The End of a Season

I don’t know what I was thinking starting a blog a little over a week before starting a new job. I’ve been woefully underemployed for so long, I guess I assumed this would continue. But instead, I’ve been working for 4 days, and I’m already swamped – oh joy! My employment since leaving the US seven years ago has not stretched me, to say the least. So I’m very pleased to have landed a job at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). My title is Administrative Assistant, but I’m going to see if I can’t end up with communications or publications in my title by the end of it (working on web stuff, fun fun).

So, it will just be that little harder to keep up with the blog, to say nothing of facebook, since I won’t be able to waste time at work on the internet anymore. I’ll just have to find time in between all the gardening, knitting, cooking, reading, and film watching I do when I’m not working. At least the gardening is slowing down now that Fall has arrived (note, even though I live in the UK, I refuse to give up calling this season Fall. Like many of our Americanisms, it is actually a more historically authentic English term than the European-tainted (read Frenchified) “Autumn” of the modern day British. In fact, I think we should start calling American English “English” and call the English that British people speak “British”. I might just go ahead and start calling it that just to annoy people.

But I digress. Back to my garden, and the long season of rest and recuperation ahead. I spent ridiculous amounts time at the garden this summer and now I am worn out and ready for winter. It was a beautiful summer, so at least gardening meant spending lots of time in lovely sunshine. But it was pretty exhausting work, mostly involving eradicating the weed infestation left by the former, weed-indifferent allotment owner. At one point I was convinced that there must be an enormous weed kraken skulking underground sending out tentacles throughout the beds the minute my back was turned. And then at another point I felt, ahh, I’ve finally got this under control, the battle has turned and the weeds are in retreat. And then we went away for a weekend.

Fortunately my husband decided to join me out in the sunshine, taking over watering duty, so I was freed up to concentrate more fully on weeding. I’m just lucky I didn’t develop carpal tunnel syndrome – I’m sure I would have if the gardening hadn’t prevented me from doing my usual volume of knitting.



Messy, blighty tomato plants



So, the process of putting the garden to bed feels good. I picked the tomatoes before they succumbed to the blight (also, the plants were just messy and offended my sense of order), and now they are all sitting out to ripen in my greenhouse.

I’ve cut down the beans and pulled out the peppers and aubergines (poor things, I planted them too late, they never had a chance to produce). But the garden is not finished yet – I have quite a few more things to harvest.

There are the winter brassicas- I've been struggling to grow romanesco broccoli, because there is no more beautiful, delicious broccoli, and it's crazy expensive and impossible to find. But also, it turns out, crazy hard to grow. The parsnips seem to be coming along nicely, but who knows how they look underground. At least there is the dependable, wonderful swiss chard. And squash of course. I have 6 butternut and slightly more regular old pumpkins. Which turned out tiny, but I hope that means they'll be sweet.

And then there is the piece de resistance, the plant that makes it all worthwhile, my pride and joy, my artichokes. Some things are worth waiting for (I grew them from seed too, so I'm doubly proud). I don't know why one of them is mutantly larger that the others, as long as he starts producing next year I'm not going to argue.

Introducing the Frog Army

So, as promised, here is the frog army (plus a few other assorted green animals). I knitted a couple, but most were picked up on our travels. It is nice to collect things, preferably cheap and small, because then you always have something to buy on holiday. I also collect egg cups, but that collection is much smaller. It is actually surprisingly difficult to find egg cups.

A couple have names. There is Ferdinand, the wooden guy in the front dangling his legs over the chair. And Filius Frogg, the round guy with the buggy eyes to the left of Jeremy Fisher. And further left, Foo frog. And the other knitted guy in the middle is Franklin frog (who seems to be fading rapidly, oops).

Jeremy Fisher is probably the start of the frog obsession. We had all the Beatrix Potter books - I was partial to the mice, Jeremy Fisher and Squirrel Nutkin. Was never a fan of Peter Rabbit. My mother embroidered me a Jeremy Fisher, and my sister a Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, and thus our characters were set. I got all the boy stuff and boy colours, she got the girly stuff and pink. I collected animals, she collected dolls. My mother kept the Jeremy Fisher embroidery when I moved to the UK, and she refuses to give it back. I suppose since she made him, she gets first rights.

And one more photo, of Foo frog at Culzean Castle where he was acquired, on a lovely Indian summer day last Autumn, just before we left Scotland. He is a finger puppet, which may explain his vexed expression.

Why frog?

What a question. You obviously don't know me. I love frogs. If I had a daemon, it would be a frog (yes, I'm reading His Dark Materials. I felt I had to, since I live near Jericho in Oxford). I even have my own little frog army (I'll post pictures soon). And I love green. So Frog Land was just obvious. And there are actually more reasons:

• Frog1: A very welcome guest in any garden. Unfortunately I have yet to see any in mine, but maybe if I install a pond for them, they will come.
• Frog2: knitting term to describe the heart wrenching or satisfying activity of unraveling a knitted garment (based on the "rip it, rip it" sound a frog makes).
• Frog3: A native of France. Now since I love both France and frogs, I don't consider this an insult. But I recently discovered that prior to the French, it was actually the Dutch who were called frogs, due to the marshy conditions of their homeland. So as a froggiephile, Francophile Dutch-American, I see nothing but good connotations.

Why blog?

So, why make this leap into blog land? Do I need any reason other than I'm bored on my last day of work? Of course I do. That will never sustain me through the long hard slog. Nothing sadder than an abandoned blog. So, GOOD reasons:

• record of my knitting (though ravelry fulfils this purpose quite admirably - but you have to be a member)
• record of my garden (alas, there is no ravelry for gardens)
• record of my travels (who actually prints out photos anymore?)
• record of my reading, movie watching, and general consumption of culture
• record of my cooking, canning, baking, and any other kitchen productions - like, maybe, beer. Why not?
• incentive to improve my photography skills
• an opportunity to chatter even when no one is around