I has a rocket!
I only bought the one because we were invited over to the neighbors’ for a Fourth of July cookout, and I didn’t think their livestock would appreciate fireworks.
We snuck home full of wine and burgers and let it off in the garden. It…wasn’t very good.
I paid £10 for this thing and it just went whizz-bang-fountain. For that kind of money, I thought sure it would spell out “God Bless America” and hum a few bars of Stars and Stripes Forever.
The best part was where we jammed the firing tube thingie into the soil, and Jack immediately rushed over and took a crap. Any time you disturb earth, Jack’ll plant one in it, quite uninhibitedly. We had to wait for him to fuss over his turd coverings before we could light the fuse. I didn’t want to remember this as The Day I Set Fire To The Cat.
Hope you had a jolly 4th!
July 4, 2014 — 10:34 pm
Comments: 20
Another village, another George
‘Tis the season for day trips.
The weather in England is surprisingly lovely surprisingly often, for something so bitched about. It’s incredibly temperate: seldom gets below freezing in Winter, almost never rises above 85° in Summer. The worst it throws at you is a season of gray or rain, but these aren’t endless, no matter how it feels. And rain maketh green.
At the moment, we’re having England at its best and have done for weeks. Sunny and seventies in the daytime, clear and fifties at night. So no matter how hot the sun, it’s always crisp and cool in the shade, with a light breeze. Whur I come from, we called this April, only we don’t get several months of it.
Today we took a long run over to beautiful Alfriston. The hymn “Morning has Broken” was written to honor Alfriston (probably). Love this place. All the shops are ancient, charming and woefully overpriced. The National Trust’s first acquisition is here (the Clergy House, closed today, dangit).
We had lunch in the George (above), first recorded changing hands in Thirteen-something. Then a stroll along the Cuckmere (the river Virginia Woolf drowned herself in). Then a drive back along the coast to…ummm…Tesco’s.
Hey, hey…weasel’s gotta eat.
July 3, 2014 — 11:10 pm
Comments: 11
I’m no sheep farmer…
…but I don’t think this ewe is going to make it.
One of our neighbors invited us over for a barbecue and a walk around his property. I’m pleased to report that this unhappy animal was part of the walk, not the cookout.
Tour also included a badger sett, but as that’s just a hole in the ground and not very interesting to look at with no badgers peeking out, I didn’t include it.
There’s also a big square raised thing that is the remains of some ancient work of man. He was told not to dig into it, so he hasn’t.
Brits are so blasé about their history. First fine night, I’d be out there with a smuggler’s lantern and a spoon.
July 2, 2014 — 10:21 pm
Comments: 11
Crop’s a-coming on
That big bad beautiful boy, believe it or don’t, is a Papaver somniferum. An opium poppy. A vividly pink one, They’re perfectly legal to grow here provided you don’t, Scout’s honor, milk them for latex.
We have it on good authority that there are times and places in Sussex when all the poppy seed-heads mysteriously vanish overnight. Generally villages with a high concentration of herbalists.
We have a couple of patches that bloom every year. The blooms are beautiful but short-lived. I mean, the petals fall off very quickly, not that trained herbalists tiptoe into our garden and steal our opium.
We also have a pair of mystery moon vines growing in Uncle B’s raised beds this year. We thought they were cukes, as we grow those and some are recycled through the compost bin and these looked similar. But the flowers, when they came, were enormous, and the things growing on them aren’t cukes.
Best guess, they’re marrows. I don’t know from marrows, but they look like fat spotty zucchinis. Thing is, neither of us has bought a marrow or a zucchini in our miserable lives, so how did they get in our soil?
I’m not big on gourds. Any serving suggestions?
July 1, 2014 — 10:42 pm
Comments: 30
the boids
The gulls are getting hella aggressive at the seaside Scottish town of Newhaven. Okay, that’s not a very good story, but I liked the picture and the link goes to the Metro — always a fun, trashy read. (Don’t miss “man’s trousers blown off by exploding tyre.” No, Brits can’t spell “tire,” poor things).
In other news, Rolf Harris was convicted of sex offenses today and will undoubtedly do time. In case you’re wondering who the hell Rolf Harris is, he’s the guy who wrote “Tie Me Kangaroo Down.” You still shouldn’t give a shit, but at least you know who he is now. You’re welcome for that song going through your head.
There’s been a lot of that going on in the UK lately: going back and prosecuting men for sex crimes they committed decades ago. In many cases, the things they did were common knowledge at the time, but attitudes were different then. Or, at any rate, there was a whole lot of that kind of thing going on. In a sense, it’s not really fair to roust old men out of their beds and prosecute them for ancient crimes.
But in another sense — screw ’em, these guys were pigs. The fact that they usually got away with it back then is grossly more unfair than the fact that they’re being locked up for it now.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s garbage night. We’re up to four bins now: rubbish, garden waste, glass and other recyclables. If they add another bin, I’ll be officially too stupid to take out the trash.
June 30, 2014 — 10:39 pm
Comments: 18
Ha! Ha! Ha! Come here, silly swans!
There’s an exhibition of rare Chinese propaganda posters going on in Edinburgh at the moment. It’s 133 posters from 1913-1997 on loan from the Propaganda Poster Art Centre in Shanghai.
I wouldn’t mind seeing that. Not enough for a field trip to Scotland, but enough to look it up online. I lumme some propaganda. (No, I really do. I’ve always thought that should have been my calling). The Telegraph has a better slideshow (I know, I know…slideshows are de debil).
I especially love these ladies, from the model opera Red Women’s Detachment, 1971. No, they don’t look silly at all.
Right. We’ll assemble here under the flagpole tomorrow, 6 sharp.
Dead Pool Round 65!
June 26, 2014 — 10:19 pm
Comments: 13
Guzzbries
Behold, the mighty gooseberry crop! I reckon there’s about five pounds there (well, Uncle B weighed them, but I didn’t write it down. Five pounds, close enough). The little dark ones in the back are a sweet purplish dessert variety.
Uncle B says we’ll have to make a gooseberry fool. So I asked “what exactly is a fool?” And he says, “Oh, it’s something like a syllabub.”
Sigh.
Fool. Syllabub. Cranachan. Eton mess. Pavlova.
Ugh. Just give me a smoothie.
June 24, 2014 — 10:51 pm
Comments: 29
Bees!
I bet I hoovered 150 live bees off the bedroom window Saturday morning. It started with two or three bees the day before. Then six or seven.
We’re continually being hectored about bees, how the hives are dying and we must do everything we can to make our gardens bee friendly. We were opening windows and shoo’ing them out gently at first.
Then we woke up to a bedroom full of the little bastards, and we both got stung, and it was all, fuck that noise.
We found the tiny hole in the bedroom wall they were coming out of. Things improved when we plugged it, but not completely. Four hundred year old house. Not exactly air tight.
The Council couldn’t do anything because it’s indoors (presumably in the chimney), so we got a private bee guy on the line. He got out of his van and just pointed to that ginormous swarm of bees on the chimneystack there.
Huh. We missed that somehow.
After much poking and peeking and trying to reach them with the hose we decided to leave it and see if they swarmed off of their own free will. Which they did later that night.
And that was the great Midsummer’s Day Bee Adventure.
June 23, 2014 — 8:00 pm
Comments: 24
Wouldja lookit the time!
Well, would you look at that! It’s Friday the 13th, it’s a full moon and the whole world is burning (those excitable brown people in the East, anyway). Eh, in the immortal words of Scarlet O’Hara, “fuck that, it’s Friday!”
Here, I think you should follow this guy on Twitter: Greenwich Mean Time. Twice a day, randomly, it tells you the time. And is mean to you.
It’s 8.37pm. You didn’t get that job because you smell like shit and also because you’re fucking stupid…It’s 8.15pm. It’s not just in your head, your tone of voice IS awful…It’s 10.50am. You could be outside but instead, you’re stuck in an office because you made all the wrong life decisions…It’s 2.41pm. All your school friends were paid actors from a local children’s television workshop. It nearly bankrupted your parents…It’s 11.19pm. I hope you shit yourself in your sleep…It’s 10.29pm. You’re a twatparrot…It’s 12.15am. Even those fake followers you bought have muted you.
What? No, I don’t use Twitter much these days, either. But I’d rather have an anonymous internutter pretending to be a clock insult me twice a day than follow current events at the moment. Or, you know, sharp stick in the eye is good.
Good weekend, all!
June 13, 2014 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 28
We sell kitteh by the kilo here, son
Spotted today in a farm shop several villages over. The man gently lifted the cat off the scale to weigh our pork chops. Made him nervous when Uncle B took out the cellphone; he probably thought we were narks.
June 10, 2014 — 10:54 pm
Comments: 20