30 September 2010

WELCOME

At this point, I should like to recognise and celebrate the fact that blog has improved its audience twofold and say welcome to its new reader! Here she is looking just as lovely as the beautiful flowers of the Chelsea Physic Garden. Bienvenue, nouvelle, belle lectrice!

27 September 2010

NUM NUM

Luckily, the Prayer Bees had their revenge: it seems they know exactly where to aim for - as can be seen from the strange 'ridding of bees ritual' photo. The cautionary moral is, apparently, that beekeeping is 'all about confidence'. Incidentally I'd like to point out that I was not stung. But that may be because I was gently pursuing my role as chief recorder and photographer, rather than stealing the bees' honey. It seems I also have a new-found vocation as 'champion un-capper of the honeycomb'. Beware, they don't call me 'Slasher' for nothing! In any case, much precious and delicious honey was spun, filtered, strained. Precious because it was calculated that it only cost around £50 per 100g jar! Delicious because it tastes better than any other honey!

26 September 2010

PRAYER BEES

So, to continue the tale of the honey harvest .. once upon a time, last year in fact, a poor beekeeper, (let's call him 'soulmate'), saw all his bees perish or disappear, even before the very harsh winter when it snowed heavily for two months and more. He went hither and thither seeking a new colony, and registered with all the beekeeps throughout the land (of Sussex) in case they knew of any lost colonies in need a loving home. After many fretful months, a Very Special Swarm was found. It seems that some local nuns had also seen their bee colonies dwindle and so they asked god for some new bees. They prayed and they prayed and finally their prayers were answered in the form of a swarm who came to live in their orchard. These bees worked so hard throughout the year that they outgrew their old home in the nunnery and so decided to divide and separate in order to find a new home. This is when soulmate became the proud new owner of the 'Prayer Bees', as they affectionately became known. The Prayer Bees continued to work as hard as they had done with the nuns and produced not one, but two, supers-full of honey. This is where the tale turns gruesome, for this is when the Prayer Bees are robbed. If you are faint of heart, follow the honey harvest story no more, and look away now..

19 September 2010

HONEY HARVEST

Last Monday evening, a very momentous event occurred: the very first Proper Honey Harvest! More anon, but just to whet your appetite, above is a little taster of things to come ..

12 September 2010

HERBS

I am all plant-ed out. Don't get me wrong, being in my garden is one of my favourite places in the whole world, however, recently there seem to have been rather a lot of plant-oriented activities, a selection of which can be seen above. Last week-end, it was Jekka. In case you didn't know, Jekka is an award-winning, book-writing, long-standing organic herb grower, a very interesting lady with an immense amount of energy and she was holding the last of her open days for the year last Sunday. I had great fun listening to her little herb talk, rummaging around her polytunnels and finding lots of great herbs including a chaste berry tree, a gotu kola and a dangerous poke root. This week-end, it was the great Kent Autumn Garden show. Not so much fun (unless you happen to like carved wooden meerkats and bouncy slides) but I still found some lovely plants, including a great Leonotis which hopefully will grow up to be just like this one in the Jardin des Plantes ..

10 September 2010

RUGBY

Anyway, enough of the gallivanting, here comes autumn and it's back to work and the serious stuff. Like rugby! Last week-end was the grand opening of the season: the London Double Header. Personally, I don't think it could have gotten off to a better start as Nick scored the first try of the game within two minutes. Alas, the ending was not so fortuitous as 'Quins were held to a 29-29 draw with Wasps. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Channel, they already have five games under their belts and Mirco has yet to get himself off the bench (or so it seems to me), let alone score his first try. In the classement, Stade are 5th, hotly followed on their tails by RCM-92 in 7th. And they both share 13 points - it's a close run thing so far.

09 September 2010

CAPRI STONES

08 September 2010

FAVOURITES

Too, too many to choose from!

06 September 2010

POMPEII

Inseparably bound by history with Vesuvius is the town of Pompeii, which was horribly buried beneath that terrible ash cloud and its debris. Nothing really prepares you for a visit there. All the photos you see, the guidebooks, the literature you read can't quite convey the immensity, the atmosphere, the colours, the desolation. And even the masses you encounter on first entering the site, which soon thin out anyway, can't detract from the amazing spectacle. You have a strange, eery, feeling of noseying about in real people's houses, exploring their rooms and their gardens. The whole site is so extensive and there are so many fascinating bits, I didn't even manage to see half of it although I suppose my favourite part was (maybe naturally ;p) the quiet and secluded botanical garden.

04 September 2010

VESUVIUS

One of the most memorable parts of the holiday was visiting Vesuvius, the seemingly quietly sleeping, yet still active volcano that dominates the Neapolitan landscape. It last erupted in 1944 and apparently killed 26 people but its most famous activity was on 24 August 0079 when its ash and pyroclastic flow completely smothered Pompeii and Herculaneum (and two other ill-remembered-by-history towns). As it happens, I visited on the very day, thousands of years later, when it was doing its worst and, apart from the distinct smell of sulphur, all seemed peaceful up there that it was hard to imagine a raging torrent of lava or vicious, fatal, clouds of ash. You certainly know you've climbed Vesuvius: the dirt track leading upwards is steep, demanding, ragged, it's like climbing the moon (or as I would imagine it). But absolutely worth every step: the views from, around, and inside the volcano are astonishing - the views of the Bay, of the islands, the different strata of rock, the plants that grow, the whole landscape - amazing!

02 September 2010

A SMALL PART OF CAMPANIA

I have never been to southern Italy before. I have heard the rumours, especially those about Naples, and thought that it would be full of danger, muggings (and worse!) on every corner. Naples is not a typical tourist city. More like a mangey, yet appealing, mongrel that might bite you at any moment. It seems to have an attitude of: come if you want, but if you don't want, va bene. If I had gone for the day, I would probably have left hating it: the chaos, the dirt, the heat, the smells. But it's the kind of city that grows on you, slowly, and remains with you. The food is simple but wonderfully tasty, the views from the hills of Naples are amazing, and once you get your bearings, it's an easy city to navigate. By the end of the holiday, I was even attempting a Neapolitan dialect (pronouncing 1oo 'shento' instead of 'chento'), making friends with old men on buses and even, dare I say, enjoying the laissez-faire attitude.

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