22nd June
Spent the best part of a day searching the internet for animal rescue centres that might have a suitable cat for re-homing. Readers will know that we had to have our lovely cat Mozart put to sleep last week. It was all very sudden as he hadn’t been ill, and was not especially old. We are all still very upset about it, and there are divided feelings in the family about how long we should wait before getting another cat. Marcus and Spencer are of the view that we should wait an appropriate time to get over Mozart, whereas Violet-Elizabeth and I would really like to get another cat as soon as possible. The reality is that finding a suitable rescue cat is more difficult than you might think.
24th June
By now you should probably have sown all your seeds for the vegetables
you are intending to show in the Village Show in September, and your fruit
trees and bushes should be coming along nicely. I have been feeding
the trees in the Manor Orchard with potash every six weeks in the hope that
they will grow bigger and better than Jeff Owen’s. I do have to report
one disaster though. Regular readers will remember that I am the proud
holder of no less than two RHS Bronze medals for Best Fruit in Show.
This was for my dish of any other fruit (class 27). This year however,
there is not a single pear on any of the Manor pear trees. This might
be due to the over diligent pruning that took place in the Autumn, but
Spencer was only following instructions from the RHS handbook, that I was
reading out to him at the time.
There is still plenty of time to be thinking about the novelty sweepstake
(class 1). For this you have to make a creature made from vegetables.
It is a good way to use up all those knobbly carrots and potatoes that
wouldn’t win in any other class. You are allowed to use cocktail sticks to
join the various parts of your creature together, to make it all the more
interesting. The entry fee is 50p and the winner takes 75% of the proceeds,
so the more people that enter, the more the prize money is. There are
usually at least 10 entries in this class, and they fill up a whole table on
their own. It never ceases to amaze me as to the ingenuity and ideas
that the people of Old Basing and Lychpit have.
26th June
Packed Marcus off on his Duke of Edinburgh Gold Expedition to Dartmoor for the next four days. The weather forecast is mixed so I suggested that he took some warm clothes and a hat. The withering look said it all, and I let him get on with it in the end. I do hope that he has remembered to take some insect repellent this time though, as last year’s Silver expedition to Exmoor was somewhat spoilt by the number of mosquito bites he collected. As I said on his return – it isn’t a competition to see how many bites you can get. However, if it had been I am sure he would have won!