Letters from Wetville

Would these bring joy to your heart? Would they make you happy? Would it matter that they don't directly contribute to the saving of the world through digging for victory? Fionn and I planted five bulbs of Gladioli Belinda this afternoon. We weeded out onion weed and other uninvited squatters. I surveyed the rise of my garlic shoots with satisfaction and Fionn and I discussed plans for his garden some more. Planting the seed for such beautiful red and white glory made today special. The children made today special because I'm glad they are with me, healthy and alive. The picture on the bulb packet, which looks like the image above, gave me a sense of beauty and poetry and good things to shine above dishes and laundry and cooking and cleaning and dishes and laundry and cooking and cleaning and insurance companies and fire nurturing and fireplace cleaning and fire maintenance and and and. It's going to be a spring and summer of flowering beauty here. I've been ...

This morning we went to our new aquatic centre and had a wonderful time. What a perfect way to pretend it isn't winter. The design of our aquatic centre, which local people have fundraised for for longer than we have lived on the Coast, is excellent. I think we will be spending most Sunday mornings in the pool. As is the case for working mummies everywhere, Sunday is also about organisation. The idea of it all got too much and I went to bed with the Sunday paper for part of the afternoon. Upon rising from my slumber, I admired progress in the tree hut. Fionn fancies having running water and a basin in it! At the moment, he observed to Favourite Handyman, it is like a house that really poor people live in. I lightly dug over part of the old chook run and then spread mushroom compost over the top. Fionn (aged 6) and I planted out six cabbage and six broccoli seedlings. He is somewhat outraged that I have planted 'his' garden with garlic already, without consulting him. I offe...

An hour without children but with sunshine today. I covered the punga raised bed with cardboard and then weighed it with logs and tyres. That should prevent it from growing weeds in the compost and keep it a bit warmer. Then I got cracking weeding the strip against the fence, not far from the punga raised bed. When we moved here, nothing grew in this strip at all, not even the lawn which it seemed to be designated as. But once Favourite Handyman had chopped down two large bushes and let in lots and lots of light, and then as I buried bokashi along this strip, dormant plants from far ago when it was a loved garden strip began to show themselves. The tropicanna lilly has gone from strength to strength and will be ready to divide and replant next Autumn. For the first time in the 3.5 years we have lived here, snowdrops emerged a few weeks ago. So now I am preparing the soil for flowers the entire length (c.2.5 metres). There are trees very close from our neighbours and coal ash has...

Grew it. Ate it. We all ate it. Triumph. I sowed some florence fennel seed last year - I can't find a record of when but I know that there were no signs of germination for so long that I gave up and planted something else. Obviously not right on top though because a few months ago I noticed some feathery smelly stuff and thought it was dill from the beneficial insect blend sowing. I don't have much experience with dill or fennel so I'm easily confused with these plants. I've wondered a few times about it being fennel and consulted a few books and still not been sure. But the August 09 issue of the NZ Gardener had a photo which looked exactly like mine. So I harvested it and cooked it with garlic and onions and anchovies and grated beetroot and then some kale and then mixed in lots of sour cream and made pink sauce. Which when put together with the rye pasta (I can't tell you that rye pasta is better than wheat, only that on the food ordering day rye seemed l...

We had a big storm last night and the roof of our garage fell in in two places. It's an old style tile roof and I suspect that it is going to need replacing in its entirety. I am pleased I wasn't collecting wood when the large tiles fell directly onto where we usually collect the wood from alongside the garage. At least the chook run was fine this year. It is currently in a much more sheltered spot - if it was in the original spot I expect it would have also blown over last night. Not content with getting really wet walking to the car, Brighid and I went swimming in our new town swimming pool after work this morning and it was absolutely brilliant. Warm , fantastic design, only $3 for a parent- pre-schooler combo. Deciding to ignore the rain and pretend or at least imagine that clear skies will be with us again soon, I bought some mushroom compost (totally, utterly wonderful stuff) and two punnets of brassicas. I don't usually bother with cabbage, but if it is homegrown...

A few months ago I spent a while wondering to myself and to Favourite Handyman what early people did with their fat 500 or 1000 years ago. It doesn't do anything for the compost or the garden. I concluded that they must have had less fat than us due to eating undomesticated, hunted animals with lower fat content. duh. Last night, months after my serious pondering, I was reading Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's books ( Meat , which I own, and River Cottage Cookbook , which the library kindly lend me several times each year) and I suddenly remembered what my mother did with fat when I was a child. She doesn't now - the doctors have fed Mum and Dad up on cholesterol fright and now they have margarine on their bread and I haven't seen dripping in Mum's fridge for years. Mum had a jug in the fridge and after a roast, she poured off the fat into the jug for re-use with other foods later (back then she used to add dripping to a roasting tray befoer cooking - divine roast v...

Homeopathy. I'd tried it for Fionn once before, in the UK, and not been totally converted. I didn't do any reading around the topic at the time and I did not know the difference between classical homeopathy and whatever the non-classicists are called. But after our session with Laksmi, I've been applying the remedy as per instructions, changing our diet to more (non-dairy) protein and fewer carbs/dairy and supplementing with aloe vera juice, cod liver oil, fish oil lollies, vitamins and flax seed oil. Changes: his eczema is receding noticeably. The dark circles under his eyes have faded and the deepness under his eyes has lifted a lot. He hasn't cried at the drop of the hat at all today. I can still hear a chesty cough sometimes, he is still under delusions that it is hotter than it is and I would like to see him gain some weight. But for two days in, I think it is pretty damn wonderful progress. I am no fan of big pharma. I suspect them of lacking scruples and hav...