Monday, 1 July 2024
July starts with a damp soggy day but it’s ideal for planting out marrows plus 50 squash and 40 pumpkins. And we planted 30 sweetcorn between the early courgettes. Just “Two sisters”!
Monday, 8 July 2024
Relieved to learn that in France, the Left-Wing Alliance has been able to stop Marine Le Pen's National Rally from gaining power in the Assembly elections. For those of us enthusiasts for Sartrean existentialism in our youth, it's hard to imagine France with a right-wing government. Maybe it’s time to re-read Jean Paul Sartre's The Roads to Freedom (Les chemins de la liberté).
Thursday, 11 July 2024
Yesterday to North Wales to check out Llanberis youth hostel for our summer family meeting.
It was as wet as when I made my first and only attempt to climb Yr Wyddfa, Snowdon, in my late teens. We were a group of three. Camping overnight then going for the summit next day. The rain didn't stop. We could see nothing through the mist and so when we came across a mountain rescue centre we took shelter. Dried our clothes, drank beers and ate cheese rolls. Then abandoned the venture. Something similar happened to my attempt to conquer England’s highest mountain, Scar Fell Pike the following year.
It is as wet and misty back in the Welsh Hinterland as it was in the North. I try to weed rows of courgettes, marrows and peas or at least to save them from a burial in chickweed . Then lifted the first new potatoes. Some very good-sized tubers which we later enjoyed with fresh cut spinach and poached eggs.
Now reading Olivia Laing’s, The Garden Against Time. She writes about William Morris and his utopian novel, News from Nowhere. The central character wakes in a future society where, "People work because they want to, as gardeners do, out of the sheer love of making something." It was one of my fathers’ favourite books and I remember the ending where Morris writes that it was more a vision than a dream.
Saturday, 20 July 2024
I recall the fragrance of lime trees in flower in two stand out memories, First staying in Berlin with daughter Magdalena and family one summer and walking along Unter den Linden with the lime trees in flower. Next the Piazza di Municipio in Messina, Sicily. I sat in the square relaxing in the sunshine and the fragrance of the lime tree blossom, while my Italian speaking friends were in the Due Sorelle office discussing how to refloat the restaurant’s business. I drifted off to sleep even though sitting on a stone bench. When I awoke, I had a strange thought, that if I hadn't wakened - it would be as death could be - unknown and not experienced. Somehow a comforting thought.
I write about the lime blossom because the trees are in flower on our farm, especially the huge one in the garden that blew down two winters ago. Neighbour and tree surgeon Alistair and friends stood it up and supported it with a tie. It has recovered well. Sadly, my lost sense of smell denies me the pleasure of the blossom's fragrance.
Sunday, 21 July 2024
As Barbara says it's a time of resignings. Gareth Southgate has resigned as England’s football team manager/ head coach, Vaughan Gething is resigning as First Minister in Wales and tonight Joe Biden has ended his bid for a second term as US president .
Wednesday, 24 July 2024
My first job after leaving university was at Regent Street Polytechnic in London where I worked in a research group in the Department of Town Panning. I was very impressed by the lecturer in statistics who, at the end of each academic year, disappeared for six weeks to go fishing in the south of France. This seemed to me ideal.
I'm remembering this now as Magdalena and partner Tim, both working and teaching in Berlin, left the city with their children at the end of the summer term. First stop, Cornwall for a beach holiday, then to Pembrokeshire and at the end of July they'll to join us all for a stay in Eryri (Snowdonia) before returning to Berlin. I don't know if they're away for six weeks but it's the nearest example I know to that statistics lecturer who so impressed me to back in the late 1960s.
Thursday, 25 July 2024
For breakfast kudzu, also known as Chinese arrowroot. Daughter Clara has brought it back from Shanghai. It’s said to lower blood pressure and reduce alcohol dependency. In China it’s taken for its anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties. It may also improve blood circulation in heart and brain. I add the ground kudzu to my breakfast bowl. Of course.
You can tell it's summer. The coast road is a line of traffic. In Aberystwyth it takes ages to get in and out of the car park. Campervans and mobile homes can't find anywhere to berth. Yes, visitors are here in numbers.
Like us they probably don't recognise what we're getting as summer weather. Cool breezes, frequent showers, sea mist rolling in over the cliffs and up the valleys . We watch its almost daily progress up our valley, Cwm Mabws, till it finally blots out the sun.
Growing crops is hard. Although we've nearly caught up with early planting, there's still much more to do but the ground is often saturated and best left to dry. It suits slugs but insects are less happy and there seem to be fewer pollinators. There are bees and hoverflies on flowering borage and phacelia plants but too few on peas and beans and tomatoes. Weeds are rampant and although it's two weeks later than usual potato blight Phytophthora infestans has arrived. Still, we can harvest new potatoes, spinach, spring onions, beetroot and soon courgettes but crops are late this year.
To compensate, I turn my mind to memories of warm, sunny and dry places and to restaurants where everyone eats, drinks and chats outdoors till late in the evening.
When the sun shines here we quickly take the opportunity to do the same. And it’s blissful.
