General chatter

Tomorrow I load up a book about Han Snel, the Dutch painter, onto Amazon. It has many pictures and won’t be cheap so I have tried to reduce page numbers to a minimum because they charge by the page for printing. I think this one would actually be better in a large format hardback. I’ll do that too. It’s in Dutch, although the author has hinted he’ll do a translation one day.

I have bought a chimney sweeping brush. I have never swept a chimney before but hell, it can’t be all that hard. I mean, what could possibly be up there? I intend to install a fireplace of sorts in the large and ancient fire-hole in the utility room. The one with the swivelling iron bar that used to hold a cauldron over the flames. I should get a cauldron…

We have a new author at Leg Iron Books. Margo Jackson’s ‘The Mark’ is imminent for publication, as soon as I have the Dutch book up. It’s about an innocent man whose life is ruined by coincidence and public suspicion – but is he innocent? It’s not that black and white. You’ll have to think a bit.

There is a plant in the garden I thought I recognised as it started growing. Ah, of course. It’s one I’ve wanted for a long time. Stinking Hellebore. It’s lovely. It’s growing next to the jawbone of something that I’ve left in place like the tree skull. Why mess with the garden ornaments when they suit me anyway?

My old Fiesta is still in the garage. I charged up the battery and it started first time. It hadn’t been touched for over three months so that’s not bad. I left it a few days and the battery is dead again. It’ll need a new battery and an MOT before it goes up for sale as well as some minor rust treatments. It’s a good car, it’s a shame to say goodbye to it but it’s not suited to the terrain around here. It really needs to go and live in a town now.

Well, tonight was just a ramble. I haven’t seen much of the news but I doubt it’s much different from yesterday. Soon I hope to review a new Electrofag. I haven’t tried one of the new style ones before, so that will be interesting. I still have many flavours of electrojuices here, it’ll be interesting to see if they work better with the new style ones.

Okay, I suppose I should sleep… not that there’s much gardening to do this weekend. Everything is still wet out there, it’s still too cold to plant anything and the grapevine in the greenhouse seems to be doing just fine without any help from me. Oh, there are strawberry plants in the greenhouse too. I could probably live here for ten years and still be finding things…