Although too country bumpkin (no?) for the mean streets of London, I love my new boots. I can never find boots to fit me (tall – the bit where your calf is supposed to be always ends up around my ankles) but theseare perfect. They’re from PO-ZU and sustainable, fancy ey. Well, almost, I do have small blisters on the backs of my heels from walking to work in them today but all new shoes hurt the first time you wear them, don’t they?
About a month ago CG came home looking very pleased with himself and announced that he had a present for me. “I’ve bought you some Flower”, note: no ’s’. Yes, he had actually bought me a bag of flour.
It is a very nice bag of flour though and probably a more fitting present for me than some flowers. Each bag of this Wessex Mill flour has a stamp on the back saying which farm the wheat in that bag has come from.
So far this flour has become Guinness cup cakes and some flapjacky things that my flatmate made. My next plan for it is a poppy seed and lemon cake with crystallised rose petals on the top - I’m going to attempt the petals myself.
I visited Garden Organic’s Yalding garden last summer with my parents, dog and aged Great Aunt. I was hoping to visit again this year but its not opening as Garden Organic don’t have enough money to run it. It took 12 years to create and had some amazing things in it. A veg garden that was as pretty as a flower garden. It also had the pictured runner bean support/ bird house – inspired – and a cold frame that had me searching in skips across North London for some old sash windows to create my own. I found some and forced CG to help me carry them all the way home only to prop them against the garden wall all winter. No sign of a cold frame yet. The point of this post, though, is to say what a shame it is that the garden has closed.
Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.
Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.
Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.
Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.
Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink was strategically mouseholed.
But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.
The pirate gaped at Belinda’s dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn’t hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.
Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.
Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.
