The Idler

A Country Diary - 40

2 March 2006

THERE IS STILL snow on the ground, little hail-like white spheres are scattered about the place. They look like those awful polystyrene balls that fill beanbags. Even beanbags, it seems, are made of oil-based products these days. What happened to beans? Does anyone know the difference between the sprout and the bean? (a little nu-folk reference for you, there). I wonder also, is it usual for there to be snow in March? I understand that some people round here are practically snowed in. It’s blimmin’ cold, and I wonder what effect will this cold weather have on the soil? Will March sowing be delayed? I hope not, as I am itching to get the seeds in the ground. I put in a big order through the Organic Gardening Catalogue, and I also joined, finally, the Henry Doubleday Research Association. Last year I was too mean or poor to part with the £26 annual fee, but now I think I can spare the money. They are supposed to have a very good advice line which I can now use for free.

MY VAN BROKE DOWN the other day when I was on my way to the station on a London trip. The steering wheel started wobbling violently so I pulled over and called the AA. Apprently a bearing had gone on the fornt wheel. Well, it was towed back to our nearest town where it now sits ourside the garage while I wait for the part to arrive. When I called the garage they said that the police had been asking questions about it because it has no tax. Oh blimmin’ heck, I keep forgetting to renew the tax disc and I keep forgetting to pay the fine for being late, so now it���s gone from £40 to £80. That’s a lot of seeds! I really must sort myself out. Now I’m worried that it hasn’t got an MOT. I can’t remember the last time I had it done. Maybe it was more than a year ago? Then what? Will I have to go to court again? Maybe the police will give me another producer form and the whole sorry legal saga will start all over again. Hail the horse!

I THINK IT’S QUITE amazing that all the bulbs from last year are coming up again. And apparently they split into two underground during the year, so where last year there was one tulip there will now be two. Incredible, nature and her ways. Two of the three hellebores which I planted last year are flowering nicely, one is pink and the other a deep purple. Or when I say flowering, I should really say leafing, as apparently the flower of the hellebore is nor flower but a strange leaf.The only thing wrong with hellebores is the way they rather mournfully look down at the ground, which is perhaps why they are associated with melancholy and are cited as a cure for that condition in Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. I must work out how to extract the oil of hellebore.

THANKS TO MY friend James who sent me a great folk CD, we have been driving around singing along to Sing a Song of Summer by John Martyn and also The Sprout and the Bean by Joanna Newsom, which I referred to above. Both great singalongs for parent and child, and particularly suitable for a country life. Inspired by the folk movement going on right now, I have booked Bert Jansch and Circulus to play at our local summer festival in June (http://www.llama.org.uk).

ON THE BIRD-TABLE lately, we’ve seen a nuthatch and a greater-spotted woodpecker.

MY BREAD-BAKING is going very well. Every two weeks or so I bake five or six loaves plus a few rolls or raisin buns. We put three or four loaves in the freezer and her presto, enough bread for two weeks without having to leave the house, and at a cost of about a quid. The whole process takes five to six hours although I could perhaps knead the dough for longer as my friend James the baker commented that my bread was a little on the, erm, dense side. Got to work on getting those air bubbles in there.

I AM PLANNING A lot more fruit this year, and I’ve ordered more blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes plus a couple of gooseberry bushes. Fruit bushes and trees seem to be a particularly good idea for any garden, combining as they do beauty and utility and requiring a lot less work than vegetables. In fact, whenever I visit the garden of a city-dwelling friends, I encourage them to break up their boring bourgeois lawns with lots of fruit. I suggested to one friend planting more fruit, and they said there wasn’t any more room in the garden. I looked at their garden and there was a giant stretch of bland lawn! People say kids like lawns to play on, but surely they would like them even more if there were apple trees, pear trees and plum trees dotted around the place?