Beans, beans, beans and a rather hungover ramble

Saturday. Weekend yay. Hangover boo. I woke to the drone of John Humphreys who was attacking an MP of some description on the imminent emergency budget and realised i needed to escape from bedroom. It dawned on me that a spot of horticultural activity was possibly the only thing that might quell what is defintely the Lamest World Cup Match ever hangover, so i fell out of bed, rolled down the stairs and flopped into the garden.

And what a fine looking array of vegerables we dost have dere boy. The beans are doing excellently. I'm afraid i dont really know how else to describe it other than that. If i was a teacher writing a mid-term report on how one of the bean plants is doing, i'd write as follows: Phaseolus had a slow start to the term, possibly due to a less than beneficial friendship made with members of St Sluggians, the college for less desirable garden creatures, down the road. A great releief, then, when he showed signs of having learnt the first module: Roots of Common Senese, with a respectable 78% achieved in the most recent exam. It's been uphill from there - he's made dramatic advances in Beanistry, and is now looking like a good contender for end of year prizegiving. Overall he particpates well and is quite lively in the playground - full of beans in fact. Good work.

My only concern is these French Beans, what look very impressive from a distance but when you get up close you see that they is all smothered in black aphids. CRIPES darlinge, what should i do? Get the hoover and suck them up one by one? Spray a noxious potion over leaves and floweres? Do an anti aphid dance and sacrifice a sossidge to the great God of French Beans? The plants themselves dont seem to be suffering much but i gues sit oculd be Early Stage Aphiditis and that the road to ruin is yet to be traversed. Please adviseee Herr DOktor.

Cherries are still falling from the tree in great abundance. I'm loath to say i'm sick of eating them because i'm not - well, not yet. I can certainly say that they are less appreciated than they were hwich is ridiculous because they're DELICIOUS. They really are - first class texture, delicate but not insipid flavour and a delightful neon pink in colour. A raver's delight. A morrello's obsession. Even Prudence, Peggy and Elvis are clucking with pleasure as i chuck them their daily dose of cherries into the pen. (names of chickens are trying to stick but i have trouble using them very often). Peggy and Prue are pretty def and I like elvis but i actually like Elvis for something MORE than a chicken. But then again, Elvis i'm sure would be pleased that a dumb bird was named after him.

There are TWO pieces of most exicting news for the Clifden Rd Garden Gazzette - one concerns raspberries, the other the special Seeds That I Lost plants. Both doing well - I did my first whizz around the raspberry canes this morning, lifting their languid heads that are heavy with fruit and plucking the first few pink ones with delight. Pluck! Pluck! So yummy. I've tried the chickens on raspberries. One of them - let's say Prue for sake of argument although i really can't tell you - did a kind of chicken double take, had a furtive peck at it and then left it for someone else to try. I think cherries win in the popularity stakes.

Ooh i had a great discovery on Sunday night lsat week and that is the WHOLE Of chatsworth road becomes filled with boxes of rotting fruit and veg wot them Turks don't want no more. I had been worried that PP&E weren't getting their 5 a day fruit and veg coz you're not around and, my darling, the quantity of food being consumed in this house seems to have more than halved. But the Sunday night scrounge provided bundles of wilted greens which i put in a bucket of water over night and fed to the birds the next day - they were devoured in record 4 minutes 39 seconds. No joke - or no yoke. They brids have good taste. As for the special seeds that I'm not sure i should name on a blog, they too are doing well - their rotten leaves are being left down the plant and new leaves showing no sign of disease. Big plant is bigger. It hasn't decided on its sex yet. This will have to wait for another blogge posting methinks.

I am going to have to go because i sense a strange hangover ramble which i fear may not stoppe for a LONG Time and i've got to getin the carre and drive to Richmondo for a Great CuRRY extravaganza this evening. I'm also going to pick up this mega machine which chazbo has finished. Tres exciting. perhaps the next time i write a missive, i will be writing from an altogether superior set up.

Love you more than there are raspberry pips in the world.

X X X X S