Honeybees and Hollyhocks

Fab day at the allotment yesterday. Farokh, beekeeper of the backpackers, turned up around lunchtime to do his weekly check, after which he presented the lucky few of us that were on site with a piece of fresh honeycomb each.Bad photo I’m afraid, but I was dying to eat it! The honey is floral and sweet and completely sublime! So Farokh’s bees are loving the allotment site and are already producing more honey than he ever expected!

It was a busy day for the beekeepers as a few hours later Ian, beekeeper of the hotel hive, turned up to do his weekly check.It was good to meet him at last and get some first-hand information about his hive. It transpires that posh hotel is in fact a double hive (which is why it’s so large), containing two lots of regular British honeybees, and not the rare breed black bees after all. He said he’s been trying for two years to get some black bees but with no luck.
His bees are also having a fantastic time up on the site, and as with the backpackers, producing loads of honey already. Great news as I am longing to have my own supply of local honey - pure and delicious natural medicine.


Over the last couple of weeks the hollyhocks have all flowered and filled me with absolute delight.
To me they are the quintessential English-garden flower.Mine are like beautiful sentries guarding my plot.


Love honeybees
Love hollyhocks
Love Life
XXX

A Mediterranean Moment

A Californian poppy sheds its cap in the hot sunshine

The recent heatwave in London has had my plot looking and feeling like a vegetable garden somewhere in the Mediterranean! Having completely given up on the climbing beans, the bean frame has now become a tomato frame, if there is such a thing. It’s a good bonus for me though as it appears we may just avoid the blight this year and I have 7 other tomatoes on the plot. With these additions I now have another 8 plants so, with 13 plants in total, of 3 different varieties (beef, vine and heritage types) all growing away happily, I am hoping for bumper crop.

Tomato plants ready to go into the new 'tomato frame'

I’ve also installed another two pepper plants up on the bank, where they get maximum heat. Olga grew these from Peruvian seed she scooped out of a chilli pepper she was cooking with. She’s a very green-fingered woman.

Remember my rather tragic butternut squash, thoroughly decimated by slugs? Well, after sowing more at home to replace them, which are now in the ground and doing well, I was delighted to discover that two of the original plants have in fact made a remarkable recovery!

Love Heat

Love Life

XXX

Bees & Tees

I met Farokh the Beekeeper last week. He’d come up to the allotments for his weekly bee check.First a little smoke

Then he checks the top frames

And then he looks for the queen in the lower frames

He also told me that his bees, living in the backpackers, are regular honeybees but the 'new' bees in posh hotel hive belong to Ian, the other beekeeper who I have never met, and are rare breed english black bees. Bees can find their own hive easily and don't get lost or mixed up, so long as there is about 6" space between hives. Amazing aren't they?!! Now I’m even more obsessed by the bees!

That evening I was at Andrew Logan’s studio where I met a friend whose husband is halfway through a beekeeping course. Small world!

I was there for Andrew’s summer jewellery sale where I was selling my Love Life tees and Andrew’s AMW t-shirtsand promoting Scarlett’s House of Heavenly Healing. I plan to resume healing sessions very soon and am taking bookings from about mid-July onwards. Actually I can’t wait!


Love Bees
Love Tees
Love Life
XXX

A Quick Word

There's absolutely loads to catch up on but I've had a little setback and my right hand and arm have been too painful for me to sit down and type for about a week.

Keep checking in though - I'll post some catchups, with lovely photographs soon...

Love Blogging (when I can)

Love Life

XXX

Hollyhocks and First Pots

The hollyhocks at the back of my allotment bank are starting to flower. YAY!!

These are plants that allotment neighbour Rosie raised from seed last year. She gave me 4 and they stand like sentries at the top of the bank. I arrived on Saturday to find 3 of them standing tall and upright and glorious, and the fourth leaning over at an angle of almost 45 degrees.

So I tied it back with wooden stakes.

Its first flower was starting to emerge, deep purple. Exquisite!

Sunday was Litha, or Summer Solstice, or Midsummer’s Day, depending on your choice. The purple hollyhock flower was open and gorgeous.

Monday saw the second plant teasingly revealing pink petals.

It’s been another weekend of ‘firsts’. I enjoyed the first raspberry of the season.

This is Orach, or purple spinach. Allotment neighbour Christine gave me a few seeds last year which I sowed, but probably too late. This single plant has seeded itself in the bean bed and survived the winter.

I took a few leaves home with some swiss chard and cooked them up together with tofu. The orach turned the tofu pink!

Yesterday I lifted the first of my Pentland Javelin first early potatoes, which were delicious of course.

And my friend Kathleen, over on a visit from Chicago, came to the plot for her first allotment visit. Here she is embracing the land with my cherry tree behind her head of cherry-red hair!

Love a first
Love Life
XXX

The Irrepressibles

I met Olga at the V&A Museum yesterday afternoon.

We’d gone along to see The Irrepressibles, the fabulous 10-piece performance orchestra who blew me away when they played such amazing live music at the recent Alternative Miss World. They were premiering their performance installation of The Human Music Box as part of the current V&A exhibition 'Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence' (until 19 July).

They performed in an enormous box.

A Human Music Box.

It was a brilliant show, of course.

This is the genius Jamie McDermott, the owner of that amazing voice, artistic director and composer.

Oh, I’m a big fan! I think they are fabulous. Don’t take my word for it though - listen to them here.

They’ll be at the Latitude Festival where the Human Music Box spectacle will appear for three shows on the lake between 17 - 20 July. If you’re going along to Latitude do try to catch a show. I’m sure you won’t regret it.


Love The Irrepressibles
Love Life
XXX

Bees and Bites

The week began with drama. Gaynor and I were up at the allotments on Monday evening when the weather suddenly turned and we were caught in the torrential thunderstorm that hit north London, complete with huge hailstones. I’d arrived at the plot on my bicycle, wearing shorts and flip-flops as it had been so hot earlier, and of course I hadn’t bothered to bring a coat with me. Huddling underneath a large umbrella at the back of her plot at first we laughed at the sheet of rain, but then we both got a bit freaked out as the forks of lightning flashed across the green-grey sky above, quickly followed by a torrent of enormous hailstones. By the time it had eased off enough to try and go home the ground across the whole site was soaking wet and covered in ice.

The downside of all this drama for me was being bitten by something nasty – mosquito, midge, some other water-loving flesh biter, who knows.... I am unfortunately very allergic to bites. More of that later though.....


By Tuesday the heat was back on and I went up to do some weeding on the bank. The pernicious bindweed that Eliseo and I dug out, over and over again last year, constantly manages to regrow from the tiniest piece of root. While digging it out I did happen to notice the first fruits on the gold courgette.

The Marina di Chioggia pumpkin is starting to run away at last. There is a small sweetcorn plant next to it – two of the three sisters!

The leeks I transplanted the other week have settled in nicely now and seem to have enjoyed the rainfall. There are lollo rosso lettuce planted in between them.

There is plenty of activity at the beehives. Posh hotel hive has been rearranged, with one section of the top now sitting by its side.And the bees are starting to move inOn closer inspection it’s a frenzy – are they ‘new’ bees or are they migrating from the backpackers hive next door, which is still very busy?

As for those bites, well dare I show you? Despite treating with Somthawin Ang Ki Yellow Oil, the best cure-all I know (I still have a good stock left from my 2005 trip to Thailand) here is my badly swollen leg on day 2and here again, still hideously marked on day 3

What a tedious allergy for a gardening gal like me!

Hate Allergies

Love Weather
Love Life
XXX

A Lovely Weekend in London

It’s already mid-week and I haven’t yet caught up with last weekend. Mine was lovely. I went to Shakespeare’s Globe on Saturday evening for my first theatre visit this season, to see As You Like It. I liked it very well indeed.

The Globe filling up

I had to walk along the river from Waterloo Station to get there because the entire Jubilee line was out of action AGAIN. But I’m glad I did because I saw this poster outside the Feliks Topolski exhibition under the arches:

It’s me aged about 18! I sat for Feliks several times back then, and I have one of the paintings he made of me hanging on my wall at home. How funny to see this though!

After my gorgeous Globe experience and another riverside stroll I arrived at London Bridge to celebrate with my friend Jon Turner on his Golden Jubilee. It was a fabulous party with great food and plenty of old favourites to dance to. Jon still looks as good as he did when we first met way back in the eighties. No facelift and no botox – this man looks fab at 50!

A late Saturday night was followed by a busy Sunday. I headed up to the allotment to pick some more strawberries. They are so prolific and ripen overnight that I’m on a punnet-a-day strawberry habit right now! After a quick bit of weeding I headed off before the visitors to the Open Gardens Weekend arrived. I wasn’t really in the mood and besides I’d already accepted an invitation from my friend Andrew Logan to go along to his studio and join the Alternative Miss World contestants in a sort of ‘first viewing’ of the film of the event. I left with my jaw aching, I’d laughed so hard!

A lovely end to a lovely weekend.


Love Weekends
Love Life
XXX

Better Days

I slept well last night, for the first time in weeks, so feeling wonderfully calm I headed up to the allotment this morning. Too much sorting out bureaucratic paperwork has kept me away for a few days and I was in dire need of some earth contact. On arrival the first sight that jumped out at me was this – luscious red poppies on John’s plot. See how high the shed is behind them? Hence my concern about the shed-roof working party last weekend. It’s a long way to fall!

Up on the bank there are beautiful Sweet William in flower, nestling comfortably with the purple knapweed (which I MUST keep an eye on and not allow to spread too much) and one of my Hollyhocks, started from seed by allotment friend Rosie. I have four of these enormous plants lining the sundeck like sentries and I cannot wait for them to flower and see what colours they produce.

You’ve probably gathered by my constant praise, that I absolutely adore the Californian poppies, and today they looked especially velvet-lush, complete with delighted hoverfly.

I took a bit of time for myself and spent about an hour doing slow hand-weeding, a job I always enjoy. Then I started collecting bits and bobs to eat this week.

Broad Beans – ready at last. YAY!

I always remember my dad telling me about beans “the more you pick, the more you get”. This is also the case with nasturtium flowers. This plant is once again covered in flowers despite being picked clean by my friend Ms Marmitelover for her Underground Restaurant last weekend. I also provided her with the sorrel for the soup, which I tasted earlier on this week when I delivered some of my tomato and pepper plants to her. Her soup, made with organic and biodynamic sorrel was, of course, absolutely delicious.

Radishes, too many of which had been sacrificed to the slugs.

No matter though, here are two new rows coming along. From seed to plate takes just a few weeks so I sow a little row here and there whenever I have some space.

The crop I have always grown, from as far back as I can remember, and always had a huge success with are climbing beans, but this year I have had no joy at all. Despite 3 or 4 separate sowings, the precious Cherokee Trail of Tears and the Borlotti beans have been consistently decimated. I know when I’m beat so will instead use the space to plant some more tomatoes, and save the last few CToT seeds until next year when I’ll pray for better luck.

But the rest of the beans and peas look very goodAnd I spotted the first pea pod!

The blackbirds have been eating my strawberries. I know because I’ve caught them several times!I don’t mind sharing some with them, but they’re getting rather greedy. In an attempt to eat some of my own strawberries I’ve taken to picking them even if slightly under-ripe. I’d rather trim off the tiny unripe green bit and eat the rest than lose the lot! They are sweet and delicious.

I was about to leave when Ruth caught my attention and presented me with this fabulous lettuce, some of which I ate for lunch with some radishes and broad beans.....

These are better days and there is plenty more crop to come – aaahhhhhhh, I love growing veg. It makes me so happy.


Love your veggies
Love Life
XXX

Healing Resources

After all the upset last week, and with firm resolve to move forward in my own positive way, I am feeling very excited for the future, if not more than a little overwhelmed.

The Universe always sends us what we need, so I was interested to receive an email earlier this week from my Employment Support Advisor at Jobs in Mind, a brilliant organisation for anybody who’s suffered any kind of mental health problem in or around work. It’s interesting to note that one in four people in the UK suffer some level of mental health problem at some time in their lives, an enormous number when you think about it. One of the problems I find is that we are totally unaware of the resources available to us, hence this little flag for Jobs in Mind, to which you can self-refer. Anyway, I digress.... The email was an invitation to a free Pamper Day at West Hampstead Women’s Centre, which is just around the corner from my home, another resource I did not even know existed.

So yesterday evening I enjoyed a truly fabulous 20-minute reflexology treatment with lovely Jennifer Dean-Hill, whose earthy and deeply magickal healing energy worked wonders on my deep self and my spirit, albeit via my rather embarrassing hoof-like feet (I walk around barefoot a lot, including up at the allotment so my feet are not the best!). I like meeting other healers, there’s a special kind of understanding between healers and I connected with Jennifer immediately. I’ve had reflexology before but her treatment was particularly good. I do tend to have strong physical reactions to good treatments and almost immediately afterwards my temperature dropped and I felt tingling in my body, all good signs. I woke up this morning with a rather large and hideous pimple on my face, something I could do without but nonetheless a sure sign that deep healing is taking place as toxins are released from the body. Along with reflexology Jennifer also offers Reiki and Indian Head Massage, as well as being a teacher of complementary therapies. She told me that her life coach husband Raymond is also a shamanic healer and, best of all, a runecaster. On my word! This is music to my ears!

Well worth checking out, you can find out more at The Padmic System of Healing, or contact Jennifer by telephone on 020 7387 1425 or email jdhands4health@btopenworld.com


Love Healing
Love Life
XXX

Our Welfare State

I’ve always considered myself very lucky to live in a country that has a welfare system. It’s helped me enormously in these recent times and the small payments I’ve received (and they are very small indeed) have given me some (small) security whilst I’ve been getting myself well again. I also consider myself very lucky that on my path to self healing I discovered, many years back, the power of positive thought that changed my life for the better. Unfortunately, as I have learned this week, having a positive attitude and the welfare state simply do not go together.

I attended a medical assessment for the Department of Work and Pensions a couple of weeks ago. I was feeling quite upbeat at the time, mainly because I’d had a very low period in the preceding weeks which I was emerging from and felt a bit better, and also because I do have a very positive way of thinking and as a result I feel very hopeful for the future. In my world I know that everything happens at the right moment, I know that I am always looked after by the wonderful Universe (or whatever you choose to name your own faith or belief system), and because of this I know that my recent illness had to happen to take me to a better place in my life.

I spent the entire medical interview speaking to the assessor in my normal way. I told her how ill I’d been, that some depression symptoms still exist but that I was much better now although I still have a little way to go. I told her how hopeful I was. I told her all about the RSI condition I have in my arms that has improved enormously since I left a desk job, albeit a temporary one, and that has shown me SO CLEARLY that I need to stay away from office work at all costs. (Certainly I would post on here more often if I didn’t have to limit the amount of computer work I can do!) I told her what I can and can’t do because of my arms, and I told her about the ongoing osteopathy and acupuncture treatment I receive.

My mistake was that I told the truth, and that I told it in a positive forward-looking way. A few days ago I received a letter from the DWP informing me that my benefit payments have been stopped because I did not ‘pass’ the assessment. I hadn’t even realised it was a test. They score you out of 15 and I scored 0. How can I score 0 when I have a physical injury that has lasted almost 4 years! How can I score 0 when I was so very ill earlier on this year and am still recovering! According to them I am perfectly well in all respects. It’s bonkers in the extreme.

I went to the Jobcentre and spoke to some very nice staff about my situation who told me, off the record of course, that in order to get the support I need I should have lied at the assessment and not told them I was getting better. I spoke to an organisation that will help me if I choose to appeal the decision and was told that I should not have shown a positive attitude in the assessment. My own GP told me “unfortunately you have to play the game”. How crazy ??!!!

My choice is to either appeal against the decision which might take 5-6 months to be heard, or to sign on the dole. I know that I will be fully well in much less than 5-6 months time so I don’t understand how the appeal will help me. But the dole isn’t right for now either because I’m not fully well yet. So according to the DWP there is no space for truth - you have to be at death’s door and unable to do anything for yourself or you have to be fully well. There is nowhere for people who have been unwell but are getting better, and we all know that you don’t get better overnight. Little wonder that people in this country get stuck in the benefit system when it is based on having to lie and show no hope. You dare not tell the truth and say that you are recovering for fear of having your meagre payments stopped. It’s a ridiculous set up.

I got myself into an upset state. I didn’t sleep for worrying. I saw that it was making me ill again so I stepped back from it and made an empowered decision.
I’ve spent the last 14 years retraining my brain into positive thought processing. Nowadays it’s an automatic process most of the time and it clearly works. I am not going to change all my hard work and become a negative victim who cannot help myself in order that the bureaucrats who conjured up this unrealistic system will grant me the weekly support payments that I am entitled to and which my tax has paid for all these years. Instead I choose to look ahead, and to live in trust. I’m choosing my way, the positive way, because I know that if I am true to myself I can only win.


Loathe Bureaucracy
Love Truth
Love Life
XXX

Golden Days

Hurrah! One of my favourite television programmes, Springwatch, is back on BBC2. Between looking at little baby birds in nests and searching for the elusive polecat we’re reliably informed that there are a spectacular number of Painted Lady butterflies in the UK right now. All of us who are lucky enough to have gardens, allotments or any outdoor space will have noticed this.

By Friday last week the sun was set to full roast temperature and more reminiscent of Summer Watch on my plot, where my arrival up on the sundeck caused a little flutterbye-butterfly-flurry of no less than seven of these beautiful creatures.

Simple things please me, and this is the simple yet lush-beyond-words sight I enjoyed when holding a large rhubarb leaf up to my face with the sun behind it. Ain’t nature wonderful?!!

Back at home, in my little patch of front garden the Ceanothus that I pruned back very hard last year is now in fully glorious blue flower.


These golden days continued right through the weekend. We had one of our regular working parties at the allotments on Sunday. These are times when we all pitch in to work on communal areas, then enjoy a barbecue afterwards. I arrived to see Russell on the shed roof, cutting back the Russian vine with allotment-dad John (our reluctant guru) and lovely Gaynor.

I got a wee bit nervous when I could see John’s feet very close to the roof edge while he pulled and cut at the tenacious vine! My allotment neighbours, Myra and Derek, provided some fabulous vegetarian skewers - a wonderful barbecue treat for me. Susan made delicious Mexican cinnamon shortbread and has promised to email me the recipe which I’ll share with you.
After eating and drinking our fill Mr T led the singing of some fine Irish songs.


On Monday the continuous sun had really brought the poppies out in force

Red poppies and sorrel

And ripened some of my very large strawberries.


By Wednesday the weather had turned cooler and cloudy but the veg is progressing nicely.Broad beans

Shallots

Red onions

The peas are flowering!


Lollo Lettuces

Swiss chard

First blackcurrant fruits


After a few days of rain and drizzle the plot is now well-watered and the weather is brightening up again. Perfect conditions for growing vegetables, but also for the weeds so there will be lots to do over the coming week. I’ll keep you posted.

Love Golden Days
Love Life
XXX

Sowing and Growing

So I survived yesterday’s rain, which had turned to drizzle and then to mizzle (lighter than drizzle but heavier than mist) by the end of the afternoon. Arriving at the allotment I was delighted to see our old friend Cheeky Fox hanging around on the path close to the new beehive. Maybe Cheeky can smell the honey? Or the bees? Having not seen hide nor hair of Cheeky for several months, and mindful of his rear leg injury last year, I had been a wee bit worried about him. His limp is barely noticeable now and certainly does not slow him down as he’d run off into the bushes before I had time to grab my camera.

I set to work immediately and transplanted my broccoli and cauliflower into the rich, dark soil of the brassica bed.

Those darned slugs, scourge of all gardeners, have been feasting on my butternut squash so that there are now only 3 plants left and all of them nibbled away. PAH!

On the upside, the gooseberry and currant bushes on the bank, bought for just 99p each last year, are looking fantastic and bearing fruit. The strawberries are large and luscious too. YAY!



Once home I got straight into a hot bath to warm my bones and prepared to go out again, this time to Subway Gallery where my artist friend Mr Wim is having an exhibition. As I couldn’t get to the opening night a couple of weeks ago I was looking forward to seeing the show. Tired from gardening in the rain and relaxed from the warm bath I then promptly fell asleep on the sofa and missed the show AGAIN! Now I must hurry to see it as it closes on 30 May.

The morning post has just been delivered. Here’s what I got in mine

More seeds, including butternut squash! How timely! I submitted my request for these free seeds at the BBC website weeks and weeks ago. When nothing arrived I just assumed I’d been unlucky, or too late and had completely forgotten about them. I’ll re-sow the butternut after 2pm tomorrow, according to my biodynamic calendar, and hope for the best.

I’m off to the plot now with two large trays of cabbage and kale that I have to transplant after 1pm on this ‘leaf’ day. Fortunately the rain has stopped and the sun is out, and the temperature is up by about 10 degrees. Happy days!



Love sowing and growing
Love Life
XXX

Butterflies, Bumbles and Bank Holidays

Bank Holiday Monday’s sunshine brought the butterflies out in force. I sat on the deck and gazed in wonder as up to 4 at a time fluttered around me.

While the honey bees from the hive were buzzing about there were also huge bumble bees gathering on clumps of flowering chives all around the site. They moved very slowly, if at all, appearing drowsy or drunk, or maybe just full.

There is much to keep the insects happy. The first Californian poppy flowered, so simple but so beautiful. Wide open and saucer-like in the sunshine, the flowers close as soon as the skies cloud over.

Many years ago I sowed some Limnanthes, poached egg flower, and they have self-seeded ever since. They are rampant so some always have to be removed, but since discovering a couple of years back that they can also be used as a green manure I dig them in as well. This little patch of loveliness sits on the corner of this year’s legume bed.

My Pentland Javelin and Pixie potatoes are established and looking good. The first shoots of the Edzell Blues are showing at last. Oh joy!

I love magic plot number 7!

Love your insects

Love Life
XXX

Roses

Gorgeous velvet pink roses in Naomi’s garden this Sunday

Love Roses
Love Life

XXX