Flowers and a feijoa

I brought lots of flowers inside today. Here are single and double violets for the bedroom. The singles are like a weed in the garden; on fine sunny days the whole back garden smells of them.

The laundry doubles as a flower room. I keep my flower vases on shelves above the handtowel

The first real spring bouquet - jonquils, "Earlicheer" narcissus, miniature daffodils and snowflakes

Delicious daphne and 'Alpenglo' camellia

Freckly hellebore

Assorted hellebores having a long soak

Other deeds today include planting a feijoa given to me by a friend. It had been growing by a hedge at her house and surplus to requirements, so I gladly welcomed it to a spot under my apricot tree. It was in a grow bag, but I had to remove that to get the feijoa to fit in the hole - there was a large apricot root there that I didn't want to cut, and the now de-bagged feijoa will grow around the root.

Fills the space quite nicely. This is a self-fruitful variety called 'Unique'. There's a rhubarb plant (dormant) in front of it but I don't think they'll bother each other.

Sitting under the apricot tree behind the feijoa, I had a different perspective on the garden

Yay! Broccoli.

More spring pics

First plum blossoms

Really nice weather at the moment, so things are happening in the garden. Time to start thinking about what vegetable varieties I'm going to grow this year. I usually go with some tried and true things that I know will do well ("Ilam Hardy" potatoes, "Russian Red" tomatoes) and some "fancies", varieties that I haven't grown before. I like the Italian seed company Franchi Sementi, whose products are available in NZ on-line, and a NZ company called King's Seeds, who produce all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff, (spaghetti squash, foot-long purple beans) and are stocked here by a local garden centre. I spent a half-hour today teasing out some little red onion plants from their baby-tray and putting them into larger, deeper 12-packs. I had a very good strike rate from these, as they were from a plant that I let go to seed last autumn. I also had good success with chives, also from my own seed plant. It's an odd thing - plants from seed grown here on the property are always more successful, even becoming weeds. It's as if they somehow imbibe the terroir of the place, and acclimate themselves by the second generation, a sort of adaptation to existing conditions (soil, climate) that is patterned within the seed itself. It seems as if something else is going on besides mere natural selection. Or is it just that the seed is absolutely fresh?

Getting forgetful

I'm getting very forgetful these days. I don't think it's Alzheimer's (which is unusual for a hypochondriac like me - every headache is meningitis, every loose bowel motion is cholera) just a sort of routine forgetfulness, because I'm thinking of something else at the time. Of course I'm going to forget that I've already turned the electric blanket on when I'm thinking about the Problem of Evil, or how to achieve world peace, or if there really are angels or ghosts or God or how we could pass through Blake's Doors of Perception and what we might perceive on the other side if we could.
      I lose things too, well, misplace them really. I lost the number of my own cellphone a few months ago. It's not one that's easy to commit to memory and I hardly ever use it, except for long distance car travel when I might need to contact the Automobile Association. The phone needed charging and topping up. I'd got the phone charged then tried to call it from my landline to see if it was working. Oh, bother, I couldn't find the piece of card that has the number written on it. Nix that, then.
       Last night, while looking for something else (which I didn't find) I find the card with the number on it. Yay! but the phone needs charging again. Guess what? I've now mislaid the phone charger! Such is life.

Jiro and crocuses

Every year, I plant crocuses in this earthenware bowl and bring them inside when they start to flower. Jiro posed obligingly in the sun this morning. In spite of the sun, it's been a very cold day here with a biting wind that didn't encourage me to go out. I still have to finish pruning the roses but preferred to spend a lazy day inside instead.

Tim Conway - Dentist Skit - Carol Burnett show - Funny Hilarious!

A friend just posted this to my facebook page - enjoy Harvey Korman totally cracking up at Tim Conway's inept dentist.

PS: Sorry, this has since been blocked. What kind of people block innocent laughter?

A handbag?!

You know that when the kids go quiet it's time to go looking for them.

Rant

       Lest you should all think I've gone soft and this is a 'nice' blog written by a sweet old lady who only posts pictures of cats and gardens, you should know that the first thing I did today was yell "Hey, cunt, turn your fucking radio off!" as said cunt who woke me up at 6.45 (let's be precise here), parked outside with the radio blaring while he delivered eggs to the people over the road. The people over the road sell eggs from their house, which pisses me off as I thought I lived in a residential area. So I have to put up with cars stopping and slamming doors all day, sometimes with radios going or leaving engines running. I suffer so those arseholes can make a buck. Was I ever consulted about their desire to run a shop from their house? No, of course not. It was assumed, as it always is, that I would put up with it, but there are some things, up with which I will not put. These people are far richer than me (another thorn in my backside) and have obviously made their money by treating other people like scum. 
 PS. Spellcheck tells me I've spelled 'arseholes' wrong. Assholes, the American spelling of the popular term of abuse is the one spellcheck accepts. I prefer to go with my East Ender roots and spell it with an "r", giving a satisfying hard sound that 'ass' cannot compete with. (And the c-word? Goddess bless the c-word! Another old English favourite with a hard, abusive sound.)

"Cream beauty" crocuses

Update to Grandad

I wrote in my recent post about looking up my grandad's World War 1 records. I thought his record was unobtainable, being one of the 'Burnt documents" damaged in the Second World War, but I have been able to find them! Very lucky, since about 60% of the war records were destroyed. The remaining records have been digitised through a project  sponsored by the British National Archives and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and are available on Ancestry.com. Fortunately, I can get access to Ancestry free of charge via my library and was able to look at the records on line and print them too. The most interesting thing was a letter written by a Miss Alice V. Bensley to the regimental secretary, asking for information on the whereabouts of Gunner A., who had not been heard of from some months. Now, I have no idea who this woman was. Not any known relation of the family, or known by me, anyway. Was she a sweetheart that Grandad had jilted? Or just someone who was sweet on him, but he was not sweet on  her? She wrote from an address in Fakenham, Norfolk. How would she have met my grandad, who was a working-class Londoner? It's unlikely he would have travelled to Norfolk for work, but who knows. Perhaps she was in London, perhaps in service there? Mysteries, mysteries, but intriguing nevertheless.