To Autumn

by the brilliant John Keats.


SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.



Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.



Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Trapped!

Do any of you remember Whitey?

I hadn't seen him for such a long time, all summer really. One has to worry when one doesn't see a cat around, especially one of the regulars. Whitey was one of the first cats I ever saw in the garden.

Well thankfully I have seen him recently, mostly on the shed in the garden behind ours, his perch of choice. At the weekend, he wandered back into our garden, and had a good little roll around in the sunny soil. All well and good.

However, he must have been having a nosey round (as cats do - curiousity and all that) and in come the Gingers.

I heard that unmistakable caterwaul, emanating from behind the shed, and realised that yes, there was a cat confrontation.

I try to encourage the boys to be nice, especially "our" cat, Little Ginger. But no, he is a bit of bruiser.

In the end, the day being so nice and sunny, the Gingers decided on a nice sleep, hence cutting off Whitey's escape.

I waited to see how things would pan out, but as usual in the cat world, things move ver-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-y slo-o-o-o-o-o-wly. Whitey even managed a little nap, sitting up. Whilst the boys, well they were just enjoying the sunshine.

Two hours later and Whitey is still cut off.

Eventually he decides it's time to take action.

Should I ...

And there he goes. That can't be easy for a cat, I mean it is a six foot fence! I was very impressed. Check that tail, eh?

Big Ginger finally clocked that the prey had fled.

Who had the last laugh?

Let's Talk Sheds

This was on my list to discuss, so here we go.

How to build a shed in several not so easy, but ultimately satisfying steps.

We are very grateful to yer man upstairs, who is a builder by trade. Isn't that lucky?

It's very important to get the concrete base right, that the shed will sit upon.

To do this, we had 2 tons (yes, two tons) of ballast, and about 25 bags of cement, if I remember rightly. You might save yourself some time and trouble by getting pre-mixed concrete, where you just add water, but we were guided by the man so this is what we did.

The boys, and it was their decision entirely, had decided on a 10' x 8' shed. Rather large, as sheds go, but we are sharing, so for all our garden paraphenalia he had an equal amount of tools, and also fixings for his motorcycle. So, seeing as it is rather a large garden, a shed of that size was not going to be too obtrusive.

Shed-base-laying-day. D mixes the cement on a board, by combining ballast with cement and spraying it with the hose - one to spray the hose, and one to mix with the big shovel. That was D and his lovely woman P from upstairs, doing the do. To my boundless admiration, she can actually lift a bag of cement, which I really honestly couldn't to save my life! I'm no weakling, but that was beyond me.

What I could do was bring the ballast back from the front (can you imagine what two tons of ballast look like? And could the supplier bring it to the back for us? Um, no) in the wheelbarrow at regular intervals.

What we also used, completely, were all the rocks harvested from the soil during rotovation and turf preparation and laying. And there were a lot. But it all went into the big heap of the base.

You will see the wooden frame to hold in the said rocks, and ultimately the cement. Then the pouring of the concrete, and the smoothing over, of which he did an admirable job. This took us an afternoon. Phew! We had a barbeque to celebrate in the evening.

Here is the shed, in pieces. We ordered this from a wonderful, highly reasonably priced firm called Walton's Sheds in Lincolnshire. It's a "second", ever-so-slightly damaged in places, you could hardly tell and so cheap, compared to your average high street DIY shop. Highly recommended.

Now, it was delivered again down the side, and left in bits to carry back.

My recommendation is, if you are a woman of average strength, with maybe a few small arm muscles and certainly having gained some strength from the strenous digging and cultivating of overgrown ground, please feel free to tell you husband to sod off if he requests that you help him carry the pieces to the back.

These babies were heavy. Thankfully D came down to participate in what was only going to be a great man-fest of construction for the afternoon. A kind of "barn-raising" a la the film Witness. At this point I was relegated to supplying the tea. Comprehensive instructions were supplied, and were followed.

Ta da! A thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Another Feline Mystery

Hmmm, she says, stroking her chin.


Just at the moment (until tomorrow) husband is away on business and so this evening, I settled in to watch a film. Back door open for Ginger, as usual. Plenty of plates of food around for any renegade kitties coming in for a bite. Dare I say it - sometimes when husband is away, I will have the most unorthodox of dinners. Tonight, I had foie gras on toast.


Now, I bought this can of foie gras de canard a while back on a trip to France. Being in a can it was of course good for ages, and tonight I thought, heck, I'll open it up and have some. Ginger of course hanging around watching me do something with food, so I actually gave him a little bit on a plate. You know what? He wasn't interested! What?? Foie gras?? (It was gorgeous by the way). Well, I thought, I'm going to certainly leave it on the floor because I bet one of the range of kitties who come to sample my offerings will like it.


I have no idea who ate it in the end but my goodness that plate was licked clean. Whilst normally I would be in and out of the kitchen of an evening, I stayed on the sofa watching my film for a good 90 minutes.



Now, this is the very bizarre thing. After the film ended, I went to the loo. I'd been in there earlier since I arrived home, and yes there are a few of my hairs in the sink from this morning as I was brushing my hair before work.


But what is this?




This was not there before.

You can follow the path, from the bath up to the sink. What mad cat was climbing around in the bathroom sink?? Do you think, if I had been there, I could have got a shot to add to this brilliant website my cat-loving, cat-owning sister recently sent me?

http://catsinsinks.com/

Ginger is in now, and all curled up on the recently vacated sofa. He's not giving anything away.

Hmmmm ....

Double Trouble

You know all about the ginger twins by now, big and little.

Husband gets them mixed up all the time. But even I can make a mistake ...

Now that this bench has been moved over to the other side, to make way for the barbeque, Little Ginger often sits there in the same sort of position, where he can watch both the garden and the door. The other night, I poked my head out and saw a ginger, so I went over and scooped him up in my arms, as usual. Suddenly this little ginger was all flailing cat legs! Oops, wrong cat! I promptly plonked him down, and no harm done. he even came in for a bite.

In my defence, it was dark! Normally I can see the difference in the face.

Remember Blackie?

A wiry, spry, lively little fellow who can bound across the lawn in about three leaps. He's young and loves life. He's also very sweet, and will come for a scratch when one or the other of us is working out there. He even comes in for a bite sometimes, too (yes, I seem to be feeding most of the neighbourhood cats).

So the other night, imagine my surprise when Ginger was in at his dish, eating, and Blackie was just outside. Ginger finished, and headed out, and Blackie hissed at him. I was shocked! I mentioned this to husband and he said he had seen this before, just recently. He promptly went to chase him away. Now husband might not admit it, but he loves Ginger, this accidentally acquired cat of ours, and gets very defensive of him. He didn't do anything harmful to Blackie, just shoo'ed him, and to be honest it didn't really take because the cat was back in seconds anyway, as soon as our backs were turned.

Now, here's the kicker - not only do we have double the fun with the ginger cats, we also have

Yes. Turns out there are two! Mystery solved. Little Blackie is a sweetie - it's Big Blackie who is a bit of a bully. He doesn't seem to be around too much, and I felt lucky to get this shot of the Two Blackies.

Well, at least there are four cats out there. What happened to the days when the cats were plentiful? There were actually two more cats around at this time, just out of shot.

I could be missing all the action when I'm at work, or at night. I know I can go out there and there is definite prowling, if I'm checking to bring Ginger in for the night.

However, all this cat action really puts into doubt the installation of the oft- and long-discussed cat flap. Clearly, there are several cats who are happy to wander into my house by the kitchen door, which is generally open all day when I'm here. Case in point, Little Blackie was just in having another bite. Thankfully I have discovered that it's not just the lovely pouches of meat (or fish) in jelly that appeals. They are more than happy to eat dried. Bit more friendly on my wallet.

But if we wish to install the cat flap so Ginger can come and go, as it were, especially when we are both out during the day, (and save me from getting up at 4 in the morning to let him out??), how many cats will feel they have carte blanche to enter our house?

In one short season

This

became this


And this

became this!

So I guess I shouldn't be too downhearted.

Remember this little beauty? I've discovered what it's called, a Honey Lily, or Nectaroscordum Siculum. I found another batch of bulbs at my local garden centre and being a huge fan, I will plant some more!


But I also finally found what I was looking for in the first place, last year, the Snake's Head Fritillary (Fritallaira Meleagris).

This is from my first garden, many years ago now.

I can't wait to have some of these little beauties next Spring.

Ah, Autumn rears it's head, and we start thinking about Spring again ...

A Nice Harvest

Not a bad haul, on Saturday.

I have officially stopped purchasing tomatoes from the supermarket, for the duration. Yum!

Here's my thoughts on the various varieties.

Hmm, now I had a little map of what was what but I can't seem to lay my hands on it now. And looking back, I don't see that I told you exactly what I planted - but from memory, here goes:

Left to right, Shirley, Plum, Marmande, Beefsteak (oh no they weren't!) and the one on the right I cannot remember, but I shall dig out the labels and let you know. None of them on the far right have even started turning red yet, which is interesting. Hope they do, or I'll be having lots of lovely fried green tomatoes, and may even make some green tomato chutney.

Shirley. Nice and round, on the small side but I think overall I didn't pinch out enough side shoots to get some nice, big juicy ones. Ripening nicely.

Plum. Again quite small, again I believe the same problem. Lovely flavour of course.

Marmande. This was the first ripe baby from a few weeks back, and there are plenty more to come. The meatiest of the lot, with very few seeds. Gorgeous flavour, and I will certainly be growing this one again!












Beefsteak. Hah, hah, fooled you. No, fooled me! I should have known when the plant was half as high as the others - this is some kind of cherry variety, clearly the pot was mis-named, as I'm sure can happen in a busy garden centre. They are lovely, though, just not what I was expecting!

Potatoes of course are next, and I'm sure it's time to start digging. If (1) I can get a sunny day at the weekend, and (2) I have a chance to use my natural arachnid remedy. I will, of course, be digging in my wellies, as to get amongst all that foliage I'm not taking any chances of foot contact with anything eight-legged!

Cats love a Barbeque

Well, I finally put it together, and it's a lovely piece of kit. From Tesco Direct, if you care to know.

This is Big Ginger (Big Brother). I finally have some decent shots of him to show off, mostly because, as mentioned, he has taken to visiting on a regular basis. Not just for the food mind, but for some good kitty lovin'.

He has quite a mighty purr, too. Something of a muted "meow", but a purr that reminds you of a coffee percolator. Nice and deep. I've only just recently come to discover this, mind, and I have to say I am rather gratified to inspire him to do so.

Not that I'm stealing their other cat! Please, no.

That's "our" cat, Little Ginger on the bench, and BB (or BG, whichever you or I prefer) below.




This is what you get when they both want to chow down.

And then they hear something outside, and have a look.

But when the barbeque is fired up? They are ready.

I love a good barbeque. For me, it's not just a social occasion, but another method of cooking food. And a very yummy one too.

Oh yes, they got a bit of a bite from what was cookin', as a reward for their patience!