Buon Giorno, Boys

I harvested my crop of Borlotti beans today; here they are. I set on 60 plants, but the wet summer encouraged a plague of slugs of Biblical proportions across the UK, and these miserable few beans are all that managed to grow. Oh well, these things happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee3CPfH2O_I&mode=related&search

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEAxJ6zGiWg&mode=related&search

On Food For The Soul

Imagine the scene Sunday night: long-legged adults (that does not include Merci Beaucoup Enfant Deux as she is still too young to vote), lolling about watching telly and each attempting to goad the other into making another pot of Rachel Allen's Crab and Prawn Coconut Soup. We've had it three times each week since I got the book. I think we were watching LoTR: The Return of the King, (preview the soundtrack to hear Annie Lennox at her most beautiful) when this came on in the ad break -->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdO2aYfQa6I

We missed the first few seconds of the ad, so thought it might be for air freshener, or a toilet cleaner, maybe extra strong mints. When the camera pulled back, we all burst out laughing. Now this is what makes UK advertising the best in the world. There is no connection whatsoever to the three factors that make this ad so brilliantly, so giftedly funny. And that presumably, is why it works!

Crouching Gardener, Hidden Spade

Rubus Tayberry, is a cross between the raspberry and blackberry. The fruit is dark red in colour and longer than a raspberry. Tayberries are juicier than raspberries, and ripen over a many weeks in July and August. They are best when allowed to fully ripen to a dark red colour before picking, rather like mulberries. Mine don't really last long enough on the canes to fully darken, as the resident blackbird population decimates it each year, invariably first thing in the morning just after the dawn chorus. I don't really mind, as I love the blackbirds. So does the cat that's just moved into the neighbourhood, judging by the bits of blackbird under the canes this morning. I shall sit here, silently, and wait.

Friday Five: Gardens Of The Beloved, Rumi

I lit the garden with candles tonight, set the table with wine and sweets and called the musicians. How I wish you could be here.

We have stolen the moonlight and brought it into the garden to shake the sleep off the flowers. Wake up, our ship has been ice-bound long enough, the time has come to sail the open seas.

A thousand beauties filled the garden: the scent of roses, the murmur of water gently flowing in the stream ... but how can one describe the indescribable?

What passed between us in that luminous night can never be written or told. On my final journey from this world the creases of my shroud will unfold our story.

Those beautiful words we said to one another are hidden in the secret heart of heaven. One day, like the rain, they will pour our love story all over the world.

I Don't Want To Change The World

I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I'm twenty-two now, but I won't be for long
People ask me when will I grow up to understand
Why the girls I knew at school are already pushing prams

I loved you then as I love you still
Though I put you on a pedestal, you put me on the pill
I don't feel bad about letting you go
I just feel sad about letting you know

I don't want to change the world
I'm not looking for a new england
Are you looking for another girl

I loved the words you wrote to me
But that was bloody yesterday
I can't survive on what you send (utterly, utterly beautifully sung, Kirsty babes)
Every time you need a friend

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites
It's wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care

I don't want to change the world
I'm not looking for a new england
Are you looking for another girl

My dreams were full of strange ideas
My mind was set despite the fears
But other things got in the way
I never asked that boy to stay

Once upon a time at home
I sat beside the telephone
Waiting for someone to pull me through
When at last it didn't ring, I knew it wasn't you

I don't want to change the world
I'm not looking for a new england
Are you looking for another girl

I first heard this song in a bar in Belfast, years and years ago, playing pool with a friend during an afternoon off together. A breather before the fun and games began again that night at work. We stood together, cues in hand, singing the chorus to this song when he turned to me and said, "I'm going to change the world you know." And he did just that. And driving home today this came on the radio, and instantly I'm back in Belfast, playing pool in the afternoon and eating pizzas at Speranza's in Shaftesbury Square. And to hear Kirstie singing this song, written by Billy Bragg, click here -->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fwtFSEovro

Tomato Harvest

Nine Eleven, 2007

Mixed sweetpeas, Lathyrus odoratus, against a clear blue September sky.

Clotheslines, By April's Grandfather

A clothesline was a news forecast
To neighbors passing by.
There were no secrets you could keep
When clothes were hung to dry.

It also was a friendly link
For neighbours always knew
If company had stopped on by
To spend a night or two.

For then you'd see the fancy sheets
And towels upon the line;
You'd see the company table cloths
With intricate design.

The line announced a baby's birth
To folks who lived inside
As brand new infant clothes were hung
So carefully with pride.

The ages of the children could
So readily be known
By watching how the sizes changed
You'd know how much they'd grown.

It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
Haphazardly were strung.

It said, "Gone on vacation now"
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, "We're back!" when full lines sagged
With not an inch to spare.

New folks in town were scorned upon;
If wash was dingy grey,
As neighbours raised their brows,
And looked the other way.

But clotheslines now are of the past
For dryers make work less.
Now what goes on inside a home
Is anybody's guess.

I really miss that way of life.
It was a friendly sign
When neighbours knew each other best
By what hung on the line!

What a lovely treat to start my week, thank you April. Click on this link for more pictures, thank you Jan. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=clothespins+and+laundry

On Daucus Carota: That's Carrots To You And I

EVERY pregnant woman in Britain is to be given a gigantic 16 foot-long carrot, the government has announced, writes The Daily Mash.

"The women will have to gnaw constantly on the genetically modified vegetable during the last four months of their pregnancy in place of sustained bouts of heavy drinking. The carrots have been engineered so that all mums - even black ones - will produce healthy, beautiful children with blonde hair, blue eyes and a developed understanding of mechanised warfare, the Government said.
Alan Johnson, the health secretary, said: "Women are stupid at the best of times but when pregnant their hormones make them profoundly moronic.
"If they won't eat their carrots we will strap them to a bed and force feed them cabbage instead."
Pregnant Ruth Edwards, 44, said: "Why not just sterilise all the poor people who are giving birth to crack addicted criminals and give people who watch BBC2 a couple of large organic carrots instead?"
However, expectant mum Angela Knight, 13, said she thought the free carrot was a fantastic idea as she could sell hers on the black market to raise cash to buy 12 cartons of Craven A and a case of Bailey's Irish Cream."

September Harvest Begins

"The fifth door is the door of the fruit house. Bunches of grapes hang from strings in front of a sunny bay; each grape meditates and ripens, secretly ruminating light; it elaborates a perfumed sugar. Pears! Piles of fruit! Apples!

...the fruit clothes itself with flower; and all urge towards life is enveloped with enjoyment."

AndréGide: Fruits of The Earth

trans. Dorothy Bussy, Secker 1949

Sunday 2nd September 2007

Click on this.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/