Peter Seabrook - a proper gardener...

 

Sad to read that the Arch-Gardener, Peter Seabrook died recently!

He was an inspiration to anyone who wanted to get into this great hobby/pastime/passion, and his enthusiasm brought so much happiness to new – and older gardeners. His book ‘The Complete Vegetable gardener’ is the best one I have, and is well-thumbed as well as fithy dirty, mainly from darting in from the garden to see how far apart spuds needed to be, or the height of a pea net!

He was for some time on the BBC, and I seem to recall that his forthright opinions were just too good for the budding snowflakes and wokers who are now in full swing in W1AA. The current gardening programmes they churn out are just dire and boring these days – they just wallow around on the diversity ticket to the detriment of keen agricultural discussion!

RIP – great man!

What a complete and utter shower..

We're having a new shower installed this week. It's not really rocket science, and the story isn't actually any more interesting than Bozzagate, but it does mean that after the end of this week, Senora O'Blene won't have to negotiate a biggish step into a very slippery shower, where one is at one's most vulnerable, and I'm all for that at our time of life!

Just idly totting up the cost of getting a bit older is quite an eye-opener, and even yesterday, we were smugly working our way through a bottle of red, and thanking our lucky stars that we didn't do yet another foreign holiday, or bought a flash car, (much as I always wanted to renovate a Morgan three-wheeler), and when the costs of heating 'The Turrets' goes through the roof in April, at least we'll be able to keep washed and dressed...

I really fear for so many good citizens who will be clobbered by the hike in power rates. It's unbelievable that so many of them still haven't a clue what's going to hit them, and Citizen's Advice will be over-run with anxious callers.

Not a good time I'm afraid, and all the 'opposition', the BBC and shrieking rags can do, is squeal about some sort of party that happened years ago!

The luckiest lady in the world...

 

Bless...

Old strings attached...

 

Hardened rockers out there will instantly recognise the items in the pic...

Well before Scrobs married his favourite Senora, his brother in law and dear sister were helping the proposed couple to save money, and a grateful Scrobs kipped down in their spare room in Essex for several weeks!

B.I.L. worked managing a warehouse for a big musical instrument company, and supplied all sorts of instruments from sopranino recorders to grand pianos! He knew I liked playing my guitar, and one day, turned up with a huge bag of assorted guitar strings, with every conceivable specification, like nylon accoustic, flat-wound electric etc.!

My New Year Resolution is to go into the roof once a week, and remove and chuck one or two items, as the junk up there is piling up again! Amongst all the detritus, is an original Sainsbury's bag, with several sets of strings still in their wrappers! The only set I ever bought, was one 12 string set, because I didn't know what weight to use, or the specification for an Eko, but since 1971, I've never had to buy a string, as all this old stock-clearance still lurks in our attic!

Of course, now the 'Grand Project' is well under way; I think I've rewired the Yamaha correctly, and fitted new kit to the loom. I can get all sorts of sounds through the iRig interface, and the software needs a damned good seeing to, but that will come with practice - I hope...