Season's biggest pumpkin

Only 50lbs or so but I did manage to win a couple of local shows with it. And it was the biggest Hallowe'en pumpkin up our street last month!

Hehehe

An elderly English gentleman of 83 arrived in Paris by plane.At the French immigration desk, the man took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry-on bag. "You have been to France before, Monsieur?" the Immigration officer asked, sarcastically.The elderly gentleman admitted he had been to France previously."Then you should know well enough to have your passport ready."The English gentleman says, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it.""Impossible. All Englishmen have to show their passports on arrival in France!"The elderly gentleman gave the French Immigration Officer a long hard look.Then he quietly explained;"Well, the last time I was here, I came ashore on Juno Beach on D-Day in June 1944, and I couldn't find any f*cking Frenchmen to show it to."

What if.........?

I'm sometimes asked which varieties are best for showing and then asked where these can be purchased as they are often not available from the large seed merchants. I buy my seed from Medwyns, Sheeley Seeds, and ESP (potatoes) but it got me thinking whether you could compete by only sourcing your seed from the likes of T&M, Suttons, Dobies etc.

I think the short answer is yes you can but you would have to have grown them exceptionally well to compete against seed which has been bred specifically for the showbench. Indeed, some seed which started off as showbench favourites such as Red Ace beetroot and Gladiator parsnip have now found their way into several catalogues.

If I had to go one season only purchasing seed from the 'garden centre' stockists these would be the varieties I would choose. I have chosen from Thompson & Morgan's seed list.

Onion Marco (small classes only)
Long Carrot Yellowstone
Stump carrot Kingston
Parsnip Gladiator
Tomatoes Shirley
Leek Musselburgh .......you'd have to sow early in heat though and grow under cover
Cauli Clapton
Marrow BadgerCross
Beetroot Red Ace
Runner beans Enorma
French beans The Prince
Cucumber Carmen
Cabbage Kilaton
Celery Victoria
Lettuce Webb's Wonderful
Peas Cavalier
Potatoes Kestrel & Winston
Shallots Longor

Quite a reasonable selection there I think and I'd be confident of putting up a good show at local level. However, I still maintain it's worth paying a little bit more for that personal touch and to guarantee selected seed that will definitely perform for you.

Today's object of hate is........

…………..or are……binmen!

Years ago they used to empty your bins by actually coming up your garden path or driveway and lugging them to the dumpster and emptying them personally into the back. They were proper men who didn’t mind getting dirty and they were duly rewarded at Christmas time with a little tip showing our appreciation of their work.

Nowadays however, WE have to bag our own rubbish into separate bloody bags and lug it out on to the street ourselves, usually at 7 o’clock in the bleeding morning in our dressing gowns when we’ve woken up in a panic and realised we forgot to do it the night before.

When they get to your house, usually sniggering their stupid smug faces off at our predicament, they then throw every single, carefully separated bag into the back of the same f*cking truck, quite often tearing the flimsy plastic bags in the process and scattering rice, tea bags and an assortment of tin cans over the road. The cans will ALWAYS lodge in front of your car tyre with the sharp edge touching the rubber waiting for you to drive into it. This is the law of Sod!

The binmen do their rounds at two specific times of the day and both are designed to cause as much upset to the general public as possible. Often it’s just before you wake up naturally with a nice stretch followed by a reassuring grope of your gentlemen’s vegetables. The sudden screech of steel on steel causes you to wake from your slumber in a the manner of a flick knife on speed, and usually leaves you with a thumping headache all day.

Or else, they deliberately decide to go down the main thoroughfares through town during rush hour when you’re trying to get to work. For this purpose they’ve left the ‘map of most economical routes to cause the least distress’ back at depot and instead are using the ‘map of routes likely to cause the most serious steering wheel chewing’ which means they will park their f*cking trucks in the most awkward sodding places whilst they amble from kerb to kerb gleefully ignoring your longing facial pleas to get a f*cking move on! No-one will be able to pass in either direction and a tail back starts to form. They then take about 10 minutes to get up into the truck in order to drive 50 yards to an equally awkward stopping location meaning you have about 20 seconds to take advantage of any space in which to pass them.

Bastards!

Hugely underrated player.......

……who had a brilliant game last night. Holds the ball up well and spreads it around sensibly. The team had a good shape about them.

No doubt when Steven ‘I can spray a 60yard pass straight to their defenders from anywhere on the park and run around like a headless tw*t’ Gerrard decides he’s fit enough to condescend to play for his country he’ll be straight back in the team in place of Carrick !

Hehehe

Woman goes to doctors. “Doctor my vagina keeps talking!”

The doctor puts her on the couch and takes a look. Sure enough her vagina starts to speak “Liverpool are going to win the league!”

The doctor looks at the woman and says, “it’s an epidemic. A lot of c*nts are saying that this season!!!”

Not much happening in the garden.....

......so I've been catching up on some walking. Last weekend a gang of us spent the weekend in the Lakes. After nailing Coniston Old Man on Saturday we spent a most convivial evening throwing several pints of Snecklifter down our throats. My apologies must go to the person who had to enter our dormitory at Keswick YHA after we had vacated it as the stench of stale farts was quite terrible.

We had then intended to get up Great Gable (see pic) in time for the annual Remembrance service at 11am but alas none of us are as fit as we once were and we were about 30 minutes too late. As my mate decided there was no way he was getting his very expensive camera out in driving rain and sleet you'll just have to take my word for it that we actually summited.

Yesterday I took part in the annual Seagrave Wolds Challenge, a 16 mile walk around Leicestershire's rolling countryside to raise funds for Seagrave village hall. This is a superbly well organised event (as is everything Seagrave decides to do) and is worth doing purely for all the free cake on offer at each pitstop. I completed the 16 or so miles in 5 hrs 37 minutes. If any of you fancy entering next year there's a website......

http://www.seagravewoldschallenge.co.uk/

Mooooooove!

Isn't it pissing marvellous how pedestrians can saunter across a busy bleeding road, very often a mere few yards from a f*cking crossing point that they can't be arsed to walk to, or else with their head stuck in one of those Hi Pud miniature cassette recorder thingummyjiggies, and then have the gall to look at you in your car as if you have no right to be on the road, or that you are Beelzebub himself carved out a huge lump of dog shit.

F*cking walk quicker you lardy-arsed, sanctimonious, po-faced snotgobblers!

Right....I've decided. This winter my object of hate will be pedestrians.........or anti-car people in general!

It pays to be nice to me!

Seeing as this lovely person praised me so much and is also so obviously an anti-slughugger I have absolutely no hesitation in plugging her product! (I can be 'bought' that way you see!)

"Hi, what an awesome blog. I love your pics and your comments are hilarious. I am from South Africa and we are hugely embracing the whole eco-friendly, tree-hugging, bird loving mentality (aka Al Gore) right now. We make a kind of plastic netting that farmers use to protect fledgling plants, vegetables and even vineyards from pesky bats and birds - in a humane way. Maybe something to protect your exquisite babies in? Check it out"http://www.plasticexports.wordpress.com/.

Plants of the Eastern Mediterranean

Had a most interesting talk tonight by John Page at our Hort.Soc. on the above subject. Would thoroughly recommend him to anyone looking for a speaker. He can be contacted via email:

earlspage.freeserve.co.uk@earlspage.freeserve.co.uk

(that's an orchid by the way!)

Went to see the new Bond film tonight........

.....never understood a f*cking word of it!

Smith 4 Broxholme 3

Phew!!!