Having come up with a pretty good mulch of leaves, pumpkin and coffee grounds in just a couple of months, I’m starting up another little compost bin to collect good stuff for my patch. There are lots of orchards around here and I thought I might be able to stealthily pick up a bag of rotting apples without getting shot by a ruddy-cheeked farmer wiedling a blunderbuss.

I set out on my bike, carrying a plastic bag and hand trowel with me. As I approached the orchards I passed three horse riders and their steeds, the thought passing through my mind as I pedalled breathlessly past them: I really hope that those horses don’t suddenly rear up and trample me to death.

Through the bare hedgerows I could see that nothing much remained on the ground; any windfalls had long since rotted away or been cleared. I continued up the lane and skirted around a pile of horse manure in the road. Now that would be good stuff for the garden, I thought. Onwards a bit further and at the gateway to the orchard I confirmed that there was nothing to pilfer. My thoughts returned to the manure. Should I?

I turned my plastic bag inside out to use as a scoop and cycled back the way I came. Parking my bike on the verge I went back to scoop up what I could. Mmm, still warm. I had to stop halfway through to step back onto the verge to let a car pass. Pressed back into the hedgerow I did my best not to look like someone who had been caught picking up poo.

Walking back to my bike I decided, no, sod it, let’s do this properly. I grabbed the trowel and went back to get the rest. I had to stop shovelling a few times to let cars pass, but I no longer cared how strange I looked. After all, my vegetables are going to be so much bigger than those of the people driving past wondering at the girl standing next to the bare remains of a pile of horse droppings, holding what looks like a suspiciously heavy bag.

And the bonus compost item? On the way back home I picked up a big piece of banana that someone had dropped on the pavement. I know how to party.

One evening a few years ago I was sitting in the den watching a film. It was a biopic of Bruce Lee, which I’d stumbled upon while channel-hopping. We have five terrestrial channels over here, so channel-hopping doesn’t take long. The film was interesting and as I didn’t know anything about the man I’d decided to see it through to the end. I’d missed some, but was sure there was plenty still to go. I settled back on my bean bag and had been watching a while when Dad came in to say goodnight. “What are you watching?” he asked. “A film about Bruce Lee,” I replied. “Oh, he died very young,” he said, beautifully and innocently ruining the ending for me with one short statement. Sure enough, the film ended about five minutes later.

I’m going to a Chinese restaurant with Suzy tonight. This is a good thing, as I’m sure hoi sin sauce will be involved, but I’ve booked a table for two and with the size of my bazoomers right now, I can’t help wondering if a table for four would be more appropriate.

I had a lovely detox wrap thing a fortnight ago, which involved being slathered with various potions and lying in a heated blanket (mmm, heated blanket). There was a noticeable difference in the state of my thighs - AKA Home To The Lard - afterwards, but now the bumpiness, she has returned. Is it these tablets? Or is it that Christmas winter has made me chubby? It’s not as though I’ve been snowed in since November, but I haven’t been for a walk or a proper bike ride for months. I rode up to the school yesterday, as the post box up there is further away than the one in the middle of the village. I know that going up there I’m always cycling into the wind, but my legs were totally texting each other saying, “OMG WTF?”. I kept wanting to dismount and see if my tyres were flat. I mean, surely Going Along shouldn’t be that difficult.

Also to be moaned about is the lack of anything decent to wear. I have three weddings to attend this year and not a single thread that is suitable to wear. I’ve been on a preliminary survey of the shops and - nada. There are no fancy tops. You head to the petite section and you’re faced with a pile of black uselessness. And why must the Petite section always be sandwiched between Tall and Maternity? As if I wasn’t already on edge enough with the Complete Lack of Clothes, you put me at risk of being caught looking at clothes that are quite clearly Not My Size.

But, BUT. Danielle loves me and that’s all that matters. Yes, she of the best copyright notice ever written has made me her first Featured Reader. Go and read how great I am over there.

I was given one of these fantastically menacing double hoes for Christmas. You really shouldn’t stand in front of or behind me when I’m wielding it. Or rather I shouldn’t wield it when people are standing in front of or behind me. I gave it its first taste of soil yesterday and churned up a section of my patch, while keeping (relatively) clean, standing on the grass. I’d gone out to see how my compost bag was doing and, since I was wearing nice clothes that were clean on that morning, I thought it best to decant my rotting material into another bag to churn it all up a bit. Suzy came out to see what I was up to as I’d absentmindedly abandoned her indoors. While I fiddled about with the compost she used my hoe to extend what I’d done and then went round the other side of Juniper Lodge to do what she could reach from the grass there - and in so doing, discovered the delights of impaling one’s behind on the hawthorn hedge with every movement.

This afternoon I continued my hoeing and digging work and went over the whole patch. I then emptied my sack of rotting stuff, scattering it across the surface of the soil. I’d incorporated two bags of coffee grounds in that sack of stuff, so it all smelled quite good. I then sprinkled two more bags of grounds across the whole lot. Suddenly my vegetable patch smelled like the Starbucks from whence the grounds came.

Then it was just a question of digging the patch over again, turning the mulch into the soil for the worms and their friends to chew on. I’ve got one bag of coffee grounds left over, which will be dug in along with another one at a later date. According to my back muscles, that will be 2015 at the earliest.

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You may remember a while ago that John taught me that saying “beer can” sounds like you’re saying “bacon” with a Jamaican accent. Hilarious. Except it didn’t seem to work for many of my American readers, the poor things. My Austrian guy speaks fabulous English so I tried it out on him when I was in Salzburg and it almost worked. However, he did come up with a great alternative. Try the German word “Birkhahn”.

John taught me another wonderful thing yesterday. Take any film title (or song title) and add “in my pants” to the end of it. We were laughing so hard at this last night. For example:

- It’s A Wonderful Life in my pants

- Signs in my pants

- You’ve Got Mail in my pants

- Armageddon in my pants

- What Women Want in my pants

- Forrest Gump in my pants

- Sliding Doors in my pants

Inspired by Soulemama’s popcorn and cranberry garlands for the birds, I decided to make my own offerings for the birds. I found a bag of cranberries at the supermarket and set to devising pretty wired feeders, which small birds could both perch and feed upon. I mixed up lard and bird seed together with a little chopped cranberry and dried fruit, which I then pressed into fir cones that I had wired to be hung on branches. Then my various ingenious feeders were hung around the garden, just waiting to be devoured by the birds.

They waited. And waited. But the birds were having none of it. A blackbird managed to pull a few currants off one of the wires, but wasn’t interested in anything else. The clever cranberry bells were of no interest to sparrows and blue tits. What did I need to do, provide instructions?

They understood the handful of little fat balls though and they were soon emptied. Leaving just the fruit to hang forlornly in the trees, shrivelling up. Until I collected it up at the weekend to make more fat balls. If the birds wanted fat balls, they were going to get fat balls. But bugger me if they weren’t going to get fat balls made with all that fruit.

I chopped up the apple, mashed up the squishy cranberries, stirred it all into a bowl of bird seed and then added melted lard to stick it all together. Melted lard stinks - but then I suppose rendered fat from the belly of a pig isn’t too likely to smell all that great - and because the only way to make these fat balls is with your hands, I then stank too. Damn those birds.

I packed the mixture into and around the wired fir cones and, after giving them a little while in the fridge to harden, I hung them up around the garden. At which point it started to rain heavily on me. I’m staying indoors from now on. The natural world can damn well fend for itself.

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