Phoning it in

To sum up, the 7 Days self-portrait project starts on Saturday, 8th March 2008. Come and join us! Bring your friends! Hell, bring your husband, he and I might hit it off.

I like 25 gallon butts and I cannot lie

See what I did there? That’s a reference to popular culture.

I went from a black rubbish sack full of decomposing leaves to a little silver plastic bin into which I put my prized horse poo, moss and leave and what not. However that bin was soon full and I began to set my sights on a larger lidded container. I thought those little plastic bins that were designed to look like real dustbins were widely available in tat shops, but no, I have concluded that they have been withdrawn from sale in order to spite me. I found a nice blue bin in Mum’s catalogue … it was discontinued.

Not to be defeated, but certainly to be driven to talking endlessly about bins, I took my search online. Try searching for butt at Amazon. The results were not quite what I was aiming for. But anyway, I couldn’t find any plastic bins I liked. It was all either too big, too small, too expensive or too neon pink.

Finally I found a water butt at a local garden centre that seemed pretty good, but I didn’t want the stand and all the plumbing crap that came with it. It was £30 with all that tarry diddle; £32.30 without it. I wasn’t going to pay either way just on principle, so back I went to the electric internet and got the water butt delivered to my door, without all the crap, for £30.98, which adds up as far as I’m concerned.

There were even some free leaves in the bottom of the butt, which have now been joined by piles of moss, manure, leaves, coffee grounds and kitchen scraps. I am rather looking forward to continuing to add not just more kitchen waste, but also the waste that will be coming from my patch this year once the growing and weeding gets underway. Things are just beginning to come to life in the garden: budding flowers and leaves and ribbeting frogs looking for action too.

Click on the handsome frog and he’ll guide you to my compost bin developments

Next time I’ll wear my hat, gloves and maybe a layer of grease

I don’t like leaving this long between posts, but I’ve been busy and somewhat knackered this past week – and not just from the forward rolls and cartwheels. God, just thinking about those makes my back feel even more scrunchy.

Normally I work from home, which involves rolling down the stairs to my office at what others may deem to be are-you-kidding-me o’clock, but recently I’ve gone to Guildford three times on the train to work with John, either at his office or the university, meaning I had to be up and in the land of the living just a little earlier. And standing on station platforms in the goddamn freezing cold.

I went with John to the University of Surrey to take photos at their clinical research centre: pictures of EEG leads, test tubes, sleep rooms and things like that. It all went well and fortunately I was not shunned at lunch when I started putting the crisps I’d asked for into my sandwich. Mmm, crisp sandwich. While at the uni I even had the pleasure of meeting the delightful 7 Days member Jimmy Moonbeam, a very funny guy, whom his wife says I may have only once she’s finished with him (I asked).

The trains themselves provided a little entertainment. If entertainment is what one calls realising that were I to be alone in the carriage I wouldn’t be able to leave it at my stop, or even change to another carriage where there might be people who could reach the “open doors” button. Of course, most of the time I was only able to sit in the carriage pondering this thanks to the fact that someone else had opened the doors to allow me onto the train in the first place. On my second homeward trip a rail worker handed me a questionnaire to fill in. Shivering, I took the form with a menacing glint in my eye. Finally a chance to tell, well at least the people who run Redhill station, just how impossible it is for anyone of short stature to use the trains independently. I’m looking forward to writing in the little disability comments box “please see attached sheet”.

Making my way home that evening, I had arrived at Redhill station at about 7.40pm. I came onto platform 1 and looked at the screens. No sign of Tonbridge, but the next train for platform 3 was going somewhere I didn’t recognise, so I thought I should check out its route. I crossed to platform 3 and discovered it was no use to me, so I enquired at the ticket office as to the next train to Tonbridge and was told it would be the 20.08 from that platform. Great, I shall park myself on this very cold bench then. Then came an announcement that my train would be arriving at platform 2. Back I went to the other side of the tracks. The train already standing at the platform wasn’t for Tonbridge and soon shunted off somewhere else. The information screen announced that the next train would be the 20.08 to Tonbridge. The second train for that platform would be the 20.08 to London Victoria. An interesting piece of timetabling. Eventually another platform change was announced, I went to platform 3 and a pile-up was averted.

On the third day I was on my way home a bit earlier, but the platforms were as icily cold as before. While I stared at the ratty grey hair of the man sitting in front of me, an annoyingly loudmouthed kid was testing her brother’s spelling:

“Spell ‘hibernate’”
“H-I-B-E-R-N-A-T-E”
“Spell ‘hibernation’”
“H-Y-B-E-R…”
“There’s no Y”
“Oh, then H-I-E-B-E-R-N-A-T…”

at which point their mother interjected and I did my best to tune them out, lest I lose the will to live. Why can’t no-one spell or speak proper, like what I do?

Rolling

Yeah, I don’t know either.
But I was home alone and it seemed like the only thing to do at the time.

Edited to add: Ye gads, my muscles hurt. Apparently there’s something to that whole “warm-up” malarky. In that one should do it before arsing about, especially if one hasn’t arsed about like that in fifteen years.

Gauge is for sissies

So I made yet another hat. I’ve made several in the past few weeks. This one keeps my ears beautifully warm. And my eyes. I suppose that’ll be down to using bigger needles than usual. Heh. Maybe I’ll turn it upside down and call it a bag. Or an ark.

Garlic

The garlic continues to grow and I now have the full twenty-one plants above ground, five of which were random cloves that had started sprouting in the fridge. It’ll be interesting to see how the final harvest of those compares to that from the cultivated cloves. I’ve been trying to get a photo of the plants for ages now, but because they’re so damn low just plonking my camera down there on the ground with them and hoping for the best never quite worked. So this morning I laid down next to them (on a mat – I ain’t no fool) and just about managed to get my focus on the garlic at the front of the shot rather than the fence, or a small stone five feet away.

As for my compost, well I find it very difficult not to bore people with the latest important news and thoughts on that matter, so suffice it to say that I’m getting a new and bigger plastic bin for it soon, a builder was here to do a bit of maintenance on the fence the other day and I was very excited to nab his used teabag for my compost (we’re coffee drinkers, you see) and in buying some tulips to brighten up my office, yes, I was half thinking “great, when they’re dead, I can add them to the pile”. Fortunately for everyone around me, meat should not be added to compost, so I’m not thinking that about them.

Some of this is true

I needed stamps, so I got my bike out of the garage, putting my purse and letters into the little box on the back. The box that now smells of horse poo. To get to the post office I have to cross the main road. So I looked left and a few vehicles were coming around the bend; I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it across comfortably in front of them. I looked right and a big stream of traffic was coming down the road, led by a lorry. I preferred to let the traffic pass, so I stood on the pavement with my bike, waiting. The lorry coming down from my right reached me … and stopped to let me cross. I couldn’t do so without being mown down by the traffic from my left, but that too, led by a van, stopped to let me across the road. Mrs Post Office was very bitter when I told her about the miracle of the helpful lorry drivers. “It must be a particularly good hair day,” I joked. “That’s not fair,” she complained, “Nobody ever stops for me! What’s more, this letter you’ve just handed me smells of horse poo. Who’d stop for someone who has pooey letters? This is typical of the youth of today. Get the hell out of my post office!”