What MORE Tulips! Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Ok, so I have taken some more photos of our tulips today. I couldn't resist as they are so beautiful!

The post brought 2 exciting letters for me yesterday. Firstly an invitation to Jack's 4th birthday party at 'Boomerangs' play centre in May. We won't be able to make that day but are going to Colchester zoo with him on the actual day, 14th May.

Secondly, Heather sent me an ATC. Wow, it is utterly beautiful and now I have to try and make one to match it! Its title is 'Celtic Copper' and here it is for you to drool over:I am definitely going to frame this one. Yesterday, it poured with rain all day so gave me a chance to play for the day. I made a patchwork of material stuck onto plain black material, then cut them up into ATC sized pieces to work on. I made 6 yesterday and really enjoyed it. I have a lot of 'findings' in various little drawers and it has given me a chance to use some of them, as well as getting to know my sewing machine. I had only managed to do straight stitch with it until now, so I did have fun. I'll photograph some of them when I've done a few more.

Today, I read Ces's blog and there was an award for me! I was so thrilled. I have had awards before, but haven't managed to transfer them to my blog. With my new layout and Jim's help, you can see it proudly displayed on the right. From little acorns.....

Jim made some bread this morning. Now Jim makes super bread but this loaf seemed to get smaller rather than rise! He added bran to the mix and it didn't seem to work quite as well. Luckily the builder arrived just as he'd cooked it so we gave it to him for the extension!! No, seriously, in spite of its size, it tasted absolutely delicious, a bit like rye bread. So we had some for afternoon tea with cheese on half and marmalade on the other half.




It should be about twice that size!









The builders have finally removed the scaffolding from our extension, which is brilliant. It looks much better now and we can get to our barn without stepping over an assault course.

Today in the garden I pottered doing various bits of weeding and Jim did some planting. I also moved all the fuchsia hedge I'd cut down a few days ago. I now have a huge bonfire to burn when it dries again. It's been pouring this evening and I gather it's going to continue tomorrow. At least I'll be able to do some more ATCs.

I took just a few photos of the garden this afternoon in the sunshine.





We have just one of these daffodils. It's so unusual.






























Grape hyacinth on the fairy hill











We planted this little skimmia japonica last year and the flowers are bigger than the plant itself!









Tulips
































































Star of today's show I think, these pretty bi-coloured tulips












Our neighbour from down the road, Joe, came up to see us today and had a walk round. He was quite impressed and liked the new extension too. It's not often we get visitors! He told us about an interesting chap, Brian Merriman, who used to live over the hill from us. Apparently the house he lived is now derelict but the base can still be seen, and the remains of a 'hedge school' nearby. I'll enlarge on this in my next blog.

We must take a walk up there on a fine day, camera in hand of course.

Sue Guiney's Irish Stop Off for 'Tangled Roots'

This is the first time I have done something like this, so I am very excited to be included in Sue's Virtual Tour to promote her book Tangled Roots, now out in paperback.

I loved this book, which is quite different in form from any other fiction I have read. To give you a brief outline of the story, it centres around the two main characters, Grace and John and is written in the first person. Grace is John's mother.

John seems to have everything going for him. He's forty, still single, handsome and is a physics professor at an American University. In spite of all these assets, John is in emotional turmoil, relying on pills to get him through any pressured situation. He blames his mother for most of his discontent.

Grace, his mother, an old woman in the novel, is telling her life history to strangers, one of the many things John resents about his mother. He feels neglected and is left emotionally scarred by her. Grace is in some ways a typical American Jewess mother, but circumstances conspired against her and she feels she has no choice but to move the family to London. Lizzy, John's sister, really doesn't want to go and when she is eventually bludgeoned into doing so, the result is a disaster. Yet another reason to turn him against Grace, as John and Lizzy are clearly close.

I particularly loved the character of Grace and, as a mother who has made mistakes myself, I can empathise with her. John seems to grow as the book progressed and I warmed to him and had high hopes for his future wellbeing. It became clear that he had to reconcile his past before he could move forward in both his private life and his career.

I was a little worried about the physics aspect, not having a great love of the subject, but in fact the language is so cleverly used by Sue that it is not in any way difficult to understand. I particularly admire the metaphors she uses.

The story moves from Boston to London and even to Moscow. I felt I knew such a lot about Moscow by the time I had finished and the fine detail and obvious research put in by Sue is evident.

This is an intelligent read, full of surprises and the two main characters, indeed, even the lesser ones, are beautifully drawn. I would highly recommend Tangled Roots to anyone.

Oh, here comes Sue now. I'll just put the kettle on (it's a bit early for a Guinness) and get out the Soda bread and home made marmalade. That'll go down a treat I'm sure.

Now for the interview:

1. Did you choose Russia straight away for the travel connection? Quite a difficult country to write about I would have thought.

Placing a significant portion of John’s story in Russia was important for two reasons. Firstly, a great deal of the important research in physics over the years has come out of Russia. Whether for military application or not, the Russians take great pride in their scientific community and celebrate it. When I was researching the book, I had the great pleasure of spending a bit of time with the Cosmology Professor and Author Joao Magueijo, and he told me a great deal about the state of research in Russia today and convinced me of what I had already suspected...namely, that John needed to go there. The other, personal reason why John needed a Russian experience is that part of what he had been running away from was his mother and his roots. John grew up as a ”disaffected” American Jew with deep roots in Russia. He needed to go back there in order to figure out who he was, where he came from and how that can be incorporated into the man he wanted to be. I was really pleased with how that all worked out, to be honest. But you are right. Writing about Russia is difficult, and although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, the Russia I visited and consequently wrote about was a small window of openness and westward assimilation. In 2004, Russia was wealthy, there was a new entrepreneurial spirit, Muscovites were less frightened to speak their minds. For me it was very exciting. A bit like the “Wild West,” in that there was an anything goes type of attitude. But there was also a great deal of hope and excitement in the air, and I knew that John would be able to tap into that as well. Since then, Putin has once again created that old sense of anger and distrust, which saddens me greatly. I think if I was doing my research there today, I would find a very different Moscow, although it breaks my heart to say it. I fell in love with Moscow as well and long to go back.

2. What made you think of writing in the format you chose? I haven't come across a book written in this way, so found it very unusual and at times challenging. Sometimes I wanted the story of, say, John to continue, then it skipped to Grace, but of course that made me want to read on....

To be honest, I didn’t find this format. The format found me! “Tangled Roots” is actually 2 books in one. It started as a separate novel in which Grace tells stories of her life to people who come to her as if she was a guru. That in itself was a hard concept for mainstream publishers to take on — a normal, little old lady being a Guru? Come on. But while we were trying to sell that, I got on with the work of writing what I thought would be a “sequel,” the story of John. Having left him as a sullen, disturbed teenager in Grace’s story, the strong maternal instinct in me felt the need to make him whole, so to speak. So I began to write his mid-life story. But once I had completed nearly three-quarters of that manuscript, I realized that the 2 stories were so interlinked that I had actually, in fact, written 2 parts of 1 novel. A lot of thought and soul-searching went into the decision to combine the two, as you can imagine. So I started to cut and paste, and I realized that the concept of 2 people having different views and experiences of the same events was very important to the novel, and so I decided to interweave their chapters rather than have one and then the other. Yes, I suppose it makes for some frustrating start-and-stop moments, but I hope that the through-line is strong enough to keep people reading.

3. Did you base Grace on personal experience? Either of yourself or your Mother?

This is rather difficult to answer. The personality of Grace is actually diametrically opposed to both my own personality and my mother’s. In some ways, creating the character of Grace allowed me to see what it would be like to react to life’s challenges in such a different way than I would. Thankfully, neither myself nor my mother has ever suffered from depression, although I have witnessed it in some people I am close to. So, no — I would have to say the character of Grace is very much a “what if” creation. But her voice is one I grew up with. It is very much a New York Jew, matter-of-fact, tell-it-like-it-is sort of voice which was the voice of my grandmothers coupled with that of the short story writer, Grace Paley. Actually, the novel had it’s seed in a short story I wrote using that sort of voice and the naming of my character as Grace is my own little homage to Paley, who I think was one of the greatest writers, and indeed the greatest short story writer, of her generation.

Thanks so much for having me here, you crafty gardener you. I love “being” in Ireland and your tulips are gorgeous! How about a toast to Spring!

I've loved having you here Sue and I wish you every success with Tangled Roots. I do hope everyone has enjoyed today's rather unusual blog from me. I certainly have. For details of how to purchase Tangled Roots, see Sue's blog:

http://sueguineyblog.blogspot.com

Garden Photos Sunday April 5, 2009 Sue Guiney

Not much to report today. Still working on the garden of course. Yesterday the builders surprised us by turning up on a Saturday and doing some more roof. We pottered about - I dug over more of the soft fruit plot but the last bit is really stony and hard going. Jim planted all sorts of goodies in the first plot. As the day wore on, Jim didn't feel well and he went inside and lay down. I carried on and decided to 'prune' the row of fuchsia bushes at the top of the car park. They have got huge and now overhang the parking area. I ended up with a mountain of rubbish on the parking area but left that until today. I was too tired to tackle it and went inside to see how Jim was. He had retired to bed. I woke him at 9.30pm to see if he wanted anything and he got up again. Turkey sandwich with hot stuffing for me for dinner and the rest of the crumble. Delicious. I ran out of steam about 1pm and went to bed and finished my book. More of that later. Jim came back to bed about 6am!

Today's been an ok day but a bit windy. Jim's still not himself and he's not a good 'ill' person. Makes him grumpy! I went outside and cleared away the huge heap of fuchsia bush from the parking place and pulled it up to the allotment for sorting - keeping any larger pieces for Stanley and putting the rest to burn on the bonfire. I snipped and chopped and sorted, then Jim came out to say dinner was ready. Turkey rissoles today and they were super, with roast potatoes, sweet corn and parsnips. Turkey stew tomorrow??

In the afternoon we'd watched Jim's great nephew Sam play Rugby League on tv in the last 16 of the Challenge Cup. They thrashed the opposition in the first half then went to sleep in the 2nd and ended up losing by 2 points. It was so frustrating. Sam plays for Bradford Bulls and his older brother Luke plays for Leeds Rhinos. Leeds were also playing and sadly also lost by a few points. Not a good day for the Burgess boys. During breaks we collected wood from the orchard as we're running a bit short. I didn't watch the Leeds game but Jim did.

After dinner this evening I watched most of a tv programme on 'the art of oratory', as inspired by Barack Obama. It was interesting and featured all the 'biggies', Kennedy, lots of Obama of course, Lincoln, Martin Luther King and some of our own. William Hague as an 11 year old at the Conservative Conference, Neil Kinnock at the labour party conference where he told the old labour it's time they woke up and stopped ruining the party and some of them walked out. Jim was standing as an MP for Worthing at that time and was there, but we couldn't see him!

At 9pm was a film called Five Minutes of Heaven, featuring James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson. These two star as complete juxtapositions on the Protestant / Catholic divide in Northern Ireland - this movie, which was shot in a mere four weeks, tackles the very big and contemporary subject of conflict resolution. Neeson plays the killer; Nesbitt plays the brother of the man he killed. Both are looking for the same thing, and for once it's not revenge. With a script by Guy Hibbert (Omagh) and Direction by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) this film would surely turn out to be a great piece of art.

Fine performances were delivered by both Neeson and Nesbitt, two actors who have really come into their own in recent years. The whole piece is a true master class in film making and acting. If you get the chance to catch it when it comes on again, it's well worth it.

I have a few photos from the garden and a couple from inside for you today: Yesterday BlackJack discovered a bumble bee, which Buster immediately 'took over' Buster's face was a picture. Enlarge the photo and you can see the bee























At this point the bee is behind that little tuft of grass! Jim then picked it up and it flew off

















The magnolia stellata is looking beautiful











More Tulips













































































Those gorgeous primula juliae 'Wanda' in the evening sunshine











These early daffodils are now just curling their outer petals









A close up of one of the contorted willows












I was taken by the gorgeous lime green of these rose leaves, in fact if you look carefully there's a bud coming










Sandy and BlackJack looking so content on Buster's chair!











Finally, the cottage and front lawns and parking area from the allotment, where I was cutting the fuchsia bushes.




NOW DON'T MISS MY BLOG TOMORROW

I am honoured to be part of The Virtual Tour to promote Sue Guiney's book, Tangled Roots. The tour began on Sunday 22nd March and the 'programme' is below:



So.....the tour began on:
Sunday, 22 March DJ Kirkby will be announcing the tour and doing a give-away http://djkirkby.blogspot.com

Jamieson Wolf (who will be doing a little something every day this week) http://jamiesonwolf.blogspot.com

Wednesday, 25 March Jennie Beattie http://tea-stains.blogspot.com

Thursday, 26 March Trixie http://trixieonthehunt.wordpress.com/

Monday, 30 March Tim Atkinson http://thedotterel.blogspot.com

Thursday, 2 April Tania Hershman http://titaniawrites.blogspot.com

In April, before Easter Elizabeth Baines http://elizabethbaines.blogspot.com

And now there's ME Gina Deen, you know the rest or you wouldn't be here!

There will be questions for Sue and her always interesting answers and a review by me. Don't miss it.

Friday, 3rd April, 2009 Garden Progress

It said the weather was going to be awful today, but it turned out to be not so bad. A bit windy but not the expected rain. We had a late start, nothing unusual there. Jim and I sat chatting in bed for about an hour. It's a good thing to do. I mentioned that I hated the gathering pond of rather smelly water in our back yard in front of the extension. The builders were supposed to have made a soak away but it wasn't anywhere near big enough and therefore didn't. It just sat there. Having planted this little seed, Jim donned his gear (it had started to drizzle) and headed out, mattock in hand. He wasn't really happy about it but felt that it had to be done.

I joined him with a coffee and observed! He dug a channel, which was mighty difficult, through rock and root and soggy soil. Then he unearthed a drainage pipe, the end of which had been bunged up. Whoosh, away it all drained in a rather smelly stream, this in turn ran into our usual soakaway area (laughingly called the pond), under the road and away. Jim's gloves were off by now and he was scooping up handfuls of mud and stones to make the channel deeper. It was a great effort and has at least got rid of the smelly pool. The builders are going to dig a much larger soakaway area, but that won't be done for some time and I couldn't stand that 'pond' any longer.

There is a little copse of willows to soak up some more of the water at the side of the arboretum and they needed pruning. Jim, enthused by his success, decided this was our next job, so I cleared away grass and nettles and the willows received the big spring prune. 'Shall we do the ones on the other side?' said Jim. I thought it was time we ate something so we decided to go and have breakfast. At 6.10pm!!! That must be a record, even for us.

We were having turkey roast for evening meal, so Jim put the turkey in the oven for later. Outside, and we beavered away cutting the row of willows down and giving them their spring haircut. Phew. It all took some time and we then carried the piles of cut willow up to the 'bonfire' area. We had to walk past the other side of the fairy hill. A huge ash tree had fallen down over the first winter and the remaining large trunk was stuck at the bottom of the slope, hovering above the stream. We had tried to move it several times, to no avail. I tentatively gave it a shove to see whether it was light enough to move. Jim joined in and we heaved. Nothing.

I moved a couple of bundles of willow up to the bonfire and in the meantime Jim had wrapped rope around said trunk. Shall we try and pull it out? One loop of rope on each side of the trunk and Jim and I in the loop in the middle, like a couple of shire horses. Heave. Nothing. At one end of the trunk, a piece stuck out so I suggested we just both pull on that end, which might have more leverage. It did move, but Jim couldn't hold it and let go and I fell over into the mud!! We should have had a video running! We had a rest, then another go. I could hold the rope as we pulled it up but couldn't move, so Jim had to give it the final heave and over it went! Hooray! It looks splendid now and makes a marvellous bench in front of the little stream. A new feature.

I gathered up the grass and rubbish we had pulled from around the willows into my wonderful motorised wheelbarrow and whizzed it up to the compost heap. Jim appeared with 2 coffees and biscuits. 'Is this afternoon tea?' I asked. Yes, it was breakfast at 6, afternoon tea at 7.30 and dinner was going to be at 9pm. Seems fair enough!!

We have an old greenhouse at the top of the allotment and I'd mentioned that it was about falling down. No sooner had I mentioned it than Jim sprang into action. He was on a roll. He fetched various tools and started to demolish it! First we need to take the glass out. It's amazing how firmly this piece of glass was stuck into the frame, considering the frame was falling apart. It then started to rain. In earnest. Jim was determined to get this window out, but in the end he had to admit defeat as the rain came down in torrents! But all in all, a most successful day/afternoon and evening.

Here are some photos Jim took of the new enclosed 'Buster Proof' allotment area:






The soft fruit bed. Rhubarb nearest to the camera and strawberries behind. They will be covered by a net.









From the other end, the strawberries are at the far end and there is a gate between the beds. If you enlarge this photo, you can just see my parcel hanging from the tree on the right!










Down the left hand side, this plot is ready for planting. Jim has already planted gladioli, carrots, broad beans, onion sets and 4 different varieties of peas. Oh, you can see the rotting greenhouse at the back on the right hand side!




I still haven't quite finished the far end of the soft fruit plot. It was a path and as such has been well trampled down and is full of stones. There's no rush though.

Our late turkey roast (about 10pm) was quite delightful, followed by Jim's home made apple and rhubarb crumble with cream. We watched England beat West Indies in the last of a series of one day games, which was very satisfying. Well, I went and cleared up the kitchen after a while, but could tell England were winning from the shouts emanating from the snug.

Another short-ish one today.

A Productive Day on the Allotment 1st April, 2009

Well, it was a funny old night. I managed to get to sleep ok, then woke up when it was still dark and ended up staying awake until 9am, then falling asleep again and Jim woke me at 1.30pm! A quick 'breakfast' and it was out into the garden. It had promised sunshine but was cloudy but dry, which if ok by me. I have been trying to finish digging over and weeding Jim's 2nd allotment plot and it's almost finished. it was full of buttercups and dock and some of it is really heavy, damp soil, which is hard work to dig. We also decided that the only way to stop the vegetables being 'Bustered' was to enclose these 2 plots with a fence. So today that's just what we did and it looks just great, all organised and ready to plant. The 2nd plot is going to have soft fruit in it. We already have rhubarb and strawberries. Buster loves to eat the strawberries, as do the birds. Now we have all sorts of other fruit bushes ready to plant. It was dark by the time we'd finished so I'll take a photo of it tomorrow. We were so pleased with ourselves.

Buster came back from his wanderings and he was just so confused. There was I, inside this 'cage' and he couldn't get at me. He kept poking his head through the fence and barking! He'll get used to it. Jim went back inside and I finished off and put the tools away and then Jim re-appeared with 2 gin and tonics. Fabulous. We sat on our seat in front of the shed and enjoyed the last bit of light. Pippistrel bats were swirling overhead and a large flock of starlings landed on the telephone wires. It looked for all the world like the Hitchcock film 'The Birds'. They chattered away to each other! A pair of collared doves were mating in one of the trees and a blackbird sang to us. Both cats played around near us too. What a blissful half an hour it was.

We had a late meal and watched The Apprentice before heading off each to our own computer.

Jack


As you probably know by now, Jack is my gorgeous Grandson by my son Jason and his lovely wife Sam. He will be 4 in May. Sam told me this wonderful tale about him at the weekend. He was helping his Daddy clear out the small bedroom for the arrival of his little sister Kitty at the end of May. Jason turned to him and said 'Look at the mess you're making'. Quick as a flash, Jack replied, 'It's part of my charm'. Can you believe it!










I brought home one of his drawings on my last visit. It's fantastic that all of a sudden their drawings take on real form and shape and are no longer just squiggles. The photo isn't too clear but this is his picture:







In case you're wondering, it's a chicken and at the bottom are its 2 eggs. How cool is that?












Flower Arrangement

After my flower arranging course for Mother's Day, I had a go at a table arrangement. It hasn't lasted long, but here it is:




Not bad for a first effort!
















Buster

Buster now has his new, larger bed, as you may know if you follow my blog. In spite of that, he still dangles his head out the side! Maybe he's more comfortable that way:





It doesn't look very comfortable











Having a good stretch













Then he went camera shy











Change of position













This is obviously his favourite position!







At the moment his is curled up right inside it, so he can fit in it if he wants to.

Of course today is April 1st and I was totally taken in by the discovery of a brand new butterfly in ancient woodland in Kent. Silly me. Also by a new series of Gardeners' World - to be presented by the Top Gear man Jeremy Clarkson!! I thought it was a bit odd. I'm so gullible.

http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk/findings/newbutterfly.htm That's the link to the butterfly.

That's it for today. Just a little blog. A bloglet maybe?? Back tomorrow with photos of our fenced off vege plots. Can you contain your excitement?