Writing up the minutes of last night's music society meeting took half the morning. I sometimes feel that I don't really do very much to justify my place on the society's committee. I make cheese nibbles or wash teacups when required, and that's about it. I don't even know much about music, though sometimes I wonder whether I actually know less than at least half of the rest of the committee, or are merely more willing to admit ignorance. Taking the minutes doesn't sound like much of a job, especially when we don't have many committee meetings compared to the beekeepers. But transcribing twelve pages of notes taken from over an hour and a half of free form discussion into a concise and accurate record of what was said and agreed takes some concentration.
The Systems Administrator had gone to Duxford to photograph aeroplanes so I could have eggs for lunch without having to persuade the SA that another omelet was a delicious idea, and have my lunch half an hour early once I'd finished watering all the pots. Then, since the morning had been entirely taken up by minutes and watering, it was off to the vegetable patch for my daily dose of grow your own.
People keep telling me how marvellous home grown vegetables are. Based on my experiences in the year to date I should say they were more of a pain in the arse, but maybe the project will grow on me. Today's visit to the patch revealed that one of the cucumber plants had shrivelled beyond recovery, battered by the strong winds that have blown more or less continuously since I planted it out. The French bean plants were scorched by the wind, and something had eaten half the leaves off one of them. The two rows of lettuce that had been looking quite promising had also been nibbled down to stumps. Looking at the style of the nibbling and some scraping nearby I thought that rabbits were the likely culprits. The wooden edges of half the beds have rotted to the point of disintegration, and since unlike Joe Swift on his mythical TV allotment I do not know anybody who wants to give me a load of scaffolding planks free and gratis, I shall either have to buy some more, or do without.
I spent two hours weeding the strawberry bed, spreading it with mushroom compost because the soil looked so awful, and planting some potted strawberry plants from the Clacton garden centre into the gaps, plus a spare replacement cucumber which I'd luckily kept in the greenhouse. One of the courgette plants has got one embryo courgette on it, the broad beans look OK, and some of the debatable parsnips have perked up. The potatoes have got lots of top, but not necessarily any bottom, and the sweetcorn is at the same stage as the ones in last weekend's open garden. We've had two tiny helpings of asparagus, each enough to flavour a flan. And that's it. If I were depending on this plot for food I'd be going as mad as the wives in The Homesman.
The SA went up to the patch late in the afternoon to set up the wildlife camera, to see if it was rabbits eating the vegetables, or something else, pigeons, mice, muntjac, take your pick. A rabbit bolted from just inside the gate, ran round the outside of the beds and disappeared through a gap where the subsidiary fence around the vegetable patch had come away from the main fence round the garden. It was getting too late and too cold to start messing around with wire netting and staple guns, and I shoved an old compost bag full of dump-bound weeds over the gap as a temporary measure.
Addendum Back in the ornamental garden one of the families of blackbirds nesting in the eleagnus hedge has just fledged. I found a small, confused bird sitting at the top of the steps down to the back lawn, and hoped it would go away or at least hide itself and stop cheeping before Our Ginger found it. The Systems Administrator had one hop into the porch where he was sitting guarding the chickens, whereupon it looked very anxious and not at all sure what it was doing there. The broody hen joined the others for this afternoon's chicken exercise, which caused some confusion when we came to shut them in, as the SA had three chickens milling around in the front garden and didn't initially believe me when I said I had two round the back.
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