It’s now meteorological spring, and there are signs of it everywhere. Day length is increasing at a gallop, particularly noticeable on the rare occasion that we have had a bright day recently. I have had to adjust the time at which the automatic door closer on the duck coop is activated, because they have got themselves shut out a couple of times in the past few days – don’t worry, I always make sure that they are safely in bed every night. Walking Nellie through the woods this morning revealed lots of lovely fresh green growth of Dog’s Mercury, Cuckoo Pint, Elder, nettles and the first Hawthorn leaves bursting forth. Part way through the wood I came upon a fallen tree, obviously recumbent for years, and it was covered in a vivid orange lichen or algae, as shown in the photograph above. On returning home I did a bit of searching on the internet and have concluded that it is possibly alga trentepohlia; if anybody has an alternative suggestion I would be pleased to hear it. Whatever it is it was very striking.
It’s quite difficult to imagine when conditions will be right for preparing the soil for planting. March is when this normally happens, but there needs to be a dramatic change to the weather patterns of the past few months if the ground is to dry out sufficiently to enable this to occur. Currently the Met Office is forecasting a dry week, but I’ll believe that when it happens. We didn’t really need them to tell us that February was the wettest on record, I think that we all knew that. I am not in a position yet where I need to be planting out, but the trays of young lettuce and cabbages growing on in the greenhouse are quite likely to be ready to go out before it has dried out enough to get them in the soil.
I wasn’t going to tell you what I am about to, for fear of this weekly blog gaining a reputation of a misery memoir (not exactly the correct term, but you know what I mean). I had yet another calamity last week, which resulted in a trip to A&E and 3 stitches in a head wound! It was on Monday, when I was knocking in some posts that will support netting for the mangetout peas to grow up in the polytunnel that the accident happened. I was using a post knocker, in fact the one that is pictured below, and on completing the driving in of one post I lifted the ‘knocker’ off it, but got the point of balance wrong and the heavy metal tool tilted forward and bashed me on the forehead. I saw stars in the way that a cartoon cat would when a 1 ton ACME weight landed on its head, and then felt a warm trickle course down my face. I hastily made my way to the potting shed and placed a wad of paper towel to the gash and pulled a tight fitting woollen hat over it to keep it in place. A call to my GP surgery resulted in a predictable response – “we don’t have the facilities to deal with that, you will have to go to A&E”. I made my way home and Jennifer drove me to the West Suffolk Hospital as I didn’t feel safe to be at the wheel.
Prime suspect
Now for the good bit. Since I last visited the department there have been some changes. For minor injuries like mine there is now a system where you get streamed away from the serious patients to see a GP. I had visions of us being there for hours, but within 10 minutes of sitting in the waiting room my name was called and in I went to see a doctor. He looked at the cut, was in two minds as to whether to glue or stitch it, so got a second opinion from a senior colleague who informed him that stitches were required. He then threaded his needle and pulled the edges of the wound together with 3 stitches. I was free to leave, not more than 40 minutes after walking through the front door. I could not be more satisfied with the quality of service that I received. Tomorrow afternoon the stiches will be removed by a nurse at my regular GP surgery.
By the way, I got the peas planted. They are very attractive to small rodents, so I am hoping that I don’t open the tunnel door one morning to find them nibbled to the ground.
I have had a run of unfortunate events since the turn of the New Year, could things please just settle down now?
The contents of the shop are largely the same as last week, with just a few tweaks. There are no baking potatoes, but we do have Marfona back. There are no rainbow carrots but there will be a limited quantity of ‘White Satin’….you guessed it, white carrots. I will make some Rocket pesto. I think that last week was one too far for the Brussels sprouts, and that’s that for another year. Apples are Crimson Crisp, and we’ve still got all of the citrus fruit.
Right, it’s nearly dinner time so I had better freshen up, wax my eyebrows and put on my Sunday best…..shame it’s fish fingers tonight.
See y’all
Phil