Season of very mellow fruitfulness

Hello from casa Bath. Hope you are all well.

I realised that I harped on about the garden quite a bit earlier this year, but haven't mentioned it lately. Let's have a quick recap.

In the spring, we went all rural and planted courgettes, butternut squi, big tomatoes, small tomatoes, a pumpkin (courtesy of Tom & Barbara of Bath), onions, chillis, lupins and sweet peas. Several of these specimins were given a distinct evolutionary advantage by being nurtured indoors, in special compost, in a seed tray under a clear plastic lid. We followed their progress with great interest and even took them with us on a two-week sojurn back to Hampshire at a critical point in their development.

Here is a quick update.
Big tomatoes: there is an acutal NEST of spiders living in the big tomato plants so I haven't got too close. No
enticing orange ones seen from a safe distance, though.

Small tomatoes: more luck here, despite unfortunate sun/shrivelling incident whilst we were at Glastonbury. Got about twenty red tomatoes. Unfortunately they have diameters of only about 1cm,and are VERY mushy. Major success (given the rest of the haul).

Courgettes: two of ten plants have survived the slug/snail pit that is our garden. So far, we have had four courgettes. Second major success!

Pumpkins: Well. I am not exactly an organic gardener. Have surrounded pumpers (and courgos) with slug pellets. Garden in the sunshine is now like some sort of post-apocolyptic action set. Dead snails and slugs giving off a peculiar odour, and massive bluebottles feeding off the corpses. This did mean, however, that pumpers was spared the ravishing of the snails. The vine has grown to about 8ft long. Unfortunately however, it is being overtaken by some sort of creeping mildew which kills the leaves one at a time, about as quickly as the vine grows new ones. It is not very picturesque. There have been three pumpkins, and all have rotted and fallen off when about 2inches big (small). Not major success. Tom and Barbara, however, have a sister plant that has grown two whopping pumpkins. Our garden unfortunately overly plagued by pestilance and fungus..

Chillis: Potential massive success! Have kept them inside. Got about eight plants here plus several branches of the chilli family in Hampshire and London all going strong. Our biggest plant is five feet tall and has five chillis on it.

Onions: Pretty much a disaster. The leaves all got eaten by slugs, and then a fox moved into the onion bed, dug them up and pooed in the hole. We don't talk about the onions any more.

Pre Mr Fox: i never knew onions flowered! Ahh.

So, there you have it, the highlights of our vegetable-growing year. The best seasonal things I have eaten recently have come from my parents' garden. Every time I have seen them recently we have come away laden with bags of tomatoes and green beans and apples. Spending less time fighting slugs and repelling foxes, and more time driving up the M4 to visit the parental Eden, might be a more fruitful way to spend next summer!

Bf savaging the parental beans and toms. Note I had already eaten half a bowl of soup. I love the wedding dress shop!!! (!)

Apple crumbles (but you usually slice it..)

Right, that's it for now! Lots going on here as always. I'm about to go to the gym to hang out with the elite athletes of Bath (ahem).. see you soon!

The Marcus Diaries Part IV: Never say Dye (by hand)

For the beginning of this story, see the earlier post here.

So, we left the doomed t-shirt at the point where it was flecked with white bleached bits from the doomed toilet-cleaning exercise, and about to be rescued by the mighty Dylon. We have established that all that is available in Bath is hand dye, possibly because news of the washing machine hasn't yet penetrated the Guildhall Market.

Well, it is obvious now that things did not go well. But when I began, I was full of optimism. Don't get me wrong, Marcus is a very clever chap. He has a great many qualifications, and not satisfied with the four or so degrees and postgrad qualifications he already has, is now studying for another. However, he makes Dyloning seem SO EASY. 'Oh, let me take those trousers for you' he'll say. You hand over your slightly faded trousers (having first changed into another pair, it is not that kind of workplace). You receive updates on the trousers all week. At the end of the week, the trousers are returned to you, a deep, beautiful colour, the colour of their former selves, the colour that first drew you to them but they have since become such an old favourite that you haven't noticed them losing it (hmm, does this happen with husbands?). The trousers are freshly laundered, ironed and folded, and emerge from Marcus's special rucksack. All is well with the world and at no point has he mentioned being covered in sloshy murky water and scrubbing dubious brown marks off his kitchen work surface. So yes, when I began, I was full of optimism.

I ignored the first part of the instructions, 'Weigh dry fabric' - felt a bit mad weighing clothes.

I was marginally less optimistic when I was asked to dissolve the powder in 500ml of water, and got this:

It looks quite beautiful but equally quite disconcertingly mottled. I put the mottled stuff into a big pan and added more water and about a ton of salt, as advised.

I then read the next stage of the instructions (I am not a forward planner). 'Put unfolded damp fabric into bowl, dye for one hour. Agitate continually for first 15 minutes by squeezing the dye through the fabric and lifting out     of the solution. Stir regularly for another 45 minutes, keeping fabric submerged.'

I got a ladle and started to 'agitate'. This is what I was working with at this point:

I am not sure who in their right mind would wish to spend an hour agitating and stirring a big pan of brown. I thought about putting it in the food mixer but Dylon are very concerned that you know that the dye dyes EVERYTHING that is not steel, I was too scared to. Equally, I was too bored after three minutes to carry on. I phoned Marcus.

The most amazing coincidence occurred! Marcus had, ONLY THE DAY BEFORE, travelled to his parents' house to dye  his mother's shirt and, not having found the colour he wanted, had forsaken the machine dye for the hand dye! He did not give it rave reviews. Apparently he had spent the best part of his parental visit standing in the garden, leaning over a bucket with a big stick. To top off the glamour, the shirt had turned out a bit dodgy. I sensed he had lost a bit of faith in the Dylon.

My experience did not end well either. Marcus had put in maximum effort for little joy. When you hear that, you are not all that motivated to put in maximum effort yourself. I halfheartedly stirred the thing for a while and left it to soak. Hauled the shirt out, dripped brown everywhere, and left it to dry. It looked perfect when it was wet. When it was dry however, lo and behold, the little white spots returned.

My mum suggested colouring them in with a felt pen every time bf wears the shirt. This protocol has not been adopted and the much-loved shirt now sits forlornly at the back of the wardrobe.

The moral of this very, very long story is:  abandon all hope of hand dye. Possibly actually leave the dyeing to Marcus. He is In the Know. And he irons your clothes for you.

A holiday and a surprisingly acceptable new form of bathing

Salut chaps! Am back in the Bath after a trip to France. The place we stayed is called Seche Boue, which translates as Dry Mud. It lived up to its name despite MASSIVE thunderstorms pretty much every night. Lovely sunshine and lots of cheese and wine and bike rides.

It doesn't look sunny, but it WAS!

 Bf’s parents have a house there and it is pleasingly French. The thing is, what with me being a creature who loves baths, I am put off visiting because it has no bath. And no swimming pool. And no jaccuzi. And is far from the sea. Pas de plage, or whatever. Basically, no way to submerge oneself in water. Submersion in water is totally necessary to enjoy the day and in my opinion, an absolute must-have on holiday.

Bf has tried for some time to convince me that there is no problem, because there is a swimming lake near to the house. The thing is that like many other people, I am a bit wary of swimming in lakes.  They are murky and muddy and gloopy and occasionally a little smelly, but the thing that really gets me is the presence of FISH. And really of any other living creature.  Absolutely can’t stand the thought of them swimming around and brushing against me. EEegh. It was so hot, however, and I had eaten so much cheese, that the thought of exercising somewhere cooler than the land made me venture into the lake. And do you know what? I am quite the convert. For about half an hour I was very wary, especially as my anxieties were compounded by the fact that about a quarter of the lake was for swimming, and the rest for FISHING. Gah. However, apart from some massive scary bubbles in the middle of a calm bit of water, which I gave a wide berth to, had no fishy problems.

A corner of the garden. Isn't it just CRYING OUT for a hot tub/ jaccuzi/ plunge pool?!

 I would like to go back, and take the rubber dinghy and the big rubber rings. And my friend Jason. Jason once lead several of us on a rubber dinghy expedition down a mighty river near Tilford. He always blows up our inflatables with his tenacious lips. He is generally King of all things Joyous on Water, so he must come too.

Whilst we were away, I discovered the most adorable thing about bf. He still has his duvet cover from when he was a little boy! It’s in the house in France. I went into the bedroom after he’d made the bed and he was all tucked up under this:

Red lorry, yellow lorry.. :)

Lots of other things to tell you about France but I will wait til I’ve managed to upload some more photos (these are from my phone – the proper camera requires a cable – needy!).

So for now, we are back to life, back to reality. I took my work to France and got a lot done. However, still have about another fifteen pages of very dense text to write in an unfeasibly short amount of time. Must find myself a warm body of water to make things more bearable.. happily, I live rather close to this place!

Country life II

Just to add to what I was saying before re the benefits of country living:

• Nobody has torched, broken, robbed or injured anything in my street or town.

This is something that I am very grateful for (my house is utterly un-riot-proof) but it is just a matter of chance that we haven't been affected. Had we been at either of our previous two addresses in London this past week we would have been right in the heart of it. My heart goes out to the people who have lost things dear to them over the last week. The UK has enough to deal with without its own people turning on each other.

It must've been terrifying to be in the police this past week. What a fantastic job they and their families have done to stay calm and strong and restore some peace.

The Marcus Diaries: Part III

About two months ago, we had an unfortunate incident where bf was cleaning his favourite thing (the loo) whilst wearing his favourite garment (a brown t-shirt). Bleach flicked at him from the loo brush. Possibly due to his line of work, he does not take well to fluids being flicked at him. He was upset. Particularly upset when he realised that the cleaning of the favourite thing had caused the inadvertent destruction of the favourite garment. Small white bleached spots had appeared all down the front of it.

Now, we are currently saving all the money in the world for things such as wedding rings and honeymoon food. Buying a new favourite brown t-shirt (from bf's favourite - and rather pricey - shop) was not an option. I thought - What Would Marcus Do? And of course I knew, instantly. Even before I had asked the question. Dylon Dylon Dylon.

I went to the hardware store. Lots of watering cans, but no dye. I went to the chemist. Lots of hair bobbles, but no dye. I walked into town. Lots of tourists. Instinctively wanted to go to Woolworths. Sad! Went to a fabric shop. No dye. Went to the market. Dye!! BUT. Bath is a very nice Georgian city. News of the Washing Machine does not appear to have reached the Nice Georgian City. It was therefore Dylon hand dye. I thought: Dylon! How wrong can this go?!

I will tell you later about the Saga of the Hand Dye. When I got to the speckled-water stage above, I had to call Marcus for expert advice.

Country life

I know I live in a city. It does feel very countrified though, compared to Woolwich. I was lying in bed last night thinking about how life has changed since we left London. I have also changed. Am less anxious generally. Pleased about that! Here is a list of things that are different.

• The kitchen has more than one square foot of work surface. We can cook actual meals.
• Seating 10 people round the dining table is achievable and cooking for them does not involve balancing roasting trays on top of dishes on the floor.
• The dining table is a permanent item and does not need to be dragged into the middle of the living room to extend a flap when there are more than three people trying to eat
• Guests sitting at the dining table do not have to sit on piles of cushions on the sofa a la booster seats
• We own two sledges and have enough storage that I do not see them, stub my toe on them and curse them every day
• We own two sledges!
• I am interested in what the weather is doing as this affects what I might want to do
• I have eaten a vegetable from my garden
• I have a garden!
• We went to Glastonbury and got home within 45 minutes
• We went to Glastonbury and left our two front sash windows open about a foot each
• We went to Glastonbury and left our two front sash windows open about a foot each, got home within 45 minutes and NOBODY HAD STOLEN ANYTHING!
• The neighbours know our names
• The neighbours smile at us
• The neighbours do not seem to be selling packets of anything to people who roll up in cars with blacked-out windows
• I see bf a lot more :o)

There are downsides, but there are definate upsides to being in the bath!

Take care chaps

Short Fat Wendy

It has been wet in the Bath recently. Wetter than one would expect, even for a Bath, in June. Due to the inclemency, bf and I have been unable to indulge in our new evening activity of running into the garden, extracting our bikes from the reluctant shed and cycling off to drink cider somewhere leafy. We have watched all of the West Wing DVDs that we own and as such, are now forced to Make our Own Entertainment.

About ten weeks ago, I was seized with an urge to make a fabric bird. I am not sure where this urge came from. I suspect it may have been subliminally implanted as a result of a sewing box that I got for Xmas from bf. The sewing box sits in the corner of the living room (it is frankly too huge to fit in any cupboard) so I see it every day. I think that this seeing it every day germinated some sort of very dormant and very slight creativity.

(Just to go off on a tangent, I am not sure why bf gave me, a person whose previous ‘sewing box’ was a small tin containing two reels of cotton, one black and one white, plus numerous hotel sewing kits, a sewing box big enough to hold two large cats. I am not sure why he gave to me for Christmas but in hindsight I should have recognised this as a Sign. He also gave me slippers and a frilly apron, and two weeks later we were engaged).

To be fair to him, it is quite a brilliant sewing box. I think I have a picture of it. If I do, it will be here:

I didn't have a picture, but Google did.

Anyhow, back from the tangent. The fabric bird-making urge. I googled around a bit and came up with this fantastic Wendy the Bird pattern from the fantastic Lollychops: For those of you who are interested, I decided to make the ‘short wide Wendy’ version.

I had lots of fabric samples left over from when I was panicking about having to buy a sofa/curtains a while back (happily this was averted by renting a house from a man who seemingly upped and left in the middle of the night, leaving practically ALL of his possessions here for us to use..). I found the samples. I opened my massive sewing box. I took out my tiny sewing tin and opened that. I got out my black thread, and pinned the Wendy shapes to the fabric (the massive sewing box pleasingly came ‘complete’ with two massive pins). I tacked it on with giant stitches.

She had me at hello.

Next, I cut around the pattern to make Wendy-shaped bits of fabric. Then I hand-stitched the bits together (using backstitch, remembered from school) apart from a bit by her tail, turned her inside out thru the hole in her tail, and hey presto! floppy wendy!

Next, I ran upstairs and looked for an old cushion that I could decimate in the name of Wendy. I found the one that used to sit on the chair that bf sat on for years to do his revision. He has done all his exams now, so no more revision cushion required! It was also in a pretty bad state to be honest. All tattered and worn. So I chopped it open and pulled out the stuffing, and Wendy sprang to life!

At this stage Wendy was plump but could not see. I had a look in my Granny’s old button tin and found a couple of buttons from an old Topshop top. Really I should’ve looked a bit harder as Wendy’s eyes are slightly crazed. But here she is! Short Fat Wendy (as she is affectionately known)!

Flushed with success, I thought I’d make a Wendy for my Mum. Also made out of curtain samples. This one is called Mandy. Her eyes are more normal:

I can't help thinking Mandy looks rather gormless.

Then, we had an inaugural visit from my friend Steph (her of the my-friend-Steph-who-loves-men-in-historical-costumes fame). Steph spotted Wendy and I gave her a pattern. Steph took the pattern home. Steph’s domestic god boyfriend spotted the pattern. Steph’s socks got sacrificed. I am delighted to introduce Matilda!

Matilda is flying the flag for the rainbow birds.

Matilda is as you can see rather more evolved than either Wendy or Mandy. Wendy and Mandy are flightless due to my lack of patience in attaching wings. Matilda however has the world at her feathertips.

I do hope this has inspired you to have a go at a bird next time it rains. A fabric one I mean. May I suggest teatowels and old pillowcases, if you are not the sort to have bits of fabric lying about the house. It is very satisfying indeed. And if you do make a bird, send me a pic and I will add it to my Hall of Fame (bgarrr!)!

See you soon chaps J

Gratuitous shot of Bath, from a non-rainy bike ride out to the west last week!