Winter Weather

This has been a strange mild winter so far. Very little in the way of frosts, and it has been so wet. When the people of South Wales tell you that they’ve never known it be so wet, you know this is exceptional weather. As far as I can remember the rains started last October, and have barely let up, except for maybe 2 or 3 periods of short frosty high pressure days.

Fliss noticed that the frogs are spawning, which seems a little early, but I suppose it feels like spring and the days are getting noticeably longer. Over the last few years, which have  been mild, the frog spawn has taken a hit by frosts in February and March. I can see the same happening again this year.

The garden is getting rather wild, the grass needs cutting, it’s too wet for that, and it was too wet in late autumn for it to have it’s last trim.

We have a raised bed to start off this year, the three we bought several years ago are still in one piece, the rot is beginning to set in, so I’m not sure they’ll last much longer. They will need a little patching up this year.  Not sure what we will grow this year, but we seem to do well growing Onions, Peas and Beans. Tomatoes, and chillies in the greenhouse, and an aubergine or two. We’ll try courgettes again, we had one huge plant last year, and had a few courgettes from it, the few that didn’t get chomped by the slugs and snails.

I’m not sure how much I will be able to do this year, other than a little pottering about in the greenhouse, breathlessness and palsies are taking their toll on my ability to do very much at all. So all the work will be down to Fliss to do. It’s getting a bit much for us, we’ll have to get a friendly gardener to come in and help out, and at some point seriously think about downsizing. I didn’t think this would come upon us so soon, but there we go, life brings these unexpected challenges.

 

Didier Malherbe: The Wind Wizard

Didier Malherbe, wind wizard, by which I mean, wood wind instruments, and Brass…
I’ve liked sax, in a rock music context, for years, I think it must have been early King Crimson that spiked my interest. Then later Gong, and the sax and flute playing of Didier Malherbe. There’s a real French/European feel to his playing on those early Gong albums, aided and abetted by his French peers in that group.

I’ve listened to his later music with the Hadouk Trio, now the Hadouk Quartet, and I must get around to buying  some of those albums. These have a strong world music feel to them, and Steve Shehan‘s percussion with the Trio is exceptional.

Here’s an interview with Didier, about his time in Deia in 1968. Meeting Daeved Allen, Kevin Coyne, Robert Graves and  others on the travels through Europe.

Interview with Didier on the Deia Olive Press Blog

 

A Strat is born : Fender video

Couldn’t resist posting this, though I think I might have done so before, but it’s worth another view or two or three….

An Interview with Daniel Gallagher: Rory’s nephew

This is a great interview, Daniel obviously has some guitar skills up his sleeve, and seems to fully appreciate his Uncle Rory’s instruments, tools of the trade.

The famous Gallagher Stratocaster is given pride of place, and that’s to be expected, but I really enjoyed hearing about the other guitars, how Rory used them and on what songs. The Gretsch Corvette looks pretty wicked, interesting choice to remove the toasters for a P90.

Anyway, enough of my natter, let’s give Daniel his say, (courtesy of Guitarist Magazine and rorygallagherdotcom)

Garden Catch-Up

I’ve been neglecting these blogs again. Though my excuse this time is that I’ve been unwell for the past 6 weeks with a chest infection from hell, two courses of anti-biotics, a course of steroids, and almost 6 weeks of continual paracetamol use to try and keep my temperature down. I lost nearly a stone in weight, which I can ill-afford to lose. It was a rough period to say the least. I’m happy to say though that I am definitely over the worst, and the last week has seen my temperature drop to normal, and better ability to breathe. I have COPD, so these chest infections can be quite serious. But I’m good now, and still alive and kicking.

I’ve also been neglecting the garden for much the same reason, and my partner just hasn’t had much time to spend on it either. So, the runner beans have gone to seed and are really stringy, quite unpleasant to eat. But they’re not going to waste, I have been de-poding the beans, for use in soups and stews, I haven’t bothered drying any as yet, just using them as needed. One thing I’ve learnt is that like red kidney beans, runner bean beans need to be boiled fairly fiercely for 10-20 minutes to breakdown potential toxins in the beans. Not sure if these runners are that toxic, but I’m not going to take the risk.

One great success has been the compact carrot variety we grew. They are truly scrumptious, and good sized, lovely washed, topped and tailed and stewed, firm yet soft and really tasty, sweet and earthy.

Potatoes were OK, a couple of kilos in total, and lovely when really fresh from the ground, skins could be gently rubbed off and straight into the pot. Really good.

Now Tomatoes. We planted far too many, and some were planted far to close together, so some suffered from too high humidity, mostly the greenhouse plants, and there was a bit of a rot/blight problem. But careful pruning and thinning out and we are well into a tomato glut. 1 kilo used to make tomato soup, 1.5 kilos to make tomato passata, frozen in ice cube trays to make stock cubes. 1 Kilo to make tomato chutney, turned out really good and tasty. 1 kilo sliced in half, salted, garliced, sprinkled with thyme and roasted gently in an oven for 3-4 hours at 90 C , then turned into a kilner jar and covered in olive oil. There’s several more kilos of tomatoes to find uses for…. we’ll have turned orange by the end of summer!

Big Bertha, ex-tropical storm, has been getting everything very wet for the past 12 hours. Slightly brighter now, and no significant rain for the past 3 hours. A huge clap of thunder this morning, I could feel the floor shake, quite exciting really.

Well, time to wrap up.

 

Super Furry Animals – Hometown Unicorn

I really do like the Super Furry Animals. some of their tunes … most of their tunes have a great melodic and lyrical quality, and musically it’s right up my street.

Tidy!

This video features Rhys Ifans, who was once a member of the SFA, maybe he still is in spirit.
It’s a great song, I love the harmonies, the guitar solo/phrase @ 1.12, and the final minute or so really turns up the wick, and the general sense of loss and bewilderment. Takes me back to 77 and the little red, white and blues…

Veg Garden Growing well … so far

This is the first year in many moons that we have grown any veg. We have the space, whereas before our move our smallish terraced house back garden, although quite capable of growing some veg, was mostly used as a flower garden, and though I say it myself, very nice it was too.

So this year we have plenty of space and much growing on.

Broccoli bed

I have a liking for purple sprouting broccoli. I hadn’t had any since leaving the family home back in the mid 70s. My mum used to grow purple sprouting and even back then it was gradually being ousted in the public mind by the big green calabrese broccoli. So it was with quite surprise that last year the local shop on Chelsea Road, Easton, began selling spears of (fairly) fresh purple sprouting broccoli. I was in broccoli heaven. So purple sprouting broccoli is in the ground and growing on. It’s an early variety so hopefully by november we should have a crop.

Raised beds, growing on.

The veg in raised beds are beginning to show good signs of growth. We bought these beds as a temporary measure, so that we could start the veg garden off. Although there is plenty of space here, we don’t know what we have growing in the garden. It seems to be mostly shrubs and perennials, and several apple and pear trees. But until we let it grow out, we won’t know just what is growing here. So, we are waiting a year before making too many radical changes.

There is a sectioned off area which appeared to be just a garden waste tip, several tonne bags with rotten apples, pruning and grass clippings that were slowly rotting down, and a general overgrown tip area. But as we were clearing it, we found early signs of rhubarb growing (this was back in february), it was almost trodden under foot. So we’re yet to see what else might be planted and as yet hasn’t shown itself.

Ah… hmm… that’s the problem with drafts, I forget about them… So 2 weeks later and the garden has come on even further. Last weekend was a bit of a hurdle though, strong winds, and quite chilly, so a few plants look less comfortable than they did. The salad leaf patch is, however, growing very well, but I can’t say the same about the dwarf french beans… dwarf seems to be the operative word. The courgettes look a bit wind burnt too, I think on reflection we put them out just a little too soon, though saying that, there are signs of several baby courgettes on the way, quite a few flowers so more to come.

As I turn my head to look out the window I see we have a full moon tonight… time for a bit of howling…

I must take some more pics, and that will make more sense of this update.. so tomorrow…

 

Topsoil, Raised Beds, Planting Out.

One Tonne of Topsoil

 

This was a few weeks ago. Since then it has been transferred to 3 four by four raised beds, approx 10 inches deep. Took quite a while transferring in small bags via wheel barrows and a cobbled together shute. but we got there.

The soil here is very heavy, some seams of pure clay, so it needs to be worked down. Have plans to dig in two rudimentary compost heaps that live at the bottom of the garden, mostly it seems quite well rotted. We’ve started our own compost bin, and have been feeding it with peelings and veg scraps from the house, and grass clippings, which we have lots of. Layering grass mixed with shredded paper, cardboard, and twigs, with layers of twigs and well rotted dried leaves, and a sprinkle of compost activator. Seems to be going well, getting quite hot.

So far we have tomatoes, potatoes, courgettes, french beans, runner beans, carrots, spinach, purple sprouting broccoli, peas, mixed salad leaves, cress, onions, and garlic, either planted or being brought on ready for planting.

Hopefully, we’ll get some good crops…

 

My Father’s Coat : James Grant

I’d never heard of James Grant or the 80’s band that he was in ‘Love and Money‘, though I understand they were quite succesful. The first work I heard of his was when he wrote several songs, played guitar, and involved in production on Karen Matheson’s solo album ” The Dreaming Sea”. I was knocked out by his songs, each one telling a story and guitar work so subtle and economical, clearly a very accomplished artist. There’s a completeness to his songs, which becomes enveloping.

I’d like to hear more of his work.

This is  “My Father’s Coat”. It is a long song, a very moody video, typically laid back guitar work which erupts in the last 3 minutes into a stunning guitar outro….

Valve Junior

Valve Junior Circuit board and Wiring, with Additions

 

I’m building up to having another session with the Epi Valve Junior, planning to replace the output transformer, which might not be absolutely necessary, but I fancied a change. Was going to buy a Hammond 125CSE but in the end plumped for a Danbury electronics DB1087 from Ampmaker.com. It is not that much different from the stock transformer (epi v3) a little larger and rated for 5-7 watts. It will leave me with the stock tx spare which I might use in another build or possibly for a tube driven spring reverb for my other amp (VHT special6 Ultra). I haven’t decided yet.