Today's Harvest

- 750 g Raspberries
- 1 kg Runner Beans
- 1 Sweetcorn
- 500 g French Beans
- 3 stalks Rhubarb
- 6 cherry tomatoes
- 1 leek
- 1 bunch Vietnamese Coriander

Sad Mac : (

Unbelievable ! In the same week that the studio amp dies and there's a lengthy powercut, the screen on the Powermac 5500 dies.

I know it's had 8 years of service - and was a few years old when I bought it second hand for £600 - but I was starting to believe it would live forever. The screen's been flickering on start up for a couple of years or more and as soon as that started happening, I got prepared for it to die. However, slowly I got used to the occasional flicker, when it would sometimes warp back to front for a few seconds, which was quite spectacular !

This evening, I was resurrecting the latest track, editing sounds in the sampler, when the screen went to sleep. Foolishly, I immediately woke it up, which it didn't like at all : It blinked and then went black, dragging all the software and data with it into a deep, probably eternal slumber.

Just as well I've got the Powerbook 3400 for immediate SCSI and MIDI needs, though even the transition to that will take getting used to. Don't have a USB scanner or MIDI/audio interface for this Mac or the PC - but the time is fast approaching.

Sweetcorn

Harvested the first ripe sweetcorn today : Wow - how tasty was that ?
Also : 1 kg Raspberries
1 kg Cobra beans
2 kg Runner Beans

...and got given a beetroot on the way out : )

Took some of the compost from my compost heap at home and dug it into the plot.

Blown Amp

Kenwood amplifier has stopped working : ( Don't think it was being overloaded. Strange thing was, after it stopped working a display light was still lit, albeit not showing what it should have, but when I turned it off and turned it back on half an hour later, there was no display light.

There was a smell of burning bakelite, or similar. I checked the fuse in the plug and googled for some help. After a while, I dug out a spare amp and got on with some work. Hope I can repair it, especially if it turns out to be something fairly simple, like an internal fuse, but as it's around ten years old it might be difficult to get spares.

Reasonably good replacements are fairly cheap - but I'd like to avoid being a consumer.

What's more, it belonged to a good friend and has sentimental value.

Plums

Fantastic weather at last - I've managed to spend quite a few hours up at the allotment this week. Harvested around 5 kilos of plums and a kilo of greengages today, which I'm turning into jam. Gave some to the women at the bowls club next door, who wanted to pay me for some at first. Also gave some to my elderly neighbour and left some out on the wall at the front of the house. Think I'll take them in later if they haven't gone, before they get chucked about by the Friday night crowd.

Did a lot of watering - rocket, lambs lettuce, carrots, kale & cabbage seedlings, young fruit bushes, leeks, sweetcorn, pumpkins, cucumber. Shame my kohl rabi never made it past the slug onslaught. Picked some dwarf beans, runners, a couple of courgettes and some raspberries.

Echinacea

August Harvest

Roland From Poland - August (edit) mp3

Sweet peas

Courgettes, carrots, rhubarb, gladioli, sweet peas...

Plums & Greengages

Artichokes

Not sure which is best - the visual delight of a mature artichoke flower, or the unique texture and flavour of an unopened one.

Photo Scans

Loadsaspuds

Stayed out late last night, digging spuds and harvesting onions. A proper summer evening for once.
Skimmed a lot of weed from the pond - no sign of the frogs, but I'm fairly sure they're in there somewhere.
Planted some rocket, using seeds from last year's crop - it can't do any worse than the seed which I bought & sowed last month.
Late peas are just coming up but they seem to have been attacked by weevils or summat, like the first lot.
Sowed some late carrots where some of the potatoes had been.

Goosegogs

Into the gooseberries now - huge green gobstoppers, 100 to the kilo. Came home with several kilos for jam, stewing, pies and fool ! Well, my version anyway, with lots of cream. More raspberries, even bigger redcurrants, a few blackcurrants, potatoes and rhubarb. Makes up for the disappointing spinach and rocket crop. Got some more peas coming up, but the beans are slow.

Midsummer Harvest

Only intended going up the plot for an hour 'cos the weather looked iffy - but in the end the showers never came and I stayed for around five, harvesting, planting, weeding, lying on my back in the long grass.

Harvested nearly 1lb of redcurrants - which I put in the freezer when I got back - a few stalks of rhubarb, some peas, a handful of raspberries and an artichoke head : I made up some garlic butter with a little olive oil and lemon juice as a dip for the artichoke and peas and had the rhubarb stewed with some yoghurt. Yum.

Planted some more rocket, (more like ski-lift - it's really slow this year) 'cobra' climbing beans, the last of the peas, a couple more pumpkin plants and the last of the leeks.

Glasto

Ah - a bit late I know, but I've finally got into Arcade Fire. It dawns on me that I've already heard around half a dozen tracks on the radio, but now with the visuals...wow ! Reminds me a bit of The Flaming Lips, Pixies, David Byrne. Smashing, absolutely essential live, even from the comfort of my own mud free sofa. Soul searching, tear jerking, brilliant stuff.

In contrast, Artic Monkeys seemed to be playing the same song, over and over again, with the social skills of a lamppost. Yes (ladies & gentlemen), some of us did look good on the dancefloor, dancing like robots in 1984 but we don't do it now. No need to take the piss.

You can keep yer Kasabian, Killers, Editors and Iggy Pop - what a ridiculous old man. What's his excuse ? And how foul mouthed is Lilly Allen ? Like it or not, she's responsible for how eight year old girls talk. I was quite won over by Rufus Wainwright, in spite of / because of messing up his own songs. Camper than the big top and what a voice ! Saw snippets of Cherry Ghost & Pigeon Detectives - catchy as headlice but infinitely more enjoyable, if shambolic. Thank goodness for the Manic Street Preachers.

The Beeb's coverage was well messy - natch. Still haven't forgiven Colin Murray for joking about autism last year and being a bit in love with himself. Still, entertaining to see him speak his mind about Peaches Geldof. Jupitus might be forgiven for 'not doing tents', due to his girth, but what kind of quasi racist / stereotypical rubbish was that bloke ( Don Letts ?) spreading by saying that black people don't camp ? At least Lauren Laverne was on cracking, sparkling form as usual. Nearly made up for Peel being missing.

Also missing, from where I'm looking, is any kind of interesting electronic music. The Chemical Brothers, despite the great visuals, are a bit old hat. At the risk of sounding like a real duffer, it's not like the old days of Richard James, The Hartnoll Brothers, Squarepusher, Underworld etc.

And who needs The Who ? Shirley Bassey ?!

Fatboy Norman had the right idea, suggesting that in future there shouldn't be any named bands at all, just the sideshows. Still, it's all very well for a man who's made it very nicely thank you, to eschew the bright lights. A bit like me moaning that it ain't what it used to be !

Possibly a porpoise ?

Rhossili beach, Wales, June 1st : Initially we noticed the smell and at first sight I thought it was a seal, but on closer inspection it appeared to be a dolphin, or possibly a porpoise.

A grim sight, though without a post mortem - or even identification - impossible to tell why it ended up here.

All week we'd been noticing the death slumber of a calf, washed up towards the southern end of the beach. Perhaps it had slipped from the cliff at high tide, or fallen into the sea elsewhere and been dumped by the waves above the high water mark.

Terrible News

Terrible news : Phil Hendy, the 75 year old who gave me my allotment key this time last year, has died following an assault here in Bristol, early on a Sunday morning two weeks ago, when he was stabbed outside a newsagent.
Phil was the allotment rep for years, a cheery soul whose shocking murder has greatly upset the local community in Greenbank.

There was a film crew by the allotment gate as I left this morning and a persistent hack wanted me to give them access to film. I was - am - shocked and didn't want to co-operate, partially out of respect for Phil, who advised me not to let in anyone who I didn't know.

Upgrade

Finally upgraded to a 17" Mac Powerbook - which now makes five functioning computers in the house. Ridiculous. But this is the world of USB & Firewire, which I've been in for a while now, but only on the PC, which will soon be relegated to a games machine for my daughter to play SIMS on. Now I have to get into OS X and start making decisions about what and how to transfer files between old and new.

I've a perfectly sound, but ten years old, MIDI set up, controlling fat analogue synths, sound modules and samplers, supplemented by processing and mastering software. Do I really want to go all laptop ? Answers on a postcard please.

Listening to Mali Music

Rosehips

A cycle along the muddy towpath up the river Avon towards Keynsham. Past the boathouse and shortly after, three rowing eights. On through puddles with no edges, spattered and speckled, to Hanham weir. Glad I got my sloes a couple of weeks ago, as the bushes in the field opposite the chocolate factory were almost bare. A whiff of coal smoke at the boatyard, anglers by the river bends, canoes upstream.
"What do you do with those?" enquires a woman by the wooden bridge over the inlet, where I pick rosehips. Emboldened by Hugh Fearnley-Wotsit's recipes in a weekend magazine, I spout off.

Caked and hot, nine miles from home, I've chanced my luck against a puncture from a blackthorn, hawthorn, thistle or flint.
I make my way up to the cyclepath, where it crosses the Avon and return home.

Make a few small bottles of rosehip syrup from 500 gms rosehips, 500 gms caster sugar and a litre of water. It really does taste like mango, as HF-W wrote.

Sunflowers

Harvested 300 grams of sunflower seeds from the first giant head to be guillotined last week. Spread half of them out on a baking tray and popped them in the oven for a few minutes to roast, before shelling them. Managed to get about half a dozen plants to grow over 10 ft this year, having started them off at home in pots, away from the slugs and snails. In Poland, kids used to wander the streets with them, nibbling away at the fibonacci pattern.

Pumpkin Crimewatch

The digital camera has gone back, after a two year loan. I was not just starting to think it was mine, I was somewhere near the middle. In the meantime, here's some old echinacea.

Chilling to Boards of Canada, who, to the uninitiated, neither have boards, nor are they from Canada : Sublime instrumental, ambient, electronica...hip hop...luscious cloud pads floating on throbbing low frequency tectonic beats.

There's a pumpkin thief, or thieves, up the allotment, so I've harvested half of mine and brought them back home : That wasn't easy, seeing as I appear to have grown my body weight in pumpkin this year, and don't have a car. I managed to get two in a rucksack, and took a couple of trips....Hmm ; )

One guy told me that someone else thought he knew who the thief was. A woman I met by the water trough said she thought she knew who it was, though she was mainly distressed that her path to the trough had been blocked off by some women who she'd previously, politely, asked not to.

When she came up behind me, I thought she was going to have a go at me for harvesting late raspberries from an unattended plot. I'd been crouching down, with the cat sitting around my shoulders (it's what she does) when I heard a voice saying, "You just can't trust some people can you !" Later, she gave me some - lots - of plum tomatoes, bless. What with everything else, I hardly had room.

Loads of runner beans, still. Tatties too.
A resurgence of sweet peas. Which is nice.



It's not been a good week for technology - my second Epson printer died ; (
I spent about 8 hours trying to clean the print heads - they get clogged if you don't use it every week, and I'd probably not needed it for a month. A website I found, recommended setting a timer to make it come on every day, if you go away on holiday. That's ridiculous. Anyway - I can get the same one again - to use with my old Macs - second-hand from EBay, for around £25 inc p&p, or troll off to Maplins, Tesco, wherever - or online - for a new USB inkjet/b&w laser, for the PC, for around £40.

I had to email a friend some things I urgently needed printing - which involved having to finally use Microsoft Word on the PC, which was a pain, after effortlessly gliding around with Quark on the Macs for years.

For no reason, here's a photo I took of a Baltic swan.
(And then mashed up in Photoshop)


Getting my own back on my neighbours now - who spent the day, from dawn til dusk, knocking things about. Boards Of Canada give way to Deaf Center : We're talking piano, orchestra, tea cups, disturbing creaks, bass frequencies and a hint of electronica. It does get a bit dark at times...this being one of them :-(

Sh1t! Am I being burgled?
Where did I put those pumpkins?

Redcurrants

Yumm...made some more redcurrant jelly today.

Allotment I

Up the allotment early today, as there was rain forecast for the afternoon. Seem to have about eight little pumpkins on three plants. I've heard about taking off the excess flowers, once you've got some pumpkins set, as this encourages them to grow bigger, but, I've also heard it suggested that it's better to have lots of little ones, as it's more practical for the kitchen. Still, I'll have to try to grow at least one biggun, for the Halloween lamp ; )





The plums are literally falling off the trees at the moment : I've already had about 3 kgs and there are plenty more. Met my neighbour the other day, on whose plot two of the trees are rooted, who encouraged me to help myself. I gave her some rocket in return. Glad to have permission, as I'd already been taking the ones which are overhanging my shed. Now I reckon I can take a few more, especially as I had a chat with another neighbour today, on the way out, who said it was a pity that so many were going to waste.
Already got some plum brandy on the go and a couple of batches of jam. Going to stew some more today and stick them in the freezer.

The gladioli have lasted well, thanks to all the watering and weeding we've done. At times, the bindweed has threatened to strangle them and during the hot weather, the ground around them was dry and cracked.
I suppose they've helped to attract the bees and other winged insects, which have pollenated the pumpkins nearby.

The word gladioli is related to gladiator and the Latin for sword. Didn't Morrissey dance about with some on Top Of The Pops ?




The runner bean plants which survived the slugs and snails have grown very tall and I've been harvesting for several weeks. I should have put a crossbeam in, to give them more support and stop them growing out of reach ; )
I've been chopping most of them for the freezer, but today I'm having a load of them with butter, potatoes and mint, topped with cranberry jelly.

Teatar Panike

I've recently completed 'Controlling Mastema', a second collaborative project with Canadian poet, Patrick Woodcock. Our first collaboration in 1999, entitled 'Athelia & other stories', came about as a result of meeting whilst both living in Koszalin, Poland.




Four tracks are currently posted at the Teatar Panike MySpace site :
http://www.myspace.com/timbillyjim

Greece

Bristol to London to Athens to Paros : Train to Reading, change train to Woking, lift to Heathrow, flight to Milan, change plane to Athens, coach & walk to Hotel Aristoteles. Metro to Piraeus, ferry to Paros - via 4 hr detour to Nafplio, due to 'a medical emergency', although we never saw the body, or an ambulance...


There was little to eat on the ferry, apart from overpriced crisps and muffins. The five hour trip turned into an eight hour cruise. I knew I'd had enough, when I heard an American ask an Albanian, "So, do you like being free?" It was dark and chilly as we docked at Parakia. The local meltemi wind had come for the night





As we disembarked from the delayed ferry at 1.30 a.m., we were met by an expectant crowd, one of whom, Timos, offered us a room nearby, with a balcony and en-suite bathroom, for 25 Euros a night. It seemed like a good deal and I was in no position - though the mood - to argue. At first, I was suspicious when he took our bags and put them into a minibus. If it was just down the road, why the wheels ? Once I'd dropped my urban British paranoia and we'd been taken down the road to the hotel, I started to relax.


Took a bus to Naoussa in the north, then hitched to Santa Maria, where we'd heard there was a good surfing beach and the possibility of water skiing. Loaded up with bread, cakes and juice from a bakery, then bought tomatoes from a man by his van, as we walked out of town. Much as I hate intruding into peoples' lives with a camera, I had to snap a woman with a barrow full of garlic.
Stopped off at a beach on the way and had a dip and some lunch. Afterwards, the walk to Santa Maria was further than we'd been led to believe, so we started hitching. Before long, we got a lift from a man who told us that a factory by the shore, was a power station, with an undersea cable linked to the rest of The Cyclades. When we got there, beautiful though it was, it wasn't a surfing beach, but a windsurfing beach and we were too early in the season for waterskiing. Amongst a group of half a dozen windsurfers, a labrador dog was enjoying rides out and back, though liked to be lifted back onto the shore to avoid getting wet paws.