Long Mizzle Garden

 Hello m' hot scrumpies,   Apologies for my blogging absence. It feels work wise, mentally and physically I have been living in a pressure cooker for the past month This coincided with the hottest June globally on record. Hello El Niño - you arrived too soon. The garden sat thirsty for weeks on end. Some of the luckier beds received buckets of used bath water. A hose pipe ban has been in place in the South West since last summer. The reservoirs are critically low and the water company is scrambling to set up the desalination of seawater. Most plants seem shorter in height this year. The roses however seemed to love the dry heat.  Dog on quay dutifully watches over sea swimming owner Now there are reports of a potential maritime heatwave. Since taking up sea swimming, I can confirm the sea is still officially flippin' cold to my skin. My brother says 'knees, hips, nips and tips' is the way to enter the water without shocking the body. The nips seems to be the hardest s...

 Eh up our kid, Less gardening this weekend - I've been living it up large, feet up, head full of lurgy, watching the Glastonbury Music Festival highlights on t' tele. The band that opened up my first ever Glasto in 1997 were called The Shirehorses. This was radio DJs Mark and Lard's spoof band. Having listened to their ridiculous comedy sketches on BBC Radio 1's graveyard slot, holed up in my teenage garage, I was a big fan.  When Mark n' Lard moved to Radio 1's prime time slot, they refused to relocate from their Manchester base (the rest of Radio 1 broadcast from London) and they would often play the spoons or kazoo over any tune they disapproved of (compulsory playlists you see). They particularly seemed to take offense to a band called Savage Garden, which they called 'Cabbage Garden'. They claimed every band around at the time had nicked their sound. In my early 20s I got to meet them in person as a friend of mine from the BBC technology trainee sc...

 Hello m' fizz pots, It's too bloomin' hot outside, so I've come in for a nice glass of cokey pokey* and wee blog sesh. Ol' Glass Eyed Mumrah told me off for not doing a post last week! Feet up and crunching on ice cubes, I'm smug in the thought that I won't have to bucket up the bath water tonight and lug it downstairs to water the patio pots. This is because I have gradually been planting them up with drought tolerant succulents. * The cokey can't pokey because the pokey's in the cokey! * [The copyright goes to my six year old daughter who came up with that slogan. No, it doesn't make any sense, but it could be advertising genius ]    Aonium 'Zwartkop' underplanted with Sedum album   Red house leeks and Delosperma 'Ruby' Aeonium arboreum and Mesembryanthemums (that's a mouthful - lets just call them Livingstone Daisies) Last year the cannas were in the half-barrel pots, but look how much happier they are let loose in rich, m...