Bedside Reading - American Teenagers

Reading in bed is serious reading, not just for putting me to sleep.  There's a small pile of paperbacks on a precarious triangular shelf by the bed, and three of them have bookmarks a few pages in, meaning I have actually started them.

With one the bookmark is at page 32, that's as far as I've got in three weeks and I'm not likely to get any further. In one of Waterstones' three for two deals, I picked it up in the shop because I quite liked the cover but mainly the title intrigued me - Paper Towns - by John Green. Shows how important titles are!  I read the blurb on the back and a couple of the reviews, but I should have read them all. It's not a badly written book, in fact the use of the language and structure is fine, but it hasn't really engaged me. It's my problem, do I really need to read yet another coming of age story set in small-town America? 

It's not as if there's been a shortage of them over the years. I've read some of the best - Catcher in the Rye when I was an actual teenager and To Kill a Mockingbird which made an impression as it's actually in the POV of a girl - very unusual at the time. My favourite is Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees - a strange, beautiful, dramatic story of a lost girl being cared for by three beekeeping ladies.

Anyway, American teens are always all over the TV/cinema; I've enjoyed Buffie the Vampire Slayer, The Breakfast Club, The Lost Boys and even Heathers. But now I've been there, a very long time ago and I have far too many tee-shirts to really care about the self-obsession of American teenagers!

I should have read all the reviews of Paper Towns, it's described as, "A coming of age American road trip that is at once a satire of and tribute to its many celebrated predecessors."  OK. For me there's only one road-trip book - Jack Kerouac's On the Road.  And so the answer is I probably don't need Paper Towns - by John Green, so it's likely to find it's way to the Oxfam shop. I'm sure it's a perfectly good story and I don't suppose the author will really mind that it's not for me, I hope not as my lack of interest isn't a judgement on his book. I have paid for it, so he gets his probably miniscule royalty, and it will be passed on to benefit charity and for others to read. I hope they do enjoy it.

the Fairweather Gardener - Mini Beasties in May

Plenty of bees around now which is good, my foxgloves are just flowering and the bees love them. Also hover flies around, which are not only good pollinators but have nice fierce larvae, which the same as ladybird larvae will happily munch through loads of aphids. I like hover flies.

Male orange tip feeding on cranesbill flowers

Early in the month the butterflies began to appear, the first one I saw was an orange tip, flew up from the geraniums and away over the wall. They're quite unmistakeable, or the males are, the females are more discreet and have no orange tips, so they look more or less like another white butterfly.

Next, there were a few nests of untidy silk with small caterpillars in them. The first one I found was on the car, which was a bit weird. Then one or two appeared in the garden on the apple tree and I started finding small brown hairy caterpillars in random places. I wasn't worried until the cat sitting on my lap suddenly stood up and stated intently at my shoulder. I found a caterpillar on my collar, I just brushed it off, but too late. I came up in a horribly itchy rash all round my neck! Online I found a few hysterical headlines about toxic caterpillars. I took a closer look at mine, they're brown tail moth caterpillars, not toxic, they just have irritating hairs. So I kept away from the apple tree until they had dispersed.

Brown tail moth nest with caterpillars hatching -

photo from the Forestry Commission

Loads of ants, there are some tiny ones living under the patio by the house, which is fine, they excavate little piles of sand and I don't mind, I just sweep it away from their holes and down between some other stones. But I do have to discourage them from coming into the conservatory, found several in the cat's food bowl. Am keeping the floor cleaner and have blocked a couple of small holes from the outside. It's working so far.

Lily beetles mating on the stem of my fritillaries -

blooming cheek!

My current garden infestation is spiders - tiny ones just hatched out and clustering in small mobs in unexpected corners. Slightly larger, more independent minded ones are hanging out all over the clothes lines. My laundry will soon be covered in silk or, more problematically, the remains of dead flies etc. I do have a bit of a spider phobia, but can live alongside them most of the time without freaking out.

Every time I move a flowerpot the woodlice hurtle around in panic and sometimes a few springtails too. I just let them disperse, they're quite harmless. Wish I could say the same about the snails. There are hundreds, I sometimes gather them in handfuls and lob them into the vacant, nettle filled lot behind the house, but I know its a waste of time.

None of the creatures in my garden are going to be fed or sprayed with anything toxic, not even the pretty scarlet lily beetles which have devastated my poor fritillaries this year.

World Turtle Day 23 May

To celebrate World Turtle Day, make sure you know the difference between a Turtle and a Tortoise - they are not the same creature.

Fleetwood Mac, 'Oh Well' - My Desert Island Discs - 2

I loved Fleetwood Mac as a blues band, long before they became a pop group. I saw them live more often than any other band apart from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, where three of the band originated anyway. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were Mayall's rhythm section when Eric Clapton left and Peter Green stepped in. It was an improvement! Clapton is technically brilliant but his guitar playing has no soul. Peter Green has a true bluesman's soul, his voice and songs are from that soul and his guitar is sublime.

All three musicians - Greeny, McVie and Fleetwood - subsequently left The Bluesbreakers and became Fleetwood Mac.  Mayall didn't miss them, that band has always been about him anyway, I don't think he ever really liked others in the limelight. He frequently changed his line-up and he's still touring today.

The last time I saw Fleetwood Mac live, at the Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone in 1969, they played 'Oh Well', written by Peter Green, which was on its way to becoming a hit record - it reached no.2 in the UK charts. For the live version they were loud, though not as loud as Led Zepplin who I'd go to see a month or two later. However by this stage Fleetwood Mac had three lead guitarists - Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan. As a live band they were unsurpassed and though the opening riff and the major part was played by Greeny, the others joined in - the intensity of the sound was incredible. As far as I remember, they didn't play the eight minute full length version.

As the rules don't allow me to take my copy of Fleetwood Mac's first album (known as the dog & dustbin album) to the desert island, I chose  'Oh Well', because of that live performance and for the defiant lyrics -

"...don't ask me what I think of you,
I might not give the answer that you want me to!"

I didn't love Fleetwood Mac after the three guitarists had left and the Mac became just another pop group.

Shape of the Beast

Chew

grass is bad now

smells not sweet

grass is dry now

taste of dust

sticks to tongue 

Not filling hunger

Smell 

smell of Acacia tree 

tree here good 

makes shade from hottest sun

between nights.

Tree makes food shade 

Smells of gerenuk

so no leaves to reach up

in the sand 

fallen leaves fallen fruit

good good fruit sweet chewy 

plenty fruit fill hunger…

fill...

fill…

Itch

itch on shoulder

no tick birds here

Acacia tree here

good for scratching…

gooood for scratching...

Listen 

Distant

Small roar not of lions

lions are beyond the hill

small rumble

not of elephants…

rumble bigger…

not stampede of wildebeest 

no wildebeest when ground is driest…

Turn 

turn from tree

face ears to sound…

listen more...

smell more...

taste the air...

Rumble not of rhino

no smell of rhino…

rumble and chatter clatter…

not monkeys…

not porcupine…

not wind, no wind, much heat

chatter of hyena...

Louder

smell of…

smell of… 

smell of the long black track beyond the lion hill

The beasts of the black track are here 

beasts that roar and sting

beasts that kill lions

kill elephants

kill  

Turn

face them 

Face Them 

Rumble not of thunder,

smell of the long black track

shape of the rumbling beast  chatter clatter

Flashes
flashes not of lightening

Face the beast 

Horn down…

CHARGE...

New Header Picture - Every Picture Tells a Story

Another picture to tell another story.

A forest, looks almost familiar, we've all walked through a bit of woodland, haven't we?

I did in past times write a short story about dinosaurs... it needs re-writing.

The Fairweather Gardener - Springtime in an Inherited Garden

Magnolia flowers

Springtime is exciting! There are at least 16 varieties of flower in my garden at the moment and I've done nothing to encourage any of them since last year.   As I've lived here less than three years I'm still discovering things as I get more on top of the place, which was hugely overgrown when we arrived.

These are all native - I mean as opposed to being introduced to the garden by me :-

Heather, a largish (for heather) bush of dark pink flowers has been in flower since early December. It's nearly over now and going brown, I may need to prune it.

Camellia, covered in vivid rich pink flowers has been flowering since the end of the cold spell in March, the flowers are browning now and starting to fall, but still lovely. I thought I didn't like pink ...

Forsythia is a glorious blaze of rich yellow spires up to eight feet high, after having not a single

Forythia

flower last year - I had pruned it heavily so probably my fault, never had Forsythia before so I didn't know.

Kerria Japonica Pleniflora - is covered in pretty yellow multi-petalled flowers and I didn't even know I had this shrub! Last year I cut down a load of winter Jasmine in the corner where this has appeared.

Snowflake - white flowers like tall snowdrops on very long stems, these have been in bloom since January, almost over now.  The problem is they produce huge amounts of tall, densely packed leaves which swamp smaller plants, so I'm cutting them back as they finish flowering.  I will dig quite a lot of them out as they're spreading, unbidden.  There was a small clump of proper snowdrops too, much prettier but they didn't flower for so long - I still prefer them and will transplant some more.

Hyacinths in white and pink have been planted (not by me) in random parts of the garden - they keep falling over but do smell nice. I'd guess they were originally gifts, in pots, planted out after flowering.

Bluebells, the gorgeous little cousin of the hyacinths, are just coming out - a few of them are white and some are even pink - don't as me why! Pink is just wrong.

Tall Daffodils are just finishing and being eaten by snails.

Primroses, the pure yellow variety, very pretty rosettes of leaves too, but I need to control where these appear they can cause allergies.

Tulips in yellow and red - some even striped - are dotted around, I may try to move them into clumps for better effect - or just plant lots more.

Grape Hyacinths - or muscari to you!  Delightful little purple/blue flowers beside the path and also
  popping up in unexpected places. And the bees like them too.

Muscari

And the following I have planted in containers and pots:-

Rosemary - there are two small bushes in separate pots just starting to flower, I've also planted one in the ground as I want a decent size shrub by the lawn - this one not flowering yet.

Miniature daffodils (Tete a tete) are still doing quite well in their pots, away from the snails. I'll put them in the ground later.

Magnolia 'Susan' - a shrubby variety with long slender purple flowers - it has survived in a pot for 8 years in the cold north, is now burgeoning in the south, though still in its pot. Should I liberate it? I'm tempted but not sure where to plant it.

Fritilleries - I planted these as bulbs early last year in pots and tubs, they've come up for the second year running and were looking wonderful until the sun came out. Then I saw a few holes in the blooms and thought damned snails. Today I saw the beautiful scarlet of several lily beetles... two of them were mating. Oh well, the fritillaries were fun while they lasted. I refuse to use insecticides.

Fritillaries and viola

Viola - super little variegated purple and white ones which I planted in springtime last year, in the same tub as some of the fritillaries, and they haven't stopped flowering ever since!

Hydrangea - a deep pink one which starts as variegated buds, very pretty, bought in Morrison's. Deserves to be planted somewhere...

Oxalis - pink flowers just beginning to come out. But it's very invasive, I keep trying to pull it out... oxalis you have been warned!

French Lavender which I was given and will plant somewhere, at the moment it resides in a small ornamental watering can.

White Heather is lucky. It's in a pot and I will plant it once I've decided where...

... and then around the lawn there are glorious golden dandelions which the bees are very keen on, and lovely little white daisies with yellow centres and deep pink rims to their petals. You might call them weeds, I just weed around them.

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