FLOWER GIRL

or Passiflora caerulea, to give it its Latin name.   My Encyclopedia of  Garden Plants and Flowers says that many Passiflora  species produce edible, egg-shaped or rounded fleshy fruit known as passion fruit or granadilla.   Here on the Isle of Wight it grows like a weed, and is smothered in fruit.  So I asked the old lady, in whose garden it was flourishing, if the fruit were edible, and she said 'Oh no, dear, I wouldn't try it, if I were you, they might make you ill".  So I still don't know if they are edible or not. 

Nor why it gets its name.  Are the fruits renowned for their ability to induce passion?  (If so, might be willing to risk a stomach ache!)  The other name for the hardy species that grows outdoors in England is the 'Common Passion Flower'.   The name is pretty apt for the one below, for she has so many fruits this year, she must surely have been behaving like a right little hussy.

Sometimes I astonish myself. I really do. Right now, I am marvelling at the seemingly endless ways in which I can put off doing my VAT return. Blogging tends to be very successful, but after four hours or so, it does tend to leave me with a blinding headache. And nipping out to the shop for sweets and chocolate, in the pretence I am taking Dog for a walk, can always be relied upon. But this morning, I gave myself a stern talking to and I promised myself that I would tackle the paperwork.

So this morning (after I had done the ironing, made two tarts,and read the local paper), I went to the village for groceries, fully intending to spend the rest of the day in VAT-land. Whilst shopping, true to my pledge of eliminating plastic shopping bags from my immediate vicinity, I bought another jute shopping bag. Got home, had a bar of chocolate and a coffee, turned on my computer. Checked my emails, resisted going to blog.co.uk, went to make another coffee – and saw my new jute shopping bag, with a huge advert for the Co-op on its side.

Now I don’t mind advertising Fair Trade, but I do rather object to becoming a walking billboard for a supermarket. So, reaching hitherto unexplored heights (or is that depths) of procrastination, I rooted out some fabric paints and painted a new design over the Co-op’s ad. Then felt compelled to write about it in my blog. Oh, the shame.

I offer myself two quotes as explanation:

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow (Mark Twain)

Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday (Author Unknown).

I feel better already.

That is my dilemma after finding that the removable bases from two of my mini flan tins have gone missing.    Not just missing as in lurking about in the bottom of the drawer, or wandering off in amongst the big boy roasting tins, cos I’ve checked all those places.  No, we are talking missing as in the way my mind disappears when I see or hear the word ‘celebrity’ or a trailer for another book, documentary or film on the late Princess of Wales.  

So do I throw away the two bottomless flan tins, knowing that as soon as the dustmen have taken them away, their bottoms will immediately reappear, unrepentant and sniggering about their weekend away, or do I use up valuable cupboard space by putting them in the box with all the other broken/instruction manual-less items that I cling to in the wildly optimistic hope that one day they will be reunited with their missing partners?

I’ll need to decide sooner or later, because I had to go to the Co-op  to buy a quiche for dinner, instead of making it.

Yesterday I spent a happy half hour in a sunny spot picking a small bag of sloes.  The hedge conveniently shielded me from the icy wind, I didn’t stab myself on a black thorn, and Dog was eventually persuaded that the heifers watching over the wire fence couldn’t attack us.

I set off home with a spring in my step, my cap set at a jaunty angle, until I met a man picking blackberries in the next lane.  He said, “Oh, I don’t normally pick sloes for at least another month – they need a bit of frost on them, you know”.

Well, I didn’t know, so I trudged home, my cap now drooping pathetically, consoling myself by muttering mixed metaphors about the early bird getting the sloes.   And two things dawned on me when I got home – (1) we hardly ever get any frost around these parts and (2) I didn’t have a recipe for making the gin.  The answer to both problems was to bung the sloes in the freezer whilst I hunted for a recipe.

Mrs Beaton had a recipe that seemed simple – but the book was so old that I didn’t understand what she meant by adding barley sugar.   Is this really crushed up sweets that in any case I haven’t seen for sale in yonks?

So I typed ‘sloe gin’ into google, found a site called sloe.biz forum and I now know more than I need to know about making sloe gin.  I had no idea it was so popular – or that people held such dogmatic views about the right time to pick and the best container.  And their sloe gin recipe was also a challenging riposte to the sensible drinking campaign – “Take a litre bottle of gin, and drink half a litre..”.  Uggh!

So this weekend, I will defrost the sloes and give it a go.  I just hope that the end result is worth all this effort..

according to a book on my shelf by Gillian McKeith.

So today I am a marmiteandtoastapplecookiefruitandnuthamsandwichandseveralcoffees but will become my alter ego of chickenpiebeansandglassesofwine this evening.

He was referring to my request for another shelf in the kitchen to accommodate my growing collection of cookery books. I've already managed to fill four shelves, not bad for someone who for many years owned just Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course.  And I had just received Nigella Express, the latest addition to my collection, and had tried and failed to force it into bookshelves.

I will admit here that I am a big Nigella fan.  I have all but one of her cookbooks.  I enjoy her writing style as much as her recipes.  And even if I didn't, I don't begrudge her any of her fame, fortune and success because she has had to ensure so much tragedy in her life.   So I don't envy (much) her fabulous bone structure or her incredible kitchen (I'm lying).  I can even forgive her inexplicable ability to transform my husband into a cook, despite the rapt attention with which he follows her programme.  But I do wish that she did not blithely suggest that puddings were easy to make.

For in order to bribe my husband into making yet another shelf, I promised in return  a week of making puddings.   No big deal, you might think.  But I am a marmite and crisps kind of gal, and I find nearly all puddings just too sickly.   And because I am not mad on them, I don't make them very often.  Which means that as a self- (or Delia) taught cook, they can be a hit and miss affair  because some of the instructions seem so vague.

My dad used to complain about this, but we assumed that this was because he thought cooking was women's work and that he didn't therefore apply himself with the same zeal that he does his woodwork.   (His recent attempt to make dinner for his grandchildren included trying to cook a chicken pie  by placing it under the grill, thus nearly causing a fire, and placing an unopened can of baked beans, in a saucepan of water, to boil). 

But after this week's pudding-making excursion, I am forced to agree with him.  Take the recipe for Café Crême Brulée.  It instructed me to cook the custard until it coated the back of a spoon.  Well, it coated it before I began heating it and it coated it several minutes later, but somewhere in between the custard curdled.  Then meringue making.  Whip whites until soft peaks.  Well, how long should it take before a soft peak becomes a sloppy landslide?  Because the whites looked peaky throughout, but at some point I must have overwhipped, because they became a frothy sea underneath.   As for caramel?  Well, this is where Nigella comes into it,  because on her programme, she whipped up an effortless Caramel Croissant Pudding in minutes, before slipping into a little black number and showing no signs of sweat or beads of toffee in her hair.  My version involved a burnt pan of treacle black toffee, because no book has been able to teach me how to make caramel. 

But I keep trying - perhaps I just need to try a different author. 

First I slept through the 1987 hurricane, thinking it was a tad windy. Then last night, I slept through a tornado (as described by my neighbour).   So how is it that a perishing bird, perched on the telephone wire outside, has been waking me up at 6am without fail throughout the summer?

as when you are unjustly accused of something. That is, there probably is, but none I can think of right now. For today, someone wrongly accused Dog and I of a crime. He could have picked on a whole catalogue of Dog's crimes: trying to attack every dog she met, except Baz (call me Jose the Special One) Border Collie, with whom she behaved in an embarrassing flirty manner; eating seaweed and being sick on the hall carpet; running off after a rabbit and ignoring my shouts for 15 minutes or digging a small crater on the footpath in an attempt to get the mole who had just left a hill.

Our accuser yelled after us 'Aren't you going to pick it up?' and then got shirty when I asked him to advise me on how I could pick up 'a wee' in a plastic bag. He didn't apologize, didn't try to make things pleasant after his mistake. And it rankled.

Because unlike a lot of other dog owners around here, I do clear up after Dog. Every single pocket in every single jacket, coat, fleece I own bears testimony to this, as everytime I reach for a tissue or keys, plastic bags emerge. And they lurk in my handbag, the car, the porch, the shed. And whilst I am glad people do tackle the offenders who don't clean up after their dogs, I just wish they'd make sure that they got their facts straight before wrongly accusing people like us, who feel just as strongly about dog mess as they do.

So today's accusation rankled almost as much as the occasion when my primary school teacher, Mr Davies, wrongly accused me of disrupting the class by flicking an ink pellet at Peter Jenkins, when everyone knows it was Susan Price wot dun it.

I shall console myself with the thought that it will only take another forty years or so until I get over today's injustice.

I watched 'Who Do You Think You Are?' this week, and found it interesting and moving as always. Two years ago, the show prompted me to research my family history. I suddenly realised I knew virtually nothing about my family, and since all my grandparents had died, I needed to get moving whilst my parents and aunts/uncles were still alive. So the surprise, shock, emotion of the show's participants strikes a chord with me.

I was, therefore, a little surprised last week when I read that John Hurt was a tad miffed because he felt that the show had been edited in such a way as to make him look a bit of a saddo when it was proven that his family were mistaken in believing that they were descended from Irish aristocracy. Griff Rhys Jones also seemed to be conscious of how his reaction would appear given that his family history revealed that his ancestors had fallen on hard times.

However, it seemed to me that their reaction was more shock at the way history had treated their ancestors, or surprize that it had taken them in unforeseen directions, rather than snobbery that they were less well-connected than their family lore had led them to believe.

In my case, family lore had it that my grandmother had researched our family history and discovered that we were descended from royalty. Well, I am impressed if she did prove it, because so far any such connection has eluded me. Instead, my research has revealed that I am descended from weavers, innkeepers, butchers, farmers - generally, working-clas people. But there have been black sheep, notably my great-grandfather's eldest brother, who turned out to be a convict, and ended his days as a pauper in a workhouse. And my reaction on learning this wasn't shame or disappointment, but pity and a deep sense of gratitude for the fact that I lived in more enlightened times - because his crime was to steal a hat and a pair of boots, for which he got 7 years in jail.

So I can imagine that if I discover one day that I am descended from Henry VIII or Charles I, my inner show-off will be delighted. But I hope that my more sensible side will be content with having weavers and the like as my ancestry,rather than a man with a penchant for murdering his wives or someone who started a Civil War that killed thousands.

Whilst on the mainland recently, I picked up a copy of Waitrose’s ‘Food Illustrated’. In it was an article about Wild Foods, edible berries etc. that could be found in the hedgerows or along the coastline. The three feature foods for Summer were blackberries, marsh samphire and damsons. I can’t bring myself to eat blackberries since spitting out one that had a maggot in it, and I’m not that taken with samphire which I’ve had in restaurants. But damsons got me going.

Over the last couple of weeks I have hunted in vain for damsons, which the article says are to found in hedgerows, edge of woodlands and thickets in September. It is possible, I suppose, they don’t grow on the Isle of Wight or just don’t happen to be around here. But I’m now wondering if they look the same as sloes. In which case, I assume the difference would be that the sloes would have thorns around them, and the damsons wouldn’t.

There are loads of sloes in the hedges around here. I checked them out in Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica, and now intend to try to make sloe gin. Mr Mabey claimed that most commercial sloe gin is made by using East European fruit, but it is supposedly dead easy to make some yourself. Mr Mabey writes ‘as a by product, the pitted, gin-soaked slows can be dipped into melted chocolate, which is then allowed to set’. Sounds like heaven. He ended his entry on sloes by quoting a Sussex women who told him ‘My uncle had a saying: “He liked his women fast and his gin sloe”’.

But what intrigued me more, on reading on in Flora Britannica, was the entry for the Wild Service Tree (syn. Chequer Tree, Maple Cherry). This is apparently one of the most local and least known of our native trees. Its berries are edible once they have been softened by frost and their taste has hints of dried apricot, tamarind and sultana. He says they were a boon when natural sources of sugar were in short supply, they were used as a kind of natural sweet by children, and many pubs, farms and houses have been named after them – Chequers. It seems incredible that I have never heard of them before. Mr Mabey reports that they were once sold on the Isle of Wight in shops and public markets, tied up in bunches. So my new mission is to seek them out.

If so, are there any good prizes for the clumsiest of the clumsy? If so, I'm in line for the top prize.

Monday: Managed to shut a five-bar gate whilst my left wrist was between it and the post. Result: Purple-blue wrist and purple prose. (Pah! Merely a session on the warm-up track.)

Tuesday: Went to the village shop for some bread rolls for lunch. Managed to knock over stack, and two rolls fell onto the shop floor. Next: cycled to butcher. Left bike propped against his window, but tripped over the wheel, bringing bike crashing to ground. (Ah, those clumsy muscles are shaping up nicely.)

Wednesday: Forgot butcher's warning to be careful because the knife he had kindly sharpened for me was now razor sharp. (It's just a flesh wound, dear!). Put a baking tray in oven to heat up. Lifted it out again to put bread and butter pudding on it. Forgot to put on oven gloves. Burnt hand and jerked so violently that most of B&B pudding on floor. (Getting amongst the medal positions now).

Thursday: Tried to lift down wicker basket from top of wardrobe to dig out a fleece. Forgot bad wrist. Wicker basket landed on head. (Never mind, I woke up with a migraine anyway!). Decided to give Dog a bit of practice for her event - Catch the Squeaky Toy. Squeaky goes sideways and lands on table near lamp. Dog follows squeaky. Lamp smashes on floor. Decided I'd better do some work. Slop coffee over bank statements that I am about to reconcile. (Start practising mouthing the words to the National Anthem).

Still three days left before this event is over - but I think I'm looking pretty unbeatable now.

Just been down to the allotment to see if there is anything worth picking. Greeted by John (aged 88) who told me the self-evident news that my runner beans had collapsed. I should have used hazel sticks, not three-year old bamboo canes, he said. He couldn't tell me, however, where I could get said hazel sticks, having a garden the size of a stamp. Nor could he reassure that the local farmers would take kindly to a machete-wielding hazel stick hunter on their land.

Managed to pick an armful of swiss chard and the last of the sweetcorn. Then spotted some strawberries - glee, until I found the biggest, reddest, juiciest one had been excavated from below by woodlice. I tracked down the woodlice to a piece of board I'd been using to avoid compacting the soil - hundreds of them, red strawberry juice dribbling down their faces as they lay, replete. Did a mad dance on them, to try and kill them before they scuttled off. Only partially successful - how can they run so fast?

Mad dance too much for John, who departed, weighed down by two loaded bags of produce. Took the opportunity to see if I could salvage any leeks. Only two looked as if they had avoided the leek moth - and I ruined one of them by putting a fork through them. I decided I might as well dig them out and destroy them. Jim and Mary, two other allotment holders, wandered up. They tactfully suggested that it had been today's windy gusts that had caused my beans' downfall, despite everyone else's remaining intact, then commiserated with me on the leeks. Apparently they have had their plot for 47 years, and this is the first time they have seen a leek moth.

So once they had gone, I rushed over to the remaining squashes, yelling 'Coming ready or not!'. They may not ripen at home, but at least they won't be destroyed by the Lesser Known Squash Bug that appears once every millenium, or by Halley's Comet taking a wrong turn.

And once home, a bit of triumph. Yes, a tomato plant has survived the blight. The fact that it is hiding in the middle of the dahlia patch in the front garden, having seeded itself from the home-made compost I put down in spring, and I have done nothing whatsoever to nurture it, speaks volumes for my veg growing skills. Next year, I'll know what to do.

How did the f- word become so ubiquitous in public? I was brought up to regard it as an ‘unspeakable’ swear word, that might slip out when someone is in pain or rage, but one that should generate shame and apology if someone else overheard it. Now it seems it is everywhere. Bus queues, pubs, cinema, TV, novels – and even some blogs.

It is hard to imagine now that censors objected to the word ‘damn” in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, when Clark Gable uttered the famous line: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." The word (along with “Hell”) had been prohibited by the 1930 Motion Picture Association's Production Code, and the MPA had to pass an amendment to this code before the line could be included.

A few weeks ago, I read ‘How to Talk to a Widower’, by Jonathan Tropper. This novel was promoted as one of eight books in the Richard and Judy Summer Read 2007. I have never watched Richard and Judy’s programme, but I have read many positive things about their book club. So when the R&J Summer Read was being promoted in my library, I took out the only one of the eight that was left. And it was a good read, a comment on dealing with bereavement, but written in a witty and entertaining way – mostly. Because it was liberally sprinkled with the F word, and that spoiled it for me. I find it offensive.

I can understand that film producers and authors would claim it is necessary for realism, and that is the way that people nowadays express themselves. But it doesn’t really explain why the word appears in some blogs.

Even if it is now commonly regarded as inoffensive, and does not apparently contravene any terms and conditions or overstep good taste boundaries, couldn’t/shouldn’t anything designed for entertainment that includes the F word carry a health warning? A disclaimer – so that people like me can avoid looking? Because I read, watch movies and blog to try to escape some of the more negative aspects of real life; to be amused, to relax, to discover new topics and sources of information – but not to be offended.

OK, rant over.

After the Festival and the Bestival comes the Isle of Wight Cycling Festival, which started on Saturday. Plenty of publicity has been given in order to tempt one to 'Get into Gear - Get into the Isle of Wight', pointing out the personal and environmental benefits of cycling. There is a week of events such as Triathlons, Cycle the Wight, Sink or Swim and the Hills Killer, as well as Family Rides, with plenty of organised rides at different fitness levels for all members of the family, often in return for simply a donation to charity.

A splendid idea and one I wholeheartedly support since dusting down my bike about six weeks ago, when I realised that dog walking and gardening wasn't making me as fit as I pretended to be. The Isle of Wight is a beautiful venue. I even entertained the wildly optimistic hope of participating in the Round the Island event (65 miles), until I calculated that given my present level of fitness, I would probably finish at about the same time as next year's winners.

And officers at the IOW Council are practising what they preach. The Chief Executive is a keen cyclist, and he and a number of officers will be participating in events. But one of their colleagues is noticeably absent - unless s/he is masquerading under an obscure job title. That is, the person responsible for the state of our roads.

Because without a doubt, the road surfaces on the IOW are dreadful - even the patches have patches. It's bad enough in a car - but on a bike it is lethal. And if there is anything more traumatic than cycling very slowly up a hill in bottom gear, with a queue of drivers too nervous to overtake grinding along behind you, it is the sight of a huge pot hole in the road in front, forcing you to stop dead.

So I can't help hoping that our Chief Exec and his colleagues will be persuaded to make the road improvement scheme a priority when they next limp into the council offices.

My man and I have been invited to a 'black tie event'. Our first! So naturally our thoughts turned with trepidation to our tatty collection of rags. Not too difficult for my Man, but the invite helpfully suggests that ladies should wear a floor-length evening gown. ? Last time I recall wearing anything similar was when I was an angel in my primary school nativity play. So I've been shopping. With dispiriting results. For I now conclude:

That kaftans/smocks didn't suit me first time around - and they still don't.

Ditto strapless dresses - surely an expose in waiting

That a full-length black dress makes me look like a Mafia widow at best and a crow at worst - whilst a magenta one makes me look like a troll.

Sequins make me look I'm about to join a circus.
- whilst frills make me look - er - stupid

and as for the peach number, well, why would anyone want to step out looking as if they are still in their nightie?

That Red or Dead stillettos look brilliant - but don't even attempt to walk, let alone dance, in them if the last time you added 4" to your height was several months decades ago.

That there is a more tactful way for a male shop assistant to reassure a panicking female shopper, convinced that she is a 'difficult' size, than to tell her that she has 'wide feet'.

That there are lots of divine colours to be found in the Apple store - but, alas, an Ipod Nano doesn't cover much.

That Gap and Levis don't yet do a formal evening wear range ...

That you can never queue too early if you want lunch in John Lewis
- but you can never get there early enough if you see a promising-looking dress, but find that only a size 18 and above is left.

That a Starbucks cappucino with caramel syrup does a lot for the inner woman - but contributes only a chocolate moustache to her appearance.

That there are only so many times you can hear a shop assistant tell a dubious, indecisive shopper that the dress she is trying on is 'luvverly' without wanting to yell "No you don't - you look like Jabba the Hutt'."

- or to smile through gritted teeth as another shopper's little boy pulls open all the changing room curtains, exposing - well, I won't go into that!

That there is still another month to go before the event, and maybe online shopping will yield better results, if only you would get on with it instead of blogging.

I've got a cold! A cold in September! A cold in one of the warmest Septembers on record. So warm that even I, who normally has to have a fleece surgically removed, still haven't abandoned T-shirts and shorts. Maybe that's the reason: perhaps my Cold has taken umbrage at my Appearance and has decided to teach it a lesson. Or maybe my Cold has simply jumped on the climate change bandwagon. Whatever. It's making me miserable. Nothing tastes good, can't move more than four paces from a box of tissues, have a muzzy head. Misery.

So I'm forced just to sit here, and not spread any ... Oh no! I just sneezed. I do so hope that I haven't given my Cold to any of my new friends. I would be inconsolable.

Here on the Isle of Wight there is the usual, usually good-natured banter between island-born people (known as Caulkheads) and people who have moved here (known as Overners). Sometimes, however, one or two island born residents become slightly xenophobic about us newcomers, as in 'Why don't they go back from whence they came?'.

Thinking about this recently made me a little anxious. For if I were to turn up at the ferry port, bags packed, ready for my deportation from the island, I would not know what to say when asked 'where is home?'. I was born in London, but grew up in Devon, went to 3 different primary schools in different towns and, to date, have worked and lived in two countries and six counties. Even my nationality isn't clear cut, given that I have Scottish, Welsh and English grandparents. I envisioned spending months in a refugee detention centre in Parkhurst prison, whilst the IOW passport office pleaded with the officials of nations, towns and villages in a bid to foist me on an unwilling community, resentful that I was making blogs that could be done by local people.

So it is with great relief that I can announce that I have a claim to IOW residency after all, despite only living here for 5 of the usual 30 years needed to become an islander. Oh yes. My family history research has uncovered the fact that my multiple-times great grandparents were born and lived on the island in 1700. And contrary to what some might think, given my itinerant life history, they were respectable people - no vagabonds or smugglers, thank you very much, but a Customs and Excise officer (from whom I surely inherited my love of the sea) and an Innkeeper (from whom I definitely inherited my love of a pub lunch and a tipple or several).

So now I can prove that I am a Born-Again-Islander or a Back-Over-Here-Againer, the next time I hear a rant from Mr Caulkhead, I will slap him lightly across the face with a roll of ancient parchment, and challenge him to a family-tree at dawn duel.

In the village where I was brought up, there were three shops and a post office. Now there are none, despite the population of the village having doubled due to two new housing estates. Their demise coincided with three new supermarkets being opened in the nearby town, (possibly coupled with the fact that my generation often works part or full-time and can usually drive, whereas my mother and her friends were full-time housewives and didn't drive).

I thought of this today when I did my weekly trip to Newport, Isle of Wight 'capital' to shop at the Farmer's Market. Food shopping has become a much more pleasurable experience since moving to the island. We have a thriving, much-used village shop, where we can buy virtually everything apart from fresh meat and fish. The next town to us has a butcher, baker, greengrocer, ironmonger - I'm almost tempted to add candlestick maker. And the icing on the cake is the weekly Farmer's Market.

When I lived and worked in London, and relied on supermarkets, we rarely ate meat. I couldn't stomach eating cheap imports, or factory chicken, so we became virtually vegetarian. And I have become increasingly zealous about the import of foodstuffs outside of their normal season that clock up airmiles, particularly when we have far superior products here at home. Imported Chinese garlic for sale in the garlic capital of Europe??? I don't think so.

So it is depressing indeed that another Foot and Mouth scare is jeopardising the livelihoods of our local farmers, when they have worked so hard to develop a home market. I hope it is over soon, and I won't have to dust off my vegetarian cookery book once again.

Last night, my Man reminded me that England were playing. So I got organised. Managed, thanks to tips from 'Nigella Express', to tear myself away from the computer and cooked a Red Thai Prawn and Squash Curry. Carried it into sitting room on trays just in time for kick-off. Saw first England goal. So far so good.

Carried empty plates into kitchen. Looked in fridge for cream to accompany pear crumble. Had forgotten to buy it. Looked in freezer for vanilla ice cream. Had forgotten I'd scoffed it earlier. Had to settle for mint choc chip ice cream so ancient that ice crystals had formed. Put it into microwave to soften. Loaded dirty plates into dishwasher. Belatedly realised that Man had put it on earlier. Tried to extract clean dishes from those now covered in curry drips.

Remembered ice cream. Decided to tip pea green soup over pear crumble on basis that Man wouldn't notice even if Nigella herself was swimming in it. Went back into sitting room. Man informed me that Russia had just had a goal disallowed. Sighed heavily.

Watched few minutes of football. Realised that pea green soup had escaped from my plate onto my jeans and the sofa. Marched into kitchen, fetched dish cloth, mopped up sofa, went upstairs and changed jeans. Returned to sitting room. Man informed me that England had just scored a second goal. Sighed heavily.

Went into kitchen to pour large glass of wine. Watched last few minutes of first half. Picked up remains of sunday papers to blot out tedious laddish commentary from Lineker and pals. Woken up by excitable commentary in stereo from Man and TV that Russia were attacking. Concentrated really hard on football. Wondered what it was that McClaren and assistant kept writing in notebooks. Remembered that I needed to pick up dry cleaning next day. Convinced it was going to be a two nil win. Tried to blot out complex analysis of where that left England. Picked up Sunday Times style supplement. Missed England's third goal a minute later. Sighed heavily.

Went to bed.
Woke up with headache.

'They ain't so big this year' observed John, my neighbour on the allotment. He was referring - I hope - to the winter squashes that I was carrying. Leaving aside his obvious prejudices - he's a marrow and cabbage man himself - I had to admit he was right.

Last year I only managed to produce four butternut squashes between two vines, but the smallest of these was just over a kilo and the other three were over 2 kilos, the largest being 2.7 kg (6lbs). This year I have picked two, both about a half kilo. Although there are a few more growing, they are even smaller.

Don't know why this should be. Perhaps I didn't water them enough - I didn't think I'd need to with all the rain. Anyway, I grew a couple of different kinds, so it's not like I am short of squashes. Bit depressing though!

Inspired by Sarah Raven and her book, 'The Bold and Briliant Garden', I attempted to grow Tithonia rotundifolia 'Torch' for the first time. I don't normally bother with half hardy annuals, because all the cold frame space is taken up by vegetables and herbs. I'm glad I did though, because it lights up the garden and the bees love it.

I knew it was too good to be true. I knew that one day I would find something negative about living on the beautiful Isle of Wight. And I found it today - on my allotment - when I discovered that the leeks had been attacked by leek moths. I'd never heard of these before - but apparently they are common in coastal south and east england.

Oh, why don't you clear off to the Costa Del Sol?

I started this blog to record the development of my newly planted garden, but somehow I have been sidetracked by reading everyone else's blog. So I thought I'd better do a bit of gardening today, so I'd have something to write about.

For some reason, the colour in the garden at the moment is mainly from the hot end of the colour spectrum. Is this a quirk of nature - reds and oranges predominate in autumn, whilst blues and pale yellows are more common in Spring? In the gravel garden, the dahlias, heleniums, Tithonia, Zinnias and helianthus are putting on an amazing display, but in the pastel coloured part of the garden, there is hardly anything left in flower, apart from sedums and the annual Cosmos I planted.

So I have added some pink and purple dahlias to my dahlia order, to extend the season in the pastel garden and will now research from hot-coloured plants that flower in the earlier part of the year, so I can have a bit more continuity.  Gosh, what hardship!

If you are a male aged between forty and fifty, you may experience a sudden loss of libido. Don't panic.

Ask your secretary if she's seen it.
Check under the sofa.
Report your loss to the police.
Consider offering a reward for the safe return of your libido.
If, after six months there is still no sign of it, take up gardening.

(From 'The Little Book of Complete Bollocks' by Alistair Beaton. It never fails to cheer me up when I'm having a bit of a down day. And today has been one of them - too much work, no chocolate in the house and the realization that I have blown the best part of the day by looking at everyone else's blogs when I should have been working - or eating chocolate - tee hee)

.. I've read today that I am not the only one feeling dismayed, uncomfortable and puzzled about the McCann situation. I'm not talking about the nutters, conspiracy theorists or crank callers that are out there, but people like me who are moved to tears when they see Maddie's photo and have been moved,sad and supportive for other families who have lost a child over recent years.

Yet when I watched the tv footage of the McCann family returning home last night, I felt, as I have felt throughout since a couple of weeks after Maddie's disappearance, when any prospect of finding her seemed unlikely in the short term, a feeling of irritation, not sympathy.

I don't know why I feel like this, and it worries me. I assume it is because there are so many things about this case that seem out of kilter with previous disappearances, or just seem avoidable mistakes.

I find it strange that middle-class, well-educated professional people like the McCanns and their friends would lock up their children in apartments, then leave the building. If they had been single mothers imagine the outcry and the calls for Social Services to investigate their parental skills.

Then there is the British media's coverage. The press seem to have had a perfect 'Have your cake and eat it too' opportunity, endless scope for saccharine and portentous victim stories, whilst unleashing the venom that usually follows on 'Johnny Foreigner'. I assume that the Portuguese have a system of not disclosing news about a crime in order to ensure that cases are not compromised and to protect what is supposed to be a cornerstone of British justice - a person being deemed innocent until proven guilty. But both aims seem to have been well and truly derailed in this case. People like Robert Murat will have to live the rest of their lives under the shadow of doubt, having witnessed every aspect of their lives put under the microscope and commented upon in derogatory terms.

Then I am puzzled why the McCanns chose to stay in Portugal. I can understand staying for a couple of weeks until the immediate investigations have been carried out. I can also understand that they want to ensure that the case didn't disappear from the news, but they could have done this from home. Surely their priority should have been to ensure their other children were protected from the media circus and resumed as normal a life as possible in the cirumstances. But the sight of the couple strolling around the holiday resort seemed surreal.

Then, rather than the usual police liaison officer that usually supports families in this situation, we are presented with a PR Spokesperson.

Most of all, I fear that their campaign has backfired. The rewards offered have triggered false leads which presumably have hampered the police investigation. And given the extensive leaking I cannot see how a safe conviction would be possible assuming the person responsible is found.

I very much hope that the media will respect the McCann's pleas for privacy, but I doubt it. The only news that I want to hear about them is that Maddie is found alive and well,