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Bowie - Nov 2009 SoHo NYC

My hero David Bowie is 63 today – so Happy Birthday to him.

It’s been several years since his last album (Reality, 2003) and well publicised ill-health whilst on the tour to support the album – and he’s been laying low with infrequent media appearances (celeb stuff with his wife Iman, supporting his son’s movie “Moon“, some movie and music cameos). Recently there’s the stamps thing plus a new live album (based on the live DVD) of his Reality tour out at the end of the month.

There has been no new music either rumoured or released – and some fans have speculated that he’s really not well.

It was almost a relief when back in November these photos surfaced of DB walking around in SoHo NYC looking quite the dapper man about town (what’s in that bag? a new album?)  

So – happy birthday DB and lets have some new music you old bugger!

This is from last summer -  but I just bumped into it.

A comprehensive list – many I know and remember fondly – many which escaped me till now (e.g. No 2 “Christian the Lion” – how had i missed that?).

It’s hard to argue against the “Star Wars Kid” being at No 1.. but my favourite is still probably “David After Dentist” (No 7 – if you only watch one… watch that one).

A good list with useful contextual commentary too.

The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos [Full List] – Urlesque.

For the first time, we have enough produce to make it worth preserving some for use into winter 
Only a couple of things and not even much of them, but our first ‘surplus’ so quite exciting !
Today I read about how to ‘string’ onions and we now have a couple of amateurish-looking strings hanging in the shed to see what happens. Hopefully, they will dry out a little and keep for a few months and not just fall off the strings or rot where they hang. If they look to be working I may do some more as I have left quite a few of the smaller onions in the bed.
We also have a freezer shelf of runner beans. I decided not to blanch them, just washed and dried them, sliced them up, then a loose freeze ready to bag into portions. We have lots more runners on the way so we will keep eating fresh and freezing spares for the next few weeks I think.
Charlie is getting mini-cukes every few days and we are still enjoying multi-coloured carrots, potatoes, salad and raspberries, even Steve and I managed to snaffle a few rasps yesterday when Charlie was out playing.
I cleared the asparagus beds of weeds yesterday and found 3 separate families of toads ! Lovely little things, very welcome so I tucked them back in and hopefully they will stay and get fat on slugs.

Currently harvesting:

- carrots of various shapes and colours – kids like the ‘golfballs’ best, I like the purple ones with orange middles.

- parsnips, which we have had roasted and in stews and are very nice

- mini-cukes which The Boy eats whole as a snack

- rasps, a mix of summer (Glen Prosen) and autumn (Polka), both in their first year so just a handful of each a day, I have had maybe 3 in total so far as Charlie loves them

- alpine strawbs, still lots of these. So tiny, but what an intense flavour.

- red and white onions, mostly going in salads or onion marmalade

- salad leaves, half a dozen types of lettuce and rainbow chard

- runner beans and yellow waxy french beans – just ready, havent tried either yet, maybe Sunday lunch.

- potatoes, the Anya are finished but still a few Charlottes and Juliettes left

- one or two peppers, they didnt do very well outside this year, need to be under glass

- plums are just starting and our one surviving apple looks about ready for granny Pam to pick it

Only put in a couple of dwarf peas, in the childrens patch, they picked a few pods today and the peas taste really sweet and nutty, totally different flavour and texture from a shop or frozen pea

- herbs: mint is looking a bit rusty, rosemary is okay, coriander is now going to seed, lots of oregano and thyme, basil still hanging in there, made pesto with most of it for Charlies pasta tonight.

Its the first time we have had enough things ready together for a whole meal and its brilliant !

A few pictures from our recent family picnic in Surrey.

Family Picnic 2009

The recent combination of hot sun and steady rain has had everything growing like mad – especially the weeds
We have a roll of weed mat fabric for the footpaths and need to get that down asap – Steve is doing the hard work clearing the surfaces, should make some progress this week.
We are eating our produce quite often now – potatoes (Anyas are The Best), salad, rasps, red onions, multi-coloured carrots. Not much of anything, but still lovely.
The parsnips are about there, Id like to leave some for Xmas if they will keep okay in the ground.
The shallots which went in very late (gift from a neighbour) are doing fine, will leave them as long as possible before pulling.
The salad onions and chard are up, not ready yet but might try the chard leaves next week in a salad.
Another neighbour donated a few spare leeks yesterday, they are already in a gap in the onion bed.
Cucumber plants have their first teensy cucumbers on, about 1″ long. They only get to 5-6″ anyway, but still a long way to go. Some of the leaves dont look good – they have gone lacey and holey in the middle – not from being eaten, maybe sun scorch damage ?
The asparagus is going great guns. No sign of anything dying back yet, fat spears still coming up on the Backlim and Anjlim, the purple one is still tiny and skinny but a little better than earlier in the year. Quite excited about prospects for next year when we can pick just one spear per crown.
Rhubarb is troubling me a bit. A few of the newer leaves have gone a dark red/brown and are quite crunchy. Also poss caused by sun on wet leaves but not sure what to do – probably pull the damaged stems off. The volunteer rhubarb is thriving and the first one that seemed to be failing (too close to the hedge ?) has recovered a bit. I will move them both in the autumn.
Oh, we have had a blueberry ! Just the one that the birds left us A couple more berries on the way – the plant needs to go back into a pot, it doesnt like being in the ground. I think I might put a red goosegog (’Pax’) in the gap.
Runner beans are flowering well, no sign of any pods yet.
Squashes (Butternut, table Queen) are both stopped at about 6″. Not sure why, maybe putting down roots before they take off ? If nothing happens soon they may be too late…
Flower beds are pretty raggedy looking. The Hollyhocks are just flowering but have quite bad rust on their lower halves. Need to pick the lupin pods to dry and plant the seeds – not sure how that works, will have to read up. Otherwise, grass is encroaching and needs riping out/edging and lots of dead-heading to do.
The large pepper in a pot still has lots of fruit, but they are going from green to brown without the red in between ! Not sure what is going wrong, but not a success.
Last thing for now – looking forward to making curry with home grown coriander leaves ! Lots of it coming up now, just a tiny bit longer to wait….

Example Match Attax Card

In these modern and enlightened times of kids and their teachers being.. erm.. friends – it is a new tradition for the kids  to give their teachers a card (and sometimes a present!) at the end of the school year.

Charlie and his friends have gone crazy on the Match Attax footy trading cards (whither Panini stickers… sigh) – and recently have taken to making/drawing their own for their favourite players and themselves.

So I helped him design and make some cards for his lovely teacher (Miss Taylor) and TA (Mrs Illingworth).

Gala Day Poster

It’s our village’s annual Gala Day tomorrow. It’s an important fund raiser for our village Sports Association which controls the playing fields and pavilion – providing sports facilities to local kids and adults – primarily football, cricket and bowls. After some problems and disappointing Galas in recent years this year’s event should be back to full strength (info here)

Ali & I are helping by running a mini-soccer tournament for local U8 & U10 teams in the morning.

I’ve also been involved in some of the organisation – there’s some very talented and comitted people working together to get this done – and I’ve been helping with some promotion.

We made a formal press release and were helped by Richmondhsire Council distributing it to local media – it’s delivered us articles in local/regional press (see here – although they did manage to print the wrong day!) and promotion on local radio – with one station recording an interview with the Sports Club chairman (BobT) for broadcast on Sunday morning.

Here’s hoping for decent weather tomorrow.

First of the potatoes this week – Charlottes. Charlie had some for dinner yesterday and declared them delicious, we will probably have them today. Mixed sizes from larger than expected to positively teensy, enough for a couple of family meals. Others are about ready too, foliage is dying off on first tub of each type so Anya and Juliette to try in next week or so. Should harvest a sack a week for next couple of months now
*Make note for next year to grow lots more !
Still almost no strawbs making it into the house – Charlie is stripping them bare each day which is great to see. No rasps yet, still small and green but on their way.
Radishes appeared almost overnight, lettuces close behind, but a while before any for picking.
Cucumbers both doing well, as are the peas and beans, none lost, but none close to flowering yet.
Rhubarb doing well – no flowers, so just leave it to die off.
Asparagus still putting up new spears, all of which look healthier than the first skinny ones did.
Butternut has germinated about 2-3″ tall, no true leaves yet. No sign of the Table Queen or the coriander.
Plum tree did the June Drop thing, still a good few tiny fruits there. Apple has 2 fruits, propped up one of the branches which was getting a bit heavy as the apple is right at the end.

Sowings this week: white lisbon salad onions, chard bright lights, more carrots (red, purple and rainbow – no boring orange !).

Jobs to do:
lime brassica beds ready to sow cabbages and swedes. Maybe brocolli and cauliflower too ?
weeding between beds
clear the empty bed where the volunteer potatoes have appeared, for summer/autumn planting.