Christmas potatoes

In the late Autumn, to make use of one of the newly made raised beds, we planted Charlotte seed potatoes, 9 in all, although one was small and did not thrive well.

Due to the warm weather the greenery grew fast and high and outstripped my efforts to earth up the sides. Once the colder weather came along, the potato growth was covered in fleece to help protect the plants.

By the time we had arrived back from China, the growth had all died down, some taken by frost and some died back naturally.

Today I thought I would see if any potatoes actually grew from the seeds- the first plant (the runty one) yielded a few small ones, and as I worked my way along the row more and slightly larger ones came to light.

By the end there were enough to have a meal of new potatoes with the family over Christmas.

                                                       Trug of potatoes fresh from the garden.

So the experiment was worth it!

Scenes from China

A few key pictures from the China trip.

The route we took- 21 days in total

The weather was expected to be cool to cold, instead it was warm and humid in the South, Cooler in the Middle and very cold in the North of China by the time we got to Beijing.

Guillin featured in the HSBC advert with the Cormorant fishing - it was a misty day when we sailed down the Li  river. The river was very shallow as the rainfall in the rainy season was not as much as normal.

Some of the Karst scenery on the Li River

We had a delightful time in Yanshuo the town at the end of our Li river cruise. It is a backpacker mecca and many westerners have settled there.

Chengdu is the home of the Panda sanctuary, where Panda numbers have been increased by artificial insemination as Pandas in the wild breed very rarely being very solitary animals.

Panda without a care in the world.

The highlight of Xi'an is the Terracotta warriors. Part of a mausoleum built for the first Emperor of the United China, Emperor Qin, the warriors are his army in the after life. When first discovered they were vivid in colour with lifelike painting on their body, armour, faces and hands etc. but this faded quickly. Once this was discovered then excavation stopped and it is estimated there are another 6000 or so to still be found. All of them are damaged by a destructive peasant revolt, a fire and the ravages of time, so none are complete and have to be re-built from fragments. Every face is different and so far about 1600 have been uncovered.

Just one of the many warriors found.

In Beijing came Tienanmen square, the forbidden city and outside the city, The Great Wall- first started by Emperor Qin.

Tienanmen square and Forbidden City gate picture

Great Wall and the final tower on a long climb- took 1.5 hours to get this far- only 40 minutes to get back- would have been quicker back but very slippery.

There were many other amazing sights- took 1700 photo's and some video, so plenty still to work through.

Back from China

No posts since November 11th as we set off to China for 3 weeks and no Internet access. What a great place to see- Travelled 5000 km from Shanghai to Beijing passing through Chengdu and the Panda sanctuary and Xi'an , home of the Terracotta warriors and ending on the Great Wall neear Beijing. Just started to download the pictures , so a selection will appear soon.

Memories - make sure you write them down.

Today is a day of remembrances. Both E's and my fathers served in the 2nd World War, mine at sea on an air-craft carrier as a meteorologist, E's was land based in the medical corps. Both of them ended up in similar places, one from the sea and one across continents, Asia, Africa and Southern Europe.

Both came through uninjured, but not unscathed.

E's dad had constant nightmares, so routine that it took a stint away from home for E to realise when she got back that her dad did have nightmares nightly, as he would call out in his sleep.

Mine refused to talk about his experiences- he would answer direct questions like "did you have Kamikaze dive bombers attack your aircraft carrier?" "Yes" was his reply and that was all he would say - he did not collect his campaign medals after they were issued, and eventually my mother made him write in the 1950's and ask for them to be sent to him. I have them now- but I never saw them until he died in his 70's, and my mother passed them on to me.

A curious heirloom we do have was from my paternal grandfather, who fought in the First World War and did a stint in Africa, building roads and bridges. He had a photo of him sitting in what must have been a tribal chieftains grand chair, with two native Africans, in costume, standing either side of him that was taken during this period.

He died when I was twelve so I really did not hear anything much about his experiences, but again when my mother was in hospital before she to passed away, she gave us a silver pocket watch which my grandfather gave to her for safe keeping, reckoning that she would look after it better then the rest of the family. It actually was not given to him directly and we don't know the story behind it, how did it come to him, although through genealogy channels and a regimental archive, I have tried to find out.
The watch is very identifiable as it is inscribed "To the best shot in the Regiment" dated 1899 and presented by the Colonel in Chief of the regiment, and had the name of a private engraved upon it. It turns out this was during the Boer War era and finding the privates service record in The National Archives, it was whilst in South Africa that he was awarded it. The trouble is , we don't know how, or if , this private was related to us. It remains a mystery even now.

My maternal Grandfather had what is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder now, but was called shell shock after the First World War. Mother would tell of how, if there was a loud noise outside, say a car backfiring, he would shout "down, under the table" to them, and they would all have to dive for shelter under the table- it so affected him that he eventually took his own life in 1933.

What I would dearly have loved to do was know something about all these men's experiences, and my mothers and grandmothers experiences- it is only when you realise how little you know, or not remember if you were told in the first place, that you realise it is important to record the memories, on paper or tape/film, so that future generations have access to them.

I have in the last few years been researching my family history as best as possible, and found links to relatives all over the world, who are willing to share information and pictures etc in return for what you also know that they did not, so I have more idea of what they did and where they went, but not the stories that go with those recorded facts.

I was fortunate to not be called to do service for the country- National Service was phased out when  I was still at school, so I don't have any idea what it involved myself.

The upshot is that I will be recording my life in some way to pass on as well for others to have (if they are interested to know that is!)

Don't delay- preserve your Blogs and other online stuff as it disappears from the web if you stop contributing, also get you life story down on whatever media works best for you.

Been busy..

Busy time since last posting. Working on developing my mosaic project- on the fiddly stage now, background fill in.

We need an area in the garden for a cold frame and storage that is out of the way, but easy to get at. Decided to put together a honeycomb layout using some six sided paving stones that were the old path stepping stones- will be making a new path in a different place at some time.

Began the preparation of the area ear-marked, it is where four leylandii were before getting the chop, and partially dug over- so many fine and not so fine roots to dig up, and four stumps to deal with. Decided to leave the stumps but grind them down a bit using the chainsaw, which worked, but was quite an effort to do.

Then came the final dig over prior to levelling and I came across a hard object a few inches down- another rock/stone I thought as there were plenty in this area. However it turned out to be a sewer drain cover right beneath the area I was going to cover over.

Over the years this had disappeared under the Leylandii as they grew, and subsequently got buried with debris from needle fall and soil movement and was now 4 or 5 inches below the current soil level.
So next task was to reveal the drain cover, prize it off and inspect the inside for possible root intrusion.

It was a bit corroded but luckily once opened up , no internal damage was done by the trees, but one of the stumps was hard up against the drain.

Decided to raise the sides of the inspection chamber, duly sourced some ready to use mortar, some bricks recycled from the garage wall when we removed an in situ oil tank many years ago. ( I knew they would come in useful one day!) and added another layer of bricks- two layers would have been to much, one was not enough.
After a day to set, installed the frame of the cover - sat on a generous layer of mortar and left to set. (Also covered over with a board to keep the dog out- she is very nosy!).

So after several days of unexpected industry, got to lay the slabs, but not in the pattern originally envisage, had to work around the drain.

Looking out the window just now I can still clearly see the old path outline as there are a series of half metre wide areas of bright green where new grass seed was used to re-grass the leveled holes left by the slabs- it looks quite cheerful. The rest of the lawn is mostly moss and native ground hugging plants- due to the hedges blocking out sunlight, parts of the lawn died back and the ground huggers crept in.

A bonus to that is less grass cutting, the downside is it dies back quickly in summer. But that's a job for next year.

Broad and dwarf beans are now popping through in the raised beds, need protection from the munchies brigade, so fleeced over, but had to resort to slug pellets in the end, as a few mysteriously disappeared overnight.

Potatoes are snug in a tent fleece- looks like a huge moth cocoon on top of the raised bed- shades of the body snatchers! Hoping they will last till Christmas.

Just finished the Village Newsletter- it is a joint production between E and I with a committee setting out the content- got delayed waiting for some info- it should have been out prior to 1st November, but is being handed out to distributors toady so not to late thankfully.

Pea sticks and other animals

A few weeks back we planted winter pea plants, variety Twinkle, and with this warm weather recently, they have started growing well- so well in fact that they are twining themselves together. According to the label that came with the mini pea plants, they are self supporting if planted in a block together.
This certainly seems to be their habit from observation, but they are also pulling each other over, so we decided to put in pea sticks, which are tall twigs, to allow the peas to climb- they should reach 50cm in height when fully grown.

We were going to go to a local hedgerow and see what we could scavenge, but remembered that the hedge at the edge of the green, which was cut in such a way that the stems were bent over in an interwoven style, by being  partially cut through, and this allows side shoots to form and grow upwards.
Normally these shoots are trimmed back by the local authority to maintain a neat height, but not been done yet, so these became the source of our pea twigs.

Now we have a little forest of twigs sticking up from the raised bed, looking like they are ready to repel any invader. Hopefully the peas will begin to climb these instead of each other.

Whilst walking to the hedge, we had to stop and pick up more walnuts. The last few weeks or so has seen many of the walnuts falling off the trees (four of them) at different stages. Each tree has a different walnut size or shape. Currently we are finding mostly large walnuts, but another tree is dropping very small smooth shelled nuts, and another has medium sized nuts with an orangy tint to the shell.

We collect them  to use for cooking - to make cakes to raise money for the local church, but we especially collect them to prevent the squirrels burying them in our lawn and flower beds. We have had a squirrel invasion twice in our roof before now- but I have worked on plugging the gaps over the years to stop them getting in- seems to have worked in the last few years. They hang around our area precisely because of the plentiful supply of food.

The squirrels have poor memories, so often don't dig the buried walnuts up- some are found by rooks and crows, but many start to sprout and grow and if they get a toe-hold, can be very difficult to dig up as they throw out a long tap root which makes pulling them or digging them up a chore.

Rosie had a pleasant surprise this morning on her walk- a cat ran across her path, that always get her excited, followed closely by a monkjac deer- not sure if the two were connected, or just both spooked by an approaching dog. Luckily she was on her lead, as she pulled me along in an attempt to get to one or both. The deer must have jumped the gate to the cemetery as it was long gone, and the cat did what cats do and disappeared.

Also in the garden today, was covering the potato plants with fleece in an attempt to stop them getting frosted- they were supposed to grow and be ready for Christmas harvesting, but the warmer weather has made them grow rapidly and despite constant earthing up, the growth has exceeded the capacity to protect them with soil anymore.

And to round it out daffodil bulbs have gone in to the front garden beds ready to give a show of colour next year.

Cave Canem

Means roughly, "Beware of the Dog".

This is the subject for my mosaic project- all the lessons are learnt, now to make something of my own choice.
First saw Cave Canem in Pompeii, in an early spring holiday to Piano Sorrento, in the south of the bay of Naples. Using the Circumvesuviana train, Pompeii can be reached quite easily.

Whereas we would put up a sign on our gate to say beware of the dog, the Pompeians and other Romans, had a mosaic depiction of a dog and the Cave Canem warning, in the entrance to the property.
I chose to use as an inspiration, a similar, but easier to construct mosaic from the Isle of Capri.

here is a picture of the dog - made of pre-cut marble tiles, ready for the background tiles to be laid and the words to be created and grouted to finish it off.

As you can see - it is a stylised dog. I did not know until using marble for the first time , that although you can cut the tiles using the nippers we use for other tiles, it takes more effort and the resulting cut tile shape is unpredictable as they shatter easily. This meant that I did not cut many of the tiles (also had just about enough to make the shape so scared to waste them) just laid them in as flowing a way as possible, so in some places there are some weird gaps. Still it should look OK when grouted.
The dog is wearing a reddish brown collar and will have a lead attached as well.

We have next week's session and a follow up session after half- term if needed  to finalise the mosaic.

Today finished the mowing strip around the lawn, so that was good- the lawn looks neater in having the edge, and also a more defined shape as when it was seeded in the spring, we made it a little wider than the original lawn that this replaced, to allow for trimming later.