14th March
I bumped into Jeff “The Carrot” Owen at the bread counter in Tesco this morning. He wasn’t giving much away about the state of his garden, in preparation for the Village Show in September. However readers, I did managed to ascertain that he doesn’t actually plant his carrot seeds until the first week in April. Therefore if you are taking a leaf out of my book you will be planting yours during the last week in March so that they will be that much bigger than his. Fingers crossed eh! He did tell me however, that if I wanted my garden to look nice for the garden party that I am planning following my Silver Wedding Celebration in May, I should be paying attention to my lawn now. Consequently I rushed home from Tesco and got Spencer to get the lawn-raker out of the shed and supervised a thorough going over of the entire lawn at the rear of the Manor. I shall be off to Wilkinsons later in the week to get some granular weed and feed like Jeff suggested.
15th March
For the second weekend in a row, Spencer and I have been at Sherfield School watching the performances in the Basingstoke Music and Arts Festival. Last weekend it was the Woodwind, Piano, and the Speech and Drama classes and this weekend it was the turn of the Strings, Singing, Recorders and the Brass players.
As usual, musicians and ex pupils from St Marys Junior School, together with some older residents of Old Basing and Lychpit played a significant part in the proceedings. We have a very talented group of musical young people in this village and many of them took part in a number of solo and group classes in the Festival. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and sing or play an instrument in front of a large group of strangers, especially if you are only eight or nine, and we should be truly proud of our young people, many of whom came away with well deserved trophies and certificates. What I particularly enjoyed, were the positive and constructive comments, especially from the adjudicator of the strings and singing sections, and the way that all the young people were encouraged to continue performing on their chosen instrument. We mustn’t forget also the hard work that their teachers put in when preparing their pupils for the competition and many of these teachers and other local residents also gave up their time to make this event a success.
16th March
With the weather looking and feeling a lot brighter, I ventured out to Conkers today to have a look at their hanging basket plants. I quite enjoy buying the small plug plants and growing them on myself, so I treated myself to a selection and, if the good weather continues, I shall be planting my hanging baskets up next weekend, although I shall be keeping them in the greenhouse. I have already planted some onion seeds (giant ones for the Village Show), and many of my annual seedlings have started to germinate in the seed trays on the greenhouse staging. I am going to need a good display this year, with the West Country branch of the Halts visiting us again at the end of May.