Never too old for balloons
Age is a funny thing , you know. It only seems like yesterday that I was young, vibrant, fit and healthy (well…young, at least). By the time you read this there’s a very good chance I will be eligible for membership of the Saga old biddies club, Tuesday being the dread day when I reach a half century. Now as a cricketer I should be jolly glad to have made it that far without feathering a nick to the slips, but Goddammmit I’m now officially, irrefutably, unequivocally middle aged in number, outlook and creakiness. Becoming a granddad was one thing, but now I can’t even pretend to be anything other than a crotchety old git, even if I have, by action, been one for years. I hope there’s more to being 50 than getting the right to wave The Daily Mail irrationally at Eastern Europeans.
On the subject of creakiness I can confirm that I’m not cut out for a career at the front line of horticulture. I spent last Wednesday at the Farm helping with planting and other such deeply green-fingered activities, and even though it only a half days’ effort on my part I can safely say that I have not ached so much in a very long time. Despite being closer to the ground than most (a fact pointed out by Jamie before he was threatened with a broom-shaped enema) the mere act of repeatedly bending down to insert green things into brown stuff led to me later uttering the full range of old man noises…on getting up out of the chair…sitting down on the chair…getting into the car…out of the car…in fact, pretty much any movement at all. Kudos to the regular heavy lifters at the farm, Simon and Aaron, not sure how they do it. My late Dad, who often despaired of my total ineptitude in a gardening environment, must have been looking down on me from above, chuckling quietly to himself.
Striding purposefully
Friday saw me waging a mostly losing battle with the fiendish device that is our bottling machine. I now know, after much stickiness, that Sweet Chilli Sauce is a right little so-and-so to bottle, it’s very stickiness tending to make it form air pockets in the neck of the bottle with significant resultant spurtage (stop sniggering at the back). Of swearing there was much, and I was thankful that the remaining batches to be bottled (jarred?) were both jams. Just the searing heat of the jars to contend with, then. Who needs fingerprints anyway?
Stick Duck
The weekend was spent either (a) sheltering from the wind (Sherston) or (b) being battered by it (Chippenham). Either way it seemed to frighten customers away, so I’ve had to cancel my order for the pied-a-terre in the south of France, for now at least. Soon…
More news about Frome (who knew there was so much to report!) – I will no longer be a regular at the Cheese & Grain Farmers Market, though I may make some guest appearances.
We will still be going to the Independent Market though, so you can still get your fix 🙂
I’m off on my travels away from the Shire this weekend coming, making the long(ish) trek to Knutsford for the Tatton Park Country Show – let’s see if I can keep hold of my lollipops this time. Should be fun, I hope I get luckier with the conditions that all those traders at the Badminton Horse Trials (who were, as expected, all guilty as charged). If the mud didn’t get you, the Lesser Spotted Dive Bombing Gazebos did. It’s a real shame when all that expense and hard work goes unrewarded 😦
Also this weekend we’ll be in Devizes, Wallingford, Swindon, Oxford, Bath, Newbury and Ulan Bator. Actually one of those might be a lie, just checking you’re still reading.
That just about wraps it up for this week, I’m off to do exciting birthday preparation like putting the out recycling and feeding the cats. Rock, and dare I say it, roll.
Not related to me at all
The Chilli Hobbit 