A grand notion

I had a thought. Just you wait, I think you’ll agree it’s AMAZING.

It’s a Known Fact that potatoes help break up the ground. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure it’s down to the tubers beneath the ground releasing little rake-wielding pixies, who march around in the soil, breaking it up into a pleasant, crumbly mass.

When digging my patch at the weekend I discovered that the soil where my carrots had grown last year was also pretty amenable and crumbly. Not the squodgy, shiny-topped clay that had compacted where my onions had (not) grown.

Hmm, thought I. Carrots and potatoes are both crops that form below the ground and are of reasonable size … hey, wouldn’t it be great if pumpkins grew below ground too?! Can you imagine harvesting a huge subterranean gourd? It’d be like something on Time Team, as you carefully excavated layer upon layer, brushing away the soil, not wishing to risk impaling it with your fork.

The next time I grow pumpkins, I’m totally trying this.

Packing tips

After laying awake about 3 hours last night, when I finally nodded off my brain decided that the best thing to do was have a detailed dream. I was on my Saarbrücken trip, meeting people and so on, but the most important issue was my rucksack. It was jammed full of things and I was having the usual trouble of: well, it fitted fine on the way out, why won’t it go back in now? It turned out that Mum had added things without me knowing (bad packing fairy!) and I was particularly peeved about the one litre bottle of maple syrup that was rolling around, taking up so much room in there. I don’t even like maple syrup.

A useful fairy to have, I’m sure you’ll agree

My vegetable patch now looks a little less neglected and a little more like someone went down there yesterday and dug it all over a few times, leaving the turnips in peace to look stupid, tipped a load of damp autumnal leaves out across the soil, dug them in a bit, then collapsed indoors, leaving their boots in the sink to be magically cleaned by the Magic Boot-Cleaning Fairy.

Meanwhile I look pretty much the same as yesterday, unless I try to bend, then I look and sound like an old women whose legs are grey, ears are gnarled and whose eyes are old and bent. But whose boots are clean.

Click for the set

And now the vegetable patch smells less oniony

While the cornflowers are now showing signs of growing their first real leaves in their can indoors, the vegetable patch at the end of the garden outside is looking, well, pretty much like a wintry, abandoned piece of ground.

When I braved the cold and went down there this afternoon, I found that the onions that I was leaving to do whatever the hell they wanted were now soft and squidgy, though growing bright and healthy-looking leaves that suggested otherwise from afar. Not wanting to leave too much in the way of such an exquisite deli counter available to slugs that might be starting to emerge I pulled them up, cursed them one last time and threw them into the compost bin. The lonely broad bean that grew for no reason at all and then toppled over some time ago also joined them.

I’ve left the turnips where they are for now. They’re not really doing anything wrong, but they’re not really doing much right, either. Just sitting there looking a little bit like flowerless primroses, with the odd one having a small off-white globe hiding beneath the leaves. I’m not really in danger of needing a gang of people lined up behind me to help pull them up when the time comes. And when the time does come they won’t be headed to the kitchen either. I know a couple of horses who’d enjoy them more.

Click for the set

Considering myself tagged

Three TV shows/movies I watch regularly:

* Damages is coming back on Sunday, so I’ve programmed the PVR to record it – in case I either forget, or get lost and need to rewind and see just how many times someone has been betrayed and/or lied to.

* The West Wing is usually on an endless loop in my DVD player, but Lauren’s stolen all my box sets, so that rather put a stop to that. But if it were here, it would be accompanying my lunch every day.

* I’ve been watching a fair amount of Frasier on Youtube recently too. But don’t tell anyone, obviously.

Three things that happened yesterday:

1. I spent a few hours working on making The Ultimate Address Book for John’s company. It’s amazing how long I’ve been surviving on an ad hoc basis, just getting people’s details from their email signatures and never putting them somewhere more permanent. But don’t tell anyone, obviously.

2. I checked on my Ebay auctions. It was time to accept that the pasta machine and attachments that have been in storage who knows how long were never going to get used. Currently the ravioli maker and angel hair attachment will sell and the machine has 7 watchers. The pieces are each as heavy as a big truck with two elephants inside, so postage is about the same price as the items.

3. I discovered that the world is entirely too small. A number of you know Guy from 7 Days. He’s worked with and for John and I’ve met him, paid him and harangued him a fair amount on the telephone.

Then there’s Jonas. He was tour manager for Hubert’s 2007 tour down to the Black Sea and back. I met him in Vienna and Bratislava. We’re friends on Facebook.

Jonas is working in Abu Dhabi. He takes photos and posts them on Facebook. He took a cool self-portrait of an eternal reflection in a mirror and I commented that it was indeed cool.

Guy left me a comment: how do you know Jonas?

Huh?

It turns out that Guy and Jonas have been working together in Abu Dhabi.

Can I get an OMG WTF???

Three favorite places to eat:

1. Wagamama: Yes, I always have yasai yaki soba, but I’m very much ok with that. It’s yummy and made of noodles. What more could I want?

2. Our Christmas dinner table.

3. Wherever my friends and I are having one of our traditional picnics.

Three things on my wish list:

1. Better luck in the vegetable patch this year.
2. A nicer computer chair.
3. I don’t seem to wish for much.

Three things I’m looking forward to:

1. Just like the lovely Full Instrumental, who tagged me for this without knowing she did, number one on the list is concerts. First trip in April to Saarbrücken and we’ll be staying in a fancy hotel too. Now that we’re staying two nights instead of one, I want to see if that means we get two free bottles of water, or still just the one.

2. Girls’ trip to Jersey next year for Helen’s wedding.

3. The magical day when a purge of a drawer or cupboard actually involves me discarding more than three small items that make no difference to the space.

You’re it.

Answer me this

When your bra is undone and hanging off your arms and you’ve got your pants in your hand, is there a better response to the question, “Are you still wearing your underwear?”, than “erm … sort of”.

Not dead yet

The cornflowers continue to grow well, apparently unaware that I may have lost my touch a little plant-wise (see: crappy sweetcorn; stupid onions; blind pot of tête à têtes; unspectacular turnips). The growing matter in the can evidently wasn’t the problem with the failed pansies, it must have been the seed. Thus making the Pansy in a Tin concept only 8% dumbass, rather than 92% dumbass.