evidence of the labels attached to a few of the trees. Maybe it was a bit of guerilla gardening action or a gift from the late - sometimes cantankerous, always green and busy - Pete Taylor.

Whatever, whoever, it's certainly an antidote to the mass tree cull going on further up the cyclepath towards Fishponds that I haven't been able to bring myself to photograph. Others have, here.

Blair witch 2010

Get set, chit

3 kg Sante Maincrop potatoes. Eelworm and blight resistant.

Leek Transplant

Transplanted a couple of dozen leeks from a patch where they didn't seem to be growing to a fresh bed, then dug over and limed the old patch. Cut down the raspberry canes and tied them into a couple of bundles and cut back yarrow and evening primrose. No sign of the cat for over a week now.

Hardy Chard

The chard's done better than just survive the cold snap, it's putting on fresh growth, much needed for the kitchen.

Shake A Leg

Snow's all gone, not everything's dead. The broccoli and kale might recover. Added some lime (calcium carbonate) to the soil for the first time, to reduce the acidity and enable better nutrient uptake.



Still a few bargain packets of seeds to be bought in the sales. Night scented stock is a particular favourite and some pink morning glory will look good winding its way up something.



Sowed some broad beans, parsnips and leeks indoors. Had some of this year's parsnips and leeks for lunch plus a few tiddly sprouts. Stewed plums and custard for pudding.



Potted up a few rosemary cuttings that have been standing in water for weeks and developed tap roots.

Scowl For The Camera

You have to be a bit careful photographing the police these days. They've got all camera shy and paranoid about their boyish looks. There were five of them sorting out this little incident, where a motorist hadn't appreciated that the stopping distance in the ice can be a teeny bit longer than normal and had crashed into the wall of one of the most prissily maintained front 'gardens' in the neighbourhood. They've got cctv to protect their dozen hanging baskets, numerous planters and caged birds, so presumably they'll have some footage of the car, part demolishing their wall.

Non Carbon Footprints

Judging by the footprints, others are finding a reason for visiting the allotment too. The cold hasn't quite killed off everything green, but there's not much edible about. The camera rubs it in by putting a green streak down the photo, rebelling against the light.

Brrristol