Autumn projects

One of the new elms at the entrance to the village

Autumn, and there’s lots to do. In the village, the ‘new’ elms are just beginning to change colour and the field set aside for new allotments is almost ready. A team of men rotavated it and then stone-picked right across the site.

The new allotment field

At home, I’ve been laying a new oak floor in the bathroom. It’s very awkward because of the narrowness of the room and the need to cut around the pedestal and washbasin.

The planks fix to each other with blind metal clips on the backs but, if there’s anything to restrict the angle of tilt when a new plank is inserted, it’s almost impossible. Pipes around the edge of the floor are a real nuisance. I seem to have spent most of the week on my knees, rather like when I was a window-dresser in the ‘60s. Still, it will look good when it’s finished.

Earlier in the Summer, we visited the Salvo Fair at Knebworth http://livingvillage.blogspot.com/2011/06/salvo-fair-knebworth.html and was rather taken with some flashed blue glass starbursts on the Cox’s Reclamation Yard stall.

Unfortunately, they wants about £17.50 each for them. Not a bad price but more that I wanted to afford. In discussion with the staff, I found out that they were having an auction at their yard in Moreton in Marsh early this month so I went down with Marea and had a look around. The stained glass had been divided into 3 lots and I decided to bid for at least one of them. Also, there was some new limestone, cut into slabs, 1” thick that I thought would do nicely for me to practice letter carving. http://www.coxsarchitectural.co.uk/index.htm

Lots of lovely limestone

It turned out that there was rather more stone than I thought (about 10 m2) but I bid and got it for about £120 (plus commission – 10%). The glass wasn’t due to come up until the late afternoon (there were over 1000 lots) so we decided to take the stone home and bid online for the glass. We loaded the stone into Marea’s car and limped home, though without incident. I sat through quite a lot of the auction live online and eventually won the third lot of glass for £45 (+10%). When I picked up the glass and saw how much there was, I valued it (using Cox’s retail prices) at £488, so quite a bargain.

Bristol pattern glazed doors

The glass is designed to fit a Bristol pattern door but I won’t be using it for that – just happy to have it in my studio at the moment.

Because there was so much limestone, I’m going to use it to replace the dilapidated steps up to the back of the garden. I’ll probably carve some letters on the steps as well. Maybe more about that in future blogs.

A frosty New Year

New Year’s Day and no let up in the frost. The ground is iron hard and the trees covered with a fine coating. The birds are finding it hard.



I re-filled the bird feeders and scattered a few mealy grubs on the ground, but I’m sure I had more mealy grubs and couldn’t find them.

The lights were on in the calving shed up behind the house as I went to bed at about half past midnight and I could hear the beasts moaning. All was quiet this morning, so it looks like a good result.

As I strolled past the village allotments (for those not familiar with the idea, see http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) “In the United Kingdom, an allotment is a small area of land, let out at a nominal yearly rent by local government or independent allotment associations, for individuals to grow their own food. This could be considered as an example of a community garden system for urban and to some extent rural folk. The allotment system began in the 18th century: for example, a 1732 engraving of Birmingham, England shows the town encircled by allotments, some of which still exist to this day. Following the Enclosure Acts and the Commons Act of 1876 the land available for personal cultivation by the poor was greatly diminished. To fulfil the need for land allotment legislation was included. The law was first fully codified in the Small Holdings and Allotment Act of 1908, it was modified by the Allotments Act of 1922 and subsequent Allotments Acts up until 1950.”),

I got to thinking about the humble Brussels sprout. It seems that you either love or hate the Sprout. In some cases, even people who like cabbage can’t stand sprouts. I think this is because they’ve never eaten sprouts at their best, after the frost has been at them and the centre is pink and sweet.

I don’t have an allotment; I find the idea of having to take my tools etc. down a bit of an effort, probably because my first garden was a third of an acre and filled with all kinds of veg. All I had to do to cultivate or collect was step out of my back door. Mind you, in those days we were poor. We had 2 kids at home, I held down 2 jobs and I used to go out at weekends and push over dead trees in the hedgerows to bring home for fuel.

The village is very proud of its allotments, and unlike some other areas, it looks unlikely that they will be sold off for development, so there will be lots of local families growing and eating fresh veg. If this sort of thing interests you, go to: The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners http://www.nsalg.org.uk/.

Speaking of development, I saw these along the path as I was walking Molly. I hope they’re only there to mark out the path when the Council workmen come to lay down some quarry waste. I think I need to keep an eye on them.