foolhandy

I did some gardening yesterday. The wonderful weather was there to be made the best of and so I cleared some of the longer grass around the edges, mowed the lawns, watered the potted plants and rhubarb and started work on our vegetable growing.

This was quite a moment, as I’ve never grown vegetables in my own garden before. Vegetables in other gardens and flowers in my own but not like this. The aim eventually is to have raised beds but we want those on the side next to the soon-to-be-replaced fence so I’ve delayed doing anything about them. In addition I bought a considerable number of small plants from the school gardening club and they needed planting.

As you can see I’ve had to lift the turf in a couple of places on the lower lawn. There are purple cabbages, runner beans, shallots & cauliflowers all planted a bit too close together… It was only once I’d dug out the first patch that I realised just how much I’d underestimated the amount of space I was going to need for the plants I had bought, and even though I then dug a second patch I think they’re going to crowd each other. We’ll see how they get on with limited personal space in the coming weeks. Incidentally, am I the only one getting a freshly-filled-grave vibe here?!

The garden’s looking reasonable at the moment. The sheds still require expletive prefixes and the new fence (when it happens!) will help but it’s not the place I was despairing with a month or so ago. Amazing what a bit of summer sun can do… My only complaint really is the almost complete lack of colour other than green. There are a number of red rose buds preparing to bloom just behind where this picture was taken but apart from that it’s down to the orange anti-dog netting the previous owners put up to break the monotony. That’ll be a goal for next year then.

I originally heard about this story on Radio 4’s PM, but after a bit of News Googling I found this version of the story from the Daily Bigot which goes into a bit more detail about the Southampton Catnapper.

There is also a post about the story on the PM Blog. I’ve commented on the feature but in case it doesn’t get approved (as I fear a pro-cat bias in the reporting of this story) I’ve copied my views here :

I am sick to death of selfish cat owners telling me it’s my problem that I object to having to clear up their cat’s excrement before I can mow my lawn, weed my plants or let children play in the garden.

Listening on PM to the cat owner whose cat had been taken I was appalled that she thought that having her animal’s excrement fouling other people’s gardens was fine. And then she pointed out that there were deterrents that could be bought to discourage cats from gardens - is she going to buy them for her neighbours? Why should they pay out their money and spend their time deterring animals which other people choose to have.

I wasn’t surprised by her comments however because 99% of cat owners show the same shocking arrogance. Dog owners can be prosecuted if they leave their dog’s excrement on pavements and other people’s gardens - it’s about time that cat owners were treated in the same way.

The person who relocated these cats has no doubt been driven to this act by the smug superiority of cat owners who believe that non-cat owners are in the wrong for not wanting disease ridden and stinking cat excrement in their gardens.

I will support the cat-napper wholeheartedly until cat owners start taking responsibility for their own animals’ mess. Sadly I expect it to be a long wait.

For the record I’d like to point out that despite the above, and being badly allergic to them, I don’t dislike cats per se. I just don’t see why I should have to clear up their excrement from my garden, and be treated with disdainful arrogance by cat owners when I mention this.

This is the hole we’ve been left with. It’s staying for the next few days until some more workmen come to fill it in and tarmac it over. In the meantime I am childishly excited about the fact that there are roadwork signs up along the road and around the corner. Because of us. Yes, I am a child…especially as how I keep looking at my lovely car in this photo and sighing.

This is quite an important post on foolhandy.com. This is because it’s the last post on the site before I move it to a new server. Things may go a little wrong for a few days, things may not…we’ll see!

During a quick tea break I bring you this…our driveway as activity takes places to connect us to gas.

Just have to wait another week to have the cooker, hot water & central heating set-up…

The time spent in the garden on Sunday involved me trying to rid the gravelled area of brambles. I may end up feeling like Canute, because brambles are not a plant that takes being got rid of  lying down, but I had to do something because they were taking over a large part of the garden and the trailing branches were going over next-door’s fence.

Here’s the evidence of my labours, with before at the top and after at the bottom…

It’s a slightly different camera angle but it is the same spot in the garden. Some of the trailing branches were 2-3 metres away, and I had to cut back most of the bush the brambles were in because they’d become one and the same. It’ll need another going over because I couldn’t find the secateurs to use on the fiddly bits, and there’s still a large multiple-root clump sticking through the under-gravel plastic which will recreate the problem if it’s not dealt with, but other than that I’m quite pleased with the job. And only two small scratches to!