The opening salvo in a century of grapes

We think they are a variety called Black Hamburgh but can’t be sure.  This is the first bunch to be harvested.

Apparently they can crop for 100 years or more so it is a certainty that the vine will outlive the garden room. 
From this:

To this in one summer:

We might make wine one day, but unlikely this year.  Unless the weather holds for another 4 or 5 weeks not enough will ripen.  And anyway, they taste very nice and we’ll have eaten them before anyone gets round to remembering where the demijohns are stored.

Nominee for Worst Idea of the Week Award

The idea: that Snowball, young H’s new hamster, would love to have an hour in the small hen run on the lawn.

Turned out to be a hole in both the idea and the run.  Didn’t spot it until going to check up on him.  Too small a gap for a hen to squeeze through but a breeze for an adventurous hamster.  Feared it might mean a trip to the pet shop for a lookalike, but spotted him in the flower bed under the crab apple tree.

G said later he thought I was weeding (as if).  I was rugby tackling a hamster in amongst the lobelia.  He’s safely back in custody now.

Robin Hood’s Bay and Whitby

In honour of G’s birthday we went to Robin Hood’s Bay.  It ain’t ’alf steep, but great views.  And amazing old streets.

And then on to Whitby – some great book shops.  Loads of Dracula-related stuff of course.  Some interesting looking boat trips, but we got no nearer than watching them set off.  Even more amazing old streets, quite a maze.  We got lost.

Lovely weather, enough walking for muscles to be complaining next day.

To eat or not to eat...

First sighting of a puffball at LTF coincides with the camera screwing up so it has been sitting there for two days now – see all the bite marks?  Not ours. Despite always saying we’d eat puffballs because they can’t be mistaken for anything else, we’re not mushroom-pickers by nature and found ourselves wondering if it was something else, something deadly.

However, we can find solace in the blueberries in their first year under cover (hard luck, feathered friends, these are ours)

and the pears that are on their way – first year of fruiting for this tree.  Gravity-defying fruit by the looks of it.  I forgot to flip the picture before uploading it.

We don’t eat these, but neither did the slugs this year.

 And we won’t eat these if they grow up to give us eggs.

And on the subject of first crop, these aren’t doing so badly and if they ripen, we might end up drinking them.

Local authors caught red-handed peddling crime in Hull city centre

Following a tip off, Humberside police raided WH Smith, Prospect Centre, Hull, this afternoon to find two local authors openly urging the populace to take to crime. 

[photo by Linda Acaster]

Although a pair of handcuffs was flourished, both officers steadfastly refused to adhere to stereotype, opening with a single "hello" and not the traditional trio.

Author, Penny Grubb, with the evidence of the Jawbone Gang, the Doll Makers, and Like False Money out in plain view, had a go with “It’s a fair cop”, but the wily officers were not going to be outwitted so easily and no one said, “You’re nicked”. 

Penny was signing books with Sylvia Broady (the Yearning Heart) on a red hot summer day in Hull.  Afterwards, people wandered down to Vanillaon Ferensway for post-signing eats and drinks where Les Pooley provided sumptuous fare.

If the authors were hoping for a wholesale confiscation of books (via the tills), they found the boys in blue dodging a strip search of their wallets, being not so easily led as politicians into mass crime purchase.

A couple of other local authors called in: Linda Acaster, novelist and writing coach and Robert Jaggs-Fowler, physician-poet.  Also on hand was fabulously talented local broadcaster, John Butcher, whose Windy Old Weather CDs are now available from his website where you can try before you buy.

Thanks to Adam and his team at WH Smith, who did the business with some great scene setting, and thanks also to all those who came along.

Local MP Engulfed in Crime

Beverley and Holderness MP, Graham Stuart, out shopping for a birthday present for a friend was taken unawares when he found himself surrounded by crime writers in WHS Books in Beverley, East Yorkshire this morning.

Award-winning crime writer, Penny Grubb, was there signing a copy of her latest novel The Jawbone Gang for another local award-winner, ValWood, whose historical sagas regularly hit the best-seller lists.  Before long the shop was crowded, and unluckily for Mr Stuart, the crowd was awash with local writers: Linda Acaster (paranormal romance); Stuart Aken, prolific writer and prize-winner in several genres; Madeleine Macdonald, novelist and regular columnist in the Yorkshire Post; Avril Field-Taylor (more crime); Karen Wolfe (comic fantasy); SylviaEdwards, Sylvia Broady and I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.

This was not good news for an MP out shopping for a birthday present because writers are facing a lot of threats at the moment and have strong views on the importance of libraries and of valuing the creative industries, but to be fair to Graham Stuart he seemed happy to stay and talk on the various issues. 

And he left with a copy of The Jawbone Gang which I feel showed perfect judgement in respect of birthday present selection.  Although honesty compels me to note that from one or two things he let slip, I suspect our local MP’s friend would have chosen a book more directly concerned with the finer technical aspects of the internal combustion engine.  Let’s hope they both become converts to local crime.

L-R: Liz Smith and Yvonne Needham, senior academics from Hull University; Stuart Aken, Penny Grubb, Linda Acaster, Madeleine Macdonald.  Photo: Valerie Allison

An Amazing April

This is the jungle from the big cats' perspective

And this from ours:

No rain equals no mud so the hens are laying clean eggs

And there are nests all over the garden, including a wren in here only visible to those who know where to look

and a dopey dove sitting on this egg out in plain sight.

How she'll keep an unruly chick in such a poor excuse for a nest, I don't know.

The pond is almost dry

but the lilac is out in style

Onward and upward into May.