Saturday 12 January 2013

The Sunday Muse!

Small "Panther" in the sun flecks!

Looking forward to spring!

 +Philip Spalding

This week has been the darkest of the year so far in the UK.  Dark  during the day because of the cloud.  Dark at night because of the cycle of the moon which ha made it apparently the best viewing conditions of the night sky.  We have had our astronomy "festival" on BBC TV Stargazing Live (may not open outside UK) with the comedian Dara O Briain (a comedian with a degree in Cosmology and Maths) and Professor Brian Cox current successor to the great Sir Patrick Moore.  As a nation we are captivated by these great televisual experiences.  We have even had Professor Brian Cox commentating on what to see in the Sun Newspaper (a British tabloid or red top) as I discovered while having a coffee in Deja Vu , local coffee shop that is run by local people.  Was almost tempted to get my telescope out (a Sky-watcher Reflector) but must be getting old as was a little too cold!

Looking forward to spring and the sun flecks starting to come through the leaves of the apple tree has started me thinking about vegetable gardening.  I have touched on this in previous years when blogging about micro-farms  or square foot gardening and green thumbs.  At the moment with snow predicted for tomorrow will probably have to make do with making vegetable soup.

The planning of the veg patch can start now.  The experiences I will relate in this blog as in previous years.  I have started an online learning community for Haverhill (Haverhill Online Learning Community or HOLC).  We have specifically marked in  a week for Urban Gardening on the Calendar of events starting the 11 th February 2013.  The Urban Gardening  page link will soon be available on the Projects Page.  There is a great increase in interest  in the UK in growing your own, with demand for allotments up in these times of austerity.  If everybody was to turn even one square metre of their back or front lawn  into a veg growing area we would not only reduce air-miles (and that's just the start) but also gain that satisfaction of producing our own food.  It does not even have to be a square metre even growing lettuce and salad leaves in plastic bottles tied like a terrace to a balcony wall can yield good results!

To finish off for this post then the new year's resolutions have been written.  One was to eat more Cretan/Greek food which I will do so once I have found my Cretan Cookbook.  Certainly I will be blogging more about the county that I love to be part of, Suffolk and it's great food and culture.  Will have to wait a bit for some more ducks to become available I think but you never know!