More garden pictures

Trave is supposed to keep you up-to-date with the garden, but his posts are far from being regular, so here you are.

Generally speaking, things are doing well. We feared for the apple tree after an aphid attack but it seems to have recovered by now.

Leeks:
We have grown them from seeds and they are looking pretty healthy! I cannot wait for them to be ready (still a few months to go though!).


Courgettes:
We have grown 2 plants from seeds, and 2 were supplied already grown in pots by Trave's parents. Both look good (our own stuff even slightly better if I dare say!).


Tomatoes:
Only one of our own-grown cherry tomatoes (from seed) actually worked. Three cherry tomato tumblers in pots and four normal size tomato plants were supplied by Trave's parents.
This one is our own:
Parsley:
Not grown from seed but is growing well in the border. Fresh parsley is really nice!


Thyme:
We came back from Glastonbury and one of the thyme was in full bloom. A bright pink which looks very pretty.

The one I am growing from seed is doing much better than I expected.


Rosemary:
I have honestly not noticed any difference since I planted the two plants.

Sage:
The sage was in the garden already so no merit at all. It looks nice.

Lavender:
We have three different types of lavender on borders at the moment, and I am growing another one from seed. They are all of a different generation and of different colours, varying from very light pink to dark purple. I love the scent.

Lemon balm:
I bought some lemon balm (and geraniums, bianca and bright pink) to keep mosquitoes away from the patio during our summer barbecues. That is, if we see the sun ever again after weeks of deluge. They are doing very well and look very cute.

Honeysuckle:
The bushes were here already but I love honeysuckle so much they deserved being mentioned. It is lovely sitting in the garden by a light breeze and you can smell the delicate fragrance of honeysuckle. I love it!

Our first radishes

It took only a few weeks and we have had our first crop of radishes last week! They are yummy. The rocket is starting to grow as well, but more slowly.

And more radishes yesterday:

More Glastonbury pictures!

This is the Pyramid stage:



This is the Other Stage with tents in the foreground and more tents in the far background:


This is me dancing to crazy gypsy tunes in the mud:


This is the wood oven used by the hippie commune to bake:

Our Glastonbury programme

There is so much to see during the festival, you wouldn't believe it! Apart from music, you have the opportunity to view dance, theatre, comedy, poetry, movies, as well as taking part in political debates, informing yourself about the protection of the environment, gardening, about peace, and discover new delicacies from other parts of the world.

You feel like running all day from one show to the next (as much as you can run in the mud!) and at the end of the day, you realise that you have seen only half a dozen things. Compared to the 700 performances there were over 3 days, this is very little...

So, here is what we saw, although not always the entire show:

FRIDAY

Mr. Hudson and the Library, music - UK
Adjagas, music - Norway
Film: Glastonbury Gap Year, movie
The Hours
Big Beats, music (drumming on recycled material)
Movimientos, music, dance - Latin America
Tacto Latino, music, dance - UK
Super Furry Animals, music - Wales, UK
Radio Four presents Four in a Field, comedy - UK
Arctic Monkeys, music, UK
Björk, music, Iceland

favourite show on Friday: Movimientos, or maybe Big Beats

SATURDAY

Breakfast with Howard Marks (Trave went, I stayed in the dried tent!)
CSS, music - Brazil
Slovo , music, UK (now, wait for this, we recognised the guitarist, and yes, we know him, or rather, Trave and his brother know him very well, I met him only once. Used to play in Faithless)
Jeremy Hardy, comedy - UK
Rhythm Wave, samba music
Marcus Bridgstocke, comedy - UK
Phil Kay, comedy (was not very funny though)- UK
Mitch Benn, music & comedy - UK
Mr Scruff, music - UK
The Killers, music - UK
Iggy and the Stooges, music - USA (did not stay for long, I could not bear the swearing...)
Rodrigo y Gabriela, music - Colombia

favourite show on Saturday: Rodrigo y Gabriela
SUNDAY

The Holloways, music - UK
Mahala Rai Banda - Electric Gypsy Land, music, Romania
The Marley Brothers present the 30th Anniversary of Exodus, music - Jamaica
Black Eagles - Acrobatics
Tumble Circus - Aerial
Jay and Manu - Jugglers
Billy Bragg, music - UK
Tinariwen, music (blues), Mali
The Who, music - UK
Chemical Brothers, music (electronica) - UK
Bill Bailey, comedy, UK

favourite show on Sunday: difficult one... I cannot possibly choose

They say mud is good for you

If so, there are at least 200,000 of us with a super smooth skin coming back from the mud bath that the Glastonbury Festival was this year! We were well prepared for it though, and really enjoyed the festival despite the weather.

We arrived there on Thursday just before lunch. It was not raining at that point. We even had blue skies for a bit and although the ground was wet from almost two weeks of non-stop showers, it was clear grass and not flooded. We pitched the tent and went for a walk around. It rained a bit later on but not too badly. But then it rained all weekend. It stopped raining only on Friday night and Saturday night for a few hours, which made it nicer to stand in the crowded field in front of the various stages.

Try to image what can happen when it rains, a lot, and you have nearly 200,000 people walking in a restricted space... To give you an idea, clic on the following links: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tims/622824055/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tims/621896673/in/set-72157600482303155/

Our own photos are not very dramatic as we tried to keep the camera safe and dry!

Here is a view from the stone circle (Kings' Meadow):

One of the Tippi Fields:

These ones are overviews, giving you some idea about the size of the site:

Off to Glastonbury!

I came back from Eisenach, Germany yesterday where I was for work during a couple of days.

We are heading off to Glastonbury tomorrow morning. Our waterproofs and Wellington Boots are already packed.

Full report when we come back!

Kitten!

The mother, called Fluffy, gave birth to three cute kittens on 8th May. Aren't they cute???


And this cute one here should be with us from 8th July. We have a name but will wait until we are sure about the gender. We think it is a girl. I mean, doesn't she look like a girl? ;0)

Flooding

I was going to tell you about more food stuff and show you pictures of our kittens, but the severe weather we have had tonight takes priority.

It was raining very badly when I cycled home from work tonight. Out of my three-mile journey, I had several inches of water on the ground for over 2 miles. The roads were covered with water, literally. When I got to the Offchurch bridge, the rain was torrential and visibility very very low, less than 20 yards and the rain was turning into hail. There was about a foot deep of water before and after the bridge. On the uphill after the river, pebbles and gravels were washed away by torrents of water which were hard to negotiate on a bicycle. I almost fell off my bike a couple of times because of branches or pebbles. Water was everywhere, even on the tops of the hills... Down at the canal bridge was pretty bad too. One of the lanes was closed in Radford Semele, I think because on the sewage covers had been forced by the water and was sticking out of the road.

When I got home, water had started gathering around the house, which was worrying. The shed was leaking from everywhere. 15 minutes later, the water was a couple of inches from our front door, and the street, higher than our house, was completely flooded and THAT was very worrying too. If the water started to come off the street into our driveway... we would be flooded for sure. It rained more and more.


We took all we could upstairs: tables, chairs, rugs, mats, plants, chest of drawers...

The rear garden was half flooded, all the neighbours gardens, front and rear, were flooded. The inside of our house was dry. But this shows how it was outside our front door.


When the rain eased off, we went out to check out if the neighbours were OK. The next 3 houses on both sides had been flooded, living room and/or utility room. People were throwing buckets of water onto the street. Some houses' electrics got cut off... Most places dried off pretty quickly. Within an hour after the rain stopped, and with the help of heavy-duty brooms, we had cleared the driveway and the garden was not a massive puddle any more.

I was terrified at seeing this quantity of water waving through our glassed front door. I hope it does not rain overnight...

WE ARE SO LUCKY. I cannot believe how lucky we are...

Apparently, people have been asking the council to put drains along the road for years, which has not been done. Given that 80% of the houses in this street are council-houses, they should really do something about it, and quick.

A neighbour told me he had never seen this before. And he has been living here for 15 years. We have been in this house for less than 10 weeks so it is kind of scary...

To leave on a positive note, we got to meet and introduce ourselves to neighbours we had not met before, which is nice.

Mediterranean quiche

I cannot tell you enough how nice this quiche was! And we are going to eat what is left of it tonight, yuppeeee!

For the pastry, I used:

80g wholemeal flour
60g plain flour
50g mixed seeds
2 TBSP grated Parmesan
1 TBSP mixed Italian herbs
1 pinch salt
3 TBSP cold water

Make a pastry, roll out and cook with baking beans for 10 minutes. Remove the beans. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

For the filling I used:

2 courgettes, sliced
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
mixed Italian herbs
Freshly cracked black pepper

Fried in olive oil then placed into the pastry case.


Cover with 80g grated cheddar cheese.

2 eggs
150ml milk

Mix the eggs and milk and poor over the cheese.
Place in the oven preheated at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. Voila!

Cereal galettes

These are really easy and quick to make. For the full recipe, click here. I had even so little time to make dinner that frozen peas were served as a side dish!

Mashed potatoes & bulghur

I was running out of ideas that night. I thought about a stir-fry with potatoes, bulghur broccoli and carrots but was not in the mood for stir-fry :(

So I mashed the potatoes, cooked some bulghur, mixed them together with a generous handful of freshly roasted pine kernels, added fresh parsley from the garden and served it with boiled broccoli and carrots. It was delicious! I will definitely make this again.

Warwickshire countryside

We are going to have a kitten!!!!!

Last Saturday we went for a bicycle ride towards the South/South-East to some stables where the kittens were born on 8th May. They are really cute little things and it is going to be really really hard to choose one of them. We have not decided yet.

There are some wonderful views and on the way back we took a different route, not so hilly (I think this is the reason why Trave wanted to ride back that way!) and we could see the hills and Chesterton windmill. And then we passed this beautiful view of a hill with a tree on the top and some sheep grazing on the grass. Outstanding. Trave took the picture (I suspect this was an excuse to rest for a bit!!!...)


You may have gathered that Trave lacks training these days. The nice weather is coming back so we shall try to go for weekend rides more regularly again.

Our first strawberry

Here is a picture of our first strawberry, which we shared on Friday. We have had some more since then, yum yum!

WED 2007

Today is World Environment Day.

I'll just let you think about it for a second.