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I’m so pleased you enjoy it Drone. You and me both. The Deben really is a massively underestimated power and only those that passed before us could have realised its amazing qualities and truly tap into them. We have a neighbour who curates at Sutton Ho and I remember us being in awe in conversation at the deep knowledge and awareness that the tribes had through their closeness to nature and how they understood the power of the elements well enough to plan everything around the lay of the land to their ultimate advantage and fortune.
They didn’t anticipate anyone digging up the vast treasures they placed in their longboats in homage to their royalty. And yet it was meticulously laid out and arraigned in anticipation of demise.
I’m hoping for some representation of Sutton Hoo during the week of the exhibition.
It has been a week of milestones and another one reached with the exhibition’s first sponsor. Undercliff laundry undercliff Road Felixstowe.
I’ve drawn up a tour guide which will feature the work which I cannot take into the studio in the form of remote installations. One such remote installation is the set of four dormant willows in langer park. Boggy ground which was previously a canal along which Barges travelled down to the docks. My partner has begun the process of rejuvenating the trees by regularly coppicing them. Installation number 2 quite rightly can be described as a right old pile of poo. The ten bags which are regularly piled up against our front garden wall bags literally of “O’Flaherty’s black gold”. The finest oldest most well rotted horse poo in Christendom. Snapped up frequently by a willing neighbourhood to the tune of fifty five bags and counting at £5 a bag plus gift aid @ 25%. There is a prize on offer to the purchaser of the 100th bag.
As for the Asparagus, it really is the mare’s tail of vegetables with roots down to hades and all entwined in every pie 🥧. I’ve quickly deduced that brute force serves only to placate ignorance and damages the crown whereas using the old noggin quickly brings about the rationale that preserving energy also protects the crown. I’ve deduced hopefully correctly that drenching the ground eases extraction and more importantly removal of soil enables the fork to reach a depth which allows minimal damage inflicted on the crown enabling a swift cutting off of the roots and other links and a firm but less damaging hand pull away from the mud.
I’m designing a brochure detailing a trail around the town to locate all of the remote installations I’ve worked on and or am working on. There will be four hundred of them ( mapped guided trails detailing my remote installations and selling at the princely sum of £3 with two thirds of any sold going equally to the two charities. So massive potential if the uptake is even moderate. A printing firm has agreed in principle to set up and print the mapped guide to be ready a few days before the exhibition starts and I have to present copies of what this exhibition needs over the coming few days. Also on board is the exhibition’s first sponsor Undercliff Laundry, Undercliff Road Felixstowe. Guaranteeing £20 to each charity.The asparagus proving highly problematic. For all the effort not much to show for three days of heavy toil. Planks went to bonfire on Monday before I could salvage them. Titanic struggle with a crown yesterday. stuck in the mud trying to retrieve crowns.
Will give it one more go tomorrow.
Mike the camera visited today and held meeting with owner of print firm. Very informative and lots of good advice offered. Very positive meeting.
Radio appearance and got to choose two records. Bullet the blue sky u2 and sweet sounds of heaven Rolling Stones.
I got to go over the whole reckoning behind the exhibition and how the start of this thread was the catalyst the spark to wanting to add another tree 🌲 to replace the two lost in that “earlier time”. How a pile of poo will be as important an installation as any other on the guide trail. If the tree was the catalyst the final spark came from Sarah Figlio’s bold interaction with her map challenge to me. It opened up a huge doorway and here I am and explain it all fully to a businessman made all the sense in the world today. His understanding of my message was plain but his message to me was look after number one and he presented me with a great analogy concluding never leave yourself totally short if you’ve identified a value you must ensure your family don’t go hungry as a direct result.
Mike and I also nipped into the Saint Philip’s Christmas lunch for a quick sausage roll and mince pie. We were made very welcome.
The felsto arms took a couple of pints of my custom and this song sums up eloquently my time there. Went in with a good mate and covered lots of ground in conversation health and happiness and schemes and dreams all covered and how to keep partners happy!!
The stones album has been the feature and it is an excellent piece of rock material they’ve pulled one out of the hat here.
This song covers the last few weeks and where my passions run flowing freely..
🏃♀️
Just like a fisherman’s tale it was massive I tell thee. Hard to believe a clump of asparagus could weigh forty pounds or more but today’s catch was just that. After days of toil I’ve worked out there is a need to mine under the crown and dig around it a bit. This negates the need to fight and strain against an immovable object. Dig around and under and slowly but surely the crown is loosened and eventually comes up evenly.
Finally, in they went, in splendid darkness at Victoria street, in a newly prepared bed boosted by the beautiful black stuff. If anything, I’ve set them a little high in the ground and they may be susceptible to the cold, but the main thing is they are in.A week of asparagus is enough for any gardener. A very nice gap came this afternoon with a visit by my closest ( in age) sibling. It was great to get the kids together after several years. Went to my old next door neighbour with my brother as he has the largest reserves of Jerusalem artichokes in Christendom. I’ve exhausted my first year crop already but this is where I dug up the tubers which produced them last April.
As this gentleman planted Jerusalems in both front and back of his house he now has an eternal stream of them and always will. He was not suprised to see me at door fork in hand poised to go digging in his borders. Tonight’s dish for my bro and sis in law was jumbo king prawns red peppers in pilau rice with a very tasty artichoke sauce using double cream cheddar cheese and thinned out slightly with milk. Grated Cheddar cheese ( melted in the boiling blended artichoke the game breaker with a side dish of pork ribs and lots of them in case the kid discented. I needn’t have worried the adults were left to enjoy the sauce on everything while there was nothing left on the plates despite four racks of ribs as back up. Washed down with Prosecco Organic from lidls for the adults, hobgoblin for me. Copious fizzy drinks and fruit juice snapped up by the young uns.
I’ll be back in my old street tomorrow as I was meant to dig up some strawberry 🍓 plants a month ago at the house opposite to where we lived. I saw the other next door neighbour (last week) to enquire wether he still had his old allotments and he answered in the affirmative so a closer look next week and an invite to the exhibition will follow. I was also in the street just yesterday sourcing some late winter flowers for another bouquet of camellias ( white) along with white roses, and astamarias. I’m only two streets away now after nearly 13 years away.
As we were leaving, a pal walked past with his dog and wished us a happy Xmas. He walked into the garden of the house next door . “ I lived there!! which floor are you on?”
“Top floor”.
Amazing, that’s where we lived”.
“It’s a fab pad’ he enthused “and they’ve let me have my dog there too, very hard to get one of these places top floor and a dog too.”
He evoked great memories for me as a single Dad. There for just two years and an adopted son of the street. Yes I put an allotment in the back and it provided spuds 🥔 for each house in the building.
Both neighbours were excellent one had the artichokes, the other chickens 🐓 and an allotment too on waste land beyond the fence. House renting was done old school as recently as 2011 and I answered a postcard stuck in a window in the high street paper shop. My first view of a property and shook hands right away. Mike was the gentleman’s name, very eccentric Suffolk through and through and a principled fellow. “ you were first to view and you’ve got first shout on moving in”. Turns out we had bundles in common and were soon doing jobs together. This old man was acting as an intermediary for the house owner in Cambridge as they were close friends and he was soon to pass the reins over to his son. Mike was an expert on antiques and local architecture particularly the architect Cotman. We had many a light hearted argument and whilst we never agreed on much, I liked his humanity and although we both loved being in the water 💦 he having rebuilt a derelict boat that lay rotting off stoke bridge Ipswich for many years, Our love of it was tempered by our lack of understanding of its occupants typified when we shared a lobster 🦞. I was tasked with keeping the live fellow that way overnight and promptly placed him in tap water in the fridge overnight.
He didn’t of course last the night and we made the decision to carry on regardless and cook him!! Luckily any potential toxins were boiled away and other than drowning the poor fellow the night before, we’d ‘saved’ him from being cooked alive, so a win win for all parties.
We enjoyed many a meal together on free evenings and he continued in his philanthropic ways helping anyone he could to settle in the area from wherever they came. He was a perfect ambassador for England and he championed the polish community and the Indian family on the ground floor soon became close friends with school runs shared.
The old man in Cambridge handed over landlordship to his son and I soon got the gardening gig there through him. when I moved out, I continued my close association with the street in particular with the next doors and worked a very nice garden across the road. Which still to this day provides a mass of two year old leaf mulch every year by rotating the bins every six months or so. The compost is brought to bear by the occupants adding eggshells and basic kitchen scraps and with four bins in simple rotation has provided for both allotments this year.
Mike was not far off the age of the old landlord and succumbed just after I’d moved out and settled closer to Walton the older part of town and one where I first bought a house several years back.
True to form Mike was busy right up to the end. And the day before he took ill, He spent the Sunday moving a Polish family into one of the old boys houses on beach road west just around the corner from where we now live. It was a massive Cotnan designed house one which he’d raved over and he slaved over a heavy piano 🎹 but never complained despite knowing he was very ill. That was his way and he never came out of hospital.
The people in this street though were in the main the salt of the earth and testimony to that fact is bourne out by the welcome I receive whenever I pass down this road.A brilliant bounty of bulbs and rose 🌹 bushes came with the asparagus. Four of them are soaking at the main allotment two have remained at home. I’ve picked up another chesty cold and while things are “fluid” I’m ok with it. I’m very much s kill or cure and the great outdoors often is the best medicine but I feel worse than last time a month or so ago. End of today I’ll have a better idea if it’s going away but soldiering on.
Scent from heaven is a yellow rosed climber and one I saved from the gardeners bonfire last week. It was the rose of the year in 2017 so it’s demise from its home was quite dramatic after just a few years in place. But it’s got pride of place at our home and I’m hoping for good things as soon as June this year and will train it up the house (hopefully).
Molly Roberts dad has windows on his laptop as my old phone can’t handle the necessary upgrade to do the programme work for the exhibition so hopefully we’ll make progress on it today.The big day. The day? One which always creeps up on me and one which I hold little import to. If ever there was a day when bad people could stop and take stock it would perhaps be this one. But if they cannot do the same on the other 364 days they won’t today.
The dog will get his normal walk on the beach and folk will be that little bit more “greety” today.
Hopefully my chest infection will come right out today before clearing away.
I was laid up before 8pm last night stepsils, aspirins and something very potent which looked like strepsils but has a list of side effects which suggests there is nothing organic about the chemical make up of this sweet. I sweated profusely last night and missing dinner is very unSam like. Beef wellingtons were passed up too. I understand the Pope has had something to say about the naughty boys and girls in the Middle East. Didn’t all of this happen months ago? Like the rest of the world’s leaders, His silence has been deafining and a Christmas Day mention in between the mince pies is tooo little tooo late.
It’s raining heavily and both cats 🐈⬛ 🐈 have been in to show off their wet coats. The mice have lain low for several days now and avoided becoming trophies 🏆 to the street’s top mousers.
No self respecting allotment holder would leave his plot unattended today. And my haul of beautiful roses 🌹 will get planted today. I feel as sick as a dog and a bonfire 🔥 and putting these marooned bushes ( hybrid teas) back into the ground will make me feel a whole lot better.Beef wellington still going begging and a call to 111 was needed this morning.
Must be ill because I watched call the midwife from near start to near finish. It is almost like watching an Attenborough documentary. no defenceless little ones are ever gobbled up by the big bad wolves 🐺.
To my big suprise the 111 people took me seriously as I did mention I never call the number for anything. so I’m really not great. The ace ♠️ in my hand was the colour of my couch splatters (green) and the nurse I spoke to on the call back said she’d be recommending a visit to the doctors out of hours to obtain an antibiotics prescription. The call came through soon after and a trip ensued to Ipswich riverside. The doctor 👨⚕️ was very exacting and thorough and prescribed straight away and although it isn’t the “cure” the amoxicillin is a very good start. And a return of appetite will hopefully get me back on track…The amoxicillin must be doing something I’m coughing up a sea of gunk off my chest and I sound like a rattlily cage.
The colour of this gunk is rich green and while I feel unwell it is at least on the move.Back to normal in the last couple of days. Coughing and spluttering now but back outside on the allotments and crucial work taking place.
The funniest thing took place when a lady knocked on my door at the weekend and asked if I had some of “this amazing horse manure 💩 I’m staying with my Sister down the road and I’d like to take a couple of bags back to Portsmouth with me.”
I said the bags had been stacked up against the fence for a bit of a while and needed double bagging. The lady had even brought her own bin liners. So the least I could do was sackbarrow it down the road to her car. Fingers crossed it didn’t leak out on the drive down. She offered me a tenner and I told her to hand it to her sister who could go to the shop or pay online.
That is now over sixty bags bought since the idea came up probably as many bouquets as well. So while the thread 🧵 is marmite to some, it’s been worth many hundreds of pounds to the people that really matter. If you throw in a few changed attitudes and lots of fresh produce to people that need it too then it’s been worth thousands not hundreds.
Two consecutive days out firstly to levington marina where I spent lots of time exploring the shoreline as an urchin further down stream at nacton shore.Little more than a mile away the lovely thatched inn The Ship. little nautical about it now, but a nice pint and a decent eater and good staff.
About three seasons in one hour with sunshine and torrential rain.
Today a trip to the other worldly Covehithe up the coast and a yearly trip to the isolated beach not far from Dunwich most of which was lost to the sea centuries ago church and entire town the centre of England’s wool trade. Covehithe has suffered in it’s own way gradually slipping closer to the sea each month and it’s church was once a long long way inland and this stunning flint walled building built with and within the ruins of a previous larger edifice in a graveyard built on a graveyard 🪦 and the cliffs are approaching year on year. A beautiful desolate beach which our dog is free to roam and like all labs loves the wide outside the mud, water and the company of other dogs.
Tomorrow morning allotment/ exhibition/ installation/ repeat daily routine now until 11/01.I don’t know how you do it Sam, you must have found days with 48 hours in them. You’ve turned
me into a Sam bookworm, I’ve read every word and yet I’ve never been (until now) that interested
in the ground and what we can and should be doing with it. In my defence I hardly had the time
to see my boys grow up when they were little, thankfully they have turned out wonderful young
men and I’m so proud of them although I regret missing so much of their early years. Anyway,
that’s life. You keep a check on your health Sam, working out in all weathers when you’ve
got a chest infection isn’t to be recommended. Trust me, your health is the most valuable
commodity that you have, don’t take it for granted.I remain amazed at what you have created and been involved in. I admit I voted for Meydan
Thursdays as best thread, but I admit being a bit biased there, there’s never been a thread
like this in my time in TRF. You’ve really got to write a book Sam, in the 5 minutes per day
that you’re not doing anything
I met a guy and his wife walking along the prom today. A few days ago I’d dragged a piece of driftwood away from the incoming tide and put it further up the beach and wedged it under the breakwater rocks 🪨 so that the coming high tides couldn’t sweep it away again. Today I’d got some rope out of my partner’s studio and lashed it to the wood about fourteen feet long and I guess one hundred fifty pounds in weight. I dragged it off the rocks back down onto the sand before hauling it up the beach over the shingle and up on to the promenade. Must be getting better as I could still breath at resting pace afterwards. Along came the couple walking their dog ( Curley). I explained to them I’d be using the wood as a border for a raised bed on my allotment. He said that bit of wood would cost over a hundred pounds in a builders yard he visited regularly. The Man explained he was a landscape gardener from the East End and we had a laugh about the “grunt” of hauling stuff off the beach. Very quickly the conversation turned to the unique micro climate enjoyed here and I explained about the three rivers and the weatherline and straight away both husband and wife said they were regular visitors and had regularly wondered in amazement how the weather often changed at the same spot as they came over the brow of the hill and drove down to Felixstowe. He helped me drag the massive bit of driftwood across the road to sit safely under a fence until I could persuade a friend to put it on a trailer ready to install at VICTORIA STREET.
Dave the Gardener of the East End met Dave the Gardener of East Anglia!! We had so much in common and Dave and his wife were admirers of my partner’s work too. I told them about the willow coppicing and the old waterways and the fact that millions of gallons rolled out to sea unharnessed and wasted every single day from all over the Deben peninsula and these spas were priceless but unresourced.You are truly a great guy big G and you’ve always kept it real. Grounded but always able to dream to reach that bit to attain what was seemingly out of reach. The optimist and glass half full always.
I’ve missed your dream posts where you’ve had that race or match running on a loop the night before.
Well this thread has been a dream and I’ve reached out here under an assumption of can in total disdain to those that say can’t to everything. I’ve had to slow things down physically in plain sight but behind the scenes I’m quietly going about my business and hopefully despite being so unwell the last fortnight I’m back on track just in time. I’ve a tonne of work to do to make the exhibition a success but having put quite a LOT of traditional NOSES 👃 out of joint I’ve reached the set up stage and the Exhibition is on the list on the website The Tree 🌲 and The Three Rivers is an event now….
The little bits of help, support and encouragement from good people like you is helping me to get it over the line and giving me the extra energy I need to get it done.
Here it is GrahamHope your keeping safe, sounds like you are sporting sam with the floods and flood risks
Vf x
Hi VIKING!!
All good here on the right side of this amazing weather line. Balmy weather today and a two hour walk yielded no Amber and waiting an answer from a sponsor for the remote installation trail. A brilliant forumite has donated a grandstand seat to gold cup day at Cheltenham. I’m going to raffle it to raise funds and am using the oxygen of the Exhibition to promote that and the funds raised will go to the saint Elizabeth’s hospice charity and the saint Philip’s community pop up shop. This is such an enormous boost I can’t put into words my gratitude.
The fisherman has come up trumps for me too two lovely lobsters 🦞 and two nice cod. I’ve given one of the cod to my neighbour who always gets his trailer out when I salvage wood off the beach. Lobster dinner tonight. I’ve launched the trail today and a couple who live nearby will I hope be the first to do it.
Every one doing the trail will pop into the hospice shop and donate £3 split equally between the charities and the exhibition.
The light on the beach once the sun rose above the very low cloud band was amazing the temperature must be close to 13 degrees. Very mild and repairs at the allotment are needed. I’ve got an old workmate who is a bit of a celeb now his daughter won love island a few years ago and her endorsements monthly or is it weekly match his annual wage. But he is manager of a national brewery with strong links to this area maybe this fella can pull a few strings he doesn’t owe me anything but asking never does any harm. The exhibition doesn’t need much just raised awareness and lots of publicity but the charities involved need support and the related draw might benefit from some more support.Good luck with the trail SS
Great you got mulder weather for allotment jobs. It really froze over here last night, glad I had got the fleece jackets over the cordylines.
Last year they suffered badly, and what was once a 8ft specimen now no more and it all you get shoots from soil tha grown through trying to protect. We let them grow through during summer then cut the trunk to ground levelVF x
Luckily it’s a trail vk I’m not on trial.
The lobsters went down a real treat this evening and I’ve got the job of cleaning up and prepping the cod into fillets before freezing it dayfresh. Sounds like a great place your allotment.
Drone’s allotment is amazing and he’s started the ball rolling with a piccie of it. Hopefully everyone can pop a piccie of their plots/ flower/ veg beds in due course. Me I’m stuck in the dark ages and cannot get my head around the necessary to get it on here I’ve only just mastered an avatar after twenty years or so. I’ve potentially got a hundred or so people walking past all my handiwork my town allotment not my woodland one on the remote installation trail.
The weather here is amazing this weekend and no problems with the rain at all. I’m looking up cordylines. I’m reconfiguring my town centre allotment the beds will raise well with all the surplus top soil which makes it virtually impossible to implement no dig this year. I may be able to do it around the edges but I’ve got to upend and expand my rhubarb as well and it is a substantial crown.
Forty personal invites to go out tonight after “the lucky last” gets its first airing in the daily lays and plays.
I’m hoping to find a place on the VISIT FELIXSTOWE WEBSITE. And it is also time to get on the other available local media outlets and hit the poster trail…Well spotted trail
I can’t help with how to get photos up to I’m afraid. Many years ago I used photobucket that had it’s dayVf x
10 minutes to remove the tree and any adorning paraphernalia attached, may that be; Xmas lights,baubles,fairies,stars and any excessive attachments that might wrinkle a smile from the anti Christ.
Let it be done !
Happy is the ghost of Xmas past that keeps the lore and abides by Xmas tradition.
Peace to all living creatures !
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