It's Been a Bit Quiet in Here Lately, Hasn't It?

So perhaps this is a good time to post up our holiday plans for this year, as they currently stand.

Shortly after Easter, we shall be off for a short tour of Provence with Travel Editions, getting there by Eurostar and TGV (and travelling first class as well, because we felt flush having paid off the mortgage in February). It's a five-day, six-night tour, and seems at least one day too short for what it packs in: we probably won't have time for the archaeology museum in Arles, for example (a town which seems from the guidebooks to deserve at least a day to itself, rather than the whole day we'll get in the rather less interesting Aix-en-Provence), but we have already told ourselves that it's France, it's reachable by train, and therefore we can easily go back at another time. (Mind you, we said the same about all the stuff we had to skip in Barcelona a few years ago, and we have still to organise ourselves to go back there.)

Then, towards the end of May, we shall be paying a visit to Hadrian's Wall Country with some LJ friends, staying in Haltwhistle and exploring such places as Hexham, Alston, and Vindolanda in between riding on the South Tynedale Railway. We shall of course take waterproofs and windproofs, but hope for better weather than that. (Countryside walking in driving rain and howling wind is most definitely not our idea of fun.) Then, in early July, we shall be holidaying in Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck, in a caravan owned by (and rented from) Judith's line manager at Natural England. We shall sketch and watercolour (well -- Judith will), ride bicycles around the place, visit places like Durdle Door and Corfe Castle, and read lots of books in the evenings.

After that....hmm. Travel Editions offers a number of other short breaks in France by Eurostar and TGV, and since we'll still have some annual leave entitlement and some money in hand once the summer is over we could always try out one or another of those. Mind you, the company also offers week-long excursions to the Aegean islands of Samos (from where one can visit Ephesus in Turkey) and Rhodes, which has lots of archaeology and architecture. But we'd have to get to those by air, and these days Judith tends to look most disapproving at the thought of flying anywhere. But how else will we get to Australia next year, where we've signed up for the fourth Australian world SF convention....

New Fence

For the anoraks amongst us, here's a couple of pictures of our new fence. Of course, they won't mean very much in the absence of photographs, for comparison, of the old and collapsing one, but for the record this fence consists of feather-edged panels (turned outwards so that the bars can be used to anchor climbing plants on our side) with a trellis on top, supported on concrete baseboards (to protect against rising damp) and with concrete uprights. Full details (for those for whom one anorak just isn't enough) on the Leyton Fencing website.

To finish off, here's a picture of some more frogspawn. There are now four clumps in the garden pond (and three in the allotment pond, according to Judith -- I haven't yet seen them for myself), and our next major project will be to drain and redig that, to both enlarge and deepen it and provide a new liner that (unlike the present one) doesn't have a pinhole leak somewhere in it. That will of course require moving the frogspawn to a temporary tank, which I hope we can manage before the tadpoles start hatching out....

Local Food Co-op today. So this morning (mild, almost sunny) I pottered down to the allotment and harvested some local food to contribute: several kilos of jerusalem artichoke tubers, a big bag of lambs lettuce/corn salad, and small bags of purple sage and of alexanders, which is a 'spicy celery' kind of herb introduced here by the Romans. I think so far we (aka Seven Sisters Permaculture) are the only people who have actually contributed locally grown food. (No, I tell a lie -- Sue P down the road has also brought jerusalem artichokes along from her garden.) There's a 'community cafe' runs alongside the food co-op, so we lunched on a plateful of Turkish meze, JN bought veg from the Co-op stock and I got a free bag of rice as swap for our produce, we chatted with various folk, and then back home, via the High Road, to catch up on reading the Saturday paper with all its family of supplements. Tomorrow: JN to Friends of Bruce Castle committee meeting; I'll aim for a morning swim, then allotment. Then back to the working week -- I have Monday in Birmingham, Wed and Thurs in Peterborough.

Busy week -- but feels like spring coming in here, now the snow has been and gone. First frogspawn in back garden pond, spring crocuses, winter irises and first daffodils coming out. We have a new back fence, instead of a decrepit old one with a couple of collapsed panels (so replacement well overdue).

Yesterday, I bought myself a v. elegant miniature conservatory -- dolls house size, already crammed with various miniature garden stuff that had been lying about collecting dust outside #1 dollshouse. That was on the way back from having a suspicious patch of sun damage on my nose checked out by dermatology specialist -- just 'solar elastosis' not incipient cancer patch.

Last week, for the first time, I hit 3km in the swimming pool --120 lengths in 105 mins. And have picked up a couple of bits of permaculture consultancy/teaching paying work at local community gardening projects over the next couple of months.

Today: I've just had a couple of tele-meetings (on my work Blackberry, which I'm slowly taming) and will shortly be setting off for a meeting about the new UK Household Longitudinal Survey. JN has today off, and is pottering about the sunlit back garden -- wearing a fetchingly brief pair of sea-blue shorts and my flip-flops, though I still reckon its woolly jumper, jacket, gloves and woolly hat weather. This weekend, we'll do our Saturday shop at the local Food Co-op up at Broadwater Farm and get lunch at the Community Cafe that runs alongside it. And the rest of the weekend we have free -- no doubt JN will have a busy list of what he thinks I should do to fill it up. Fingers crossed it will be nice for getting stuck into garden and allotment.

Hope you are all safely clear of the awful fires, and all your friends likewise -- I see there seems to be a cyclone battering around Broome. Now, off to catch my bus...

Seedy Sunday, and fencing

Yesterday, Seven Sisters Permaculture (me) ran Haringey's first Seed Swap event -- lots of people all seemed to have a good time. As I'd hoped, once we'd set up the room, putting out the starter stock of seeds and info JN wheeled up to Bruce Castle where we held it, it pretty much ran itself. The big work was the teas/coffees table. Getting publicity out well in advance was the big thing -- so it had time for people to pick up leaflet, forget about it, be reminded again etc... JN played vital role and will no doubt be posting his own comments plus some piccies.

Meanwhile, down in the back garden, two blokes have just finished tearing down the collapsing old fence and are putting up spiffing new one.

More anon, no doubt. Rosie: how's your teaching course -- too frantically busy for you to get this blog and tell us about it?

Looking out on the washing

Just sent an old post lost in edit mode.

This week we have had storms, waves and then biting sun. All the kids are getting bigger and out of the house a bit now. Holly dance and Mitch and Dan with a friend a walk away. I'm getting very ready to stretch my brain again as older kids are just so less involving and not having changed countries or communities recently all the intensity of resettling is gone. Saying that next week our furniture swings into our house, so chaos will decend. We are also signing on landscaping work so for 2 months the dirt will fly. I was sick over the last few days as was Pete so that has also been stullifying too. Nothing like the energy after being unwell to shed the cobwebs. Dan has tests to sit for selective schools and that is creating unease in his peer group. Holly is elated about dance as she has 5 diferent classes over Friday and Saturday which is the high point of her week. Mitch is reading Harry Potter 3 madly. Pete has been way and returns tonight.

More Feelthy Peectures

The first frogspawn of year, in the pond this morning. This is the second earliest it's ever been (the earliest was on Valentine's Day, but without trawling back through old blogs and photo albums I can't state which year that was).

Spring is Sprung, The Grass is Riz....

In the pond this morning: several frogs and a good deal of broken vegetation, indicating they'd had, er, a "vigorous" night.

On the path: two earthworms bonking. Feelthy peectures herewith.

February and fine

Hi all, I'm in Sydney with the kids at school and the builders back, just rolling along. As you know Gail died. Sad. The kids have had a enviable time with Gail and Harry and they were very lucky. 2 Brisbane families visited in January, Pete the priest with Claire and kids usefully arriving for the funeral and beach fun, then Kathryn and Eric active and inspired and inducing me to swim in the ocean for 1.5kms with a pod of morning swimmers called the Bold and the Beautiful (exhausted and cold). School came in the way we all remember where the kids all felt OK but would rather just stay home with mum for a few more weeks. Don't you remember that feeling? Especially after a whole 6 weeks without doing a trip more than 30 minutes away. Oh well they are OK. This year they have stability and look to all be staying at their schools from last year.

Our work went up until Christmas Eve and again the day after boxing day... We had a break then the painters came back a week before school. Now the balconies facing the ocean are painted as is the interior. Pete and my cupboards are in the process of being rejigged and the entry area and newly created cellar are being quaffed. I am currently challenged by the concept that on the 6th of August most of a container of STUFF was removed so we could live simply without clutter doing construction, so far nothing but my mixmaster and the atlas have been missed and soon I have to face all that STUFF again!!!

Until the house is completed I am enjoying a routine of yoga, swimming lessons, kayaking and walking. Today I kayaked. I'm not a natural but I am stategic and was partnered by the instructor.

Pete is in Wagga Wagga for the week. When he returns all of the contents of our bedroom will be not in the lounge room so he will be pleased.

Deep and Crisp and Even (Redux)

There were very few people at work today; most seem to have been caught at home by a combination of snow and a public transport network that habitually responds to severe weather of this kind by closing down. (For very good reasons; bus and train drivers don't live with their vehicles but have to travel to work like everyone else; it would be a waste of money to invest in snowploughs and other clearance equipment which is only used once every five or six years; and so on.) And then, at midday, the word was passed: the CEO had decided that in view of the fact that further bad weather was on the way, the building would close at 2.00pm and we should all go home to await tomorrow.

So here I am back home, toiling on Stuff, and have taken a few more photographs. The first one shows a curl of snow sliding off the canopy over our front door thanks to a drip of water from above moistening the interface between the two (a couple of minutes after the picture was taken, it fell off completely); the others are of the garden and the bird feedery (although the lack of contrasts may make it difficult to pick out the birds; they're starlings, pecking at the fat balls).

Deep and Crisp and Even

"It won't snow in London," I said confidently as we watched yesterday evening's TV weather forecast. "And if it does, it won't settle." Then I peeped outside, and saw that it had in fact been snowing for some time. Duh!

When I awoke at 6.00am this morning, it was snowing once again -- soft flakes which drifted down like gentle rain against your face -- and was still snowing when I went out for the newspaper an hour later. Right now, the soft flakes have changed to heavier ones, coming in flurries.

I've taken some photographs of our garden and Jansons Road; they're on the right.

Hello? Anybody there? I guess Z & R you both have quite a lot going on in your lives at the moment - family bereavement, starting teaching course, getting the kids back to school, not to mention getting Z's building works finished off so you have the whole house liveable again?

We've just had going back to werk after the winter solstice break, and the minor excitements of the Wards Corner community campaign taking the council to judicial review over their plans, and I'm organising a Seed Swap Sunday on February 22 at Bruce Castle. Lots of weather, none of it good for gardening: freezing over Xmas and the first couple of weeks of January, then sodden rain. This weekend, we had planned a nice bird-watching walk around the local reservoirs to work up an appetite for lunch at The Ferry Boat pub just opposite them (using up discount voucher) -- but given the rain we just walked down to the pub and had the lunch. Did see the brilliant turquoise streak of a kingfisher heading along the channel back of the pub on our way out. And plenty of back garden birds -- we now have goldfinches and chaffinches as regulars at the feeders.

Tonight is Burns Night, dedicated to poet Robbie Burns, so we have haggis to eat for dinner. Cheers and TAGW...

Ice Sculpture

To the allotment for a brief half-hour this afternoon, to replenish the bird feedery but not to do anything else, because the ground is much too hard to dig. As an illustration of just how cold it's been, consider this: the water in both the water tank and the pond on our plot, each of them about two-thirds of a metre deep, has a thick, unbreakable layer of ice on top.

An actual illustration of how cold it's been: this ice sculpture, formed by a thin spray of water leaking from the connecting hose of a water tank on another plot. During the day, the water falls as water; during the night, when the temperature falls below freezing, it creates these interesting blobs and icicles. V cool, eh wot?

Hamish and his buddy (Tom Walker) being flag bearers at the opening of the Australia vs South Africa test cricket match at the WACA before Christmas.

We are now back from our Christmas break in Albany. We had a lovely Christmas and New Year - with the typical amounts of overeating and drinking - and spent just over a week strolling down to the beach each morning, coming home for lunch and a sleep and then playing tennis or on the new "ripsticks" or old skateboard in the afternoon.

We are now back at Perth and I have a couple of weeks until Uni starts. I still haven't finished the enrolment process - which is very involved and complicated - a bit like an initiation test to see if you really deserve to get into Uni after all! Hopefully I will get it all sorted tomorrow.

Bye for now.