Gardening Tales- a Little Hint of Spring

  As we drag ourselves through the last few days of January wondering what the Hell just happened to the world, what should occur but a perfect gardening day. Not too cold, but fresh, bright and sunny; and I've had a record 10(ish) hours sleep and, despite a burgeoning cold, felt unusually full of vim and vigour, even after lugging two bags of  shopping home from Waitrose. I brought no school work home with me, determined that, whatever the weather, I was going to get something done on my day off. Today I was going to start on my kitchen garden. Those of you who have followed the reports of my horticultural exploits may have noticed this is Gardening Tales, not Allotment Tales. This is because I have given up the allotment, having come again to the conclusion I drew every year, but never acted upon- which was, it's not worth the effort. Or, to be more accurate, the effort needs more than the time I've got. Commitments are spreading me too thin, so something had to go, and go it did.
   Out I went, then, with what I thought was my old pair of walking boots on, but turned out to be my new pair. But what the Hell- when am I going to get up a mountain, or even a hill, without two strong lads and a couple of huskies to help me?
  So, being of a certain age, where stamina is something I only remember, like John Noakes on Blue Peter, or Noggin the Nog ( for the benefit of any non-British readers, these were children's programmes, not what you're thinking), I had to break the jobs up, with five to ten minutes on each one, then start again. Therefore it was 5 minutes sawing in the apple tree, then drag a bag of compost to the site of the kitchen garden, dig the bed for 5 minutes or so, fill planters, take the cranesfoot

up to the other end of the garden, saw a bit more of the tree, lug a bag of compost over to the bed, etc. After three hours, I had dug two-thirds of the bed, filled two planters and sawn off three limbs (of the apple tree, not me. I mean, that would just be silly, as the best outcome would be that I would fall over, having, at most, just the one leg left).
 So there it is, my new kitchen garden, all ready (well, two-thirds) for planting- when I decide what I'm going to plant there. The rhubarb is already sprouting, which is rather brave of it, given that it's still January and it's been the coldest winter for some time in this neck of the woods. I put the potatoes and the garlic in the big raised bed last week, and put tomatoes, courgettes, butternut squashes, onions, chives, lettuce and other odds and ends into trays and pots that are now on my widow sill. The cherry tomatoes sprouted yesterday.
  A good and timely start then, and something I can tick off my list of things that need to be done. It will be interesting to see if having my "allotment" in my

backyard will result in a better quality and/or greater quantity  of crops this year. It'll take a little bit of experimenting to see what grows well and what doesn't.
 And, finally, sorry- I was talking rubbish; I can't possibly have one leg left if I'd cut off three limbs- I'd need one arm to do the cutting, wouldn't I? Duh! So, I'll see you again when I've got something more interesting than sleeping to talk about. Hope you enjoyed Noggin the Nog!

Will the P&J make it to the Weekend?

So it's Wednesday, my day off, and I'm sitting here with a pile of ten folders awaiting my attention, three of which I updated before losing the will to live.Then the P&J comes in, hot and sweaty from his bike ride, as only teenagers can be. Nearly knocked off the bike again, he informs me. It's obviously the New Years resolution of our local psychotic drivers to try and enhance the look of their vehicles with the blood of some random cyclist.
 The Monday just gone, having cycled home myself and then staggered upstairs with my cup of herbal and a peanut butter butty, looking forward to getting my poor feet off the floor and possibly a power nap, I was interrupted by a phone call from said sweaty teenager, advising me he was at the police station, having been smacked into and then knocked off his bike by some impatient twit in a van. He starts ranting on about the #!?# who knocked him over and then drove off, before speculating about the damage to the bike (or, rather, my bike, as he's currently borrowing my old racer while his is in for repairs and an upgrade), before I manage to interrupt him. "Are you hurt," I  lever sideways into the "conversation" . No. Just bumps and scrapes, and a bloody attitude.
  It remains to be seen if North Somerset's best are able to have a chat with the culprit of this villainous act. A chap in a BMW, coming the other way, saw the incident and stopped to see if the P&J was all right (despite him lying in the road, the rest of the traffic just passed the P&J by, probably with a sigh and a tut at the inconvenience of having to drive round him). Alan (the chap in the BMW- pay attention) gave the P&J his details, should a witness be required and offered him his bus fare to get him home, and it is something of a revelation to learn that not all BMW drivers are prats. Fortunately, the bike was viable, so the P&J continued on his way.
  Should North Somerset's finest be bothered to make enquiries, the whole incident was captured on the P&J's bike-cam, including the van's number plate, so we might yet see a result from it. I have, however, told him not to get his hopes up, as an over-stretched constabulary may not consider the matter serious, insofar as he is neither badly injured or dead.
 I have sympathy. I only ride my bike to school and back- less than 10
minutes, and in an almost straight line- and I've been subject to harassment and near misses, mainly due to car drivers thinking they can just "slip past", either ignorant or careless that it takes only a small pothole or wobble to put me under their wheels or over the bonnet.  So please, guys. I know you're in a hurry, I know you've had a long day- you may even have had a long bad day- but please don't take risks with a cyclist, no matter how much they're annoying you. A misjudgement on your part can injure or kill someone on a bike frighteningly easily, and there will be no excuse for it on you part. That person who is unwittingly such a nuisance to you is probably someone' s wife or husband or daughter or son. It might be my son. So, take a deep breath. And be patient.