Good News!

Fantastic news in the Telegraph today about rember, a new drug for the treatment (and potentially the prevention) of Alzheimer’s! My thoughts went to Terry Pratchett and I found myself spontaneously giving thanks to God for this scientific advance, an answer to prayer.

I’ve now made a formal report of the recent break-in and attempted break-in over the allotment to the police, as requested by the Site Rep. It seemed a bit of a trivial matter to be bothering them with, but the Administrator who took the call said I’d done the right thing, only wondering why I’d left it so long.

Soppy Senegal

Went to visit Dave to see the work he’s had done on his drive and renew my acquaintance with his Senegal parrot. The bird loves caresses and attention. It also quite likes sidling under my long hair and wearing it like a comb-over.

I grew carrots!

I grew carrots! Last year when I first took on an allotment I listened to my fellow allotmenteers and concluded that growing carrots wasn’t for the faint-hearted. My neighbour went to great lengths to erect an enclosure to protect his carrots from carrot root fly. This year when I was looking at seed, I came across an F1 hybrid carrot seed that was resistant to carrot root fly, so I thought I’d have a go. As you can see from the photo, I was delighted with the result. They are a good shape and texture, although I think flavour has been sacrificed in the bid to breed in pest-resistance.

Wearing shorts to work over there seemed to make sense because of the heat, until I felt something biting my leg. I looked down expecting to see a red ant, and was surprised to discover the culprit was a spider! I was scared of spiders as a child but was always told ‘Spiders don’t hurt you’ (you can tell I was born and brought up in the UK). When I had children of my own, I didn’t want to pass down my fear of spiders and successfully de-sensitised myself to them many years ago. At home I’ll often leave them in undisturbed ‘nature corners’, thinking that they will get rid of other pesky visitors such as flies and woolly bears. Well, that’s my excuse anyway. Might not be quite so accommodating in future!