It has all been a very peculiar winter here. The weather has been rather coldish and wet with interminable rain but nary a snowflake to be seen, not one. Then all of a sudden, it stops, gets 20 degrees warmer and full on sunshine! More like all of sudden it is a different planet!
Of course none of this is to do with ‘global warming’, it is just the usual oscillation of the Pacific doing its El Nino/Nina bit, we have one like this every 5 years or so.
I too have had a peculiar winter to say the least, last Autumn I complained to the doctor of a persistent pain in the back. Always wanting to know the worst and anticipating a healthy dose of lung cancer after smoking for literally 50 years I manned up, or rather womanned up and presented myself for the usual battery of tests. Lo and behold, more bloody gall stones!! Of all the gall! Only about 15% of humanity manage to get them more than once evidently, these are made in the liver on a deo ex machina basis and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it but fish them out! These beasts were the size of rocks, they were duly fished out but had caused massive reflux through blocking the tubes. All this was done without any real inconvenience but then the real kicker! The reflux had been aspirated into my lungs at night and gently acid etched the whole surface! The pulmonologist assures me the condition is reversible, so off we go with various drugs etc to put it right. Then the Damocletian blow! Normally the putting it right is accompanied with large doses of antibiotic to keep other diseases away but I can’t use them as I am totally allergic to virtually ever oral antibiotic. So being in a very delicate condition, I must not be breathed on by anyone or else I’ll end up in the local Lazar house(hospital) in an oxygen tent!
OK folks, you know the drill, retreat, load for bear and mine the drive! No visitors, cancel everything, go nowhere, do nothing etc etc! Now this all gets very very boring, so to keep busy I have been growing things on in the greenhouse awaiting the day to get planting outside. Then the weather broke and a frenzy of activity has taken place, well I’ve got so much in there it all has had to be moved along the system at a great rate of knots.
Early peas, broad beans all out and going.
onion starts in and running
The asparagus is up!
It is absolutely amazing how a few days sun can bring in some colour, a week ago this was pretty grim, hardly a flower to be seen.
Not content with that and still not able to be breathed on, spousal unit and the supervisors were herded off to the community garden to get an early start No chance of anyone else being there this early in the year. Actually spousal unit has been known to liken it to the county work farm!
Poor man tilled the whole patch, within the ropes, and I planted broad beans, early carrots and beetroot.
Here is the four of them, exhausted after a hard days work, trouble is I feel rather good at the moment. Not too sure if a cure has been effected or just the relief of not having to see and deal with dreadful people! I shall have to assess if it is a good ploy to keep permanently as an alternative lifestyle to anchoritism!
Boadicea's Chariot 
What car is that in the pic obscured by the
weedssticksshrubs, we need to know 😉Soutie: A classic, MB Station Wagon 300D? Ideal for taking the turnips to market.
I trust it is a diesel Mrs. O.
Mrs. O. You are so far ahead of us with the garden it ceases to be fair, I am envious. We still have not exceeded 45 degrees in the day and still below freezing at night, usually we get a few sixty degree days in March, no chance this year. Garden is still a weedy blank patch with a few renegade daffs. trying to push through, hardly a bud on a tree. Our soil is super acidic so I spread the woodstove ashes on it in the winter to give it some character, lack of moisture means they are still a surface feature. No end in the forecast either. You will probably be harvesting before we plant.
Much sympathy with your, in my opinion, at least, involvement in the American over zealous medical system, but I’m guessing you know that, Tina. Nevertheless, quite inconvenient and as you say it shouldn’t have happened again, statistically. Unpleasant though, and hope you get well soonest.
You are way ahead of us here in the frozen UK; it’s still frozen, and nothing very much is happening in the garden. Planting, you jest, it’s still all frozen.
Christina, rest assured that when all the wimps have abandoned you, you’ve still got us for your sins. 🙂
The snow continues to fall here…………
Soutie, that is a Mercedes E320, I needed a replacement last autumn for the ancient Acura that was falling apart and beginning to sound alarming! So now the supervisors come and go to the community garden in style! No doubt, dogs, manure, plants and tools will manage to wreck it in due course but as for now it is rather grand to have a clean and orderly vehicle! It has a jolly big boot and all sorts of fiendish nets, straps and tarps to hold things down. (Typical krauts, seriously into bondage even in their cars!)
LW it is petrol, with the mileage I don’t do it is of no odds whatsoever it drinks. Everson is 3 miles away and Bellingham about 15 I rarely drive anywhere else.
LW I must say the weather in the east is absolutely dreadful from the TV, very unusual. That is why I was so surprised when it turned here and so suddenly, temp for this weekend is supposedly to be nearly 70!!!! and blazing sunshine every day for a week now. and forecast for another week, seriously weird!
Ara, USA medicine is only as overzealous as you allow it to be. I don’t, not being a complete hypochondriac (yet) That was the going price for 2 CT scans, 1 MRI, 2 bouts of ultrasound, 2 visits to the gastroenterologist, 2 visits to my pulmonologist and the endoscopy at the hospital to fish them out. Not one damned wasted appointment. It is much better to be poor and it would have been free round here! Which accounts for our property taxes being somewhat excessive.
J, you have the boot on the wrong foot! I abandoned them, I have to admit gleefully! I have been looking for a way out of one of the clubs. I have done more than my fair share for the last four years and I felt it was all being taken too much for granted. About time someone else took the strain, especially as I wasn’t feeling too damned wonderful. I only have the energy left for my own garden and a bit for the community garden, apart from that too many vanity projects of an aggrandising nature that can go hang themselves without my attention!
Christina, does your spousal unit harness the three helpers to the plough? Take care not to overdo things too soon.
I have to admit after a week’s manic action I do feel a bit rough! Will have to retreat to the greenhouse for potting session which is a lot less strenuous.
Though London had some sunshine yesterday, it was still pretty cold. Curiously my son (nearly 6 now) asked if he could plant daffodils and could I go to the shop where I buy Xylitol to get some daffodil seeds. (the “Xylitol shop” is a Tooting branch of Holland and Barrett where he has seen pumpkin seeds in packets!
Still snowing here ……. 😦